ZANU PF leaders in Mazowe on Saturday confronted the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Support Unit over some rogue officers who were illegally mining and issuing travel passes to residents staying at Jumbo Mine while the blitz against illegal gold miners is still ongoing.

BY SIMBARASHE SITHOLE

Zanu PF Mazowe district chairperson Tichaona Chawana and provincial member Tracy Mudimu led a team of disgruntled party members who stormed the police station demanding audience with acting officer commanding Support Unit, Assistant Commissioner Bazibi Dube.

Dube had a three-hour closed-door meeting with the ruling party team, explaining to them the objectives of the operation.

“As Zanu PF leadership, we are worried about your rogue police officers who are illegally mining in the name of your operation and the issue of travel passes is worrisome. What do we need passes for when we have national identity cards?” Chawana questioned Dube.

The top cop said travel passes were a screening measure and rogue officers should be named so they are dealt with.

“The issue of machete gangs has become a national issue which has to be dealt with immediately and harshly, so as the ZRP, we should know who are the residents of Jumbo Mine and we came up with the issue of passes, which is my strategy to screen people and flash out machete gangs as these are people from outside Jumbo,” Dube said.

“On the issue of rogue police officers, I will be the happiest man if you report them like what you are doing now because as you know last week, we managed to arrest five police officers who were illegally mining.

“We do not want bad apples within the system and a lot of bad things are being done in my name. I will tell you that I have a reaction team of over 1 000 officers here, whom I cannot keep a close eye on, but you are there to help me by reporting such cases so that we bring sanity at the mine.”

The Zanu PF leaders also bemoaned the heavy police crackdown, saying they were supposed to give notice of the blitz before descending on them.

“Why did you just pounce on us without notifying us? Instead, you were supposed to notify us in time so that we help you with screening methods because we own these people and we know who is who here,” Chawana charged.

Dube then calmly responded: “It was not possible for us to notify anyone as the situation here was getting out of hand. We wanted to catch anyone involved in the rot unawares regardless of social status, rank or political influence and we did achieve that. So I say to you it was not possible.”

Last week, 77 illegal gold miners, rounded up from Mazowe and Shamva, were jailed to two years each after their case was fast-tracked at the Bindura Magistrates Court.

HARARE businessman Alex Mashamhanda says the political torture he endured at the hands of a Zanu PF-linked militia, Chipangano, and some top Zanu PF officials, during the formative stages of his business empire seven years ago has made him stronger.

BY MOSES MATENGA

Since 2012, Mashamhanda was engaged in running battles with ruling party activists, who claimed the businessman, trading as Mashwede, was aligned to the MDC, a tag that was used to bar him from operating a fuel station and a fast-food outlet in Mbare.

“In business, every challenge we met as an organisation, by the time it was all over, we ended up being a lot stronger than what we were before meeting that challenge. When you think it’s the end of the world, probably sometimes it is the beginning of opportunities. The whole idea is don’t give up,” he said.

“When you are literally shedding tears, you end up rejoicing because you learn so much, you get to know people who will help you, whom you will not have known if you had not encountered the challenges because you had no reason to approach them. It makes you seek help, which you could not have looked for if you had no challenges. That help helps you to build new relationships.”

Mashamhanda said he was given all sorts of excuses by government then, all in an effort to block his $1,2 million investment.

“I was told they wanted to extend Matapi Police Station, then they wanted to build flats for police officers and then they said some Lebanese businesspeople were interested in some project there; all sorts of excuses,” he said.
Seven years down the line, Mashamhanda says he is still standing and the service station is now operating, while Chipangano, a creation of Zanu PF factional fights, has died its own natural death.

As part of his company’s corporate social responsibility, Mashamhanda is now assisting council clear and clean a stream close to his business premises.

He is also clearing sewer that was causing a health hazard to residents in the nearby suburbs.

Mashamhanda has also installed traffic lights worth US$9 500 at a road intersection close to the Mashwede Village along High Glen Road.

