I’ve just been reading an article online about Mugabe saying that fresh elections will be held in Zimbabwe in two years time. It reminded me of a quote I saw in Time Magazine in January 09. On hearing the news that President Mugabe plans to hold new elections in 2011, Matidaishe Nzou, a Zimbabwean who has lost five relatives to cholera, said ‘We will all be dead by then‘.

After 12 days in detention, Deputy Minister of Agriculture designate Roy Bennett was granted bail on Tuesday. But he remains in custody as lawyers for the state are appealing his bail order. We just asked our SMS subscribers whether Bennett should put pressure on the state by refusing to be released while Jestina Mukoko and others languish in jail. We’ve had two replies so far, with two opposing points of view:

• roy shld if the wil pwr is there stay in fo others, this is a difficult decision but worth giving a try
• why do u want to use him as a bargaining chip?

Apparently Bennett previously refused to be released in exchange for blanket amnesty for human rights abuses since 2000. Principled position, or bargaining chip? If you were Bennett, could you resist the promise of freedom in solidarity with others in the struggle? info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw or +263 912 452201.

Like Leonard Matsa, I have my misgivings about this deal and its new government. One of the challenges will be how to measure the success or failure of a government where so much decision making may be based on mistrust and rivalry.

For example, last week Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai started asking for donor support to rebuild Zimbabwe. He estimates it may take USD 5 billion. On Monday, donors pledged USD 100 million / month for 6 months – largely to pay civil servants and to rebuild Zimbabwe’s sewage system.  On Tuesday, this story the same donor called this story as a fabrication.

So USD 600 million may or may not be pouring into Zimbabwe any time soon. But either way, this possibility alone raised several questions for me and my colleague when we were talking about accountability yesterday, such as:

1. What about the other USD 4.4 billion? Where will that come from?
2. If it doesn’t come, how do we judge the performance of ministries?
3. If a ministry is in part responsible for its own fundraising, will those whose Ministers are members of Zanu PF be penalised by some donors? If so, who is to blame if that Ministry performs poorly?
4. Into what accounts would that USD 600 million go? How would these accounts be monitored, and that spending tracked?
5. Will the new Finance Minister submit a new 2009 Budget to Parliament?
6. If a Minister fundraises for her own Ministry, is this money added to that Ministry’s budget allocation, or will the money budgeted to that Ministry instead be diverted to ministries that didn’t fund raise for themselves?

In Zimbabwe, we’ve become very used to a polarised analysis of “regime” and “opposition,” in which the two separate entities can be analysed and judged. Now that the two are working together, the task of monitoring government, and measuring its successes and failures in delivering on its promises to us is no less important – and even more challenging.

I will start by wishing the new ministers in the inclusive government success in every effort they take to stop Zimbabwe from hemorrhaging and rescue the economy from the continuous slide into the abyss.

I am already touched by the Minster of Education, Sports and Culture’s honest assertion that the government is broke and therefore cannot afford to pay civil servants, especially teachers, anything above USD100. He should be applauded for being honest. However I want to ask the entire cabinet where they are going to get the money to pay the 71 minsters and deputies and buy them cars, furnish and staff their offices? Why is it that the civil servants have to wait to be paid adequately but at the same time we have not heard that the minsters are not going to stop getting their perks for one month until government gets the necessary funds?

Can they lead by example and start by tightening their belts themselves by trimming all the unnecessary perks with effect from the end of this month? This can be done by avoiding buying mercs for all the ministers for example but perhaps this might be too late because already the MDC would want to miss the gravy train I wonder?

The MDC as a workers’ party should understand that our children have missed out on a whole year because teachers were on strike – all they are asking for is a decent living wage. I thought the MDC would look at the civil servants’ plight and give them a decent living wage because USD100 is not enough to pay for a passport, rent, electricity and school fees which is between USD100 – 250 in some of these cheap government schools. So if a teacher who is a graduate cannot even earn a salary that is enough to send just one child to school what does that say for all of us? We do not want to see a repeat of the same behaviour and uncaring attitude from the government as was the norm with ZANU PF.

But already this government is so bloated that the taxpayer including civil servants are going to carry this heavy burden while their plight is shelved for later.

I’ve just had an exchange with one of my colleagues about being petty. She reckons I’m being petty about wanting to blog this issue . . .

A couple of weeks ago we sent out a Kubatana email newsletter asking people to write to Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara to remind them that illegally detained pro-democracy activists needed help, and that they needed to be released, forthwith. We used the email addresses that we receive communications from for the two men. A Zimbabwean who wrote to Mutambara got this reply: don’t write to me pliz.

Again I come back to Leonard Mutsa’s recent blog in which he asks, where and when do our politicians welcome and encourage the views and input of ordinary Zimbabweans? Is it too much to ask that a political party have mechanisms through which members of the general public can ask them questions and get some answers?

Either way you slice it, this new government has a big job ahead. On the one hand, there are thousands of civil servants, all of whom need to be earning a living (forex) wage. On the other hand, there’s an overstuffed 61-strong cabinet, and the various salaries, offices, allowances, vehicles and other perks that these ministers will expect – and, I fear, be given.

As a discussant on an email list I’m on put it recently, “Maybe the striking teachers are justified in declining the US$100 per month and demanding more, because with a cabinet this big, where on earth does the govt get the money to support all these shameless parasites?”

The government may try and tighten its belt and scrimp on salaries for the “treacherous teachers.” But somehow I suspect the Mercedes Ministers are going to get by okay.