Supa Mandiwanzira - Deputy Information Minister, Zimbabwe HARDtalk

weeks ago. Now it is time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. Zimbabwe's fortunes have for three decades been

tied to one man, President Robert Mugabe. Now once again, Zimbabwe is

staring economic catastrophe in the face less than a week after the

ruling party won another term in power. Potential investors are being

scared away by seizures of land and foreign`owned assets. Late yesterday

is Supa Mandiwanzira, the deputy information minister. `` my guest

today. How does he stand being part of the government accused of

cronyism and impoverishing the many? Supa Mandiwanzira, welcome to

HARDtalk. Robert Mugabe is 90. Shouldn't Zimbabwe be run by a

younger President? Thank you for inviting me to HARDtalk. That is a

question that you must put to the people of Zimbabwe. That question

was put to the people of Zimbabwe on the 31st of July 2013 and they

overwhelmingly voted for President Robert Mugabe. The next in line with

the opposition leader with just under 34%. The people chose Robert

Mugabe despite his age. They believe in him, they believe in his wisdom,

they believe in his leadership qualities. That is why he is our

president today. Did you read the elections? The elections were

declared free and the will of the Zimbabwe people buy all of those who

observed the elections. These include the African union, the ACP

and messages of congratulations from the UN Secretary General. All of

them recognise that the elections were free and a reflection of what

the voters wanted. In any election... Can I just say, it was

not such a clean bill of health. There was generally a peaceful

manner in the way the elections were conducted. But it was said that they

were some weaknesses that call into doubt the credibility of the

elections. The US were also very unhappy. The Treasury officials put

your man in charge overseeing the elections on a sanctions list. It

was not a clean bill of health that he seemed to indicate. It explains

why the EU has sanctions on Zimbabwe and the United States have sanctions

on Zimbabwe. They have existed for many years. The EU and United States

have been opposed to the leadership of President Robert Mugabe and Zaru

PF. The biggest room in the world is there room for improvement. But in

terms of the guidelines, our elections were free and a reflection

of the will of the people. There could have been incidents in which

things did not go according to plan, but that happens with any election.

