Three unidentified men admire PM Tsvangirai’s newsletter in Harare

ZANU PF propagandists launched a tired naked attack on the launch of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s newsletter released last Wednesday.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai left Harare Saturday on official visits to US and a number of European countries.

Zimbabwe journalists Friday celebrated a rare victory when a High Court judge ordered the Information minister and defunct media commission not to force journalists to register.
High Court judge Bharat Patel ruled in the journalists application that the Media and Information Commission chaired by media hangman Tafataona Mahoso was disbanded by a constitutional amendment passed last year.
Lawyer Selby Hwacha said: “This means that the MIC should not involve itself in journalists work.”
Patel said the MIC, which closed more than four papers in the last ten years had no power to levy accreditation fees on journalists and media organisations.

The United Nations has said that the inclusive government is “incapable of conducting an electoral process that is free of violence.”

The revelations are contained in the Consolidated Appeal (CAP) launched by OCHA on Monday.

Zimbabwe finance minister Tendai Biti has successfully pushed through central bank reforms that are meant to clip the wings of bank governor Gideon Gono.
Gono, whose appointment has remained an outstanding issue of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has vowed not to leave the Reserve bank.
Mugabe has also come out in full support of the embattled governor but the Movement for Democratic Change insists that he must be fired.
Said Biti: “It is important that we restore the legitimacy, credibility and integrity of the reserve bank, so I’m pleased to advise that Cabinet has agreed on the fundamental amendments to the Reserve Bank Act.”
Some of the reforms of the RBZ Act include amendment of section 6, 7 & 8 of the central bank to ensure that it sticks to its core business, that of crafting the monetary policy, stabilization of the Zimbabwe dollar and supervision of the banking sector.
“There will also be reforms around, the composition of the board which will play an oversight role to the bank. The board will ensure that there is fiduciary responsibility and compliance with the Act. We are taking what are currently the core functions of the bank to a specialized monetary policy committee,” said Biti.
There will also be reforms relating to curtailment of the central bank to borrow. The Reserve bank has borrowed more than US$1 billion during Gono’s controversial tenure.
“There will be provisions that will force the liquidation and rationalization of all non-core assets and companies such as Homelink, Fiscorp so that the bank remains trim, lean clean and legitimate,” said Biti.
“We will remain focused in reforming our institutions. There is nothing that will distract us from executing that mandate of making sure that we reform our institutions,” said Biti, in a thinly veiled reference to Gono’s media onslaught.
Biti said that Zimbabwe was still surviving on “cigarettes and alcohol” taxes as the economy was under-performing although inflation was going down.
Speaking at the launch of his ministry’s website, Biti said Zimbabwe had since the formation of an inclusive government by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, collected about US$174 million which showed a shortfall on the US$200 million the government had earmarked to collect.
“Seventy percent of the amount that we have collected is going towards civil service allowances, so we have major challenges in that we do not have fiscal space.
The structure of the receipts is also very skewed and are reflective of an economy that is not healthy at all. Direct taxes and corporate taxes are still less than 12 percent of our income when in a normal tax structure should be 55-60 percent of our income. So we are still continuing to rely on customs duty and excise duty which is not good enough. No country in the world has survived on cigarettes and alcohol,” said Biti.
He said many of the wild and unbelievable economic figures were beginning to stabilize. Inflation since January has averaged negative three percent and the government was targeting that by December inflation will be at “very most not more than four-five percent.”
A budget review has been set for mid-July, according to Biti.