The joint venture has generated employment to more than 155 people from the surrounding suburbs of Highfield, Glen Norah, Glen View, Budiriro and Mufakose.

Harare town clerk Hosea Chisango said the local authority was pleased to have businesspeople assisting in communities.

“We are open for partnerships and for all sorts of collaborations and we appreciate businesspeople within the city who come up with such initiatives,” Chisango said.

Leaked documents reveal how Africa’s richest woman made her fortune through exploiting her own country, and corruption.

Isabel dos Santos got access to lucrative deals involving land, oil, diamonds and telecoms when her father was president of Angola, a southern African country rich in natural resources.

BBC

The documents show how she and her husband were allowed to buy valuable state assets in a series of suspicious deals.

Ms Dos Santos says the allegations against her are entirely false and that there is a politically motivated witch-hunt by the Angolan government.

The former president’s daughter has made the UK her home and owns expensive properties in central London.

She is already under criminal investigation by the authorities in Angola for corruption and her assets in the country have been frozen.

Now BBC Panorama has been given access to more than 700,000 leaked documents about the billionaire’s business empire.

Most were obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistle-blowers in Africa and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

They’ve been investigated by 37 media organisations including the Guardian and Portugal’s Expresso newspaper.

Andrew Feinstein, the head of Corruption Watch, says the documents show how Ms Dos Santos exploited her country at the expense of ordinary Angolans.

“Every time she appears on the cover of some glossy magazine somewhere in the world, every time that she hosts one of her glamorous parties in the south of France, she is doing so by trampling on the aspirations of the citizens of Angola.”

The ICIJ have called the documents the Luanda Leaks.

The oil connection

One of the most suspicious deals was run from London through a UK subsidiary of the Angolan state oil company Sonangol.

Ms Dos Santos had been put in charge of the struggling Sonangol in 2016, thanks to a presidential decree from her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who kept a tight grip on his country for the 38 years he was in power.

But when he retired as president in September 2017 her position was soon under threat, even though his hand-picked successor came from the same party. Ms Dos Santos was sacked two months later.

Many Angolans have been surprised at the way that President João Lourenço has gone after the business interests of his predecessor’s family.

She says she has no financial interest in Matter, but the leaked documents reveal it was run by her business manager and owned by a friend.

Panorama understands that Matter sent more than 50 invoices to Sonangol in London on the day that she was fired.

Ms Dos Santos appears to have approved payments to her friend’s company after she was sacked.

Although some consultancy work had been carried out by Matter, there’s very little detail on the invoices to justify such large bills.

One asks for €472,196 for unspecified expenses – another asks for $928,517 for unspecified legal services.

Two of the invoices – each for €676,339.97 – are for exactly the same work on the same date and Ms Dos Santos signed them both off anyway.

“Regarding the invoices related with expenses, it is common for consultancy companies to add expenses to invoices as a general item. This is often due to those expenses involving large amounts of paperwork… Matter can produce documentary evidence to confirm all expenses incurred.”

Ms Dos Santos’s lawyers said her actions with regard to the Matter payments were entirely lawful and that she had not authorised payments after she had been dismissed from Sonangol.

They said: “All invoices paid were in relation to services contracted and agreed between the two parties, under a contract that was approved with the full knowledge and approval of the Sonangol Board of Directors.”

Media captionIsabel dos Santos: “I regret that Angola has chosen this path”
The ICIJ and Panorama have also uncovered new details about the business deals that made Ms Dos Santos rich.

Much of her fortune is based on her ownership of a stake in the Portuguese energy company Galp, which one of her companies bought from Sonangol in 2006.

The documents show it only had to pay 15% of the price upfront and that the remaining €63m ($70m) was turned into a low-interest loan from Sonangol.

Under the generous terms of the loan, her debt to the Angolan people didn’t have to be repaid for 11 years.

Her stake in Galp is now worth more than €750m.

Ms Dos Santos’s company did offer to repay the Sonangol loan in 2017.

The repayment offer should have been rejected because it didn’t include almost €9m of interest owing.

