www.africa-confidential.com 7 November 2003 Vol 44 No 22 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL KENYA 2 ZIMBABWE The best money can buy No chance, Mr President Party officials and military commanders are ignoring President ‘Why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge?’ is a well-worn joke Mugabe’s orders to surrender their farms that the younger reformers in Several government ministers and senior military officers accused of grabbing farms are refusing to hand President Kibaki’s government want to make redundant. But their efforts them back to the state, according to a new report on land reform ordered by President Robert Mugabe. are being undermined by veteran Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo and 13 other politicians and business people who ministers have secured several farms in violation of the government’s ‘one man, one farm’ rule, the report are using the purge of the judiciary says. Details of ministers’ and officers’ holdings are contained in a confidential annexe to the main report, to destroy their opponents. which has been discussed in cabinet. Mugabe asked former Secretary to the Government Charles Utete to investigate the findings of an GHANA 3earlier land audit by the Minister of State in Deputy President Joseph Msika’s office, Flora Buka. This had found major abuses of the land resettlement programme by senior officials (AC Vol 44 No 4). Buka’s Politics get crude audit reported that some of the worst violations of the land reform policy were perpetrated by Mugabe’s The row over crude oil supplies to closest political allies, such as Air Vice-Marshall Perence Shiri, Minister Moyo and Mugabe’s sister, the state-owned Volta River Sabina Mugabe. Authority is turning into a full-scale The Utete report, which was given a stronger investigative team than Buka’s, found that 178 political battle ahead of next year’s Zimbabweans, drawn predominantly from the political and military elite, had broken the terms of the land general elections. The head of the resettlement programme; Buka found just 41 wrongdoers. Some named have suggested that Buka’s VRA has resigned, the company slips further into debt and power report was a conspiracy by allies of presidential aspirant and Speaker of Parliament Emmerson supplies become more erratic. Mnangagwa to weaken his rivals, such as Defence Minister Sidney Sekeramayi. Although Mnangagwa is one of Zimbabwe’s wealthiest politicians, none of the land investigations has criticised his operations. Buka’s list of those violating the ‘one man, one farm’ rule included: Sekeramayi; Provincial Governors LIBERIA 4 Eliot Manyika, Peter Chanetsa, Josiah Hungwe; newspaper publishers Ibbo Mandaza and Mutumwa Taylor’s shadow Mawere; and Barclays Bank Chief Executive Alex Jongwe. Accusing fingers are pointing at Keeping the farms in the family ousted President Charles Taylor over new fighting in Nimba County. Only a few of those Buka named appear to have obeyed Mugabe’s order in July that they should keep just Rebuilding a base there would allow one of the farms they had been allocated and return the rest to the state. Moyo announced that he had Taylor to launch attacks into both withdrawn claims to an additional farm on 4 August. He is currently registered as the owner of one farm Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, whose and his mother is registered as the new owner of another. About 24,000 acres of farmland (some 10,000 sponsorship of rebel militias critically hectares) had been handed back but the worst cases of land grabbing remain. weakened his regime. The Zimbabwe National Army commander, General Constantine Chiwenga, and Air Force Commander Shiri are also reported to have returned some of their allocated farms to the state. Yet Africa Confidential SOMALIA 6 has learned that no further action is to be taken against Shiri, a business and political ally of Mugabe’s, who was identified as owning at least three farms: one was the 3,600-acre Eirin Farm in Marondera, over New hopes, new three times the maximum size allowed. Shiri was described in Buka’s audit as trying to evict from Eirin dangers 96 landless families who had been allocated the farm under the government’s resettlement scheme. Although the bulk of Utete’s report has now been made public, the annexe listing 178 high-ranking Somalia’s peace deal is close to collapse. After the signing of the Zimbabweans violating the rules on land resettlement is being kept secret. On the first drafts of the full ceasefire a year ago in Eldoret, report circulated to cabinet, there was a note on page 97 referring to a secret annexe which would be made Kenya, the current talks there on available separately. To date, only a handful of people have been able to see and make copies of the reconciliation and power sharing annexe, presumably to limit political embarrassment. were meant to lay