The Telegraph
By Sebastien Berger and Peta Thornycroft in Harare
15 February 2009

Zimbabwe’s new power-sharing government will be put to the test on Monday when the treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change appears in court charged after being charged with attempted terrorism.

Roy Bennett, a former white farmer whose coffee plantation was stolen during President Robert Mugabe’s land seizures, had been named as deputy agriculture minister but was arrested on Friday, hours before the new cabinet was sworn in.

The spectacle will offer an indication of whether the unity government with Mr Mugabe will work, and grist to the mill of critics of the agreement, who believe that Zimbabwe’s ageing president – who turns 85 this week – cannot be trusted.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader and Zimbabwe’s prime minister, blamed hardliners in Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party who were looking to sabotage the new authority.

The arrest “undermines the spirit of our agreement,” he said. “It is very important to maintain the momentum of our agreement. We have to budget for some residual resistance from those who see this deal as a threat to their interest.”

It is not the first time Mr Bennett has been held. A long-standing opponent and victim of Mr Mugabe’s regime, on one occasion in his home town, Chimanimani, his screams could be heard in the street outside the Central Intelligence Organisation offices as he was tortured. He has served a prison sentence for shoving over the then justice minister Patrick Chinamasa in parliament.

After his latest arrest, at an airfield outside Harare, he was taken to Mutare, in eastern Zimbabwe. His lawyer, Trust Mhanda, said yesterday that his client would appear in court today (mon) accused of attempting to commit terrorism, banditry and sabotage.

At first police interrogated him for attempting to leave the country, then treason, before finally settling on the charges, said Mr Mhanda.

“The police must have realised that they had no leg to stand on,” he said of the treason accusation. “Their case would not hold water.”

Shots were fired in the air by police to disperse hundreds of MDC supporters who surrounded Mutare police station on Friday night, the party said.

The new charges relate to discredited claims dating from 2006 of a plot to sabotage essential services, with Mr Bennett supposedly involved in funding the purchase of arms and explosives. He denies the accusations and believes they are politically motivated, Mr Mhanda added.

Peter Hitschmann, a German-born Zimbabwean, is currently serving a prison sentence in connection with the alleged plot, having been accused of trying to create a military cell to topple Mr Mugabe.
A member of the army testified against him and around a dozen weapons, mostly automatic firearms, and piles of ammunition were shown off in court in Mutare.

Hitschmann was convicted of holding unlicensed weapons, and according to his barrister Eric Matinenga – now an MDC minister – Mr Bennett’s name never came up at the trial.

David Coltart, the MDC’s education minister and a lawyer himself, said: “Roy Bennett came back to the country openly and demonstrated, in that, that he has no intention to evade the authorities, and to that extent one questions why they had to arrest him in the way they did.

“It appears to be in breach of the spirit of the political agreement. The manner in which this has been done smacks of vindictiveness and possibly an intention by hawks in Zanu PF to cause the unity government to fail.”

In a statement the MDC said: “These charges have long been discredited and shown to be fictitious. Clearly they are on a fishing expedition, clutching at straws and know fully well that there is no basis, even suspicion, at law to charge Roy Bennett.”

Sunday Telegraph
15 February 2009
By Graham Boynton

The new Zimbabwe was born last Wednesday with a whimper rather than with whoops of delight, and then turned to dark farce as the week progressed.

The Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in by the old despot, Robert Mugabe, in a joyless ceremony in a tent. Mugabe’s wife, the ghastly couture-clad Grace, refused to shake hands with Tsvangirai.

Then on Friday, before he was to be sworn in as deputy agriculture minister, the MDC’s Roy Bennett was arrested and has now been charged with treason. And at the latest count at least 14 of Tsvangirai’s party activists remained in police detention – amid accusations of torture – in spite of the fact that their release was supposed to be a precondition for the country’s new era of coalition government.

Sceptical observers – and anyone who has followed the rape of Zimbabwe over the past decade can be forgiven for being sceptical – take these signals as evidence that neither Mugabe nor his hardline Zanu-PF inner circle are going to honour the content or the spirit of the coalition agreement.

Even if the 85-year-old ruler is wilting slightly after almost 30 years of running this once prosperous country into the ground, the Zanu-PF hawks who surround him are desperate to hang onto power. For although this power-sharing deal, forced on him by fellow African leaders, may have saved Mugabe from a trial in the Hague, his generals may not escape prosecution for crimes against humanity.

Tsvangirai and close advisers have taken a great risk. One member of the new unity cabinet, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has said that the success or failure of the coalition government would be clear within two weeks.

David Coltart, the Bulawayo MDC Senator who is part of the smaller MDC faction led by the new Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, is more circumspect. He says that while he recognises huge problems “that even the finest government in the world would find enormously difficult to deal with” there has been a significant step forward. He says it represents a substantial reduction in Zanu-PF’s power base and will hopefully begin to isolate the hardliners.

It is now widely believed that Mugabe and the hardliners did not really think Tsvangirai would sign the coalition agreement, and that the point of their rolling campaign of arrests, torture and murders of MDC officials and supporters was to dissuade him from doing so.

However, with the support of African Union countries such as Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania, he has outflanked Zanu-PF, and with half Mugabe’s ministers having lost their posts to the MDC the first signs of cracks in the ruling elite are now expected to emerge.

