Hard Winter in Harare Africa Confidential
Law & Politics
As senior allies of President Robert Gabriel Mugabe concede through
gritted teeth that there can be no national elections this year, they
have moved the battleground to economic policy. Their main target is
outspoken Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who is also Secretary General
of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). President Mugabe, his
allies say, clashed repeatedly with Biti at recent cabinet meetings
over the payment of higher salaries to the country’s 200,000 civil
servants.
The state payroll includes some 75,000 names which auditors Ernst and
Young found were either entirely fictitious or of people ‘not properly
qualified’. Biti’s sarcastic speeches in Parliament targeted his
opponents’ view that ‘money must be eaten’ whatever the national
consequences and referred to ‘Dotito’, a remote corner of Mashonaland
West which has become a byword for Mugabe’s patronage.Mugabe insists
that the civil service pay awards go ahead but Biti forecasts that
that will mean an unfunded deficit of some US$500 million this year on
top of the government’s planned $2.7 billion budget. For once, Mugabe
and his allies believe they have a nationally popular cause, as well
as an economically convenient one.
Biti has long insisted that all diamond revenue be lodged with the
Treasury by the Zimbabwe Mining and Development Corporation (ZMDC),
which has on paper been handling sales from Marange and other diamond
fields. Marange alone has the potential to produce about $1 bn. Until
these monies are lodged with the Treasury, Biti said he could not
consider approving the civil service pay rise.
Civil servants were then surprised to receive the promised increase in
their June pay packets. What had happened is that contrary to all
usual procedures, the ZMDC had transferred $40 mn. directly to the
Government Salaries Account, whence the pro-ZANU bureaucrats paid the
increases directly. This highly irregular operation completely
bypassed the Treasury. It shows that the higher reaches of the civil
service will still act to placate the President and damn the
consequences for an MDC minister.
In a shouting match in cabinet, Mugabe warned ‘this young man’ that he
had gone too far and ‘would be dealt with decisively’.
Greedy when others are fearful. Very fearful when others are greedy - to paraphrase Warren Buffett