MPOFU LINKED

 THE MINISTER HAS DONE IT AGAIN

Recent speculation in the market have had top guns being fingered in the purchase of the ailing financial institution. The flamboyant minister's name has been in the hat of possible suitors

The financial institution desperately needs asssistance as it has send shock waves reverbarating in the market as it faces a posiible collapse. The banking sector cannot afford to have another institution faltering after recent protracted efforts to restore confidence into the market.

ZABG cannot afford to falter,it cannot afford to fail as most or many civil servants are banking with this institituion. Its failure will bring doom to many families as the workers are likely to be laid off

ZABG UNDER FIRE
 The bank created out of necessity by Dr Gideon Gono is under fire.

In recent months following the turmoil that has been experienced in the market,ZABG has not being spared at all. Money has  not being flowing adequately to the financial instituition prompting panic amongst both investors and depositors.

For over three months now,the bank  has been experienced enormous strain as it tried to  rise above the waters. The other financial power houses have subsequently taken advantage of the situation and now thaey are marketing themselves right at the door step of ZABG like a pack of wild hyenas

Workers at the institution are hanging in there,insisting to that they are not going the Titanic way,infact they are hoping that the government will come throgh and rescue them.

ZABG is a bank that was promulgated from a multitude of small banks that had been deemed a threat to the whole of the financial sector by the firebrand reserve bank gorvenor,Gideon Gono. They have since won their respective court cases and have taken back some of their assets. Royal Bank was from that fiasco. ZABG was left to scronge for the left overs and thats when problems started as it couldnt meet the RBZ capital plan.

In all this,its the depositors who suffer and the workers and their families.

UNION WORK!

Last week, Zb bank finally had a workers committe after a long time of  being run like a mickey mouse organisation.
 The company has a history of curbing  an workers union activities. Their tactics have always been to threaten  employees that want to do union work. A number of those workers union presidents have gone down in history with a sour taste in their mouths after the human resources manager, Chikwati,would have dealt with them.

The way the human resources depart ment of this company is running the welfare of the empolyees is appalling. Workers are actually wondering if they are for them or if they are for the company. Chikwati's jod decsription is industrial relations manager,whose main mandate is to  bring harmony amongst the workers and the management. He now thinks he has to protect the management.

The last workers meeting was so harassed and they became so disillusioned that they quit. The president was charged with trumped up charges that left him out in the cold. ZIBAWU rescued him. The other members in solidarity with their president,just refused to attend the workers council meetings and the GDC meetings.

Worker were left in limbo. The question that  we ask today is,what then did our industrial relations manager do about the situation. Mr Chikwati did not do anything,instead he stuck his head in the sand like an ostrich. The company stayed 2 years without a workers committee. Again, we witness the capitalist hand in evrything,laws are meant to protect those who own the means of production. Its a shame because a lot of workers do not feel protected by the constitution,which embodies laws that are openly flouted by these employers.

A new committee was elected this week and we are watching henchmen at Rotten row house are going to deal with them.

WHAT UNION?

It is a war and it has always been like that!

Unions are organisations that represents employees and employers do not like them. They are against the idea that unions mobilise workers,be it in demanding collective bargains or improvements in the working conditions. Banks are not exceptions. They are not very keen to have relationship with the unions. 

 They want to behave like the Bonanno Family,a reowned mafia family in New York. The would control all the unions in the city making it difficult for employers to control their own workers. The Mafia would make sure they have the union bosses in their pockets,on the other hand extorting money from the employers with  the promise of  keeping a check on discontent workers.

This is what is exactly happening in the banking industry today. Banks,be it the local ones or those that are operating internationally. They stifle workers.blackmail others,threaten and do all sorts of  to keep a check on the workers. The workers themselves fell helpless,a number of them are not really qualified at anything. It is the culture in the banking industry to employ people who have minimum qualifications lik A'level only and then train them.


This has to stop. The culture of exploiting workers has to come to an end.

BANK FIRES 8 EMPLOYEES!

The bank has done it again. In what has shocked the whole of the retail bank sector in Bulawayo and indeed the whole of ZB Bank,the organisation has moved to purge those fingered in the debacle that took place in one of its branches in Bulawayo recently

Following the fiasco that saw a number of senior tellers spending some nights in the "can" and the senior supervisors being suspended,hearings were conducted and true to the bank style,there was a blitzrig with a number of these seeing themselves being send packing!

In what has been described as finger pointing and selective application of procedures,the purged supervisors have taken their fight to Harare where they are appealing their dismissal. They complained bitterly that the hearing officer had been instructed not to listen to their explanations,that she came with predetermined verdicts and that they are being made scapegoats with senior management tryng to save themselves in the wake of a series of debacles in the region.


Reached for comment,one of the supervisors who chose to remain anonymous said,"the boss knows that he has to appear tough and thats why he is firing people like this otherwise if he appears weak and indecisive he may be the next one who will be packing"


There was a sombre mood in the branch as new staff members were coming in,transfered from other branches and as the branch tried to adapt to the abrupt changes
 

USD:IS IT THE SUPER CURRENCY!
ZIM UNDER RANSOM
 

It has been months since Zimbabwe adopted the multi-currency regime in 2009 after the country had plunged into economic doldrums. It  was a welcome development back then.

 After the much disputed 2008 preidential elections,the country went through economic turmoil that left a number of ordinary citizens scrounging for survival.  Things were so bad that a number of folks stopped going to work completely and others walked to and from work. Imagine walking from Luveve to Belmont. 