Now it is time for the international community to share Tsvangirai’s risk. It is too easy for Gordon Brown and David Miliband to utter cautionary remarks, as they both did last week, and play the roles of cool Western politicians, but what the people of Zimbabwe need right now is for Tsvangirai’s bold move to be seen to be having an impact on this broken country.

To that end, in his first speech he implored the civil servants, the teachers and the hospital workers to return to work and promised to pay them foreign currency rather than the now valueless Zimbabwe dollar. The assumption here is that he has received promises of financial support from African Union allies, but to maintain the momentum the support of the EU countries and Obama’s born-again America is required.

Unfortunately, our recent history of helping Zimbabwe has been uniformly dreadful. For the past eight years – since the first farm invasions – the international community has vacillated, fidgeted and fulminated and achieved nothing. Thus Mugabe, his shopping wife and his larcenous inner circle have roamed the world seemingly free to spend their Treasury’s money and to have their children educated at our most expensive schools and universities.

Now we can make up for these years of inactivity, during which this lovely country has plunged from prosperity to bankruptcy, disease and famine, by getting behind its rehabilitation.

In Africa everything is possible. One only has to look back to apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, when the idea of Nelson Mandela being freed, never mind actually leading the country, seemed as fanciful as a modern-day banker handing back his bonus out of guilt.

Post-Mandela South Africa is a world apart from the country run by the granite apartheidists and it is to that miraculous transition beleaguered Zimbabweans look in hope. Indeed, at his first rally as Prime Minister last week Morgan Tsvangirai reminded his supporters that it was 19 years ago to the day that Mandela was freed from prison and warned them that this did not signify the end of his people’s struggle for democracy.

So, too, with Zimbabwe. This ungainly attempt to form a coalition government with the architects of the country’s downfall is fraught with difficulties but it is a first step. This is Tsvangirai’s interim government before the next election, and if he holds it together in the face of Zanu-PF’s determination to wreck it then Zimbabwe has a glimmer of hope. That is why the West must now support him unequivocally.

The Zimbabwean
14th February 2009

HARARE – President Robert Mugabe reappointed the same old group of loyalists blamed for mismanaging Zimbabwe into the new power-sharing Cabinet with the opposition MDC formations.
Analysts said there was little to suggest a shift of policy by Zanu (PF) as Mugabe had merely recycled dead wood, keeping the same group of people he once described last August as “the worst Cabinet ever.”

Government critics accuse Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party of plunging Zimbabwe’s once brilliant economy into unprecedented recession through repression and wrong policies such as the chaotic and often violent farm seizures that destroyed the mainstay agricultural sector.

In contrast to Mugabe’s team, both Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara appointed admittedly people with little or no experience in running government but many of them respected technocrats and experts in their fields.

Mutambara settled for his vice president Gibson Sibanda, secretary general Professor Welshman Ncube, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and respected human rights lawyer David Coltart to represent his party in Cabinet. Tsvangirai juggled with his Cabinet representatives, mainly professionals in various disciplines.

Among veteran ministers retained by Mugabe were Joseph Made, Patrick Chinamasa, Didymus Mutasa, Sydney Sekeramayi, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Ignatius Chombo.

Commenting on Mugabe’s appointments Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary genera Wellington Chibebe said: “The question which now begs for an answer from him is: why did he allow this worst cabinet in the history of Zimbabwe to continue ruining the country (by reappointing them).”

SATimes
14 February 2009

THE OLD GOVERNMENT BROKE IT, THE NEW GOVERNMENT MUST FIX IT: Tendai Biti has his work cut out for him

BITTERSWEET DEAL: As Zimbabwe’s minister of finance, Tendai Biti faces the unenviable task of turning around the most devastated economy in world history.

He became very radical very quickly. He authored a petition against government corruption in his first year at university and spearheaded the first real anti-government student demonstrations’

It was a deep-seated hatred of greed, whether in the form of corruption or capitalist excess, which propelled Biti into politics at university Biti is ‘no diplomat’, said a friend, who added: ‘He’s a radical who always speaks his mind, and who speaks of transforming the state, not reforming it’

Surrounded by enemies in the worst job in the world

A stubborn and principled lawyer made the compromise of his life on Friday when he took the position of minister of finance in the unity government headed by Zimbabwe’s dictatorial president, Robert Mugabe, write Rowan Philp and Njabulo Ncube

They called him “Bismarck” at university. Tendai Biti earned the nickname because, to fellow students, he seemed to be as fearless and stubborn as his idol, Germany’s 19th century “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck.

They got the idea when the young Marxist law student led student demonstrations against corruption in Robert Mugabe’s government in 1987.

And it stuck when Biti, who had no talent as a soccer player, found a way to be part of a team anyway — by founding a club.

At the height of the mediation chaos for a transitional government in Zimbabwe last year, a frustrated Biti — then secretary-general of the MDC — blurted out: “Where is Africa’s Bismarck?”

The remark reflected his disgust at the pettiness of Thabo Mbeki and Mugabe in stalling the negotiations and the clear need to rescue and unite a devastated country, as the German leader had done.

But now, as the new minister of finance charged with turning around the most devastated economy in history, Biti is faced with a task that would surely have horrified the German icon.
The 42-year-old labour lawyer will take charge of an economy with more than 90% unemployment, a farcical currency and an inflation rate of 10 sextillion percent (10 plus 36 zeros), estimated as of Thursday.

