According to Julius Malema being poor means not being able to own means of production. He made these comments in an interview on SABC after a public outcry over the ANC Youth League President’s 16 million rand house he is building in Sandton, South Africa. Among Malema’s properties in South Africa includes a mansion in Limpopo province and he drives C63 Mercedes-Benz AMG. Not so bad for a poor man! Malema claims he has acquired these assets using his monthly salary from the ANC. And he is a representative of the poor people?

According to the Oxford dictionary poor means “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society” … so one wonders whether Julius’s society consider him to be poor with this kind of a lavish lifestyle. If Malema’s definition of poor is true then, for South Africans, what it means is that Mzansi has poor rich people living in mansions.

We all love it when technology makes our lives exciting, that is perhaps why mobile phones have been changing in shapes and sizes with stunning speed ever since these wonder gadgets were introduced to us back in the day. You can easily recall the “bricks” we used when Strive was granted his licence after “Father Zimbabwe” intervened. It’s kinda laughable now if you think of it. It wasn’t long of course before funky handsets became the vogue and them who had the bricks became very self-conscious about answering their phones in public as they feared ridicule from those who felt they were keeping up with cell phone technology.

One can list all kinds of phones that had their very fleeting 15 minutes of fame, the razors, the flip phones, and one can even recall some folks who seemed to think they were up the ladder of funky because of the ringing tone of their mobile! The “camera phone” became for some a “must have” as folks became fascinated with the whole idea of snapping away on your phone and sharing the pictures with the world. Then came this whole thing about 3G-enabled phones and some considered it the zenith of cool and are “Facebooking” in public as testimony to others that they are Zuckerberg-types therefore the definition of savvy.

I have heard from people who rushed to purchase what they back then considered expensive phones now claiming they do not need those phones after all: a phone that can receive calls and send messages will do just fine and you wonder what changed. Maybe they just got broke and can’t afford the smart phones of 2011. Yet there is a trend that has emerged rather with lightning speed that is pushing the boundaries of social and cell phone etiquette. And this is not the kind that speaks at the top of their voices in kombis about some phony multi-million dollar deal they are negotiating. But of course many users have obviously welcomed the advancement of mobile technology that has enabled these to be multi-media devices where you can record and also store music, movies, pictures etc. and they are using these utilises to the fullest.

However, it is the music part that pisses me off. These gadgets have given wannabe entrepreneurs immense business selling “memory cards” and this has become some kind of godsend for “music lovers.” Without consideration to other people’s space, this music is being blasted from mobile phones in all kinds of places you can imagine. I have seen and heard some of these people play music from their cell phones while in a kombi ride full of passengers. That these things come with earphones is of no consequence to these people. Looks like the logic is: the louder the better. Imagine sitting in a long kombi ride next to someone playing their favourite sounds, and I saw the other day a young woman actually singing along in kombi full of passengers! Boy was I pissed off. But what can you do? Tell the clown to turn that thing off? You can imagine the response. I remember when there was this excitement about “people’s radio,” you know, those walkie talkie-like wireless radios some chaps carried around with them everywhere, beer halls and even soccer matches where they would listen to the commentary of the match they were watching! It was just irritating, but those radios somehow disappeared from our faces and now we have these cell phones. OMG!

I imagine I am not the only one terribly irritated by this. We all love mobile technology but do we have to shove it in other people’s faces? You just have to recall those situations where people “refuse” to switch off their mobiles during a funeral or church service. It just is the definition of uncool. Around 2001 just the time the cell phone craze was gripping the nation, I recall a friend telling me his girlfriend actually asked him to call her during class so everyone could drool when they saw her phone as she answered it! You see she was doing some course whose classes were after hours so it presented an irresistible opportunity to show other working types just what she was made of. Yes my friend, there are people like that there. But puuuuuleeeeez, turn off the music!

Tabani Moyo makes some important points in this article on media freedom, or rather the lack of it in Zimbabwe. His final comments are particularly pertinent when he says that Zimbabweans are simply “asking for their right to speak and freely express themselves thus fulfilling the founding aspirations of the liberation struggle which the current government is collectively failing to uphold.”

On 27 May 2011 the improperly constituted Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) called for applications for two free- to- air national commercial radio broadcasting services. A national free- to- air national commercial licence refers to a profit making broadcasting entity that transmits an un-encoded signal throughout Zimbabwe.

Notwithstanding the fact that the legality of the board which called for these licenses is heavily disputed, one also needs to examine the wide reaching nature and effect of this call for licenses.

Due to the non-transparent manner in the management of the broadcasting signal administered in this country, chances are high that the smokescreen call for the licenses will become an extension of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)’s monopoly.

For example the Zimpapers stable applied for a license in line with the permanent secretary George Charamba’s advice at the organisation’s strategic retreat held in Nyanga early this year. If Zimpapers is granted the licence, it will fit well into the propaganda manufacturing mills of Zanu PF ahead of the elections which will augur well with the government’s intention to maintain state monopoly of the airwaves.