I am in South Africa and I have heard similar noises from the

opposition. Any election in the world is not perfect, including

elections in the UK and United States. It is more than that. That's

me give you the words of the Ambassador Hu was in Zimbabwe under

Bill Clinton. `` the Ambassador Hu. He says it is tragic and indeed sad

that Robert Mugabe Bridge at the last election so Robert Mugabe could

win. That is a considered judgement from somebody who keeps in touch

with Zimbabwe. He loves the country. That is what he told us. That is

somebody who keeps in touch with Zimbabwe by phone, by newspaper

articles, by watching international television. The people on the ground

monitoring the elections, observing the elections, gave these elections

take clean bill of health. The Zimbabwe elections brought into

power a government that has an overwhelming majority, more than two

thirds majority in the house of assembly, almost 62% for the

President. That is not ready to. Let me just finished. Those that say

these elections were rigged can do so, but they must produce the

evidence. It gave the example of South Africa and said the elections

are not perfect. The Independent electoral commission has said that

the elections were fine, were as your support network said there was

a systematic effort to disenfranchise an estimated 1

million voters. The Southern African development Corporation has also

expressed concerns. Be that as it may, I ask you whether President

Mugabe is too old. Are you suggesting that he has the energy

required to run a country and bring it through this difficult economic

time? Let me point out that the electoral support network is an NGO

funded by governments in Europe and the United States. It cannot be the

authority of Zimbabwe elections. It is something that we have always

highlighted. We have institutions built to undermine the credibility

of the Zimbabwe government of resident Robert Mugabe. Does the

vigour and energy to run the government? He has. That is why he

was voted in. He has a cabinet and deputy ministers. We have a vibrant

parliament and vibrant judiciary system. I am part of a new

generation of young leaders joining party and joining government in

order to carry on the legacy of people like President Mugabe who

brought us Independence and democracy and human rights. The

Economist citing a former official inside Zimbabwe said everything

centres on Mugabe and that is where the problem lies. Cabinet does not

meet and ministers take advantage of this. We know that Mugabe goes off

to Singapore at regular intervals for health checkups. When he is not

there, that is what goes on. When President Mugabe is out of the

country, the vice president is the acting president and is always the

acting president. Government functions and runs very well in the

absence of President Mugabe. There is no issue of him going for medical

checkups. He is 90 years old. He is operating at full capacity. His

intellect is unbelievable. His energy is unbelievable. His wisdom

is God`given. Let us look at the economy. There are real concerns

about a new economic catastrophe in Zimbabwe. You have got 62% of the 30

million population living in poverty. `` 13 million. The world

food programme says it is as high as 60% unemployed or underemployed. You

have got life expectancy dropped in the years that Mugabe has been

president dropped to 58. What are you doing about this? It is not true

that the life expectancy has dropped. It has been going up. At

one point it was 34 years, now it is 58. It is going up. It was 61 in

1985. Carry on. And it went down and it is now coming back up. We must

recognise that. What are we doing about the economy? We are doing a

lot of things. Within 90 days of the government being sworn in, the

government came up with an economic programme which we are calling the

Zimbabwe agenda for sustainable economic transformation. It is aimed

at utilising the country's resources to grow the economy and improve the

livelihoods of our people. This programme is already working. It is

not. Your new reserve bank governor says the bank has no tools to

influence the economy. You have got no money in state coffers. We have

no money in state coffers, that is a fact. But let me go back to my

point. You say that it is not working. One of the clusters is food

security and nutrition. As part of the programme, government made

available $188 million in fertilisers and seed which it gave

to farmers. They have produced more food is as than was produced last

year. Conservative estimates say we will produce 1.1 million tons of

maize. More estimates are saying that we could reduce between 1.6`

1.8 million tons. `` produce. You just said that there is no money in

state coffers. Why did Robert Mugabe promised to double the salaries of

200 civil servants? Is that the rate promise he should have made in the

circumstances? It is important that we address the expectations of our

people and the civil service. That is not the expectations of the

people. That is not the expectations of the people. 200,000 civil

servants are people. They are Zimbabweans. If we want a functional

government that is efficient, we must pay people working in

government well. If we do not pay them well, the government system

will not operate well. It is a basic rule. You must pay those you expect

to deliver public services well. We are not preparing our civil service.

They have been getting a minimum wage. You need $500 for an average

household in Zimbabwe to survive. The President has said we should use

our natural resources to create value to pay our people. We are

producing significant amount of diamonds, the largest producer of

diamonds in terms of quantity. Those diamonds, the value must go to pay

our civil servants. The point is this that is being made. As the IMF

has said looking at Zimbabwe, you have got to use more of your money

on non` personal spending. You have got 350 members of Parliament. You

have got more than 60 ministers, either cabinet ministers or deputies

like you. Your car bill is $20 million. The MPs are waiting for

their cars. You're losing a large bit of your depleted resources on

servicing this political and official leak. `` elite. We have

responsibilities as a government and the country. Those tasked with

ensuring that we will turn around the economy and passed with ensuring

that our country comes out of its difficulties must be rewarded to be

able to do that work. It is a simple principle. If you want to get the

best out of your people, pay them. Can I put towards you what the civil

society coalition says? He says that these variably turn out to be bad,

bad economic policies and are beneficial to the political elite.

He is from the crisis coalition. It is one of those NGOs that are funded

by agents of regime change, countries that are working with NGOs

like the crisis coalition and the media to ensure that there is a

regime change. We do not take them seriously. Look at the figures.

