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Can the real Matemai please stand up?
By Mutumwa
Mawere
I HAVE read
with interest and concern the article entitled Mawere
wrong on Gono written by one Chanda Matemai in response to
my column article entitled: The RBZ
and the rule of law: implications on democracy.
Matemai, at least that's what he has chosen to call himself, raises a number of issues that I believe need to be responded to in order to locate the allegations that the state of the rule of law in Zimbabwe and the role of the Reserve Bank in undermining democracy in a proper analytical and conceptual framework.
Matemai makes a number of frivolous and scurrilous allegations that only serve to expose the naivety that informs his response and the reckless regard for other people’s rights that he seems eloquently able to justify. I deal with the issues that he has raised as follows:
He alleges that my article published on this website on Monday is "an ill informed opinion, bent on pouring condemnation after condemnation without regard to matters of fact. In short, it is inspired by hatred”.
Firstly, my article was not ill informed but laid out the facts as they have unfolded in Zimbabwe using Makamba as an example but not the only one that has been a victim of persecution by prosecution. The public is fully aware that subsequent to the Makamba ordeal, a number of businesspersons have been victimised using Presidential decrees in a country that professes to be democratic.
If Matemai has different facts from those represented in my article then he has every right to present his own version without attributing a motive to me. He alleges as fact that my articles are inspired by hatred without providing any facts to demonstrate the constitutionality and legal basis of the use of the state of emergency to handle so-called corruption cases.
Secondly, would Matemai not agree that the illegal use of the state machinery to settle personal scores is patently criminal and should be exposed? Thirdly, it is clear that there is an absence of honest discourse on gross human and property rights abuses in Zimbabwe that have largely focused on political issues with the exception of the land issue where the international community has responded to a limited extent because the rights of white commercial farmers were violated. However, no one cares about the rights of Makamba and his fellow colleagues who have had to seek sanctuary in Europe for crimes that their adversaries could not locate in the statute books.
He then states that: “It is very clear from his previous articles including the latest piece that he has a personal vendetta with the RBZ governor Dr Gideon Gono, Prof Jonathan Moyo, Zanu PF, Patrick Chinamasa, Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe in general.”
He states as fact that I have a personal vendetta against Gono, Moyo, Chinamasa, Mugabe and Zimbabwe in general without providing any facts to substantiate the allegation. I should like to believe that Matemai would have a problem where the state is used to undermine the rights of citizens. Equally any decent person would condemn any actions that promote the violation of the country’s constitution.
Matemai states as fact that: “Through his articles, he is now seeking allies and sympathy by trying to drag the whole lot of readers into his camp and in the process misinforming them.”
For the record, I do not need any allies and sympathy from anyone other than to use my knowledge to improve the literacy among those with the interest of Zimbabwe and Africa at heart. Surely, it is unacceptable to allow the abuse of state institutions while proclaiming to have zero tolerance on corruption. If Matemai belies that I am misinforming the public then he should intervene at a professional level by focusing on facts rather than speculation.
When such speculation is clearly aimed at absolving the criminal conduct of the RBZ and the general abuse of the state machinery then it is important that we expose the motives behind such interventions. In other words who is Matemai, and who is he representing? I have no problem being a representative of Makamba because I never thought in my wildest dreams that Zimbabwe would sink to a level where innocent persons are subject to kangaroo courts and gangster-like justice where the custodians of order are essentially the villains.
Matemai states as fact that: "Mawere's criticism of Project Sunrise speaks volumes about his mindset, in his view hoarding of Zimbabwean currency and smuggling it out of the country for illegal dealings is rational economic behaviour. I think some kind of abnormality might be developing in the thinking of this man. As a business mogul, he should be better positioned to understand the implications of such dealings.”
While it is acceptable for anyone to try to understand my mindset, it is irresponsible to argue that Zimbabwe has a functioning banking and financial system that would give confidence to any rational person to hold his assets in a bank while inflation continues to escalate with no visible program to control it. Why would people smuggle currency out of a functioning system? Why would Gono issue monetary statements if the monetary environment was functioning in an orderly manner? Are the smugglers the criminals or the people who have the monopoly to accuse others while using the state as a shelter? Are we to believe that Gono and company have confidence in the same banking system that they accuse others of not using?
As a businessman, I believe that I have the knowledge and experience to know what works and what does not. It is important that we interrogate the assumption that people who led the liberation project have sufficient skills to manage a post-colonial state. Zimbabwe has been acknowledged as a failed state by its own governors who are trying on a daily basis to manufacture enemies in the hope that their inadequacies could escape public scrutiny. I am aware that Matemai may be a proponent of Project Darkness that seeks to keep the Zimbabwean public in the dark while cynically promoting a directionless Project Sunrise.