Given that scenario the BAZ’s impartiality and sincerity will be put to severe test considering that Radio Voice of the People (VOP) which was bombed by ‘unknown persons’ on 29 August 2002, is also among the applicants for the two commercial radio licenses. As for the other applicants, it can be anybody’s guess as to who their sponsors are.

The euphoria and excitement that accompanied the call for the applications in question might at this stage be premature.

be wary

On 6 July 2011, the infamous duo of Tafataona Mahoso and Obert Muganyura who are the BAZ chairperson and chief executive officer respectively, painted a misleading picture on the state of incapacity to regulate the prospective new players in the broadcasting sector.

The duo was quizzed on why BAZ had opted for only two licenses in the category of commercial broadcasting contrary to its submissions to parliament in 2009 that the regulator was going to give priority to community radio stations. Muganyura claimed that the regulator had conducted a survey in 38 centres in Zimbabwe and that those surveyed had said BAZ should prioritise commercial radio stations ahead of community radio broadcasters.

One can only wonder as to whether the survey was ever conducted notwithstanding the methodology that was used during the so-called survey which was conducted in a veil of secrecy.  What criterion was used in determining the 38 centers surveyed and how reflective are they in terms of the nation’s preferences?

In the same meeting Muganyura confirmed that the country has capacity to license 56 community radio stations as per his position and plan submitted to the same Committee in 2009. Why then is Muganyura and his comrades in the Ministry of Information, permanent secretary George Charamba and Minister Webster Shamu reluctant to give the people of Zimbabwe their space to access and disseminate diverse views through their own community radio stations.

the ruse of broadcasting and state security

The paranoid Zanu PF personnel stationed at the Ministry of Information and those at the Zanu PF headquarters have been peddling misleading statements for too long that broadcasting is a state security concern hence the need to keep it tightly controlled as a monopoly. This is a misplaced notion because the people of Zimbabwe know better that broadcasting is a developmental agent which, if freed will positively contribute to our knowledge index and nation building.

Jonathan Moyo, George Charamba, Webster Shamu, Tafataona Mahoso and Obert Muganyura among others of like thinking, should sober up and realize that Zimbabwe is not their private entity but it belongs to its inhabitants. To this reality, they need to wake up and smell the coffee on what’s happening elsewhere – private broadcasters and community radio stations continue to mushroom and proliferate throughout the region and Africa as a whole save for Zimbabwe and Eritrea.

In 2008, for example, the DRC had 41 radio stations and 51 TV stations in Kinshasa alone out of a total of 381 radio stations and between 81 and 93 TV channels throughout the country. In 2006/7 Benin had 73 radio stations while Uganda has more than 120 and Mali 200. South Africa has an aggregate of more than 1000 TV and radio stations combined.

the monitoring incapacity myth

Muganyura argued that the regulator did not call for applications for more licenses because it does not have the capacity to monitor and control the new players in the country.

Everyone knows that this office has become an office of excuses on why it has been failing to issue licenses for new players since 2001. However it never occurred to me that it could one day fall this low and shallow in its deceptive tendencies.

If BAZ does not have capacity to monitor and control new players one will be quick to ask how the government managed to intercept and shut down Capitol Radio on 5 October 2000? How did the government intercept Radio VOP signals leading to the arrest of the radio station’s six trustees in 2006? It equally sobers one’s mind how the same government is intercepting and jamming external radio stations such as Voice of America’s Studio 7, SW Radio Africa and Radio VOP from broadcasting in Zimbabwe. That argument is pedestal.

Zimbabweans are not a gullible lot. All they are asking for is their right to speak and freely express themselves thus fulfilling the founding aspirations of the liberation struggle which the current government is collectively failing to uphold.

Tabani Moyo

Tabani Moyo can be contacted at rebeljournalist [at] yahoo [dot] com

A recent headline in The Herald caught my eye: 15,000 teaching posts vacant.

It brought to mind a recent post I’d seen on Twitter – despite the high levels of unemployment there, an IT company was struggling to fill 20 vacancies.

In Zimbabwe, unemployment is estimated at 90%, with the majority of Zimbabweans surviving in the informal sector, and with tremendous pressure on wage earners to support large extended family networks.

Meanwhile, many of the country’s brightest and proactive young people have left the country to pursue economic opportunities in South Africa, the UK and elsewhere. The brain drain included many of Zimbabwe’s qualified teachers, who left the careers they had planned and studied for to find better paying jobs outside of the country. Despite government initiatives to lure these qualified teachers back to the country, the teaching vacancies persist.

In a country with such massive unemployment, how can 15,000 posts go vacant?

As The Herald article points out: “Most teachers have been driven away by low remuneration and frustrating bureaucracy.”

Drawing on The Herald piece, a story from VOA Studio 7 quotes Education Minister David Coltart as saying that “the lack of respect for teachers in Zimbabwe, poor housing especially at rural schools and political intimidation of teachers have all contributed to high vacancies.”

Zimbabwe used to have one of the best education systems in Africa. Other posts on this blog have talked about the esteem in which teachers were held in their communities. But now Zimbabwe is in a bind. Without a robust economic engine of production, how does the country generate the revenue base to enable government to increase teachers’ salaries (and those of other civil servants)? In the meantime, what does it say for us as a country, if conditions for those in the teaching profession are so bad that our young people would rather leave the country – or start their own businesses – than contribute to educating the future of Zimbabwe.