Desperately needed foreign aid and investment will likely flow like molasses for the same reason that Biti was the most reluctant new minister to sign up: the unity government is not a reflection of the March 29 elections last year, and still has a tyrant as president.

And if all that is not difficult enough, Biti will have to work with Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, who he recently described as “the number one economic saboteur, terrorist… the number one enemy of this country.”

This week, Biti told the Sunday Times: “The job is the worst in the world. But I will have to look the job in the eye and have no doubt that I will be equal to the task and prevail.”

Regarding Gono, he would only say: “We will wait and we shall see.” But he added: “We will make sure that the role of the (Reserve Bank) becomes minimal.”

In some ways, Biti is an unlikely choice for minister of finance. The only obvious finance-themed book on his shelves in his office in Harare is a thin volume on quotable quotes by former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Otherwise, it is laden with books such as Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and a biography on US president Barack Obama.

The office is piled high with newspaper cuttings. His most relevant resource for his new job is perhaps a copy of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

Biti is a lawyer, not an economist. He is more an academic than an administrator. Most worryingly for critics, he remains a fan of old-fashioned Marxist economic theory.

In an essay on the global economic crisis last year, Biti wrote: “History has had its revenge and the unbridled hegemony of the market has been exposed. Bonapartism, Keynesianism, market regulations and welfarism will from now onwards be critical and essential instruments in the management of any economy.”

But a number of key unity government officials polled this week, including David Coltart of the rival Arthur Mutambara faction, said he was “just the man for the job”. One reason for this, they said, was that Biti is a workaholic. Returning from a diplomatic mission to the US two months ago, he went directly from the airport to the supreme court, where he argued an unremarkable case for a paying client.

This week, he was finally forced to take a “leave of absence” from his law firm, Honey and Blanckenberg, where he has somehow been working full time as a partner and trial attorney throughout the past decade.

And he can take his work home. Biti’s new wife, Charity, lives in Johannesburg, while his teenage son, school rugby star Tawanda, lives in Australia.

Friends suggested his extraordinary workload may have contributed to his divorce from his first wife, urban planning expert Bathsheba Biti. But apart from his untiring work ethic, Biti is considered perfect for one of Zimbabwe’s most demanding jobs because, says Coltart, “he’s seriously smart, and seriously driven”.

Biti grew up in Harare’s working-class suburb of Dzivarasekwa, the eldest son of a taxi owner.
It was a deep-seated hatred of greed, whether in the form of corruption or capitalist excess, which propelled Biti into politics at university.

“He became very radical very quickly. He authored a petition against government corruption in his first year at university and spearheaded the first real anti-government student demonstrations,” said Innocent Chagonda, a fellow university student and one of Biti’s closest friends.

“Arrogance also made him angry. I still remember how he immediately demonstrated outside the US embassy after the bombing of, I think, Libya by the Americans.”

But it was not only his indignation which made him stand out — his intelligence did, too. “He was always in the top five of the class, in any course — a combination of a hard worker and a highly intelligent person,” said Chagonda.

So impressive was Biti that a senior law lecturer wangled him a job at the Blanckenberg firm before he had even completed his degree at the University of Zimbabwe.

Here, he founded the Red Stars football club, even recruiting his constitutional law lecturer to the team, and produced squad shirts emblazoned with anti-colonial rhetoric and the words Aluta continua (the struggle continues).

While other student activist leaders continued in politics, Biti spent most of the ’90s making a name in human rights and labour law. He became his firm’s youngest-ever partner at the age of 26.

In one prominent case, he forced a change in the law by proving that the expulsion of a pregnant student from a teacher’s college was unconstitutional.

He became a focus of Mugabe’s wrath in 1995, when he proved in court that Zanu-PF had rigged a parliamentary election against an MP who had dared to leave the party. The results were nullified and his client, Margaret Dongo, won the rerun.

Convinced that the law could bring change, Biti co-founded the National Constitutional Assembly and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

Beatrice Mtetwa, Zimbabwe’s leading human rights lawyer, said: “He has always been very committed to human rights. I believe his strength of character alone is sufficient to qualify him for his new job.”

Although eloquent in court, Biti is “no diplomat”, according to friend and MDC official Nqobizitha Mlilo, who added: “He’s a radical who always speaks his mind, and who speaks of transforming the state, not reforming it.”

Biti became Morgan Tsvangirai’s number two — and Mugabe’s number one target — when his former lecturer, the widely revered Professor Welshman Ncube, led a split from the MDC in 2005.

During his detention in March 2007, Biti was stripped naked, humiliated and beaten. One interrogation session lasted 23 hours.

And, in June last year, yet another detention was accompanied by a charge of treason, leaving Biti with a possible death sentence hanging over his head until a magistrate withdrew the charge last week.

He had earned the old nickname again: pursued and harassed for years, like the giant World War II battleship Bismarck.

One supporter this week expressed concern about the cumulative effect of a decade of harassment on Biti’s physical and mental health. Both this supporter and a critic — neither of whom wished to be named — agreed that Biti’s behaviour had “changed” after the 2007 detention, becoming less tolerant of compromise and quicker to anger in the long negotiations with Zanu-PF.

The critic, a prominent politician who has known Biti since his university years, said: “One minute you think he is such a sweet person, the next minute he is very crude. He is a very temperamental man. So I can’t see how he will have the patience to run the Ministry of Finance, which, unlike law work, needs level heads.