Zimbabwe finance minister Tendai Biti has successfully pushed through central bank reforms that are meant to clip the wings of bank governor Gideon Gono.
Gono, whose appointment has remained an outstanding issue of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has vowed not to leave the Reserve bank.
Mugabe has also come out in full support of the embattled governor but the Movement for Democratic Change insists that he must be fired.
Said Biti: “It is important that we restore the legitimacy, credibility and integrity of the reserve bank, so I’m pleased to advise that Cabinet has agreed on the fundamental amendments to the Reserve Bank Act.”
Some of the reforms of the RBZ Act include amendment of section 6, 7 & 8 of the central bank to ensure that it sticks to its core business, that of crafting the monetary policy, stabilization of the Zimbabwe dollar and supervision of the banking sector.
“There will also be reforms around, the composition of the board which will play an oversight role to the bank. The board will ensure that there is fiduciary responsibility and compliance with the Act. We are taking what are currently the core functions of the bank to a specialized monetary policy committee,” said Biti.
There will also be reforms relating to curtailment of the central bank to borrow. The Reserve bank has borrowed more than US$1 billion during Gono’s controversial tenure.
“There will be provisions that will force the liquidation and rationalization of all non-core assets and companies such as Homelink, Fiscorp so that the bank remains trim, lean clean and legitimate,” said Biti.
“We will remain focused in reforming our institutions. There is nothing that will distract us from executing that mandate of making sure that we reform our institutions,” said Biti, in a thinly veiled reference to Gono’s media onslaught.
Biti said that Zimbabwe was still surviving on “cigarettes and alcohol” taxes as the economy was under-performing although inflation was going down.
Speaking at the launch of his ministry’s website, Biti said Zimbabwe had since the formation of an inclusive government by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, collected about US$174 million which showed a shortfall on the US$200 million the government had earmarked to collect.
“Seventy percent of the amount that we have collected is going towards civil service allowances, so we have major challenges in that we do not have fiscal space.
The structure of the receipts is also very skewed and are reflective of an economy that is not healthy at all. Direct taxes and corporate taxes are still less than 12 percent of our income when in a normal tax structure should be 55-60 percent of our income. So we are still continuing to rely on customs duty and excise duty which is not good enough. No country in the world has survived on cigarettes and alcohol,” said Biti.
He said many of the wild and unbelievable economic figures were beginning to stabilize. Inflation since January has averaged negative three percent and the government was targeting that by December inflation will be at “very most not more than four-five percent.”
A budget review has been set for mid-July, according to Biti.

Zimbabwe finance minister Tendai Biti has successfully pushed through central bank reforms that are meant to clip the wings of bank governor Gideon Gono.
Gono, whose appointment has remained an outstanding issue of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has vowed not to leave the Reserve bank.
Mugabe has also come out in full support of the embattled governor but the Movement for Democratic Change insists that he must be fired.
Said Biti: “It is important that we restore the legitimacy, credibility and integrity of the reserve bank, so I’m pleased to advise that Cabinet has agreed on the fundamental amendments to the Reserve Bank Act.”
Some of the reforms of the RBZ Act include amendment of section 6, 7 & 8 of the central bank to ensure that it sticks to its core business, that of crafting the monetary policy, stabilization of the Zimbabwe dollar and supervision of the banking sector.
“There will also be reforms around, the composition of the board which will play an oversight role to the bank. The board will ensure that there is fiduciary responsibility and compliance with the Act. We are taking what are currently the core functions of the bank to a specialized monetary policy committee,” said Biti.
There will also be reforms relating to curtailment of the central bank to borrow. The Reserve bank has borrowed more than US$1 billion during Gono’s controversial tenure.
“There will be provisions that will force the liquidation and rationalization of all non-core assets and companies such as Homelink, Fiscorp so that the bank remains trim, lean clean and legitimate,” said Biti.
“We will remain focused in reforming our institutions. There is nothing that will distract us from executing that mandate of making sure that we reform our institutions,” said Biti, in a thinly veiled reference to Gono’s media onslaught.
Biti said that Zimbabwe was still surviving on “cigarettes and alcohol” taxes as the economy was under-performing although inflation was going down.
Speaking at the launch of his ministry’s website, Biti said Zimbabwe had since the formation of an inclusive government by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, collected about US$174 million which showed a shortfall on the US$200 million the government had earmarked to collect.
“Seventy percent of the amount that we have collected is going towards civil service allowances, so we have major challenges in that we do not have fiscal space.
The structure of the receipts is also very skewed and are reflective of an economy that is not healthy at all. Direct taxes and corporate taxes are still less than 12 percent of our income when in a normal tax structure should be 55-60 percent of our income. So we are still continuing to rely on customs duty and excise duty which is not good enough. No country in the world has survived on cigarettes and alcohol,” said Biti.
He said many of the wild and unbelievable economic figures were beginning to stabilize. Inflation since January has averaged negative three percent and the government was targeting that by December inflation will be at “very most not more than four-five percent.”
A budget review has been set for mid-July, according to Biti.

