Old Mutual has failed Zimbabweans in more ways than one!
I signed the petition today to pressurise Old Mutual to stop funding Zanu PF’s propaganda machine, and as I sit here I seethe at the overwhelming evil of this gargantuan multi-national corporation.
One would think that the ethical thing for the Chairman of Old Mutual Zimbabwe to do would be not to prevaricate, but to demand that Old Mutual take up their full right to have a seat on Zimpapers board and thereby input corporate responsibility into the policies guiding the running of the company.
According to the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, Old Mutual owns almost a quarter of Zimpapers. I am no business person, but surely Zimpapers should offer a seat of their board to such a significant player in their business? Otherwise, Old Mutual should long ago have forced the issue to ensure their investment is ethical, viable and in the best interest of their own shareholders.
But it is important to look at the overall running of Old Mutual. Yes, Old Mutual were also victims of the Zanu Pf engineered collapsed Zimbabwean economy, but surely they should now revisit their pension pay outs to reflect dollarization…?
The number of people who have been affected by the Old Mutual Pension fund runs into the many thousands in Zimbabwe today. Most pensioners are being paid out less than US$10 a month by the fund. Or at the beginning of the year, when the economy was dollarized, helpless pensioners were forced to take a pathetic lump-sum one-off payment for the years of hard work they put in to building this inequitable pension scheme.
I wonder if Julian Roberts or Much Masunda could live on the pittance they purport is fair payout to the very people who enabled Old Mutual to purchase shares in a company that has been a mouthpiece for oppression and lies?
Julian Roberts justifies the current shareholding by stating that Old Mutual already held stocks in the original Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company, the forerunner of ZimPapers, prior to independence.
So, does that mean Old Mutual has a historical policy of supporting hate speech and giving voice to governments that oppress their own people?
Much Masunda, the Chairman of Old Mutual Zimbabwe, and MDC Mayor of Harare, has added his own evasion tactics to abdicating any form of corporate responsibility. He has brushed off the major shareholding of Zimpapers in his statement that the insurance giant is an ‘institutional investor’ and does not influence the running of companies that the group has invested in.
Masunda may be a seasoned administrator but he is fast divulging his propensity for gravy-training: there was much publicity over Masunda’s acceptance of a whopping $153000 mayoral merc a couple of months ago! Rather than opting for the ethical route to purchase a more modest vehicle, Masunda defended Chombo’s magnanimous draining of the coffers, funds that should go into restoring Harare’s collapsed state, by petulantly stating, “People should not treat this as if it is me or the Town Clerk who is demanding that I get a car,” “The project is just part of the council budget. Why would people complain about the mayor’s car? Why do they not raise the same concerns about ministers’ cars or the Prime Minister’s or even President (Robert) Mugabe’s motorcade? Street lights, road repairs and the mayor’s car are all budgeted for.”
Masunda then went on to list the fleet of vehicles he has purchased for himself and his family over the years. One wonders how many of these vehicles were funded by his role as the apologist Chairman of a plethora of boards?
It is high time that all in Zimbabwe are held accountable and that we the people of Zimbabwe work together to rebuild an ethical approach to all sectors of life, rather than following the Zanu, “I am not the one”, route.
Please click here to sign the petition. More about Old Mutual on yesterday’s blog post.
November 13th, 2009 15:03
This comment was sent to Sokwanele by email yesterday:
Dear Sir / Madam
Your article on Old Mutual reminds me of something that has bothered me for a long time. Old Mutual own shares in 76 of the 83 ZSE quoted companies, they are themselves listed. They also own numerous buildings and tracts of land in Zimbabwe. This was all paid for by contributions made by people who were expecting a pension on retirement. Old Mutual cancelled all the pensions in 2002 (I think) and refunded people their contribution – not their investment. So, Old Mutual has no liability to any person or pensioner and they still own half the stock exchange and all these buildings.