the basis for the The list includes Peter Chanetsa, Governor of Mashonaland West (Mugabe’s home province), whose restoration of a national government. More than half the Somali factions household is reported to own nine farms – one each for him and his wife, and one for each of their seven have walked away from the talks. children. One of the nine farms was handed over last month to the newly elected member of parliament for Makonde, Kindness Paradza. Mugabe appoints all provincial governors. Chanetsa was the government’s chief of protocol for the first decade of Mugabe’s rule. Governors chair the provincial land committee, which is mandated to allocate land under the resettlement programme. The Utete committee POINTERS 8 reported a turf war Mashonaland West. There Minister of Lands Joseph Made, Governor Chanetsa and EU/Africa, Nigeria & the provincial party Chairman, Phillip Chiyangwa are quarrelling over the right to allocate land. In Matebeleland, Governor Obert Mpofu is reported to have three farms amounting to 75,000 acres. Equatorial Guinea 7 November 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 22 from Lee Muthoga, the senior counsel on one of the tribunals. The KENYA two have been engaged in a 20-year feud dating back to when Muthoga presided over a discredited enquiry that forced Charles Njonjo, one of Moi’s most powerful rivals, out of the cabinet on charges of treason. Joseph Kamotho, another of Moi’s cabinet ministers, proposed that The best money can buy judges from Commonwealth countries sit on the tribunals. He was Kibaki’s reformers are purging the judges – ignored. The ‘Mount Kenya Mafia’, a powerful clique of Kikuyu to much applause politicians, is trying to control the purge. Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi, doyen of Mount Kenya, together with his assistant Minister ‘Why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge?’ runs a well-worn Robinson Githae and Solicitor General Wanjuki Mucemi, are Kenyan joke. It’s a joke that reformers in President Mwai Kibaki’s responsible for appointing acting judges to replace those suspended. government want to make redundant. The younger intake of ministers ‘They’re replacing one set of lackeys with another,’ was one complaint. and advisors argue that root and branch reform of the judicial system We hear Mount Kenya was instrumental in the supsension of is key to cleaning up politics. Yet their efforts are being undermined Kwach. Whatever evidence of corruption may be adduced against by veteran politicians and business people who are using the purge of him, his removal will be politically expedient for the government. the judiciary as a way to destroy their opponents but lay open the Before December’s elections, Kibaki promised Kwach, a Luo, the reforms to charges of witch-hunting and score-settling. position of Chief Justice. But when Bernard Chunga resigned from Now 23 of the 56 senior judges have been suspended, following a the position in February (rather than face a tribunal himself), he was report into judicial corruption by Aaron Ringera, head of the Kenya succeeded by Evans Gicheru, a Kikuyu and old friend of Mount Anti-Corruption Authority (KACA). The judges will face tribunals, Kenya Mafia members. due to convene next month, which could lead to their dismissal and Four of the other Appeal Court judges, Shah, Lakha, Owuor and Ole prosecution. The most radical overhaul of the judiciary since Keiuwa, face allegations of gross misconduct; they also threw out a Independence in 1963 is causing mayhem in the courts but winning petition filed by Kibaki challenging Moi’s election victory in 1997. praise. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, visiting last month, led the accolades – a welcome relief for a government which Bribes, sex and drugs faces growing criticism at home and abroad. Whatever the personal and political pressures for reform, the Ringera report shows a judicial system in crisis: Dead-end probes under Moi ● Appeal and High Court judges took bribes from both parties and Under President Daniel arap Moi, Kenyans became used to official then ruled in favour of the more generous. In exchange for a 6 million enquiries that hid more than they revealed. Government investigations Kenya shilling (US$76,000) bribe, a judge found for a politically were launched into the 1990 assassination of Foreign Minister Robert connected litigant in a major corruption case – even though the courts Ouko, the Goldenberg Scandal, politically motivated ethnic clashes, were in recess, he wasn’t the judge hearing the case and he made the official corruption and a host of murders and man-made disasters. ruling from his home in the middle of the night. Some were never published; all dragged on for years, thanks to ● Judges and magistrates of both sexes are accused of demanding government obstruction, prevarication and intimidation.