Percy Zvomuya
Percy Zvomuya is a writer and critic who has written for numerous publications, including Chimurenga, the Mail & Guardian, Moto in Zimbabwe, the Sunday Times and the London Review of Books blog. He is a co-founder of Johannesburg-based writing collective The Con and, in 2014, was one of the judges for the Caine Prize for African Writing.
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/ 27 July 2007

Mugabe lends business an ear

Recently Zimbabwean business leaders met President Robert Mugabe in an attempt to persuade him to halt a crackdown that is ruining the country’s economy. This is the first meeting between business and Mugabe since he ordered a 50% cut in prices in June, causing a massive shortage of goods and deepening the country’s economic crisis.

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/ 26 July 2007

Picking his own heir

In the clearest indications yet that talks brokered by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), aimed at resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe, will not meet opposition demands for a new constitution, President Robert Mugabe this week pushed ahead with plans to amend the existing Constitution to allow him to hand-pick his successor.

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/ 25 July 2007

Talk is not cheap

True freedom will come the day the aphorism “talk is cheap” becomes literally true. With that in mind I checked out the various pre-paid cellphone packages to see who offers the best deal. Virgin Mobile is a recent addition to the cellphone family. It shook up the market last year when it based all its offerings on per-second billing.

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/ 17 July 2007

Encounters with ghosts

As tantalising as titles and book covers go, I can’t remember one that comes close to Shimmer Chinodya’s <i>Strife</i>. When I saw the cover of silhouetted people, arms flailing in the air, and a yellow flame, I thought of the oppressed getting fed up with a dictatorship and rising up in anger.

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/ 13 July 2007

Threat to cut Zim salaries

There might be method in the madness going on in Harare — reports suggest the government is considering slashing the salaries of public-sector workers by 50% in line with the price cuts that have rocked the retail industry. Business, the government and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are behind this latest move to control money supply, says the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

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/ 12 July 2007

Inside the Gono dossier

In a damning 59-page catalogue of policy advice to the Zimbabwean government, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono spells out his repeated attempts to persuade the government to change course and save the country from imminent economic collapse and ruin. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the document.

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/ 10 July 2007

Surfing bank charges

Whenever I go to a website and am asked to register, I usually close down the browser. But this time I decided to go ahead and test out Bankmonitor.co.za, a site that claims to provide an authoritative and independent source of information on banking products and services. The site says it has "introduced powerful, personalised comparison calculators to help you work out the best financial products for your personal needs".

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/ 6 July 2007

Zapiro’s truth to power lauded

Mail & Guardian cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro – better known as Zapiro – is this year’s winner of the Cartoonist’s Rights Network International’s (CRNI) Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award. The gong is handed out to a cartoonist who chooses to ”express truth to power”, despite being ”threatened by terrorists, government officials or affiliated goon squads”.

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/ 5 July 2007

Warning on spooks’ power

Much tighter control of the spies at the National Intelligence Agency is needed to prevent them from abusing their broad domestic security mandate, civil society and media groups have told a ministerial review commission, set up by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils in the wake of the ”hoax email” and illegal surveillance scandals.

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/ 22 June 2007

Provincial dept put on ice

The Northern Cape provincial department of health will remain under the administration of the provincial treasury and the premier’s office “until such a time that our turnaround strategy is complete,” says the department’s acting MEC, Gomolemo Lucas. Instead of operating independently, the day-to-day running of the department will be in the hands of the treasury and the premier.