What a scam, my parents contributed for 40 years and ended up with zero. Old Mutual are thieves
November 16th, 2009 20:20
This makes me so sad. When people can’t get the change they want immediately they lose sight and begin to attack anyone or everyone. I never heard you when they had stock in the Rhodesian paper under SMITH noone protested then. I guess it doesn’t matter to you how many people are employed by Old Mutual – once you take them down I am sure you will be hiring them. Or better yet will take on the many community development programs that Old Mutual has funded over the years. And it clearly doesn’t matter to you that this supporter of ZANU PF faced endless attacks over the past years from their so called friend!! When people like just go attacking anyone and everyone where will it stop? Must I stop paying my taxes because it goes to the government and therefore members of ZANU PF? And the pensions – lets talk about that. I had an account at Standard Chartered that is now worth 50c a regular bank account, are they thieves as well? I demand from Standard CHartered bank, so please file them away so you may attack them next week. I LIVE HERE IN HARARE ZIMBABWE and I have seen the work they and many others have done despite what the country has put them through. I have always been a fan of your organization but now I see its just a prop to dismantle any kind of corporation and that I cannot support when many of these orgs provide jobs and charities to our communities!
November 17th, 2009 01:52
Now there’s a good idea – stop paying taxes, unless of course you don’t mind Mugabe nipping off to Rome with an entourage of 60, who will all be fed and rested in none too inexpensive hotels (and sneak in a little shopping spree) all with your tax paid money.
Meanwhile taxpayers in UK, for one, will be seeing their money go to giving Zimbabweans money for basic living means, simply because you did not and can not(for whatever reason) stop Mugabe and his ilk for squandering their own employers’ money.
Don’t worry about a possible loss in funding and charities (unknown) provided by the likes of OM, because their are oodles of international organisations and governments who will step up to the plate.
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After years of contributions, I got a piddly pension of some $76 per month (my monthly salary prior to this was $4500). Old Mutual at the time where building their own palatial offices nationwide. Insulted, I cashed my pension in, only to be more insulted with a penalty charge and taxation. The little left over I drank, and subsequently returned it to the countryside, purely as an unavoidable result of gravity.
November 17th, 2009 15:40
My family lives in Highfields and they (Old Mutual)recently sponsored an internet cafe there – I’m sure you visit Highfields quite a bit and were therefore quite aware of this. And Standard Chartered, Baclays what about my accounts there where is that petition – at least you have lived to an age where you are in your pension years. Some of us are in our 20s with no savings!!! But I guess for some reason those international offices are exempt from this.
And as for we cannot stop Mugabe – I suggest you walk around more the real Zimbabwe, we are being beaten and killed but I guess that’s not enough for you. Where were you in Mbare last Friday – please don’t act as though Zimbabweans have not had or rather are still not having their fair share of suffering in this ordeal. I just love how when Smith and the Rhodesian paper were in all this it wasn’t an issue!! Why were you not screaming bloody murder then to Old Mutual?!
November 18th, 2009 15:48
Scratch a little deeper and you will find another global company that is as rotten. SCANIA of Sweden is a major share holder in OLD MUTUAL and they will say and do nothing until confronted just like NESTLE who now buy their milk direct from DMB who in turn buys the milk direct from amai Grace Nothing has changed MDC The people are tired
November 18th, 2009 16:14
Kudzai,
You presume too much.
For a start, judging by your stated age, you were not around in the time of Smith or his version of the Herald as a party campaign arm. Furthermore, and therefore, I have lived in Zimbabwe longer than you. Prior to that – not through choice – I lived in Rhodesia; castigated for being a pommie and not fighting in an unjust war. My family were caught in the Woolworth bomb blast which earned one of them a perforated eardrum and a meritorious medal, (somewhat disillusionary more to the Smith propaganda benefit). After Zimbabwe independance I apparently became a racist white, a Rhodesian, and an ex soldier (currently awaiting my Selous Scout promotion). My first wife worked at Mpilo hospital as a radiographer, and documented forensic x-ray evidence of the gukurahundi atrocities in Matebeleand.
