Letters From Zimbabwe: Cathy Buckle

Letters ^ | April 17, 2010 | Cathy Buckle

[greyfoxx39]

Dig your own grave

Saturday 17th April 2010

Dear Family and Friends,
Three months before Zimbabwe's 30th anniversary of Independence I happened to get lost in the vast urban sprawl that characterises the outskirts of the capital city, Harare. A huge shanty town lay on both sides of the road and stretched as far as the eye could see. Shacks and shelters made of tin and plastic were surrounded by mounds of rotting garbage which had even been scraped into contours in an attempt to demarcate little vegetable plots. Stinking streams of sewage ran right outside people's shacks and children ran barefoot through the waste and the filth. Hand painted signs were everywhere, on pieces of battered, rusty tin and written in charcoal on strips of warped cardboard: 'Floor polish,' 'Cement,' 'Tyres,' 'Abattoir.' One sign said: 'Hot Recharge' and a line of people with cellphones in their hands stood waiting for their turn to plug onto a car battery and get a precious top up of electrical power into their telephones. A near naked man with no legs was dragging himself by his hands along the road and I looked away but his image has stayed with me. How can this be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence, I keep asking myself.

Two months before Zimbabwe's 30th anniversary of Independence I went to the local electricity supply office to hand in an up to date reading of my electricity meter. I needed to bring accuracy to the wild guesstimates they kept making on my monthly bills and the even wilder amounts they were charging. The man at the desk was eating a sausage and when I told him I had a reading I would like entered into the computer record, he looked wildly around at the piles of papers covering every inch of his desk. Eventually he chose one pile and placed the sausage on top of the papers. He looked at his greasy fingers for a moment, picked up a piece of paper from another pile on his desk, wiped his fingers on the paper and entered my figures into his computer. Can this really be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence?

Last month I went with a friend who needed to have fingerprints taken at a government office. One by one each finger is squashed into the black ink pad and the digit then rolled onto the paper record. 'Wait for your form,' the government official announces and you stare at the filth on your hands and look around - no taps, no water, no cloth, nowhere to remove the ink all over your hands. When you ask if there is a public toilet you can use, the official mutters angrily that they are locked, they don't work anymore. People wipe their inky hands in their hair or in the sand. Can this be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence?

Last week a friend got a quote for a new garden tap but decided against installing it because they get stolen so regularly. Stolen to be melted down and made into coffin handles. Talking about coffins, I attended a funeral a few days ago and was reminded that you have to dig your own graves now as municipal workers don't, or won't do it anymore.

Can this really be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence? Can this really be a free and independent country when unarmed women are arrested and held in Police custody for handing out yellow cards in protest over electricity prices. Happy birthday Zimbabwe.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy

[greyfoxx39]

Indigenisation deadline deferred indefinitely

Saturday, 17 April 2010 19:25

CABINET on Tuesday postponed indefinitely an April 15 deadline for foreign companies to submit plans to cede 51% of their shareholding to locals pending consultations on 10 key principles that will see an overhaul of the controversial empowerment regulations. Sources revealed last week that despite political posturing by President Robert Mugabe and Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere, cabinet was unanimous that the regulations that seek to operationalise the 2007 Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act cannot be passed in the form proposed by Zanu PF.

“The cabinet position is that the deadline of 45 days from March 1 for companies to provide their indigenisation plans has been set aside pending finalisation of consultations around 10 principles that are central to the empowerment exercise,” said Gorden Moyo, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Standard understands some of the principles that are being reviewed include the hotly contested requirement that companies must cede 51% of their shareholding to locals.

The new proposals would see companies selling shares at market value and the prescribed asset value of US$500 000 would include both liabilities and assets.

Companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and new investors may also be exempted from the regulations.

Instead of being forced to comply with the law within five years, companies may be given up to 15 years, the new proposals have shown.

Government will also no longer impose a blanket threshold on the number of shares to be ceded as each sector would be allowed to come up with its own proposals.

An indigenisation compliance board will also be set up to assess and approve localisation plans by companies to allay fears that the empowerment process would be abused by the responsible minister to benefit cronies.

Sectoral boards for each sector such as mining, industry and retail would be set to deal with issues at micro level.

Firms that have also invested heavily on community development projects may also be excluded from the process.

“We have all accepted that there should be indigenisation but it must be broad based,” Moyo said. “The only objections were that the regulations should not be implemented in the formula they were proposed.”

In public, Mugabe and Kasukuwere have maintained that there is no going back on the regulations.