Here are some questions raised in Parliament recently:

HON. MUDIWA asks the Co-Ministers of Home Affairs if they are aware that the people in Mutsago, Mukwada and Chiadzwa are walking distances of 20km to get to and from their homes when travelling to and from Mutare because the police are denying public transport entrance into these areas.

HON. S.S. KHUMALO asks the Minister of Energy and Power Development to state: i) the Ministry’s position regarding ZESA’s actions in forcing un-metered clients to pay bills in full yet there would be receiving no electricity due to load shedding; and ii) the Ministry’s position on the high electricity tariff rates which are unaffordable to many Zimbabweans considering their meagre incomes.

HON.SARUWAKA asks the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development to explain to the House when the rockfall that covered the Jombe Road, in the second week of January 2011, is going to be cleared as the boulders still lie on more than one lane of the road which makes driving on the road a real hazard for cars , especially lorries and buses that ply this steep and winding route in the Mutasa Central Constituency and whether the Ministry was waiting for an accident to happen before responding to the numerous pleas that have been lodged with Provincial Offices in Mutare.

Excerpts from SOUTHERN AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY SUPPORT TRUST (SAPST)

Reading through The Zimbabwean as part of my daily morning dosage, the story of the Buy Zimbabwe Campaign by Ngoni Chanakira caught my eye. A ‘”Chief Executive’s Walk” across Harare to Africa Unity Square’ … the campaign is meant to encourage Zimbabweans to buy local goods as opposed to the cheap imports that currently flood the market. A noble idea, right? But this is utter hogwash.

The stupidity manifests from two angles. First, is it really feasible at this point to ask a Zimbabwean to stop buying imports, and second, who is doing the campaign?

If there are executives in the campaign I hope there is no one coming from the retail industry because all of what they are selling is mostly, if not all, imported goods. I am not even sure if there is any sector that has recovered enough to supply the market with at least half their demands. I wonder which Zimbabwean goods they would encourage us to by?

If Zimbabwean goods can be found their cost is far higher than the average worker’s pocket can afford. Media has been running awash with debates of pay increases for civil servants, which is now more of a political issue than life and death. Assuming that Gibbs Dube report has some elements of truth, it emerges that civil servants have had their salaries increased by about $90 or lets say $100 dollars to be polite. Now they earn within the region of $300. Given the high costs of rentals, utilities and food, how much will be left for the worker to buy expensive imported products. Yes as a worker, I want to promote my country, but where are the goods? The few products on the market are just too expensive to afford. We buy Chinese products, Japanese second hand cars and the like. But everyone knows that the Chinese products on the market are not as durable as we want. We just buy them as a matter of convenience or to at least keep ourselves going. We are desperately waiting for that day when our businesses are back to full swing. Unfortunately the day is taking forever to come.

It would be absurd for one to waste time and effort to search for a Japanese car on the Internet if a new car was reasonably affordable at Willowvale. The losses that local companies are making are not because people are not buying their products as such but mainly because they are not manufacturing enough, or that the spirit of over pricing products is still haunting them. It is true that the cost of production could still be too high for now, but it would not be possible to buy a shoe that costs half my salary simply because it has been manufactured in Zimbabwe. Yet Mr Jiang has a weak Beijing brand of the same shoe costing $5. I better buy 13 pairs of his shoes. Perhaps they might even last longer.

When executives march to encourage people to buy local goods, it’s not bad if they too sell local goods at a price that we can afford, or at least with the payment conditions that are flexible enough for the poor worker.

That brings me to the second point. Today these executives are blaming the end consumer for being unpatriotic. Are they not the same executives who tasted prisons for what we called unethical business practices which fueled inflation? I even remember Econet selling its 0913 sim card for a $100, which was unjustified profiteering. They now sell this product for $2. Are they not the same business people who trebled their prices whenever the worker got an increment? What it points to is the fact that we do not trust the business people any more or at least we were made not to. They do not happen to have the very same patriotism, which they want customers to have when it comes to buying their goods, do they? History shows otherwise. Responding to their call is like a group of sheep that responds positively to a jackal’s call for a meeting.

I encourage Mr. Muyaradzi Hwengwere to go ahead and organise a meeting of executives on the 3rd of August. It is allowed for executives to walk together, share ideas, and even bask in the Africa Unity Square sun, enjoying the green lawn and that flamboyant fountain if it is still works. However making noise about that event, claiming to be having a purpose of making us buy their local goods is just a fallacy. Discouraging the buying of foreign goods is not bad for an economy with some threads to function on its own. Our dear country heavily relies on imported products both directly or indirectly. Stuff as basic as food, soap etc are all imports. Of late there have been talks to ban second hand car imports from Japan. Do we ever bother to know how much ZIMRA is making out of that process? The popular toll gates are all harvesting from the cheap cars around here, and the poor transport system is being supplemented, illegally though, by those cars.

The Buy Zimbabwe Campaign is a brilliant idea at the wrong time by the wrong people.