The credit crunch continues to bite. External supplier credit is drying up and less and less funding is available through finance institutions and this is crippling revival and any hopes of expansion.

Smaller operations are working 2-3 day weeks and larger corporations chose to work alternate weeks.

The good news in the budget has revived hopes but the business community appreciates that these measures are likely to be rather cosmetic if the fundamental issue of finance is not resolved.

The month on month inflation figure for June was up 0.6% from the May rate of -1.0%. The June figure for month on month inflation was influenced by an increase in non-food inflation that rose by 2.5 percentage points.

The Stock Exchange remained flat with limited movements expressed. Zimbabwe’s cost index has come down to the level of Mozambique but still remains just ahead of Zambia.

The cost of living in Zimbabwe is expected to drop below that of regional countries by the end of the year as more lower priced local goods and services enter the market.

When elections are over, and the media isn’t being flooded with images of violently battered bodies, things feel like they go quiet in Zimbabwe. The power-sharing government provides a shelter from the storm of doubts and misgivings that most Zimbabweans have, even when it is quiet. We are willing to believe that because the good guys are occupying some of the seats of power, that it can’t possibly be as bad as it was before. Food is back on city shelves, tangible evidence giving truth to the faint hope that we’re well on the road to recovery.

But are we? Frankly, I’m feeling scared again.

We’ve blogged many times about the police and roadblocks in Zimbabwe (e.g. here, here and here), the way the police manning these rickety structures use them as a tool for extortion – a way to earn an alternative income, by bribing tired travellers and threatening them with delays and possible arrest: all that hassle can be averted with few crisp Rands. But IRIN reported on a much more sinister aspect of the police recently: (more…)

Via MDC-T Press Release — The MDC Secretary-General, Hon Tendai Biti, has received a letter with a live bullet inside it in what the party is treating as a death threat.

The letter was delivered at the MDC Secretary-General’s home in Highlands and a police report has been lodged at Harare Central police station.

The letter accompanying the bullet was inscribed “Raira nhaka” (Sort out your Estate), which is an apparent death threat to Hon Biti, who is also the Minister of Finance.

The MDC believes that these threats cannot be taken lightly, especially against the background of renewed violence and persecution of MDC leaders, MPs and members. The threats also come against a background of increased vitriol against Hon Biti by the public media, Nathaniel Manheru and the Zanu PF sidekick, Jonathan Moyo, through sponsored articles in which the “victims” are never given the right of reply. (more…)

Map showing looming by-elections, and potential by-elections

The map above illustrates constituencies where seats are exposed to by-elections as a result of MP deaths and MP convictions. One seat that has fallen vacant is due to Lovemore Moyo becoming Speaker.

In addition to this, there are nine other seats which are currently under threat because of MPs awaiting trail. Two of these nine seats are held by Zanu PF, and three of the deaths were also Zanu PF seats. This means the MDC-T potentially faces 12 by-elections (assuming those awaiting trial are convicted and lose their appeals and imprisoned for more than six months) and ZanuPF potentially faces five by-elections, under the same terms. This means the overwhelming majority of seats which are exposed to by-elections are held by MDC-T, seriously threatening their parliamentary majority.

As we note at the end of this blog, Robert Mugabe is charged with calling the by-elections, and the longer he delays calling the elections,  the closer we come to the end of the one year agreement where the three main parties agreed to not field candidates against each other. (more…)

Index: AFR 46/012/2009

22 July 2009

UA 196/09

Fear of more mass evictions in Harare

An estimated 200 people from an informal settlement in the suburb of Gunhill and thousands of informal traders across Harare in Zimbabwe face being forcibly evicted without being given adequate notice or any consultation or due process.

In July 2009 the Deputy Mayor of the Harare City Council stated that the city authorities have considered evicting people from “illegal settlements and market places to restore order.” The Deputy Mayor claimed that the targeted people were posing a health hazard and violating city by-laws.

Most of the people at risk of forcible eviction were victims of Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order), a programme of mass forced evictions implemented by the Zimbabwean authorities in 2005 which left 700,000 people without homes and livelihoods. Four years on, the authorities have failed to provide an effective remedy to the victims and as a result many continue to be at risk of being forcibly evicted from both their homes and their informal businesses.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Formal unemployment in Zimbabwe is above 90 per cent. The bulk of the urban population, particularly women, survive on informal trade. Further forced evictions would drive these people deeper into poverty. Since Operation Murambatsvina, the city of Harare has repeatedly targeted informal traders, mainly urban poor, seizing their wares and fining them for operating at illegal trading places.

Via MDC-T Press Release — The well-orchestrated plot to persecute MDC MPs continues, with the latest purge on the MPs being the sentencing to two years in prison of Zaka North MP, Hon. Ernest Mudavanhu, on Tuesday.

Hon. Mudavanhu was convicted by a Harare magistrate on trumped-up charges of abusing subsidised farming inputs distributed under the Government’s Farm Mechanisation Programme.

Hon. Mudavanhu’s conviction brings to five the number of MDC MPs convicted of various crimes while several others continue to face various trumped-up charges that are still before the courts.

The plot to convict the MPs is a well orchestrated plan by Zanu PF and other mischievous conspirators in the inclusive government to decimate the party’s majority in parliament. (more…)

Via MDC Press release — Another MDC activist, Ebba Katiyo, 31, is battling for her life in a private hospital after she was brutally attacked by Zanu PF thugs in Uzumba, Mashonaland East province on 12 July 2009.

Katiyo, who can hardly speak or move in her bed, was brutally assaulted twice in a space of two weeks on accusations that she was still a member of the MDC.

“I was called by the village headman of Katiyo kraal who is also my uncle for a public meeting at his homestead where I was asked why I continued to support the MDC.

“After the meeting, he asked youths gathered to beat me up and I was beaten all over the body,” said Katiyo.

She said before she had recovered from the assault, she was again called for a second meeting by the headman who again ordered that she be beaten.

“Again I was assaulted all over the body this time with sticks, booted feet and clinched hands,” she said.

After the second assault, Katiyo could not even move until her relatives sought help from the MDC who then referred her to hospital where she is currently receiving treatment.

A police report was made on Friday at Mutawatawa Police Station and the police officers said they would investigate the case but although the assailants have been identified, no arrests have been made.

The culprits have been identified as Headman Katiyo, Zanu PF district chairperson, Teguru, Albert and Sarah Mutopo.

Scores of MDC supporters across the country have in recent months been victims of politically-motivated violence at the hands of Zanu PF thugs, despite the formation of the inclusive government in February.

Zimbabwean ingenuity…

They just don’t make pavements like they used to!