Laterly, as a teacher in a private school, I apparently was either fostering an elitist white/rhodesian culture or alternatively brainwashing scholars into an imperialist doctrine when it became apparent that 98% of the students were black (and included government ministers and ZANU-PF apologists).
I have in the past dealt extensively with the Zimpapers propaganda machinery by putting them on a strict paper rationing scheme according to our production capacity – much to their annoyance; and remained steadfast in their restrictions despite intervention and threats from numerous levels of ZANU-PF government heavies.
Marriage to my second wife earned me the distinction of outcast from the white community and her outcast from the black community, each labelled as traitors, turncoats etc etc. Our two sons fared no better and were looked upon with a mixture of disgust and shame by both sides. My two daughters from the previous marriage are Zimbabwe born also and steadfastedly count Zimbabwe as their home.
My mother-in-law in Nyanga North has had cattle appropriated by ZANU-PF activists, forced to attend ‘meetings’ and had her aid packages of seed, oil, salt and beans stolen or stopped by ZANU-PF. My sister-in-law, a teacher has suffered to no mean extent, as has her colleague teachers in rural areas – you’ll have heard, or read of what I allude to in the news.
I have witnessed firsthand injustices by diamond dealers in collusion with the police force in subverting the course of law and justice.
Currently, in UK, my family is in disruption as my wife is refused entry – whilst I and our two sons suffer largely due to UKBA scepticism resulting from the flood of so-called refugees from Zimbabwe who use this status all too often as an excuse to sit in the UK for the sake of the latest cell phone and Stella Artois. Currently notching up two years plus of court cases and weekly consultations with lawyers and MP’s.
Do not try to shoot me down by presupposing that I am unaware of the Zimbabwe situation and it’s problems and the faults at grass root level by asking leading questions about my visiting Highfields, which you obviously hoped I could not equate with. I lived in Chikanga and it environs for 7 years and am well aware of the community structures and its probelms and sentiments.
This is just the tip of the ice berg. There is much more – I am disinclined to justify my status futher.
As for your 50c balance at Standard Bank – for all we know you only had 75c to start with. Besides, your lifestyle may not be conducive to good budgeting.
As an IT professional, (and teacher of such to many of your age) I would not consider OM’s endeavours in an internet cafe as a charity, when it is used in the main for facebook and downloading illegal Akon and Soulja Boy mp3s.
I am not of a pension age – I just saw good sense in not pouring more good money after bad, and cashed in the policy. The ‘pension’ was part of the redundancy remuneration after the company I worked for, a farmers’s co-operative, went bust, largely due to the loss of the viabilty of our farmer customers due to the land distribution exercise.
When you have grown up a bit more and learnt and experienced more of life than what can only be largely hearsay I may look to not your arguement, but more its deliverance, without contempt.
November 18th, 2009 16:30
Oh, Kudzai, forgot to say – why don’t you pop into the Highfield internet cafe and google free petition and blog hosts/services – there’s plenty of them. Then YOU can get a petition going about your 50cent. Do it… don’t whine.
November 19th, 2009 13:29
@Kudzayi – One cannot alter the past. One can and should use the present to alter the future.
So what Smith and Old Mutual may or may not have done in the past is of no consequence. What Mugabe and Old Mutual are doing presently is of paramount consequence.
November 20th, 2009 15:22
Dear Kudzai
I feel it is important to answer you as you seem to be confused, angry and lost. Your generation of Zimbabweans stand today with few role models of courage and ethical action and so that is why more often than not when I ask people why they stand by and watch as evil is meted out, they answer me, “What can I do? I am alone. I am not the one.” This is exactly the attitude that helps keep tyrants in power.
I have heard many South African activists, people who fought in their own liberation struggle, complaining about the lack of courage amongst Zimbabweans, and who cannot understand why the people of Zimbabwe have never taken to the streets to demand change. They shake their heads in despair over the passivity of the average Zimbabwean. Yes, it is terrifying to stand against the enormous evil of the Mugabe created monster, but without unity of purpose we will never defeat that monster.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not for one second advocating violence, but imagine if every Zimbabwean were to get off his and her bum, walk together, like was done in Belgrade, to demand the changes so desperately needed in our nation.