However, the law has scared investors and dampened interest in the ZSE.

BY KHOLWANI NYATHI

indigenization

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

 

[edit] English

[edit] Noun

Singular indigenization

Plural countable and uncountable; plural indigenizations

indigenization (countable and uncountable; plural indigenizations)

1. Transformation to suit a local culture.
2. The capability to manufacture a product, or supply a service independently within a country instead of relying on foreign manufactures or suppliers.

[edit] See also

• globalization

Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/indigenization"

 

Link

[greyfoxx39]

Zimbabwe Ping.

If you would like to be included in the Zimbabwe-Cathy Buckle ping list, please FReepmail me.

Cathy Buckle bashers welcome. Every post bumps the thread.

[Dinah Lord]

Please add me to your Cathy Buckle list.

Thank you -

[businessprofessor]

Zimbabwe is the logical end game for uncontrolled envy, class warfare, and socialism. The most frightening part of Zimbabwe is the inability to stop the madness. The failure has been evident for decades, yet the madness continues. The leader’s corruptness does not explain the madness. The rat end game could lead us to this type of madness. Reparations, amnesty with open southern borders, unchecked growth of government, unchecked environmental regulations, trial lawyer legal lotteries, confiscatory taxation, and labor cartel control lead in one direction: usurpation of private property rights.

[greyfoxx39]

Zimbabwe is the logical end game for uncontrolled envy, class warfare, and socialism. The most frightening part of Zimbabwe is the inability to stop the madness. The failure has been evident for decades, yet the madness continues. The leader’s corruptness does not explain the madness. The rat end game could lead us to this type of madness. Reparations, amnesty with open southern borders, unchecked growth of government, unchecked environmental regulations, trial lawyer legal lotteries, confiscatory taxation, and labor cartel control lead in one direction: usurpation of private property rights.

The reason I post these threads.

[greyfoxx39]

You have been added to the ping list.

[HighlyOpinionated]

I would love to hear Pastor James David Manning of ATLAH talk about Zimbabwe’s 30th birthday.

THIS is what Obama wants for the USofA.

Think about it and then get political. Run for local office, school board, County council, whatever. Don’t allow the few inroads that decent conservatives have made erode again into ZerObamabwe in the USofA.

If We The People do not stay as active in politics as our Fore Fathers, then we are handing this Nation over to the Marxists and Muzlems.

[Oatka]

How can this be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence, I keep asking myself.

Madam, did you ever think it might be because they threw out most of the whites?

[greyfoxx39]

Think about it and then get political.

I am in the process of getting petition signatures to run for precinct committeeman...it's a start. AZ district 6 if anyone wants to help.

[Enten]

Please add me to the Cathy Buckle list...thanks

[greyfoxx39]

You have been added to the ping list.

[Ditter]

PLease DON”T put me on the ping list. I usually don’t read Cathy Buckle because it is so depressing. I read it this time and I am sorry I did.

[greyfoxx39]

I wasn't thinking of putting you on the ping list. It is depressing, I know, and if you follow the article link there are five years of letters listed there describing Zimbabwe's descent into hell.

Pretty scary, given the events happening here and now.

[Oceander]

The sad part is, the Zimbabwean folks are, generally speaking, decent regular folk, who have simply been turned into animals to be sacrificed on the altar of socialism, and their entrails used to feed the high priesthood that surrounds Mugabe.

Other than timing, and spelling, there is precious little difference between Mugabe and Obama.

[dynachrome]

I don’t know why Cathy Buckle hasn’t been murdered yet. mugabe has no problem murdering other opponents.

[greyfoxx39]

I don’t know why Cathy Buckle hasn’t been murdered yet. mugabe has no problem murdering other opponents.

Information on Cathy is very hard to find on the net..perhaps she is well hidden from mugabe.

[Lancey Howard]

Can this really be Zimbabwe 30 years after Independence?

Yes it is, Cathy.
Congratulations to you and your lawyer-activist husband and father. You got rid of those evil white colonialists, but good.

[greyfoxx39]

Thanks for the thread bump.

[Ditter]

I know you were not thinking of putting me on the ping list. I was just voicing my disgust for Zim by appearing to put my head in the sand. Of course it is not possible to forget once you read these letters. I met Rhodesians years ago when they left this hell hole and moved to Texas. I don’t know what has happened to them I hope they have found peace in a new home.

[greyfoxx39]

I’ve been reading the letters for a couple of years...it’s kind of an outline for the present administration...have you seen any photos of Obama bowing to Mugabe yet? See my tagline.