Image caption
Bank orders signed by Isabel dos Santos transferred almost $58m out of the Angolan state oil company
But Ms Dos Santos was in charge of Sonangol at the time and she accepted the money as full payment of her own debt.

She was fired six days later and the payment was returned by the new Sonangol management.

Ms Dos Santos says she initiated the purchase of the stake in Galp, and that Sonangol made money from the deal as well.

“There’s absolutely no wrongdoing in any of those transactions. This investment is the investment that in history has generated the most benefit for the national oil company and all the contracts that were drafted are perfectly legal contracts, there are no wrongdoings.”

Her lawyers say the repayment offer in 2017 covered what Sonangol had indicated was owed.

The diamond connection
It’s a similar story in the diamond industry.

Ms Dos Santos’s husband, Sindika Dokolo, signed a one-sided agreement in 2012 with Angolan state diamond company Sodiam.

They were supposed to be 50-50 partners in a deal to buy a stake in the Swiss luxury jeweller De Grisogono.

But it was funded by the state company. The documents show that 18 months after the deal, Sodiam had put $79m into the partnership, while Mr Dokolo had only invested $4m. Sodiam also awarded him a €5m success fee for brokering the deal, so he didn’t have to use any of his own money.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
Isabel dos Santos and her husband Sindika Dokolo can often be seen at film premieres and festivals with the world’s stars
The diamond deal gets even worse for the Angolan people.

The documents reveal how Sodiam borrowed all the cash from a private bank in which Ms Dos Santos is the biggest shareholder.

Sodiam has to pay 9% interest and the loan was guaranteed by a presidential decree from her father, so Ms Dos Santos’s bank cannot lose out.

Bravo da Rosa, the new chief executive of Sodiam, told Panorama that the Angolan people hadn’t got a single dollar back from the deal: “In the end, when we have finished paying back this loan, Sodiam will have lost more than $200m.”

The former president also gave Ms Dos Santos’s husband the right to buy some of Angola’s raw diamonds.

Who is Isabel dos Santos?
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Eldest daughter of ex-President Jose Eduardo dos Santos
Married to Congolese art collector and businessman Sindika Dokolo
Educated in UK, where she currently lives
Reported to be Africa’s richest woman, with a fortune of some $2bn
Has stakes in oil and mobile phone companies and banks, mostly in Angola and Portugal
Source: Forbes magazine and others

Read more: Africa’s richest woman eyes Angolan presidency

The Angolan government says the diamonds were sold at a knockdown price and sources have told Panorama that almost $1bn may have been lost.

Ms Dos Santos told the BBC she couldn’t comment because she was not a shareholder of De Grisogono.

But the leaked documents show that she is described as a shareholder of De Grisogono by her own financial advisers.

Mr Dokolo did put in some money later. His lawyers say he invested $115m and that the takeover of De Grisogono was his idea. They say his company paid above the market rate for the raw diamonds.

The land connection

The leaked documents also reveal how Ms Dos Santos bought land from the state in September 2017. Once again she only had to pay a small up-front fee.

Her company bought a square kilometre of prime beachfront land in the capital Luanda with the help of presidential decrees signed by her father.

Panorama traced some of the ordinary Angolans who were evicted to make way for the Futungo development.

Media captionResident describes life next to an open sewer in Angola
They’ve been moved from the Luandan seafront to an isolated housing development 30 miles (50km) from the capital.

Teresa Vissapa lost her business to Ms Dos Santos’ development and is now struggling to bring up her seven children.

She said: “I only ask God to make her think a little more about our situation. Maybe she doesn’t even know it, but we are suffering.”

Ms Dos Santos declined to comment on the Futungo development.

But it was not the only land deal involving Ms Dos Santos that displaced the local population.

About 500 families were evicted from another stretch of the Luandan seafront after Isabel dos Santos got involved in another major redevelopment project.

The families are now living in desperate conditions next to an open sewer. Some of their shacks are flooded with sewage whenever the tide rises.

Ms Dos Santos says there weren’t any evictions linked to her project and that her companies were never paid because the development was cancelled.