There are a few points you made that have to be addressed directly as you seem to have missed the point of what I wrote.
1. You wrote, “This makes me so sad. When people can’t get the change they want immediately they lose sight and begin to attack anyone or everyone.”
First of all change is long overdue in this country of ours, and I do agree that we must always be practical, change is never immediate it takes time to build a solid house, “Rome was not built in a day”. I am not advocating for a violent or irresponsible take over of power, but for a playing field in Zimbabwe that is free and FAIR.
Yes, it is far easier to attack Old Mutual than to get on the street and march for change, but that is not going to happen as remember what I said the average Zimbabwean holds firm to the maxim, “I am not the one.” So I signed the petition because I felt I had to DO something, and not sit around waiting for someone to do for me.
But more important is what I believe is the right way for OM to handle their investment in Zimpapers, and as I said, “One would think that the ethical thing for the Chairman of Old Mutual Zimbabwe to do would be not to prevaricate, but to demand that Old Mutual take up their full right to have a seat on Zimpapers board and thereby input corporate responsibility into the policies guiding the running of the company.”
I don’t want OM to close, but I do want them to act responsibly and in accordance with their own policy. OM Group Chief Executive, Julian Roberts, states on their website, “Corporate responsibility is now one of the core components of our Group strategy. This strategy is applicable across the Group and each business unit reports on their performance against it.” This company has to be measured by its own yardstick.
2. You wrote, “I never heard you when they had stock in the Rhodesian paper under SMITH noone protested then.”
To a degree you are right, but do not forget the thousands of people who did stand up to Smith, in and outside Zimbabwe – external sanctions eventually brought collapse here. Old Mutual was possibly not criticised for their role during the Rhodesian days as far as I know, but old wrongs don’t make a right and they should not use the excuse that they bought these shares in the times of the Rhodesian regime. In fact, I would like an answer from OM to my more immediate question: “does that mean Old Mutual has a historical policy of supporting hate speech and giving voice to governments that oppress their own people?” Does Mayor Masunda think it is OK to make money (or in this case lose his shareholders’ money) from an organisation that daily denies the rights of the people of Zimbabwe to free speech?
3. You make it clear that you are angry about an attack against OM because you believe they are charitable and community minded.
First of all if a man gives charity to an orphan, but goes home and beats his own children is his brutality deleted by his charity? Or should he be congratulated for his charity and held accountable for his brutality? Again Kudzai, nobody is asking OM to shut down or stop their community based activities. If you looked at the petition you would understand that Passop are not advocating for OM to close, but that they desist from being part of an organisation that is supporting a regime bent on destroying its own people. Really, you must admit that neither the Herald nor the Chronicle are newspapers that support democracy.
4. You ask, “Must I stop paying my taxes because it goes to the government and therefore members of ZANU PF?” Had you asked me that question before the inception of the GNU, I would have shouted, “YES!” But that time is gone and as it stands things are far more complicated.
A more significant question to you Kudzai is, should our public servants, the people who are paid by our tax money, be allowed to squander that money on fancy cars and ridiculous expense accounts, regardless of their political affiliation? Are you happy to pay ghost workers? Are you satisfied that Gono admitted to funding the youth brigades for their campaign of violence last year? Do you think it is acceptable that your tax money pays for the charter of a private jet to ferry Mugabe and 60 of his apologists and pay for their luxury 5 star hotels – all to attend the United Nations food security conference where he rants against the west, blaming them for the failure of so called “land reform”?
As tax payers you and I have the right to say no. It is also our responsibility to act when we know something is wrong.