“He wants to have his way, he can’t compromise. You can ask the negotiators and the facilitation team in the Southern African Development Community talks — Tendai was the most difficult person.”

But he made the compromise of his life on Friday when he joined a government headed by Mugabe.

Coltart described Biti as “the brains trust of the MDC”. And he looks the part.

Although he’s often seen in Che Guevara-style berets and Arsenal football club headgear, Biti is famed for his bowler hats — a source of both mockery and affection.

Chagonda recalled how Biti had once refused to remove his bowler hat in a restaurant when asked to do so by a waiter.

But Biti will now be forced to hold that hat out to the West, begging for contributions to an emergency recovery package and promising discipline and democratic practices in return.
With little faith in the free market, he will use intense government intervention as his tool for change, including the regulation, infrastructure investment and stimulus packages he devised for the MDC’s Restart economic recovery policy.

For Biti, it is a case of the government broke it, now the government must fix it.
His success in achieving this will depend on which of Bismarck’s two most famous maxims he can live by in his partnership with the enemy: either “politics is the art of the possible”, or “the great questions of the time will be solved not by majority decisions, but by iron and blood”.
‘We must save the Zimbabwe dollar’

Zimbabwe’s new finance minister, Tendai Biti, has vowed to “save the Zimbabwe dollar” — and avoid resorting to the rand — as part of his plan to rescue the country’s economy.

And he is to embark on a radical scheme to get Zimbabweans saving money and working on public projects, while luring aid money from Western governments.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Biti said: “We have to make sure that we start by saving the Zimbabwe dollar. ‘Randising’ the economy is not the solution. Our money can only be saved by floating the Zimbabwe dollar so that it finds its natural value.

“ We want to establish the real interest rates and encourage savings for the country and make sure that these contribute between 1% and 2% of the country’s GDP.”

Biti said he would attempt to sideline Zimbabwe’s disastrous Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and take direct control of inflation management and fiscal policy.

He also outlined dramatic stimulus plans for industry: “Industry has to graduate in the first six months from the near 0% capacity to at least 60% capacity. We also have to work towards restoring viability to the agricultural sector by making adequate preparations for the 2009-2010 season: 90% of the country’s GDP is influenced by agriculture.”

Biti is expected to throw out the budget produced by Zanu-PF last month and unveil his own within weeks. — Njabulo Ncube and Rowan Philp

The Herald
14 February 2009

President – HE Cde Robert Mugabe

Vice-Presidents – Hon Joseph Msika and Hon Joice Mujuru

Prime Minister – Hon Morgan Tsvangirai

Deputy Prime Ministers – Hon Prof Arthur Mutambara, Hon Thokozani Khupe

Ministers

Ministry of Defence – Hon Emmerson Mnangagwa (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Home Affairs – Hon Kembo Mohadi (Zanu-PF) and Hon Giles Mutsekwa (MDC-T)

Ministry of State for National Security in the President’s Office – Hon Sydney Sekeramayi (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Hon Simbarashe Mumbengegwi (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs – Hon Patrick Chinamasa (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Finance – Hon Tendai Biti (MDC-T)

Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement – Hon Dr Herbert Murerwa (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development – Hon Dr Joseph Made (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Industry and Commerce – Hon Prof Welshman Ncube (MDC)

Ministry of Mines and Mining Development – Hon Obert Mpofu (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Energy and Power Development – Hon Eng Elias Mudzuri (MDC-T)

Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development – Hon Dr Ignatius Chombo (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Public Works – Hon Theresa Makone (MDC-T)

Ministry of Water Resources and Development – Hon Sipepa Nkomo (MDC-T)

Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Management – Hon Francis Nhema (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture – Hon David Coltart (MDC)

Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education – Hon Dr Stan Mudenge (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Health and Child Welfare – Hon Dr Henry Madzorera (MDC-T)

Ministry of Public Service – Hon Prof Eliphas Mukonoweshuro (MDC-T)

Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development – Hon Nicholas Goche (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity – Hon Webster Shamu (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment – Hon Saviour Kasukuwere (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development – Hon Dr Olivia Muchena (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development – Hon Sithembiso Nyoni (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Economic Planning and Development – Hon Elton Mangoma (MDC-T)

Ministry of Science and Technology – Hon Prof Heneri Dzinotyiwei (MDC-T)

Ministry of Housing and Social Amenities – Hon Fidelis Mhashu (MDC-T)

Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs – Hon Adv Eric Matinenga (MDC-T)

Ministry of Regional Integration and International Co-operation – Hon Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga (MDC)

Ministry of Information Communication Technology – Hon Nelson Chamisa (MDC-T)

Ministry of State Enterprises and Parastatals – Hon Gabbuza Gabuza (MDC-T)

Minister of State for Presidential Affairs – Hon Didymus Mutasa (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry – Hon Walter Muzembi (Zanu-PF)

Ministry of Labour – Hon Paurina Gwanyanya (MDC-T)

Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office – Hon Gordon Moyo (MDC-T

The Telegraph
By Colin Freeman, Sebastian Berger in Johannesburg, Peta Thornycroft in Harare
14 Feb 2009

Zimbabwe’s new prime minister has claimed the country’s powersharing agreement is being sabotaged after one of his key aides faced charges over a long-discredited plot to kill President Robert Mugabe.