The telecoms connection
The billionaire has also made big profits from the telecoms industry in Angola.

She acquired a 25% stake in the country’s biggest mobile phone provider, Unitel. It was granted a telecoms licence by her father in 1999 and she bought her stake the following year from a high ranking government official.

Unitel has already paid her $1bn in dividends and her stake is worth another $1bn. But that’s not the only way she got cash from the private company.

She arranged for Unitel to lend €350m to a new company she set up, called Unitel International Holdings.

The leaked documents show Isabel dos Santos signed off on loans from Unitel as both the borrower and the lender
The company name was misleading because it wasn’t connected to Unitel and Ms Dos Santos was the owner.

The documents show Ms Dos Santos signed off on the loans as both lender and borrower, which is a blatant conflict of interest.

Ms Dos Santos denied that the loans were corrupt. She said: “This loan had both directors’ approval and shareholders’ approval, and it’s a loan that will generate, and has generated, benefit for Unitel.”

Her lawyers say the loans protected Unitel from currency fluctuations.

Most of the companies involved in the dodgy deals were overseen by accountants working for the financial services company, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC). It’s made millions providing auditing, consultancy and tax advice to her companies.

But PWC has terminated its relationship with the billionaire and her family, after Panorama questioned the way the company had assisted Ms Dos Santos in the deals that had made her rich.

PWC says it is holding an inquiry into the “very serious and concerning allegations”.

“PWC, if not facilitating the corruption, are providing a veneer of respectability that makes what’s happening acceptable or more acceptable than it might otherwise be.

“So if I was at PWC I’d be conducting a pretty thorough audit of what decisions were made, and in hindsight actually: ‘Did we make the wrong decision to accept this business and should we have reported what we had been presented with?’”

PWC says it strives to maintain the highest professional standards and has set expectations for consistent ethical behaviour across its global network.

“In response to the very serious and concerning allegations that have been raised, we immediately initiated an investigation and are working to thoroughly evaluate the facts and conclude our inquiry.

“We will not hesitate to take appropriate actions to ensure that we always stand for the very highest standards of behaviour, wherever we operate in the world.”

Government says it is engaging agriculture sector stakeholders to promote and implement a comprehensive transformation which will allow farmers to migrate from conventional farming methods to smart agriculture to improve their yields.

BY EVERSON MUSHAVA

The transformation will also see the increase in the production of export quality crops as well as adoption of broad pest control mechanisms in the wake of climate change.

In an interview with NewsDay on the sidelines of a cocktail meeting for agriculture transformation team leaders hosted by the Zimbabwe Agriculture Society (ZAS) on Friday, Agriculture permanent secretary John Bhasera said the involvement of the private sector in this ambitious drive was a game changer.

“For the first time, there is that buy-in from the private sector and we can see the farmers were well-represented as well,” Bhasera said.

“That leads to extreme ownership. For any transformation to work, there has to be some kind of that buy-in and extreme ownership so that we can get to a point where people say this is our thing. When that happens, implementation becomes very easy.”

The event, which brought together farmers representatives, extension officers, agriculture experts, economists and top government bureaucrats, was sponsored by seed company Syngenta.

Bhasera said the country was looking at climate-proofing its agriculture, which he said was vulnerable to climate change.

He said the country could tackle climate change by adopting climate smart seed varieties and also the development of irrigation as well as the adoption of water harvesting techniques.

ZAS chief executive officer Anxious Masuka said the initiative had the potential to revive agriculture so that it regains its status as the backbone of the country’s economy.

“Our aim is to make agriculture central to the attainment of government’s vision 2030 and so we need bold, radical and transformative ideas to transform agriculture to uplift communities,” Masuka said.

Syngenta senior agronomist Tawanda Mangisi said: “We should come up with a very good strategy on how we are going to improve the yields and subsequently build the economy through the agriculture sector.

He said the effects of climate change were real and the country had hoped for a better agriculture season this year after last year’s drought, but a mid-season dry spell has all but destroyed hopes.

