Here are some excerpts from Arthur Mutambara’s, deputy prime minister in Zimbabwe’s inclusive government, maiden Parliamentary speech.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Government that I am part of, this inclusive institution, is a creature of abnormal circumstances. We are a product of the SADC dialogue process. But why did we have to negotiate? Honorable Members, lest we forget, we were forced to talk to each other in this manner because we had some problems with our elections, to put it politely. If we are to be candid and brazen about it, we have to accept that we had fraudulent elections on March 29th 2008. What is worse is that the run-off Presidential election on June 27th 2008 was a complete farce, a nullity.

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Mr Speaker, Sir, we must paraphrase Kennedy and say “Ask not what other nations can do to salvage Zimbabwe, but rather what we can do as citizens to drive our country.” The primary financing of STERP, our recovery plan must come from us through improving exports, increasing capacity utilization, economic growth, revenue generation, increased trade and then collection of taxes and tariffs. Domestic investment, including Diaspora efforts, should lead and drive foreign direct investment. Yes we need humanitarian assistance, budget support, and balance of payment support; but these external inputs should only come in to buttress our own efforts.

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Mr Speaker, Sir, this brings me to the thorny issue of sanctions.  It is my considered view there are two types of sanctions. There are sanctions we impose on ourselves and those imposed on us by others. For the past 10 years Zimbabweans have been imposing sanctions on themselves through corruption, poor governance, incompetence, mismanagement, fraudulent elections, political violence, and the breakdown of the rule of law. Before we even begin to ask others to remove whatever measures they have imposed on us, we must remove these sanctions we have imposed on ourselves.

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As I am speaking right now, there are fresh farm invasions, abductions, illegal arrests, disregard of court orders, wanton violation of the rule of law, violence among our supporters, the language of hate and division, and general disregard of the rule of law. To add insult to injury, there are unresolved outstanding issues in the implementation of the GPA. The matters involving provincial governors, permanent secretaries, ambassadors, and the appointments of the RBZ governor and the attorney general have not been resolved nearly two months after SADC communiqué of the 27th of January 2009, which consummated the GPA. This is disgraceful. All these nefarious activities mean that the current inclusive government is actually imposing new sanctions on the people of Zimbabwe.

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I am the Deputy Prime of the State of Zimbabwe. My government is guilty as charged. We are behaving as an irresponsible and rogue regime. We must address these matters urgently. We have an obligation to build credibility of, and confidence in this inclusive government. If we do not, we will then not have any moral authority to ask any nation to remove any measures imposed on us.

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We are saying to the international community we understand why you imposed sanctions on us, and why you have not removed them. We understand your skepticism. However, we are also saying we are clear on the challenges we are facing and the transgressions that we are committing. We are determined to solve these matters. As they say a problem realized is half solved. We believe these challenges are not insurmountable, they are teething problems. We are determined to overcome them. We are working day and night. As we do this, please help us help ourselves. Here is our message to the US, the British, and the Europeans; you must remove all sanctions, any type of measures, call it what you may, that you have imposed on our country. You cannot adopt a wait and see attitude. You cannot give us conditions, such as signs of progress, inclusiveness and entrenchment of democracy and the rule of law. While these are also our targets, to achieve them we need financial resources and assistance. It is not possible for us to achieve these milestones while sanctions are in place.

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We need to rethink our understanding of leadership, institutions, governance and their respective roles. We need to embrace transformational and servant leadership styles. Leadership is about making others leaders. It is about creating leaders, and not followers. Leaders should seek to serve, and not to be served. The ultimate test of leadership is whether you can effectively make yourself irrelevant, by empowering others.

We have all breathed a collective sigh of relief over the past few weeks as Jestina Mukoko, Roy Bennett, and dozens of other pro-democracy workers have been released from custody after weeks or months inside.

But as this SW Radio story reminded me, several activists remain inside and must not be forgotten. Due to stand trial only at the end of June, seven MDC activists are facing terrorism charges, and are still in custody – as they have been since December last year.

This citizen report has just come in via email from a Zimbabwean living in the Lowveld. He shares information about intimidation and harassment on farms in the south of our country.

After being away for some time Digby and Jess Nesbitt returned home to find that their house had been looted by Deputy Police Commissioner Veterai. They spent the day trying to put the house back in order and removed Veterai’s possessions. That evening Veterai returned and he got his hired thugs to beat up the Nesbitts remaining staff with knobkierries shouting that Veterai was the owner of the house now and that everybody had to leave.