Zimbabwe’s coalition partners have reached a deadlock on the appointment of the central bank governor and the country’s attorney general, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.
Addressing journalists at a press conference in Harare Tsvangirai said: “There are two key issues on which the principals failed to reach an agreement, the governor of the Reserve Bank and the attorney general.”
The Global Political Agreement (GPA), which was signed on 15 September, states that the parties agreed that the appointment of senior government officials such as permanent secretaries, ambassadors, the leaders of government would consult and agree before such appointments are made.
“The Reserve Bank governor and the attorney general are senior government officials and yet in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding and the GPA and the Reserve Bank Act, the incumbent RBZ governor (Gideon Gono) and attorney general (Johannes Tomana were appointed by president Mugabe on 27 December 2008. In light of the deadlock, the principals with the support of their parties will now refer this matter to SADC as the guarantors of the GPA. We trust that SADC will deal with this matter with the urgency it requires,” said Mr Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai said governors will be sworn in soon, and that deputy minister for agriculture nominee Roy Bennett will be also sworn in together with the governors.
He said the list of permanent secretaries announced in the state media Thursday was premature because the principals had agreed that all the outstanding issues would be announced at the same time.
“That announcement was premature because the agreement was that all the issues should be announced as one. I don’t know ho this has transpired that they have been announced in piecemeal. Any civil servant who participates in party politics has no future in the civil service,” he said.
On ambassadors, Tsvangirai said the coalition partners had agreed that the two MDC formations would submit list of names of members to be trained as ambassadors for appointments at the same time an audit will be conducted to identify opportunities for further appointments.
“Five ambassadorial vacancies available will be filled by the two MDC formations, MDC T four and MDC M one,” said Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe’s coalition partners have reached a deadlock on the appointment of the central bank governor and the country’s attorney general, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.
Addressing journalists at a press conference in Harare Tsvangirai said: “There are two key issues on which the principals failed to reach an agreement, the governor of the Reserve Bank and the attorney general.”
The Global Political Agreement (GPA), which was signed on 15 September, states that the parties agreed that the appointment of senior government officials such as permanent secretaries, ambassadors, the leaders of government would consult and agree before such appointments are made.
“The Reserve Bank governor and the attorney general are senior government officials and yet in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding and the GPA and the Reserve Bank Act, the incumbent RBZ governor (Gideon Gono) and attorney general (Johannes Tomana were appointed by president Mugabe on 27 December 2008. In light of the deadlock, the principals with the support of their parties will now refer this matter to SADC as the guarantors of the GPA. We trust that SADC will deal with this matter with the urgency it requires,” said Mr Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai said governors will be sworn in soon, and that deputy minister for agriculture nominee Roy Bennett will be also sworn in together with the governors.
He said the list of permanent secretaries announced in the state media Thursday was premature because the principals had agreed that all the outstanding issues would be announced at the same time.
“That announcement was premature because the agreement was that all the issues should be announced as one. I don’t know ho this has transpired that they have been announced in piecemeal. Any civil servant who participates in party politics has no future in the civil service,” he said.
On ambassadors, Tsvangirai said the coalition partners had agreed that the two MDC formations would submit list of names of members to be trained as ambassadors for appointments at the same time an audit will be conducted to identify opportunities for further appointments.
“Five ambassadorial vacancies available will be filled by the two MDC formations, MDC T four and MDC M one,” said Tsvangirai.

A Zimbabwean court has ordered the release of prominent human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehama after spending a night in police custody, a move interpreted as “intimidation” by other lawyers.

Harare magistrate Archie Wochiunga released Muchadehama on US$100 bail, and ordered him to report to police once every Friday and not to interfere with state witnesses. He ordered Muchadehama to return to court on 29 May.

“We believe that this is continuous harassment of human rights defenders. Clearly when prosecutors, magistrates and judges are being arrested on a day to day basis for doing their work that has a chilling effect on other human rights defenders. Its clearly intimidation. We will not able to do our work as we are supposed to do,” said Beatrice Mtetwa who is representing Muchadehama in the matter.

The state is alleging that Muchadehama caused the release of freelance journalist Andreson Manyere, and two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials when he was aware that the state had been granted leave to appeal against the granting of bail to the three men.

Mtetwa said the release of the three men was above board because Muchadehama had written to the High Court and to the Attorney General who did not contest their release.

After his release, Muchadehama said the state’s actions were calculated to “destroy the lawyers work and justice.”

“The charges are meaningless. They need to realize that justice and the rule of law are here to stay,” said Muchadehama.