Morgan Tsvangirai, who was sworn in as prime minister last week, spoke out after the Mugabe-controlled police force pressed treason accusations against his colleague Roy Bennett, who is due to serve in the new joint cabinet.

“His arrest raises a lot of concerns,” said Mr Tsvangirai, who is seeking a meeting with Mr Mugabe to protest Mr Bennett’s detention. “It undermines the spirit of our agreement.”

The Herald newspaper, widely considered the mouthpiece of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, claimed on Saturday that Mr Bennett was being investigated in connection with an alleged assassination conspiracy brought against several opposition MDC members from 2006.

One man was jailed for alleged weapons offences, but the rest of the case was dropped against other alleged MDC conspirators, who claimed it was an act of political malice. Mr Bennett, 52, fled abroad three years ago after fearing he would be fingered as a fellow suspect, but had returned to Zimbabwe after being offered the post of deputy agriculture minister.

Arrested on Friday, he is now languishing in a small, filthy cell in the colonial-era police station in the eastern border city of Mutare. MDC wellwishers are camped outside, despite police opening fire over their heads at one point in a bid to disperse them. His detention came despite assurances from Mr Mugabe last week that he was “sincerely and honestly committed” to partnership with the MDC. It also adds greatly to Mr Tsvangirai’s woes as he struggles to persuade his party to stick with the power-sharing deal.

The new joint cabinet was sworn in Friday, but Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party has retained control of all key posts in the security apparatus, undermining hopes that a power-sharing government would curb his capacity to intimidate.

The continued harassment of Mr Tsvangirai’s political allies is just one of the mounting difficulties facing Mr Tsvangirai as he attempts to use his new role in government to steer Zimbabwe away from all-out crisis.

Many feel he has taken on an impossible task, which will simply result in the MDC party being tainted with the incompetence and failure of the Mugabe regime. Mr Tsvangirai’s ministers have taken on portfolios which could well backfire because of the sheer scale of the challenges they present.

When he walks into his department for the first time on Monday, new finance minister Tendai Biti will have the task of curbing the world’s highest inflation rate, while health chief Henry Madzorera wil grapple a cholera outbreak that has killed 3,500 people. Education minister David Coltart must overhaul a schools sector where only one in five pupils attend at present, unpaid teachers having left on masse to work abroad. Mr Bennett’s in-tray would have included the task of reviving the farming sector of a country that is now unable to survive without foreign food aid.

Mr Tsvangirai himself, meanwhile, must honour his personal pledge to pay the country’s 200,000 civil servants in foreign currency rather than the near-worthless Zimbabwean dollar.
He made the promise to cheers in a speech in a Harare stadium last week, but has yet to say where the cash will come from, illustrating the risks he faces in trying to act as a national saviour.

A source close to the MDC leadership said it would be examining the contents of the “national piggy bank”, if any, then looking at other sources. “We are approaching the Southern African Development Community, the donor community and looking at the viability of a loan as well,” he said.

It is estimated, however, that around $60 million will be needed within the next two weeks, and so far no foreign benefactors have indicated a willingness to stump up. Western nations have also said that the unity government must prove it is committed to economic reform before billions in reconstruction and development aid are released. But the MDC source added: “The more they help us make it work the faster it will work.”

Concerns have likewise been raised about how the MDC will be able to implement its policies if there is resistance from civil servants and public officials, among whom Zanu-PF’s influence stretches far and wide. The MDC insider source said there would be no political purge of government employees, as doing so would generate resentment and create obstacles.

“I don’t think there’s that many that want to obstruct us, particularly when we are talking about doctors back in hospitals and kids back in schools,” he said.

VOA
By Peta Thornycroft
Harare
13 February 2009

Roy Bennett, the MDC’s choice to become deputy agriculture minister, was reportedly seized at a Harare airport Friday, hours before the ministers in the unity government were to be sworn in. His arrest has dampened the spirits of many Zimbabweans looking forward to a period of rebuilding Zimbabwe.

Roy Bennett had been through immigration and had boarded a small aircraft with a flight plan to Nelspruit, an eastern South African town. As the aircraft was taxiing down the runway it was called back.

Meanwhile, legislators were gathering at state house for swearing in of the government of national unity after the ceremony was delayed for five hours.

The MDC said in a statement the delay was the result of in-fighting in ZANU-PF over which of the 22 top party officials gathered for the ceremony, would be formally appointed. ZANU-PF is allowed 15 Cabinet posts and the two MDC parties together, have 16. Eventually it was sorted out as per the political agreement.

David Coltart is the newly appointed education minister and has been handed one of the toughest jobs in the Cabinet. Coltart told VOA his first job is going to be getting teachers back into the classrooms.

“The biggest challenge is to persuade teachers to get back into the classroom, that they are going to be paid a viable, live-able wage, that come the end of February, they will get a pay packet in foreign exchange,” he said.

Coltart said the unity government can only succeed if it receives foreign funding. He said Zimbabwe had been destroyed and needed the kind of assistance Germany received after World War II. He said the only way to get teachers back to work was to pay them adequately in foreign currency, which Zimbabwe does not have.

“Well that is where we have to persuade the international community, the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, the United States, and the United Kingdom, that this agreement will be stillborn, unless they come in with some interim help,” he said.