Veterai always  confronts Digby or Jess whilst carrying an AK assault rife and a pistol on his hip, this no doubt to intimidate them. They have reported these criminal acts to the police in Chiredzi, but it is unlikely that they will act against the Deputy Police Commissioner of Zimbabwe.

Rejoice Ngwenya writing for AfricanLiberty.org says aid will cripple Zimbabwe and suggests some alternatives.

First, we should disabuse ourselves of the cap-in-hand mentality. The poisoned chalice is the bloated GNU predisposition towards recurrent expenditure, which really is the second point – reducing the size of Government.

Thirdly, we can restore the viability of the banking sector by getting them to re-capitalise via offshore, not ODA financing.

Fourthly, Zimbabwe is sitting on a wealth of public property that can be liquidated to raise working capital for infrastructure reconstruction.

Fifth, almost thirty years of plunder and state-assisted pillaging have stashed billions of foreign currency in tax havens and discrete foreign accounts. If that money can be repatriated, it will be sufficient to sustain us until our entire productive capacity has been restored.

MPs and mercs make me sick.

I read with interest that Eric Matinenga, the new minister of constitutional and parliamentary affairs, tried to get MDC MPs to take a united stand and turn down the fancy Mercedes Benz that Mugabe was giving every newly appointed minister. Eric didn’t get much success. Well unless you count David Coltart who said no thanks. The others said yes to their new status symbol, including Eric .

We need an audit.

We need an audit of this kind of thoughtless expenditure whilst Zimbabweans are starving and whilst our politicians ask for a bail out.

We need an audit of the perks and pleasures being handed out to this unwanted bloated new government.

We need an audit of the “ghosts” on the civil service payroll; we need to weed them out before asking foreign governments to pay our wage bills.

We need an audit of the number of farms under Mugabe’s land reform program that are actually being worked rather than laying idle before we ask foreign governments to give us money; money without conditions.

Reuters reports that “The government is seeking $5 billion. Winning that, however, depends on Western donors being satisfied that a democratic government is in place and that economic reforms are being implemented to reverse a decade-long collapse which Mugabe’s critics blame on his policies.”

Quite clearly there isn’t a democratic government in place. There is a political arrangement in place. And until those in power take reform in all its forms seriously, they shouldn’t get a cent.

I received an email today from CHIPAWO with the title Hooray for Zimbabwe! So, in the pursuit of sharing something positive, here’s a story to feel uplifted by.

Some time back, CHIPAWO acquired a very nice Renault minibus – from someone who said he was doing us a favour! The only problem – which I am sure he was well aware of – was that it is an extremely rare kind of Renault. Even Renault in South Africa did not even know it existed! I had to track it down on the internet and discovered that it mostly served as an ambulance in Germany and the UK!

I did once find a place in London that specialises in Renaults and they provided me with a coil. But then we needed a distributor and nothing could be found. So it has been standing around for a long time in a new coat of yellow paint – one of CHIPAWO’s colours – looking rather regal and distinguished.  It managed to crawl once to Mutare for the Africa University Arts Festival last year but got no further than Marondera on the return and had to be towed. When we had to leave the CHIPAWO office, it came here and joined the queue in my driveway of CHIPAWO non-runners.

I SOS’ed someone in London, rather aplogetically mumbling something about I know this is not exactly his cup of tea and so forth and and asked him if he could scout around. This was his reply:

“I’m afraid the news is not good for your van.  According to a Renault spare parts specialist that van is “extremely rare” and one would struggle to find the part in question.  I will continue to look but I just thought I would let you know that the prognosis is not good.”

Gloom and doom? Oh, no! Despite years of multiple meltdowns, collapses, disintegration, bloodbaths, genocide, mass starvation and lethal epidemics all reported on or prophesied for Zimbabwe, we still stand. How? Listen to this!

A little man down the road in Mountbatten Drive, Marlborough, Harare, not far from Greencroft of glorious memory, called Va Makonya, has left all the boffins in South Africa and the UK with egg on their faces. Va Mokonya decided to tackle the problem that had stumped the world. He looked for a distributor which looked like it might fit. He fiddled and filed and welded and willed it to work. And after countless little adjustments and tinkerings, yesterday afternoon, under his patient hands, the dragon roared into life, full of French esprit, elan, eclat, eclair and all that.

By the way I am eating a superior Zimbabwean jam doughnut right now as I write – don’t tell me anything about Dunkin’ Donuts’!

And so three cheers for the little man. Three cheers for the Fifth World – we must have gone down a few divisions by now. And three cheers for Zimbabwe!