Matemai then says: “Yes everyone knows he is a bitter man, he lost companies he claimed to be his, but those companies just went the way they came, easy come easy go. There was no sweat of his in the assumed acquisition, hence there should be no tear in the purported loss.”
| "Bad policies can never produce good economic behaviour and it is important that any serious policy maker examines the policy instruments in relation to the economic injury at hand" |
| MUTUMWA MAWERE |
While it is acceptable for anyone in my position to be angry, I find it strange that Matemai would claim that the companies that I acquired were not mine when even the government of Zimbabwe in countless court application is not suggesting that any other person owned the businesses. For him it is okay to use the state machinery to dispossess if there was no sweat of mine in what he calls “assumed acquisition”. How is assumed acquisition defined by Matemai is not clear from his analysis. He should have shed some light into how he thinks I acquired SMM and grew the group. He makes no attempt to support his allegation that my acquisition of T & N interests in Zimbabwe was an assumed one but jumps to the conclusion that there is justification in the government of Zimbabwe expropriating my assets.
In other words any person who is a beneficiary of a gift does not deserve to hold onto the gift in the world of Matemai. He should have explained who was the benefactor who would have willingly given up his right to an asset in Zimbabwe and allow a third party to use the state machinery for expropriation. It is important to state that my assets were also expropriated using state of emergency powers conferred on the President that can only be invoked under exceptional circumstances.
Matemai states as fact that: “If Dr Gono as RBZ governor discovers some shortcomings or loopholes being exploited in our legal system which enables the bypassing of safeguards in forex transactions or which are defeating the objectives of the regulations, definitely he should be hailed for that.”
It is important for Matemai to appreciate that bad policies can never produce good economic behaviour and it is important that any serious policy maker examines the policy instruments in relation to the economic injury at hand. Is it the case that there is a need to introduce the law of the jungle in the hope that unjust laws can induce citizens to behave irrationally just because they are afraid of dishonest policy makers who in their individual capacities are worse culprits that the people they seek to harass in the streets. Yes such behaviour may hoodwink people like Matemai but I should like to believe that most readers of New Zimbabwe.com are smarter than Matemai. I can understand why the businessmen in Zimbabwe have chosen to be silent while their rights are being undermined daily. When an Emperor is naked it is difficult for his subjects to tell him, rather they would ordinarily choose to cheer him like Matemai whose true identity must be obvious to any rational person.
Matemai then seeks to remind me on what the law means by stating that: “Mutumwa Mawere should know that the law is not like mathematics where two times two is a certain four. Definitions in law are so broad, e.g an assault is not only where physical force is applied resulting in harm or pain, in the way Mawere is narrowing his understanding. An assault can be committed by gesture, where there would be no physical force or visible harm. Simply because there was no term spelt "externalisation" in the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, it does not mean that it was not criminal, inappropriate and rendered the police irrelevant.”
I am not sure I know what these statements mean. However, I have not come across a definition of externalization that would apply to any other country except Zimbabwe. If we accept that the price of foreign exchange is the exchange rate and this should be governed by market forces rather than arbitrarily being determined through administrative actions. If Matemai has US$1 in his possession, at what rate should he exchange this for Z$. According to Gono and Matemai, it should be criminal for any Zimbabwean to exchange his hard earned US$ at a more favorable market rate that encourages exporters to generate more foreign currency and those in the diaspora realize more from their remittances.
Ultimately, Makamba and others were being accused of buying foreign exchange from the market when it is common cause that there are no alternatives that would encourage holders of foreign currency to commit financial suicide with their assets. My understanding that was confirmed by the courts in Zimbabwe was that Makamba was not even the beneficiary of the foreign currency trading that he was accused of but the company in which he had an interest and was only a director. Matemai would be aware that Interfresh executives were not treated the same way for the same alleged offences. The question is why Makamba was targeted when other companies are guilty of the same conduct and yet without access to foreign currency they would not be viable. Are the poor in Zimbabwe better off because of currency controls and the abuse of the law to target selected individuals?
One would have expected the economy to improve after the externalization of targeted Zimbabwean businesspersons. However, it appears that new enemies are being invented every day while pseudo heroes are being imagined by those who seek to permanently confuse the public mind into thinking that Zimbabwe’s problems are externally generated by a conspiracy of evil business people and imperialist forces. To what extent are some of the problems a result of bad policies and governance is a question that Matemai needs to address.
