The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda: Hope rekindled as leaders talk

Monday, October 6, 2008

Hope rekindled as leaders talk

By Vusumuzi Sifile & Davison Maruziva

FINAL agreement on the allocation of ministries in an all-inclusive government could be reached as early as today (Sunday), The Standard can report.

The leaders of three political parties to an agreement brokered last month by former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, met yesterday to resolve differences over who should be in charge of which government ministries.

President Robert Mugabe met MDC leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara yesterday morning at State House in Harare and spent two hours trying to overcome the hurdle that has stalled announcement of a Cabinet. It appears the obstacles are over who should get the ministries of Home Affairs and Finance.

The Standard understands that stalling over surrendering the two key ministries to Tsvangirai’s formation was founded on "baseless fears", attributed to hawks within Zanu PF. In an unwritten clause of the 1987 Unity Accord, Zanu PF and PF Zapu agreed that the Home Affairs should go to a member of the former PF Zapu.

Tsvangirai and Mutambara, it is understood, first met at Tsvangirai’s Strathaven residence in Harare before the meeting with Mugabe yesterday. And after State House the two leaders went back to Strathaven to compare notes.

"There is determination on the part of the three leaders to bring closure and finality," a source close to the leaders said yesterday. "If there is goodwill we will see agreement. Morgan wants to see the agreement working."

This view was shared by Western diplomats, who told The Standard last week they believed Tsvangirai was "very disappointed" by the delay in agreeing on government ministries.
"Morgan wants this agreement to work because the people are suffering. He wants something positive for the people of Zimbabwe."

It is precisely because of Tsvangirai’s ability to connect with Western governments and international financial institutions that it is being argued he should get the Ministry of Finance, expected to be critical in unlocking international aid inflows to Zimbabwe.

The sources close to the three leaders told The Standard that it was expected the technical teams would be meeting the rest of yesterday in order to clear the remaining obstacles, ahead of another meeting of the leaders today.

Asked what the technical teams were expected to focus on, the source said they were expected to look at the "policy documents", without expanding.

If as planned, they overcome the remaining obstacles on the two ministries, President Mugabe can be expected to announce who has got what ministries. The three parties can then go ahead and appoint their people to head the ministries allocated to them. Soon after that Constitutional Amendment 19 would then be passed by Parliament, giving legal effect to the agreement.
Although the three leaders signed a power-sharing agreement on September 15, haggling over who should control the strategic government ministries of finance, local government, home affairs, foreign affairs and lands had threatened relevance of the deal.

Although Mugabe declared on Monday, on his arrival from the United Nations General Assembly, that an all-inclusive government would be formed by yesterday, clashes over which party would take charge of the key ministries had led to calls for Tsvangirai to pull out of the talks because it was beginning to appear there was nothing in the deal for him.

The US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee told The Standard on Friday that the international community is going to take a "very careful look" at any government in Zimbabwe before there is any re-engagement, particularly in the area of development assistance.

"That is not only us, but all the donor nations. The delay in forming a government is making Zimbabweans pay dearly," he said. "The people of Zimbabwe are suffering and if you do not have an agreement (on sharing government ministries) the people will continue to suffer."

Under the South African-brokered deal, Mugabe will remain as head of state after nearly three decades in power while Tsvangirai is to take up a new post of Prime Minister and Mutambara, Deputy Prime Minister.

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About Vusa

Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda is a Zimbabwean journalist currently working as editor of The Mirror, a weekly newspaper in Gaborone, Botswana.

He joined the Mirror in January 2009 having worked s a Staff Writer for The Standard, Zimbabwe’s only independent Sunday newspaper for close to four years. He also had stints with the now defunct Parade Magazine and The Weekly Times newspaper.

Born in 1981 in Mberengwa, a rural district in the south western parts of Zimbabwe, on the boundary of Midlands and Matabeleland South provinces, Vusumuzi did his primary and secondary education at Danangombe Primary and Matabo Secondary schools respectively.

In 2000, he was named the best student in the Gwanda High School Advanced Level class. A year later, he became the first student from Gwanda High School to enrol at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo when he became part of 19 pioneer students in the Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. He completed the programme in 2005.

While still studying at NUST in June 2003, Vusa joined Parade Magazine, then Zimbabwe’s leading monthly magazine for Industrial Attachment. The very day he joined the publicatioon, on June 2 2003, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) embarked on their "final push". This was a real rude awakening for a young, raw journalist.

