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Zimbabwe Weekly Update 48/2011
Zimbabwe
Europe Network
December 02, 2011
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Reconstruction:
This week, Finance
Minister Tendai Biti (MDC-T) presented the 2012 Budget
in Parliament
- setting next year's spending allowance at US$4 billion.
The Finance Minister believes the Zimbabwean economy will grow more
than 9% in the coming year. Biti highlighted that most industries
remained distressed with high unemployment levels pervading. More
resources would be allocated to rural electrification, water and
sanitation services. Commenting on foreign travel costs of government
officials "this continues to be a cancer in the management
of our public resources. Between January [and] September, 2011,
an unacceptable sum of US$45.5 million, representing 1,2 percent
of the total budget had been spent on travelling."
David Coltart
(MDC-T), Education Minister, said this week that 2011 was the best
teaching year in a long time despite remaining challenges like inaccessibility:
"The Education Transition Fund (ETF) went a long way in ensuring
that primary and secondary schools got enough textbooks for all
children." But Minister Coltart also acknowledged: "Sadly,
we are a long way away from attaining the Millennium Development
Goals, especially regarding primary school education. Education
remains very inaccessible to an unacceptably high number of children.
Dropout rates are unacceptably high as parents and guardians cannot
afford the fees.
Cases of typhoid
in the capital reportedly continue to grow. The Harare City Council
announced this week an estimated 500 suspected cases. Precious Shumba
from the Harare
Residents' Trust (HRT) commented that the rate at which
the disease is spreading is "alarming and frightening,"
explaining how areas in Harare had no clean water for weeks.
Natural
Resources:
Eddie Cross
(MDC-T), a senior economic advisor to the Prime Minister has commented
this week on his proposition to nationalise all diamond deposits.
Mr. Cross said that ministries - including the treasury - were kept
in the dark about diamond revenues: "The solution to all of
this is a proposal made to Cabinet last year that the whole of the
Marange deposits should be nationalised formally and brought under
government control. Everyone who is currently on site extracting
diamonds formally and informally must be removed, the area fenced
and guarded by the armed forces." Mines Minister Obert Mpofu
(ZANU-PF) commented on this move: "I will not allow him to
destroy the mining sector with such strange ideas." The Director
of the Centre
for Research and Development, Farai Maguwu, is quoted "[
] even though I agree that the licences should be revoked, I don't
think nationalisation is the way to go. Nationalisation means government
will take full control of mining in Marange and we know that the
cemetery of companies which have been owned or taken over by the
Zimbabwe government is always growing. Maguwu believes Zimbabwe
should copy the public-private partnership model of Botswana between
De Beers and the Botswana government: "There is transparency,
there is accountability, there are tangible benefits to the Botswana
nationals coming from this partnership."
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