Zimbabwe: Government Panics Over Failure to Pay Military And Police
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SW Radio Africa (London)
24 July 2008
Posted to the web 24 July 2008
Tererai Karimakwenda
The government is reported to have run out of paper to print money and is believed to be panicking over how to pay salaries for civil servants, especially soldiers and police who are the backbone of the Mugabe dictatorship.
Giesecke & Devrient, the European company that was providing the paper, was last month pressured to cut supplies by the German government, after protests were threatened. In addition, a company that provides the software licences for the design and printing of the banknotes, is reported to be considering withdrawing their contract.
The military has helped run the country for some years now and the Mugabe regime needs to sustain military and police operations in order to maintain political control. There is much consensus among observers that Mugabe's recent decision to sign the Memorandum of Agreement with the two MDC formations was clearly based on increased economic pressure. One English pound this week is trading at Z$1.3 trillion.
The software for the notes, which is supplied by a Hungarian-Austrian company called Jura JSP, is reportedly very technical. The UK Guardian newspaper quoted a 'knowledgeable source' at the Zimbabwe government's Fidelity Printers, who said the software issue was a major problem and had created an air of panic. "They are in a panic because without the software they can't print anything," the source added.
Helmoed-Romer Heitman, the South Africa correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly (a global military security publication) said the situation faced by the regime is quite typical of many African countries that are falling apart. He said the result tends to be at least violent demonstrations, if not a mutiny by the military.
"Given the current situation in Zimbabwe, I am inclined to think that a lot of the military, certainly middle ranking officers and some seniors, are not all that enamoured of the party that is running the show", said Heitman.
He said that for a long time now their income has not been keeping pace with the cost of living. They are also watching soldiers being misused politically, and a failure to pay them would seriously undermine the ability of the government to use the military to keep itself in place.
Relevant Links
With experts estimating that the inflation rate is currently at 15 million per cent, and pressure on those doing business with the Mugabe regime increasing, the economy has proved to be the straw that finally broke the camel's back.
Read comments. Write your own.
let me guess he will offer them a car or land! haha the slush fund has run out of paper to print worthless money.
and once you cant pay the police or the military... who does he have to defend him from the will of the people that wants him removed from power and want him taken to the hague?
About time. But I'm sure Mugabe will blame it on racist colonialists and American imperialists. And people will fall for this tiresome, worn-out cliché.
he has his regular band of little helpers on here to propagate the myth that the brits and yanks are wating in ships just off cape town ready to invade..quite why they are waiting this long and for what only he and his little chums on here know...I think it has someting to do with the brits and yanks being scared to death of the zimbabwe national army or something like that...LOL
Mugabe, the God-send saviour!!
Congratulations to Maverick Mugabe. You have turned Zimbabwe into a 2,200 per cent socialist state where no money notes are needed anymore. What a hero! Should you not ask for your statute to be erected in front of the Parliament?
this is intersting, what a country boss mugabe is rulling without money to pay his brutal puppets. how are they gona bit and kill people without being paid. YYYYYYYYYyaaaa upsidedown. THATS THE END. KEEP PRAYING CHILDREN OF ZIMBABWE.THINGS ARE ALREADY TOUGH FOR MUGABE, BUT SOONER WILL BE A TESTIMONY FOR YOU.
Whilst funneling those stashes out of the country, Mugabe forgot to leave some at home to pay the bloody hands that feed him. Under this man, Zimbabwe is so broke that it can't even pay for its grave. I am tempted to say "the fool and his money are soon parted," but that would be incorrect because the fool and his money are certainly not parted as the fool has it stashed away. Why 'the fool'? Because one day, like Chiluba of Zambia, he will have to answer for that money and other frozen assets in the courts of law,… [Read Full Text]
You all wish. keep wishing but one thing for sure Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.
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Woo Hoo...good things come to those that wait....no money no funny!!!!