“We encourage our farmers to go for those seed varieties which are adaptable to these new weather patterns like those varieties we have at Syngenta; the MRI514 and the new one which is the SY5944 which is quite tolerant to drought. So we urge all the farmers to go for the varieties which endure drought,” Mangisi said.

The Switzerland-headquartered agro-chemical conglomerate has taken the initiative to invest heavily in research on better seed varieties and chemicals which can withstand droughts and pests, particularly the fall armyworm which has wreaked havoc across the Sadc region.

GLOBAL human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week released a damning report, describing Zimbabwe’s human rights record as appalling despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s reform pledges.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

The report cited fatal shooting incidents that occurred last year involving State security agencies and alleged abductions and torture of civilians as tainting the country’s human rights record.

“Despite President Mnangagwa repeatedly voicing his commitments to human rights reforms, Zimbabwe remained highly intolerant of basic rights, peaceful dissent and free expression in 2019,” the HRW report read.

“During nationwide protests in mid-January, following the President’s sudden announcement of a fuel price increase, security forces responded with lethal force, killing at least 17 people, raping at least 17 women, shooting and injuring 81 people and arresting over 1 000 suspected protesters during door-to-door raids.”

The rights body said several civil society activists, political opposition leaders and other critics of the government were arbitrarily arrested, abducted, beaten or tortured, yet little to no efforts were made to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Some of those who were abducted and tortured last year included comedienne Samantha Kureya, who is popularly known as “Gonyeti”, Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association president Peter Magombeyi and Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe leader Obert Masaraure, among others.

“On September 14, as reported by the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, three unidentified men abducted Magombeyi, a government employee and leader of the doctors’ union that had organised a series of protests to demand better salaries for government doctors. Prior to his abduction, according to his family and colleagues who spoke to HRW, Magombeyi received a text message from a local mobile number threatening him with disappearance.

“Zimbabwe’s Health minister Obadiah Moyo confirmed on September 16 that Magombeyi was missing and claimed to have activated all State security ministries to secure his whereabouts. After four days of torture and harassment, Magombeyi’s abductors dumped him outside Harare,” the HRW said.

In Parliament, Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi claimed the alleged abductions and torture of civilians were false.
The human rights watchdog said the late former President Robert Mugabe should also have been held accountable for his documented human rights violations during the 37 years he was in power.

Zimbabwe’s regulatory environment for women’s economic inclusion has improved over the past two years, but Zimbabwe is missing mention among 40 countries globally that enacted 62 reforms that will help women.

Equity Axis News

However, Zimbabwe occupies the third spot in Africa’s top five performers with a score of 86,9 points in as far as female participation in economic issues and legal rights protection is concerned.

The study titled Women Business and the Law (WBL) 2020, measures 190 economies, tracking how laws affect women at different stages in their working lives and focusing on those laws applicable in the main business city.

Conducted from June 2017 to September 2019, it covers reforms in eight areas that are associated with women’s economic empowerment, precisely on mobility, workplace, salary, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pension.

The best performer from Africa is Mauritius with a score of 91,9/100 followed by South Africa scoring 88,1/100. Lagging behind Zimbabwe in Africa’s top five are Cape Verde and Namibia (tie) as well as Tanzania with scores of 86,3 and 84,4 respectively.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 11 economies implemented 16 reforms in seven areas, but the Democratic Republic of Congo introduced social insurance maternity benefits and equalised retirement ages, while in Ivory Coast, spouses now have equal rights to own and manage property.

The most recent statistics published on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe website makes reference to a FinScope Survey data of 2011 and 2014 which revealed that the level of access to formal ­financial services for women adults increased from 35% in 2011 to 68% in 2014 due to increased access to non-bank ­financial services, mainly mobile ­financial services. ‘

Major drivers to uptake of mobile money were to receive money (72%), to send money (57%) and to withdraw money (32%). The deep-dive analysis also revealed that 72% of female adults in Zimbabwe did not use insurance products at all, whether formal or informal.