Matemai states as follows: “Mutumwa Mawere mixes James Makamba's case, Joy TV, Prof Jonathan Moyo, Dr Gideon Gono, Morgan Tsvangirai and elections. What a concoction! Even a Tsikamutanda would be blurred.”
It is important that we understand the Makamba case because he does represent something in the history of Zimbabwe. He was the first to be targeted for externalisation and then ended up with an acquittal after being deprived of his freedom unconstitutionally. In addition, the court was sympathetic to the Telecel case because of the generally acknowledged economic problems caused by a host of other factors including bad policies that have unfortunately cause companies and individuals to survive using other means rather than rely on a dysfunctional system. It is not in dispute that Moyo and Gono share one thing in common i.e. the propensity to use emergency powers to target selected individuals in the name of national interest. It is true that we have not seen any serious critique of Gono’s policies from the opposition forces and Makamba’s case appears not to have captured the imagination of these forces who seek to usher a new order founded on policies that threaten democracy and could permanently impair the country’s ability to restore its credibility.
Matemai exposes his ignorance
by stating that: “Mawere professes ignorance on police detention
of accused persons for investigations before appearing in court. There
is an initial 48 hour period which can be extended by another 48hrs
provided a warrant of further detention is applied for and obtained.
The 100 hrs of Makamba's detention Mawere talks of can still fall within
the legal limits, if one bothers to know how the calculations are done.
If 48hrs of detention expires after close of court business, eg if it
expires at 2200hrs, it is deemed to be expiring on the close of court
business on the following court date. The hours are not calculated mathematically
in the way Mutumwa Mawere is adding them. That is the practice in democratic
societies the world over.
Mawere should educate himself on matters he is ignorant of before putting
pen to paper, and make a fool of himself. Police don't just pounce on
suspects acting on tip offs, there should be substance on the tip, and
accused persons are only placed on remand after the State has convinced
the court that an offence was committed and the accused person is linked.”
The reason that 48 hours is normally granted to any accused is that the state should not have unfettered rights to deprive any citizen of his rights for more than two days without the court intervening. If one accepts that the three organs of the state i.e. the judiciary, parliament and the executive should provide checks and balances for any functioning democracy, then how is it possible that the executive can independently decide to incarcerate an individual without affording him the opportunity to be subjected to due process of the law. Why would the executive rush to arrest someone for the purpose of investigation? Many people who have equally victimized under the so-called Makamba law have ended being acquitted or the state failing to establish any case against them. If Matemai is attempting to justify the unjustifiable then there is nothing that can help his situation. It is important that we condemn unreservedly any abuse of human rights in the name of national interest.
Matemai then goes on to state as follows: “I question Mawere's sympathy for Makamba, is he Makamba's spokesman, can't Makamba write and complain on his own, if he has anything to complain about, is he daft or illiterate, or he thinks Makamba as an ex-DJ is only good at tuning musical graphics and bringing people to the dance floor, or Mawere is on a recruitment drive for allies?”
It is important to state that Makamba was a victim of a well orchestrated abuse of the state machinery and his experience provides a unique case study for all Zimbabweans on what to avoid if Zimbabwe is to be great nation. In writing my article I felt it was important to use the Makamba saga to highlight and expose the direct link between Gono’s appointment and the great human tragedy that has visited Zimbabwe. I believe that Makamba and his company have ably represented their interests resulting in the courts acquitting him and his company being penalized with a fine.
I am not Makamba’s legal representative but his compelling case that is similar to others should be understood in its proper context so that any meaningful solutions that may emerge from the rubble that is being created by a few who have arrogated to themselves the right to define patriotism and good corporate citizenship are informed by facts and not hype. Those who have known Makamba would agree that he is a serious businessman and the government of Zimbabwe would not have bothered to target him if he was useless. Whether Makamba was an ex-DJ is not relevant to the debate but we should focus on exposing the facts without any favour or prejudice.
I have attempted to respond to Mr. Matemai’s article in the hope that the debate can continue to include other Zimbabweans who have been equally affected by the actions of the RBZ. The President of Zimbabwe has now accepted that salvation will only come from the RBZ and hence the need to better understand the kind of mind that informs the actions of Gono and what, if any, are the real implications on democracy. It is important that while we accept the need for transparency that we also expect the same from the RBZ and other state actors.
Mawere is a New Zimbabwe.com
columnist. He can be contacted at mmawere@global.co.za
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