The plot sickens!

So what are we to make of this latest coup plot?

If the reported coup is to be believed, right now, Emmerson Mnangagwa should have been president of this glorious nation and Robert Mugabe and the missus would be on forced vacation somewhere on an island in Bali, perhaps windsurfing, maybe frolicking on the white beach, or even clubbing, celebrating being at last rid of the thankful burden of leading 12million gormless morons.

Six men have appeared in a Zim court. It's supposed to be a coup, so it's all cloak-and-dagger, and the gang has appeared in court "in-camera" - which means the court is cleared of all riff-raff and the top cops and all the top spies are the only lot allowed in. No journos and no on-lookers.

Albert Matapo (40), a former army captain, Shingirai Mutemachani (20), a private, Nyasha Zivuku, Oncemore Mudzurahowa (41), Emmanuel Marara (40), and Patson Mapfure (46) are the coup plotters, we are told.

"We have documentation which was discovered at the venue of the meeting," says prosecutor Lawrence Phiri, "it clearly shows how these men were to carry out the coup. They had code-named the plot Operation 1940 (huh?). Other documents also show how they would recruit military personnel who would then be used in this coup."

So who is this Matapo guy who wants our dear leader out? He runs a tour company called Gestawalt, according to one report. In 2004, he was subject of some sniffing by the UK Home Office after someone ratted out a racket he is alleged to have run with his wife, Grace (oh, the coincidence), helping Zanu PF members to claim political asylum.

So how would some two-dollar wiseguy running a small-time alleged immigration racket suddenly become the mastermind of a grand, elaborate plot to oust one of the world's most formidable rulers? And what kind of coup plotters meet in a seedy office, smack in the middle of the CBD, plotting our President's downfall? (ok, ok, Brutus did meet up with his co-conspirators smack in the middle of Rome by night, but look how that turned out).

Of course we can dismiss all this off hand. Remember back in '95, when a hired gun, on Ndabaningi Sithole's payroll we were told, is said to have hidden up a tree with a faulty AK47, ready to spray Mugabe's motorcade with lead? And the lot in Mutare two years ago, who planned to spice up Mugabe's February 21 speech with a hail of bullets, thwarted only by our alert secret service at the last minute?

So, is this an elaborate ploy by one camp of Zanu PF to smear cow poo over the other? How will Emmerson react to all this "stupidity", as he called it?

But then, what if this isn't one of those infantile plots? What if this lot was dead serious, but just hopelessly incompetent, or much scarier, just stark raving mad? Does this mean that, driven by bitterness and poverty, any bunch of clueless morons, could be Dynamos or Hghlanders fans, for all anybody knows, can gather in a room, discuss a few wacky plots, and wake up the next morning transformed into fearsome plotters of top level espionage, with their very arrest having to be kept under wraps lest the streets be overrun by panicking poor Zimbos stocking up on supplies pending the bloody overthrow of this hugely popular government by a former army captain and visa scammer running a strugggling tour company called Gestawalt?

Crouching bureaucrat, hidden elephant

Inflation’s emerging phenomenon

WHAT do you do when you’re living in some tiny mud-and-pole hut, and you’re trying to hide a bull elephant?
Maybe the Zimbabwe government has the answer. They tried it recently, but their elephant – April’s shock inflation data – still came charging out, a bunch of government securocrats and state media spin types frantically trying to pull it back by the tail.
Journalists from no less than two private newspapers and at least two international news agencies working in Harare contacted the Central Statistical Office (CSO), hoping to get the April inflation figures.
By then, the data had already been delayed by a week. All the journalists – plus a good number of private economists we have asked – were, as late as 1700hrs that Wednesday, fed the line: “Maybe tomorrow”.
So the rumour that inflation had indeed breached 3000 percent, and that it was in fact peeking at 4000 percent, remained just that, a rumour. Until the next day.
On the Thursday, many looked past The Herald’s front page screamer: “President Mugabe approves Incomes Act”.
But, there were some readers who gritted their teeth and waded through the story – plodding through 23 paragraphs and four full broadsheet columns – only to stumble upon this absolute gobsmacker: “The much awaited (incomes) body comes as it emerged (author’s emphasis) yesterday that the consumer price index rose 100.7 percent in April, meaning prices more than doubled last month, and this followed a 50.5 percent increase in March.”
Then to paragraph number 25.
“The corresponding annual inflation rate at the end of April,” we are casually told, “rose to 3713.9 percent.”
By all accounts, this is the first time in our country’s glorious history that inflation data is said to have “emerged”. Until last week, inflation figures were said to have been “released”, sometimes “showed”, or even “reported”, by the CSO.
So, disappointed that the CSO had given us their “maybe tomorrow” only to see the figures “emerge” the next day – under a pile of, it must be said, uninspiring news of a law against inflation, we went about this week trying to find out why the rules have changed such that inflation numbers should only now “emerge”, and not be “released”.
First, we contacted Sylvester Nguni, Economic Development Minister. His ministry recently took over the CSO from Finance. He swore he had been told by CSO that the figures had been released to “the press” much earlier than the Wednesday.
But then there were other officials in the same ministry who swear they had seen the CSO printout as early as the previous Thursday – May 11. But, apparently, somebody has instructed that all CSO data should no longer come directly from CSO, but through Information and Publicity.
So, these government conspiracy theorists swear, it was agreed that the gory data be kept in a bottle until the President signed the Incomes and Pricing Commission Act – a law setting up a pricing police.
So in the end, it is claimed, it was not from the CSO that the inflation numbers “emerged”, it was out of a labyrinth of red tape – each deskbound bureaucrat taking their turn to slap a pudgy stamp over the numbers – until they truly did “emerge” at The Herald.
Implausible theory? Perhaps, but hands up if you ever seen inflation figures “emerging”, even in Borat’s sick vision of Kazakhstan, or Gerbunguly Berdimuhammedow’s Turkmenistan, where presidents are elected on 98 percent vote majorities.
Must we now prepare to see inflation figures going the way of other bits of economic statistics that government has, over the years, quietly stopped supplying the market? Hands up if you know Zimbabwe’s real jobless rate, or if you’ve never had to work out the real budget deficit on your own, or if you’ve ever seen the current account.
There is a scary trend “emerging” here. Last month, March data was canned for two weeks until central bank boss Gideon Gono let it out in Bulawayo. This time, April inflation only “emerged” as background to a story on a new law.
What’s next? An official declaration banning the release of a number that government, quite clearly, no longer wants anybody to see?
What is it our ancestors said about “that which has horns” not being possible to wrap? And at 3714 percent, these are not horns. They are ten-foot tusks.