When the unity government was formed there was a bit of some glimmer of hope. There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel when the cabinet ushered in the multi-currency regime,United States dollars and the South African rand formed the backbone of these currencies. Of the two currencies,there seems to be a certainity in the polarisation of their usage,with the USD dominating in the capital and the Rand being used mostly in Bulawayo. 

Problems associated with the changing the currencies rose with people in Bulawayo complaining that they were being robbed  by businesses. Businesses were complaining that they were being shortchanged by their counterparts in Harare. The question that can be asked is:to what extend was this polarisation a damage to the relations in the country. The people in bulawayo have neither welcomed the use of the USD nor have they accepted the myth associated with it. They have shunned using this currency. New problems have risen subsequently,now its change and either being torn or dirty. In the capital city,people do not really pay attention to the state of the note as much as people in bulawayo do. Again the question that wi will ask is it that there is more to this than what meets the eye.
USD has failed to meet its status in Bulawayo,that of being a super currency. 
 

TELLERS AT IT AGAIN!

What started as a normal day for staff at Jason Moyo Branch in Bulawayo on the 15th of February turned out to be a nightmare of their lives.

It all began with a tip-off anonymous to the Head of Consumer Banking,who is based in Harare,that the money in the city centre branch was missing. It was a  well ochestrated money siphoning scheme that was exposing the bank to unlimited amount of risk in the process.

It is alleged that the head teller,who is the immediate boss of the tellers  manipulated the system and the powers bestowed upon her. She took advantage of the junior tellers who were working under her,some of them have only been on the counter for only six months. She  hoodwinked them into signing documents aunthenticating her sinister plot without them knowing.


According to well placed souces,the bank mangers were stunned by the mafia-style operation. The scandal has rocked the entire branch with a number of senior staff members also getting suspended.


One  of the employees on condition of anonymity said,"we are now being treated like criminals when it was their system which faltered and failed them"

 The district manager office was not available to comment
 

RETAIL BANKING IN A CRISIS

There has been  a major earthquake in the retail banks across the counrty recently with bank employees pulling movie like stunts. The way the employess have been "gangin" from their employers is just from a script Steven Spielberg picture. Since the introduction of multi-currency regimes,tellers across the board have complained of being neglected. they have compalined about not receiving the proper attention that they think they deserve.  Tellers say they are the face  of the bank,they are the first and the last faces that anybody who walks into the bank and out of the bank sees for the last time,thats the image that they walk out with.  Banks that have gone through this are among others are ZB bank,Metropolitan Bank,and Stanbic Bank. Stanbic was hit twice,in Bulawayo, and in Gweru. Next week we will bring the full stories folks

LIQUIDITY CRUNCH! WHOSE

We are  told everyday of our lives that there is a liquidity crunch. the questions that we ask ourselves is what is this liquidity crunch,why do our cabinet meet and discuss this big worded entity,what do they come up with.  According to Wikipedia,a credit crunch (also known as a credit squeeze or credit crisis) is a reduction in the general availability of  loans(or credit) or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from the banks. A credit crunch generally involves a reduction in the availability of credit independent of a rise in official interest rates. In such situations, the relationship between credit availability and interest rates has implicitly changed, such that either credit becomes less available at any given official interest rate, or there ceases to be a clear relationship between interest rates and credit availability (i.e. credit rationing occurs). Many times, a credit crunch is accompanied by a flight to quality by lenders and investors, as they seek less risky investments (often at the expense of small to medium size enterprises). Zimbabwe is going through one of these "credit cruches" and it is the ordinary man who is feeling the bite. It is the ordinary woman who in need of fending for her family dies trying. It is these economic terms and situations that force an ordinary man to resort to unothordox  means for survival. The  question is for how long are we going to live from hand to mouth.

WHOSE INTERESTS ARE BEING SERVED

Often everyday of our lives,we go through them without realising the earthly forces that govern our actions,that hinders our progress and abilities. This is not right.

Sometimes our talents are never realised or they die in their infancy. These forces are the centre of our existence and when the centre falls sick,we catch the bug too. When the centre stutters and falters,we also stutter and falter. Im talking of banks ladies and gentleman. These are the animals that we created hoping we could  tame them...instead they are now the masters of our future "destinies".

From Madrid to Mkandla,from Buenos Aries to Bulawayo,from Saigon to Seattle,banks have become the new nemesis after the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They have become the rulers of this world with the corporate boys telling us what to do, including those that wield political power,they are wiped into line when they talk to their bank managers. It is this unlimited powers that they have,  that lead to them abusing them and in turn abuse us. They take us into recessions when their egocentric selves fail to  read their numbers correctly. When they are in a messy,they come to us again for bailouts,begging us to feel sorry for them and give them our hard earned cash.

When an ordinary Sipho goes to them looking for a mortgage,what do they do? they start telling poor Sipho that he is not eligible because of so many reasons that when Sipho comes out of the bank he will be so confused and dejected he wont know what to do. But before he goes out of the bank,they will give him their first requirement...,"Sipho come bank with us and we will definately do something for you..". He is hooked by the soft speaking bank manager who needs to meet his targets. Sipho does not know this.

The title of this piece asked us a question that whose interests are being served ladies and gentleman. Banks are a selfish capitalist system that does not care about anything except three things. They care about profits,profits and profits. After this, its giving the executives "dirty" bonuses. After the bonuses they start crying of liquidity crunch,that they caused,then they want us to bail them out.
I say its high time we start following the way banks in the Muslim world operates. It is a tight system designed  with utmost precision to guide against the evil temptations of money. It seems capitalism have always failed us,will continue failing us and its high time we tame this animal before it sucks out our lives. I have absolutely nothing against capitalism, i just think it a wrong system all together