5. You ask about pensions.
Of course you must invest in your old age. Do it soon, for you never know what life has in stock. Please remember I stated that I do understand that OM were also victims of the mismanaged Zimbabwean economy. But OM now need to revisit their pay out policies, take some of their profits and give them back to the people who believed that their years of hard work and investment in OM would mean they would be looked after in their golden years.
A word of warning to you and your friends Kudzai, beware of the NSSA, the greatest scam of all. If you go back in the archives of Sokwanele you will see they wrote about the performance of this organisation and it is high time they too were made accountable. I do not know anyone who can live on the pension pay outs from this government run scheme.
6. And now the banks…
Of course it is not the banks themselves to blame, although many, if not all of them, need to revise their own policies, ethics and efficiency. The blame for the fact that your savings have been eroded to a fraction of their original value lies squarely on the shoulders of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono being the chief architect for the pathetic state of our economy. I would not expect you to rail against your bank for your loss of savings, and believe me I know exactly how you feel, but I do think that the blame should be levelled at the right abusers.
The reason so many Zimbabweans of all ages are impoverished is because we have allowed ZanuPf to carry on.
So, let’s have a quick look at a layman’s view of the policies and practices put in place by RBZ for exporting companies over the past few years, remebering that these are the companies that have brought the desperately needed foreign reserves into Zimbabwe:
Companies that exported goods, from manufactured products to gold, had to surrender between 25-45% of their hard earned foreign currency to the RBZ under the export retention scheme. The percentage taken by RBZ was repaid to the exporter in Z$ at the ridiculous bank rate. So in effect, many companies were forced to shut down or retrench staff as they lost their viability as a result of RBZ carrying out ‘theft by conversion’. I wonder where all this forex went to.
Then last year in the run up to the elections many of the companies who still survived rape by the RBZ, as well as most NGO’s, had their Foreign Currency Accounts “raided” by Gono to finance the violent and fraudulent 2008 elections. Some of the funds were repaid, but to date some are still not.
Then in February of this year our economy was dollarized. So, in a quick slash of a pen the companies and individuals who held Z$ in their bank accounts suddenly discovered their savings were worthless as Z$ were no longer legal tender.
Minister Biti recently said that the Z$ in question have not yet been repaid via the banks, because his ministry is still investigating the many cases of people enriching themselves through the “burning of money”, which was so prevalent during the days of soaring inflation and black market currency dealing. The system of burning was used by RBZ itself to expand its forex and through access to cheap forex Zpf fat cats were able to become rich very, very quick.
I am so glad that OM has benefited our communities through the provison of internet cafes and that young Zimbabweans like yourself are able to read the real news on the internet. Rather than being angry with me for calling for accountability, use your position as a well educated and literate Zimbabwean to speed up the process of change. The next time (and hopefully there will not be a next time) you witness the horror of the Zanu regime like you did in Mbare, use your telephone, or borrow one, to take a picture. Send it to Sokwanele to make sure that the Zanu bullies cannot hide behind their lies. Make them accountable.
Like you Kudazi, I LIVE IN ZIMBABWE. I care about what happens and most important of all I care about the principles of truth and justice. For too long the Zimbabwe Government has operated without accountability and there are many companies and individuals who take their lead from Zanu. You hold the torch that will be passed to the next generation, use your voice, use your skills to make sure that we are not the victims of a violent and deceitful system.
Still Here
November 20th, 2009 17:14
Good points Still Here…. I think Kudzai that one of the benefits (or disadvanatges) of being a young man is that you maybe take the Internet and blogs like these which make information so accessible for granted. It was not always like this. Ordinary people had to organise very differently to object and speak out and we did not have places like this where we can respond. The internet is a big part of the reason why organisations like Nestle and OM are being held accountable NOW rather than in the 1970s. I am very sure that if they had had the internet in Smith’s days then history would be very different. It also hurts my heart that the victims of the Gukuruhundi didn’t have the internet to expose Mugabe in the 80s. Kudzai, I also think you might be jumping to assumptions about whether people did or did not object to OM in the 70s… how can you be so sure they didn’t?