In Zimbabwe, while the financial inclusion level is on the upswing, it is mostly men who are captured in the system, while women, across regions of the country, are set back by religious, cultural and educational factors, limiting their potential.

Late last year, Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development minister Sithembiso Nyoni said the government was satisfied with the impact Zimbabwe Women’s Microfinance Bank (ZWMB) has had towards increasing financial inclusion of women.

“I am satisfied with the impact of the Women’s Bank in enabling the financial inclusion of women. Due to its existence, women’s profiles in the banking sector has risen from 37% to 70%. Over the years, most women were not banking, but after the opening of the Women’s Bank the trends have significantly changed, heralding the bank’s importance and the impact it has had,” she said.

In December 2016, there were 1,46 million bank accounts and 770 000 of these were held by women. This translates to 52% of all accounts that were held by banks then. This is not too far from the structure of our population. Fast forward to December 2018 and only 26% of all the accounts held by banks are opened by women.

In the micro-finance sector, as at December 2018, active women clients constituted 40,78% of the total number of active clients compared to 32,50% as at December 2012. Total loans to women clients ($112,28m) constituted 29,01% of the total loans ($386,99m).

Key to the assessment of this matrix is the contribution of mobile money to Zimbabwe’s financial inclusion which houses about nine million people and accounting for 80% of Zimbabwe’s adult population.

FRUSTRATED Zimbabwean medical doctors are leaving the country in droves as government fails to break an impasse with the health professionals following a four-month strike action late last year over poor wages.

NewZimbabwe.com

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) confirmed in a statement on Saturday, while also dismissing as false, claims by government that striking doctors had returned to work.

“Zimbabweans need not listen to fake news that doctors are back at work and, therefore, the situation in our hospitals has normalised,” the ZHDA said.

“Specialists and most middle doctors in Zimbabwe have shown patriotism without appreciation for a long time. Failure by the (Health) ministry to address the genuine concerns by doctors has hastened the already ongoing brain drain in our country.

“The situation in our hospitals is far from normal and as of now, most middle level doctors are leaving the country. The same sadly is now being seen with our consultants (senior doctors), who are specialists.

“Many registrars, who were in training locally, have left and gone to complete their training in other countries, leaving our own hospitals understaffed. All this has happened in a space of less than five months and the system continues to contract.”

Describing the rising brain drain as counter-productive, ZHDA added: “Doctors are on demand worldwide and it is only patriotism and the desire to be in the homeland that was keeping doctors in the country. Our country needs these highly specialised medical personnel and it takes years to train one. Asking them to work without tools is counterproductive and has led to this brain drain.”

When contacted for figures of how many doctors could have left Zimbabwe in the last two months, ZHDA acting secretary-general Tawanda Zvakada said: “I don’t have exact figures.”

Meanwhile, the ZHDA said junior doctors who had returned to work were being financed by their parents or former sponsors to complete their two-year internship and leave the country.

“Junior doctors have reverted back to being funded by their parents and previous guardians to help them to go to work so that they can complete their internship and be able to leave the country,” ZHDA said.

“The question is: Should our country celebrate the return of our junior doctors to work when their financial incapacitation has not been addressed? This current scenario is far from normal and looking at it with a futuristic eye, one can see that our healthcare system will be more exposed in the near future, with no trained or experienced medical personnel.”

Pleading with the government to address the dire situation with urgency, the government doctors said: “We now call upon the relevant authorities in Zimbabwe to address this dire situation with the urgency it deserves. We hope they will see the need for a future with doctors in the country and do the needful.

“The situation in our hospitals remains critical. What is only remaining are buildings, but without specialised skills. The doctors remuneration remains paltry and the hospitals remain severely incapacitated.

“What use is a hospital with doctors, but nothing else? The equipment has since broken down with no replacement in plan.”

The United Kingdom’s National Health Service recently relaxed its requirements for recruiting doctors and nurses from Zimbabwe and other parts of the world.

Efforts to get a comment from Health minister Obadiah Moyo and Health permanent secretary Agnes Mahomva were unsuccessful as they were not answering their mobile phones.

