“Chinamasa’s Job on the Line” blared the title page of the Financial Gazette, the weekly financial newspaper, on sale yesterday. Now the newspaper billboards in this country are as about as misleading as anywhere but the FinGaz or Pink Paper (the cover is printed on pink newsprint) is a little less sensationalistic than the rest of the competition and it does like to take itself a bit more seriously. So I bought a copy at the traffic lights (I made sure other vehicles could get past) and well, I needed some paper to start the braai (barbeque).
Patrick Chinamasa is the current Minister of Finance who has the unenviable job of finding enough money to keep the government running when it is obviously broke. Apparently President Mugabe had told him if he wasn’t up to the job he’d find someone else to do it.
Chinamasa’s background is not in finance. I’m not sure what history is but he certainly had an easier run in his former portfolio as the Justice Minister. Mind you, it’s easy to run a ministry like that when you control the police so you effectively ARE the law. Paradoxically the previous finance Minister was Tendai Biti who actually is a lawyer and did a good job with extremely limited resources.
The FinGaz also notes that Chinamasa came back empty-handed from a recent world tour to source finance for the beleaguered government. No real surprise this as apparently potential investors are concerned about the 51% law which requires all Zimbabwe companies to have a majority indigenous shareholder. Despite being born here I am not indigenous – all locally born blacks are considered indigenous as is anyone born after independence in 1980. Well, Comrade Chinamasa likely has an insurmountable problem ahead of him. The laws of economics (which is just a branch of mathematics) are inviolate unlike his previous ministry where the law was wide open to manipulation and interpretation. And even our good friends the Chinese don’t want to help out.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 
A storm approaching
31 03 2025“Nah, it’s a ZANU-PF problem, they must sort it out themselves” Fabian responded when I asked him if he was going to join today’s protest march in the centre of Harare. Fabian was a non-combatant porter in Robert Mugbe’s ZANLA army as a young man in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia’s bush war which ended in 1980. He has little time for the ZANU-PF political party that Mugabe founded.
The current Zimbabwean president, Emerson Mnangagwa, is looking to extend his presidency to a third term of five years. Zimbabwe’s constitution forbids this and protests have been planned for today which will be spearheaded by Blessed Geza who was a ZANLA veteran. Not surprisingly this has led to accusations of treason from Mnangagwa even though demonstrations are allowed under the constitution. While a lot of Zimbabweans are thoroughly fed-up with an inept and kleptocratic government the cynics are saying that it’s just a changing of the guard – a different herd of snouts to the trough.
Last week saw amoured cars and troop carriers on the streets in an attempt to intimidate would-be protestors. There were road blocks manned by police stopping traffic going into town though yesterday evening, when I came back from the airfield, the one on the main road in had packed up.
The organizers of the protest were clear in their instructions to the general public; stay out of the city centre though this may have been disinformation by the government. Schools are shut today and most businesses are closed or working with reduced staff. There was very little traffic about when we went out to walk the dogs on ART farm. My business is working on essential staff only as we really didn’t know what to expect.
There were videos on social media this morning of protestors starting to march into town. They must have been aware that the last time this happened it all turned nasty when the army opened fire killing six. This is not like Turkey at the moment where thousands of students are gathering every evening to protest the collapse of the country’s democracy. They only have to put up with tear gas.
On the way back home I stopped at a local hardware store to get a jerrycan for my paramotor fuel. “Have a nice day” the cheerful teller girl said as I was leaving. “Yes”, I replied, “and tomorrow we’ll have a new government” giving her a large wink. She giggled, “So, what are you doing here then?” was her response.
It did rain last night. In some areas the storms were violent but here it was just 14mm of rain. Enough to make us thankful for the 4×4 capability of my truck on the very sticky ART farm roads.
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