Coltart said the main difficulty in raising donor funds was the central bank through which all foreign money has to pass. Coltart said securing foreign currency to pay teachers would therefore require a provision that it be paid in ways that exclude the central bank from the process.

“Assuming that we cannot get a competent person into the Reserve Bank, we will have to devise measures to ensure that western taxpayers money goes to what it was intended for; and that may entail, direct financing of the rehabilitation of the schools infrastructure and some mechanism whereby money can go direct to teachers and not go through this conduit of the reserve bank,” he said.

Roy Bennett, the MDC’s choice to become deputy agriculture minister, was reportedly seized at a Harare airport Friday, hours before the ministers in the unity government were to be sworn in. His arrest has dampened the spirits of many Zimbabweans looking forward to a period of rebuilding Zimbabwe.

Roy Bennett had been through immigration and had boarded a small aircraft with a flight plan to Nelspruit, an eastern South African town. As the aircraft was taxiing down the runway it was called back.

Meanwhile, legislators were gathering at state house for swearing in of the government of national unity after the ceremony was delayed for five hours.

The MDC said in a statement the delay was the result of in-fighting in ZANU-PF over which of the 22 top party officials gathered for the ceremony, would be formally appointed. ZANU-PF is allowed 15 Cabinet posts and the two MDC parties together, have 16. Eventually it was sorted out as per the political agreement.

David Coltart is the newly appointed education minister and has been handed one of the toughest jobs in the Cabinet. Coltart told VOA his first job is going to be getting teachers back into the classrooms.

“The biggest challenge is to persuade teachers to get back into the classroom, that they are going to be paid a viable, live-able wage, that come the end of February, they will get a pay packet in foreign exchange,” he said.

Coltart said the unity government can only succeed if it receives foreign funding. He said Zimbabwe had been destroyed and needed the kind of assistance Germany received after World War II. He said the only way to get teachers back to work was to pay them adequately in foreign currency, which Zimbabwe does not have.

“Well that is where we have to persuade the international community, the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, the United States, and the United Kingdom, that this agreement will be stillborn, unless they come in with some interim help,” he said.

Coltart said the main difficulty in raising donor funds was the central bank through which all foreign money has to pass. Coltart said securing foreign currency to pay teachers would therefore require a provision that it be paid in ways that exclude the central bank from the process.

“Assuming that we cannot get a competent person into the Reserve Bank, we will have to devise measures to ensure that western taxpayers money goes to what it was intended for; and that may entail, direct financing of the rehabilitation of the schools infrastructure and some mechanism whereby money can go direct to teachers and not go through this conduit of the reserve bank,” he said.

Zimbabwe Times
13 February 2009
By Our Correspondent

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s new unity government suffered a near still-birth when mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ministerial nominees openly refused to take part in the swearing-in ceremony at State House in Harare on Friday.

The MDC members protested after Zanu-PF had apparently attempted to trick the MDC by swearing into office five more state ministers without reaching an agreement with their partners in the coalition as agreed in terms of the Global Political Agreement.

As a result the ceremony was delayed for close to three hours much to the chagrin of the hundreds of guests who thronged the State House grounds to witness the historic ceremony.
The event was supposed to start at about 12 noon but only kicked off sometime after 4 pm after Zanu PF had agreed to remove from the list the five extra ministers and agreed that MDC appoint one Minister of State while it admit two.

In the hushed process the the three political leaders held a closed-door meeting in the State House dining room with Southern African Development Community (SADC) Chairman Kgalema Monthlathe and mediator Thabo Mbeki.

President Robert Mugabe’s Chief of Protocol, Samuel Kajese was heard while literally begging MDC MPs to join Zanu-PF MPs in the ceremonial rituals. The MDC MPs openly refused to barge until the three principals had reached a workable solution.

“If we have no agreement then we will not go there for the swearing in. We have counted one by one and why do you have many ministers than the ones agreed under GPA. Why can’t we first agree,” said MDC’s Tendai Biti who was later sworn in as the Minister of Finance.

“How many are your Ministers, we will count again if they are more than the agreed we will not go in there.”

But Kajese who was visibly at pains to just have things push through later responded saying, “Please, please lets get on with the business, there are state ministers to be sworn in today.”

Mugabe later on swore into office the Zanu PF, mainstream MDC and MDC-M ministers.
Notable appointments from Zanu-PF are Minister of Information, Webster Shamhu, of State Security, Sydney Sekeramayi and Kembo Mohadi who retained Home Affairs that he will now share with Giles Mutswekwa of the MDC. Emmerson Mnangangwa, long regarded as having presidential ambitions was moved up from Rural Housing to Defence.

The five ministers who lost out following the drama that was witnessed at State House are Former Speaker of Parliament and Zanu PF Chairman, John Nkomo, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa, Deputy Agriculture Minister Sylvester Nguni, Acting Minister of Information, Paul Mangwana and Minister of State, Flora Bhuka.

They had participated in rehearsals for the event, only to be left out at the last minute.
In an open expression of disappointment, Mangwana stood with his wife in the State House car park while the event was still taking place.

“I am not a (full) minister for now unless something changes,” said Mngwana when approached for a comment.

The eventful past 48 hours also saw the mainstream MDC axing two of its ministerial nominees Eddie Cross and Abednico Bhebhe who had earlier been announced as part of the party’s cabinet line-up.