In November 2003, when all indications were that Parade would not continue publishing, Vusa left to join the World Agroforestry Centre/International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) where he worked as an intern communications assistant for the organisation’s Southern Africa regional programme. At ICRAF, he worked as an assistant Editor of the organisation’s regional publications, Miombo Voices ans Living with Trees in Southern Africa, as well as the organisation’s website, www.icrafsa.org. He was also a regular contributor to the organisation’s international weekly, Transformations. He also collaborated with Livai Matarirano in establishing Agroforestry Forum, an agroforestry newsletter focusing mostly on the ICRAF Zimbabwe national programmes and its partners.

In addition to his Bachelor’s Degree, Vusa also has a number of other qualifications like Reporting Politics, Multimedia and Online Journalism, Population and Rural Development. During his stay at ICRAF, Vusa participated at a number of training programmes, with the two main ones being the Integration of Gender into Agroforestry Development (2003) and Teaching with Trees in Southern Africa (2004).

Towards the end of 2004, Vusa and nine other students from his class grouped themselves to form the editorial team of The Weekly Times newspaper. Despite being inexperienced, the team managed to produce a high quality weekly newspaper, which proved to be an alternative source of information for Zimbabweans. So serious was the newspaper that the authorities saw it as a threat, resulting in it being forced to shutdown in February 2005 after publishing just six issues.

During his at The Weekly Times, Vusa also contributed to Tariro/Ithemba Magazine, a publication focusing on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The magazine was edited by Parkie Mbozi, his industrial attachment supervisor at ICRAF Southern Africa.

His experience as a communications assistant inspired Vusa to write a dissertation titled: “An assessment of the knowledge and understanding of agroforestry issues by newspaper journalists in Bulawayo”.

On completion of his studies, Vusa joined The Standard newspaper as a junior reporter and rose through the ranks to the position of a Senior Staff Writer. He is also a regular contributor for reputable international news agencies.

Vusa is a God fearing journalist. He is a born again member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ). Among other positions in the church, Vusa is the current chairperson of the Luther League (Youth) Fellowship in the Martin Luther Deanery of the ELCZ.

As part of his contribution towards the ministry of the Gospel of Christ, Vusumuzi is among the founders of Anointing Magazine, a fortnightly Christian magazine published in South Africa. He is the magazine’s deputy editor.

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Zimbabwe impedes Sadc intergration’

By Vusumuzi Sifile

THE continued economic and political meltdown in Zimbabwe is endangering any prospects of regional integration within the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), political analysts have said.
During a debate in Harare recently, the analysts were unanimous that the current situation in Zimbabwe was making it virtually impossible to integrate the region.
The debate focused on what role Zimbabwe could play in helping to integrate Sadc.
Among other factors was Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, estimated at more than 14 000% — more than 1 000 times the average across the region.
Weber Chinyadza of the MDC, who presented the argument, said although there had not been much effort in integrating the SADC region, Zimbabwe would “make the attainment of the integration objectives difficult”.
“The rest of the region is suffering as a result of Zanu PF’s misrule,” said Chinyadza. “Zimbabwe is short-changing the rest of the Sadc members. How can you integrate Zimbabwe, with an inflation of 14 000% with, say, Botswana, whose inflation rate is about seven percent?”
Chinyadza said the huge difference between the official and parallel market exchange rate was inconveniencing other countries.
The chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Dr Lovemore Madhuku said “the levels of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are not found anywhere in Sadc”.
“The extent of human rights abuses on its own makes it difficult for Zimbabwe to fit into a community of nations with respect for human rights,” Madhuku said.
“Our political culture is clearly outside the framework that is necessary for integration. Zimbabwe is not so much in a class of its own in terms of creating problems for the SADC. For example, we have Angola which still wants to rerun the 1990 presidential elections, and Swaziland which is still run by a monarchy. But the difference between Zimbabwe and those countries is that in those places there is a genuine effort to implement the Sadc guidelines on the holding of free and fair elections.”
Madhuku said Zimbabwe had polarised regional and world politics, making it difficult to implement any form of integration. He said “each time the issue of Zimbabwe is raised, so many other irrelevant issues arise, diverting people’s attention” and as such, if the “Sadc were to be serious with any form of integration, they have to handle the Zimbabwean issue with openness”.
At the same time, said Professor John Makumbe, it was impossible for the rest of Sadc to integrate without Zimbabwe, as “the country is literally at the centre of the region”.
“The country’s position at the centre of the region forces every infrastructure to somehow touch Zimbabwe. Our position makes Zimbabwe key to any efforts to integrate the region,” Makumbe said.
The newly conferred Professor jokingly added that Zimbabwe was already implementing its own form of regional integration.
“The whole country is now a training centre where people are trained and exported into the region. Zimbabwe is exporting victims of human rights violations into the region and elsewhere, forcing neighbouring countries to spend lots of money on deporting Zimbabweans,” Makumbe said.

The Homepage of Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda

Monday, October 6, 2008

Hope rekindled as leaders talk

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