Food, power and currency stability are the three things keeping Finance minister Mthuli Ncube awake at night.

The southern African country is facing drought for the second consecutive year, with more than eight million people food insecure.

The drought, according to the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report for 2020, had a devastating impact, with the organisation projecting a contraction in Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 7,5% in 2019.

“Activity has been further constrained by persistent shortages of food, fuel, electricity and foreign exchange,” the report read.

18-hour load-shedding

Zimbabwe is also going through a debilitating power crisis, which has seen load-shedding continuing for as long as 18 hours per day.

The Zimbabwe dollar lost some 90% of its value in 2019, with the exchange rate against the United States dollar dropping to US$1:ZW$16 by year end from US$1:ZW$2,5 in February when it was floated.

Ncube said, in the first quarter, government was prioritising setting aside resources to be able to import food by June 2020 and beyond.

“We are doing everything we can to make sure power is available, food is available, but of course, a key issue, which is a third issue among the three things that keep me awake at night which is food, power and the other is obviously currency stability.”

Stabilising the currency

“We want to make sure we do everything to stabilise the Zimbabwe dollar,” said Ncube in an interview with State broadcaster ZBC.

He said the Zimbabwe government was pleased that the exchange rate had been more stable in the last quarter.
“We want to keep it that way.”

As at last Wednesday, the Zimbabwe dollar was trading at ZW$17,06 to the US dollar.

Ncube said currency stability would be achieved by ensuring government expenditure was kept under control.

“Also, we want to make sure that the monetary targets that the central bank manages also stay within the range in terms targets so that we don’t have excess money supply contributing to currency instability.”

He said if the currency were kept stable, currency volatility would have a lesser impact on pricing among retailers, which would mean less price adjustment in US dollars.

“That will go a long way in dealing with the issue of inflation.”

Before Zimbabwe outlawed the publication of annual inflation figures, inflation had reached 176% in June 2019.
Independent estimates put November 2019 annual inflation figures at 481,05%.
— fin24.com

THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) will once again exhibit at the Spanish International Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR) commencing this week in Madrid, Spain, in a development likely to increase the country’s visibility as a tourist destination.

BY FIDELITY MHLANGA

FITUR will run from January 22 to 26 with over 10 487 exhibitors from 165 countries in attendance.

This is the 12th time Zimbabwe has exhibited at the event.

ZTA acting chief executive, Givemore Chidzidzi said the fair presented a great opportunity for increasing the destination’s visibility.

“With this networking and intense exposure, Zimbabwe will leverage on this platform to reassure the market and further position Zimbabwe as a destination of choice” said Chidzidzi in a statement.

“Furthermore, with the strategic position of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in Madrid, policy-makers within this body will meet to deliberate on global tourism issues under the auspices of FITUR,” he added.

FITUR is the global meeting point for the world’s tourism professionals. It is the leading trade fair for inbound and outbound markets in Europe. The showcase also attracts 142 642 trade visitors and last year over 110 848 entries were recorded as interest grows from the general populace.

Zimbabwe’s participation remains critical because it presents an opportunity to contribute as well as tap into the global travel ideas that impact on tourism development. The sessions will cover topics around sustainability, innovation, investment and destination competitiveness, among others.

Chidzidzi said the destination is on a drive to nurture the Spanish market which has shown positive growth patterns in the recent past.

“This is one of Zimbabwe’s emerging markets. In 2018 we recorded 13 528 arrivals from that part of the world. This was a significant 8% increase from the preceding year which recorded 12 583 arrivals,” he said.

“We’re proud to share with the world that destination Zimbabwe made it to Bloomberg’s 24 Best Travel Destinations for 2020. Additionally, Zimbabwe has also been nominated in Harpers Bazaar’s Where to Honeymoon in 2020. The renewed confidence in Zimbabwe is clearly reflected in these nominations and we are hopeful that this will drive traffic into the destination,” said Chidzidzi.

The Zimbabwe delegation comprising staff from ZTA, the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and tourism industry players will be led by Environment ministry permanent secretary Munesu Munodawafa.