The two were replaced by Human Rights activist and former Bulawayo Agenda Executive Director, Gordon Moyo and Binga MP, Joel Gabuza Gabuza.

Speculation was rife that the two could have been sacrificed to pacify the dissenting voices from Matebeleland region who had complained that the region had very few representatives in the new government.

The appointment of Shamu to the Ministry of Information put paid to widespread speculation that a previous encumbent, Prof Jonathan Moyo was, by his actions and utterances, gearing for re-appointment to the ministry that he controversially devastatingly managed until he was booted out in 2005.

Moyo is the Member of Parliament for Tsholotsho North and is partly credited with master-minding Mugabe’s controversial re-election in June 2008 in an electyion in which he was the only candidate.

The swearing-in ceremony revealed the extent to which Mugabe had gone to retain the Zanu PF old guard. He kept his trusted and hardworking lieutenant, Patrick Chinamasa, in the crucial ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

The Ministry of State for National Security in the President’s Office went to former Defence Minister, Sydney Sekeramayi while Herbert Murerwa, who was fired by Mugabe as Finance Minister two years ago, bounced back to take over the Lands and Rural Resettlement Ministry.
Samuel Mumbengegwi retained the Foreign Affairs Ministry while Joseph Made, who manages Mugabe’s multiple farms, was strategically redeployed in the Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development ministry.

Former Minister of Industry and International Trade, Obert Mpofu was redeployed at Mines and Mining Development while Ignatius Chombo retained his Local Government, Urban and Rural Development portfolio.

Shurugwi North legislator, Francis Nhema is the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Management while Nicholas Goche, one of the two Zanu-PF negotiators who brokered the power-sharing deal was rewarded with the Transport and Infrastructural Development ministry.
Saviour Kasukuwere, otherwise the youngest minister in the Zanu PF line up, is the Youth Development, Indigenization and Empowerment Minister, with the Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development ministry for Mutoko legislator, Olivia Muchena.

Despite her legendary failure to win any parliamentary seat in the opposition dominated Matebeleland region, Stembiso Nyoni was again allowed to retain her Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development ministry.

Stan Mudenge, one of the longest serving ministers in Mugabe’s cabinet, will retain his Higher and Tertiary Education Ministry while Masvingo South legislator, while Walter Muzembi takes over Tourism.

Didymus Mutasa, who retains the State Security Minister, completes the Zanu PF list of substantive ministers.

Zanu-PF Ministers of State are Paul Mangwana, Sylvester Nguni, Flora Bhuka, John Nkomo and David Parirenyatwa.

Professor Welshman Ncube, secretary general in the Arthur Mutambara led MDC is now Industry and Commerce Minister while his deputy and partner in the protracted unity talks, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga becomes Regional Integration and International Co-operation minister.
Khumalo Senator David Coltart, the only elected official in the Mutambara led MDC, is now the new Minister of Education, Sports and Culture.

Tendai Biti, who led the list of ministerial nominees in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC was sworn is as Finance Minister, while Engineer Elias Mudzuri was confirmed as Energy and Power Development minister.

Theresa Makone was sworn-in as Public Works minister while former Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe CEO, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo took over the Water Resources and Development ministry which had initially been allocated to Nkayi West legislator Abednico Bhebhe of the Mutambara party.

Kwekwe senator, Henry Madzorera was confirmed as Health and Child Welfare minister while Eliphas Mukonoweshuro becomes Public Service minister.

Other confirmed ministers in the mainstream MDC include Elton Mangoma (Economic Planning and Development), Professor Henry Dzinotyiwei (Science and Technology), Fidelis Mhashu (Housing and Social Amenities), Advocate Eric Matinenga (Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs), Nelson Chamisa (Information Communication Technology), Pauline Mpariwa (Labour and Social Welfare) and Joel Gabuza (State Enterprises and Parastatals).

New Zimbabwe.com
By Lebo Nkatazo
Posted to the web: 09/02/2009 02:47:13

REFORMS: David Coltart set to be named Education Minister by Arthur Mutambara this week

ARTHUR Mutambara has chosen Senator David Coltart (Khumalo) as the man to overhaul Zimbabwe’s education system, two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sources said on Sunday.

As Education Minister, Coltart, 52, will play a central role in reforming Zimbabwe’s declining education system, with the urgent task of getting teachers to abandon work boycotts and ensuring schools which are still closed open.

Coltart, a respected lawyer and former MP for Bulawayo South, joined Mutambara’s MDC faction following a split from founding MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai in 2005.

Mutambara’s MDC will nominate three ministers and one deputy minister to the 31-member Cabinet which will be sworn-in on Friday, two days after Morgan Tsvangirai and Mutambara are sworn-in as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively.

Coltart would be a high profile pick for Mutambara, who will also name Bulilima West MP Moses Mzila Ndlovu and the party’s secretary general Welshman Ncube to the cabinet.

Ncube could be handed the Industry and Commerce portfolio, with Mzila Ndlovu landing the Regional Integration and International Trade ministry, according to two officials who spoke to New Zimbabwe.com.

Tsvangirai will name 13 ministers and 6 deputy ministers before Friday’s swearing-in ceremony, and Mugabe is expected to name 15 ministers and 8 deputies in line with a power sharing agreement signed on September 15 last year.