Let's take a look at your land appropriations. Or,000 white farmers

have been put in the hands `` 40,000, have been put in the hands

of 4000 farmers. `` Farms. That is absolutely not true. It is not

appropriations. It was done by the colonizers of Zimbabwe and we have

addressed the situation with the land reform programme in which we

have resettled 300,000 families. The land that was taken over was used by

or,000 white commercial farmers. The land was skewed and it was difficult

to maintain the situation. We are glad. . Is not the criticism. It is

not the policy but the way it was implemented as the leader of the War

Federation said, he said that everyone should get equal pieces of

land and that it becomes a logical for a single individual to own large

amounts of land and that is what we are seeing. Your former justice

minister acquired land from a white farmer, Richard Yates, who now lives

in Australia, and that is one example of a minister acquiring a

large bit of land. He was the country's Finance Minister and had

been on this programme. He explained why he had that land on this

programme. I do get is wrong to assume that if you are a

politician, you should not benefit from government programmes that are

done transparently. The reason you go about this is because it is

public information. That is the point I was making. You just said

there are 60 government ministers. How many people are benefiting from

these programmes? 90,000 families impaired to the few government

workers. Now it is more about the transfer of land from one elite to

another and that they are getting the lion's share. You need to go to

the tobacco auction floors and see the level of interaction going on

there. It will dismiss all of the things you are talking about. It is

not my criticism. It is from fellow Zimbabweans. He is a political

player. He has a legitimate point of view. He has a vested interest as a

political player. You are shooting the messenger and not addressing the

message. A key Zanu PF policy is to ensure that 51% of public policies

and other businesses should be owned in Zimbabwe. At a time when you need

to attract foreign investment into your country, you are scaring off

investors with this programme. I cannot let you get away with the

message you say that I am shooting the messenger instead of addressing

the message. So much information that is out there about Zimbabwe is

put there by people who have an agenda against our country. You

based most of your reporting and this interview on the people who can

never give you an objective position. Are you saying... I have

told you what others have said. That many are now critical of party

leaders who on several farms each and two are starting `` who are

starting to appropriate land from black landowners. It is true that

some ministers are taking advantage of but we have a plan in place so

that those people will not become dispossessed. Many from

international areas are applying for land it now and we are going to make

sure that they will get the land that has been repossessed from those

who have acquired it by corrupt means. In digitisation is of major

concern to many investors `` in `` indigenisation. We have allowed our

detractors to explain what it is and as a result of the message has been

misinterpreted. What we are saying in terms of indigenisation is that

Zimbabwean resources must benefit international investors as well as

local people. It is unsustainable to have a situation where foreign

capital is coming into the country and are reaping the benefits because

they brought in the resources and capital. Partnerships need to be for

sustainability and that is what indigenisation is about. It is not

about dispossessing. We have no intentions of dispossessing any

investor and our president has made this argument on many occasions.

Most recently at the commemoration of investing busier. `` based year.

Zimbabwe is described as a beggar that can no longer call the shots,

so is it not time to ditch that policy if it is staring off

investors? It has not been explained. Thank you for this

opportunity to explain it. We are seeing this policy working as

investors are coming into Zimbabwe and working with locals. If anyone

wants to come and invest in Zimbabwe by bringing in capital and raw

material and creating employment, we have no say in that. You are not

doing well in getting that message across. The Finance Minister has not

been getting the money that he had hoped. You are seen as a risk. You

have high debt and a poor credit rating. He has said that he doesn't

know what to do and has even been briefing the security forces. You

are in a state. You mentioned China. Between 2011 and 2013 we were the

number one country in Africa to attract Chinese investors. We became

number one. We are attracting investment and people are listening

to our message. It is a process. You cannot get these results overnight.

There have been 14 years of misinformation and you cannot deal

with that overnight or in one interview. You have to continuously

engage potential partners and that is what he is doing and what I am

doing on your show. Very quickly. You cannot implement any of the

policies you want to help the poor if you do not have any money.

Indeed, we can't. This is why we are saying that Zimbabwe is open for

business, come in best in our country and we are beginning to see

results. `` come in thank you very much for coming on to the show from

Johannesburg, Supa Mandiwanzira. Plenty of showers today across the

eastern side of the British Isles. Temperatures got up to 19