Writing in South Africa’s Business Day newspaper, Dumisani Muleya, the news editor of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper said “the quality of ministers and the policies they will generate will determine whether the government will be able to pluck Zimbabwe out of the deep hole it is in.”

Mugabe, who will remain President, is set to include a number of his Zanu PF old guard officials in his list, raising doubts about the political will and operational capacity of the new cabinet to introduce much-needed political and economic reforms.

Zanu PF sources say Mugabe’s list of 15 ministers includes his close confidants and party strategists Emmerson Mnangagwa, Sydney Sekeramayi, Didymus Mutasa, Patrick Chinamasa, Nicholas Goche, Ignatius Chombo, Joseph Made, Olivia Muchena, John Nkomo, Kembo Mohadi, Obert Mpofu, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Paul Mangwana, Sithembiso Nyoni and Webster Shamu.

If confirmed, Coltart will take charge of an education system which charities and teachers’ unions warn needs radical transformation.

In a new report, the Save the Children charity says many teachers have little choice but to spend their time scraping together enough to survive rather than heading back to the classroom – two weeks after the new school term opened. Many are on strike, demanding their wages be paid in United States dollars.

At the end of 2008, only 20 percent of children were still attending school, down from 85 percent a year earlier, and that figure is likely to drop further, Save the Children warns.

The aid agency estimates that some 30,000 teachers dropped out of the education system by the end of 2008, a third of which are now living in South Africa.

Among the 70,000 left — many of whom have little training — morale is rock-bottom and desperate conditions are driving them to inflict corporal punishment and exploitation on their pupils, according to the charity.

“A generation is at risk of growing up without any education in Zimbabwe, and that will have catastrophic consequences for the country’s recovery,” said Rachel Pounds, the agency’s Zimbabwe director.

The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) plans to assess how many schools are functioning in the coming days.

“If schools don’t open, the fear is you’ll see a lot more people crossing the border (into South Africa),” said Shantha Bloemen, UNICEF’s spokesperson in Johannesburg.

The Standard
By Caiphas Chimhete and Kholwani Nyathi
Sunday 8th February 2009

LEADERS of the country’s three main political parties will this week be forced to do a major balancing act when they come up with their line-ups for cabinet appointments amid simmering divisions in all the camps.
According to a Southern African Development Community (Sadc) time-line that crossed the major hurdle with the passing of Constitution Amendment No.19, the formation of a new government should be completed by Friday.

President Robert Mugabe, MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara reportedly had a busy weekend consulting in their circles about the Cabinet appointments and the exercise had ruffled some feathers.

Analysts say Mugabe whose previous cabinet appointments had been guided by politics of tribal balancing and warding off factionalism had the most daunting task, as he will only be restricted to 15 ministers.

Already there were murmurs of disapproval of the 84-year-old President’s intentions for Matabeleland where the spectre of mass defections looms if the region is not adequately catered for following moves to revive Zapu.

“Mugabe has already made a blunder by failing to appoint a non-constituency Senator from Bulawayo,” said a Zanu PF politburo member.

“John Nkomo is from Bulawayo and Joseph Msika is from Chiweshe and we can not saying they will represent people from that side.

“PF Zapu people have also been left out of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic), which means that he doesn’t see them playing a serious role in the future government.”

Emmerson Mnangagwa, Patrick Chinamasa, Oppah Muchinguri and Nicholas Goche, represent Zanu PF in Jomic, which is monitoring the implementation of the September 15 power- sharing agreement.

Mugabe, observers said, also had to reward people who engineered his violent re-election against all odds, a task that might not go down well with some Zanu PF factions.

Tsvangirai was also reportedly involved in a fire-fighting mission and had tasked his deputy president Thokozani Khupe to try and persuade his secretary-general Tendai Biti to take up a cabinet post in the inclusive government.

Biti has reportedly opted to remain out of government because he is opposed to the MDC-T’s decision to join Mugabe.

But Tsvangirai desperately needs him to co-chair the Ministry of Home Affairs with a Zanu PF appointee.
“It’s true Biti is threatening not to take a cabinet post and a similar stance has been taken by Chamisa (Nelson),” said a source.

“The reason they are giving is that they want to ensure that the party remains strong.

“Tsvangirai has already assigned Khupe to try and persuade them to re-think.”

The MDC-T leader has already informed several parliamentarians in his party about his plans to include them in his team.

“He (Tsvangirai) knows that Biti is the only person who can stand the heat from Zanu PF. He is tough and knows the issues,” said one of the sources.

Efforts to get a comment from Khupe and Chamisa were fruitless.

Tsvangirai is also faced with a tough balancing act as he has to reward MPs and Senators from Matabeleland who stood by him when the party split in 2005.

An influential MDC-T MP from Bulawayo said Tsvangirai was playing his cards close to his chest and dismissed the reports of fresh divisions in the party.

But indications were that he would disappoint the feminists in his movement as he only had space for three women in his line-up.

Even Mutambara would have headaches coming up with a line-up with his party divided between MPs and Senators and senior officials who lost elections.

Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, Priscilla Misihairambwi and Moses Mzila were the only people assured of posts.

This leaves the MPs who went against the party’s decision to support Paul Themba Nyathi ‘s bid to become Speaker of Parliament out in the cold.

“Its payback time for the MPs and if they protest they face the real risk of losing their seats since the agreement seems to be now working,” said an MDC MP.