Bitis house attacked

Neighbours shocked by the midnight explosion bolted their doors, and some made emergency calls to Highlands Police Station. One resident said a policeman answering an emergency call after the explosion was blown off his feet.
The explosion blew out the concrete rock and extensively damaged the the flower garden at the entrance into the minister’s kalahari brown home. Curiously the blast occured when the ZRP officer whop should be on 24-hr guard was offduty.

Biti, his wife and their kids were not at the house when the explosion happened. No-one was hurt.
The blasts came after a day after President Mugabe blasted Biti for refusing to bankroll Zanu PF’s populist policies.
“Murume watakapa basa rezvemari haana ndangariro sedzatinadzo. To him and some of his colleagues, agriculture is not an important area because they think that if they finance this sector, they will be strengthening Zanu-PF,” Mugabe told chiefs in Manicaland on Thursday
But contrary to Mugabe’s claims, the economy is expected to grow by about 8-15 percent in 2011 on the back of agriculture, mining and tourism seen as key industries – the third successive growth in three years after a decade of meltdown blamed on the 87-year old President’s policies. It is estimated GDP would be at $6 billion by year end.
“They do not want to see the economy prospering,” Mugabe claimed. “We got US$500 million from the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights and we do not know what the money is being used for.”
Biti said because Zimbabwe was broke and had no foreign reserves, and that the economy was struggling to get off the ground after a decade in crisis, that money had to be used to restore statutory reserves at the central bank, looted to bankroll Zanu PF’s quasi-fiscal activities. The looting left the RBZ with a staggering US$1.2billion of odious debt.
Biti said he used the IMF allocation mainly to rehabilitate Zimbabwes dilapidated infrastructure, including roads, water resources, phone and electricity network.

“He told us that it is being kept for strategic reserves and we understand that only half of it has been used so far, yet the factories are closing down,” Mugabe said.
“Mutare is better than Bulawayo where 10 factories were closed, while 75 are almost closing. Some of the companies need small amounts ranging from US$500 000 to US$2 million, yet Biti is continuing to give empty promises.
“Biti is even trying to grab some of the Presidential powers in various ways. We now want this Global Political Agreement to go and this should happen this year.”

Mugabe is pressing for an election this year, before agreed democratic reforms are complete, a move that Biti says could lead to a bloodbath and renewed economic collapse.
The gardener at Biti’s home said he just heard this loud exoplosion just after midnight.
The MDC said it was too soon to say who had planted the bomb and refused to be drawn on whether the attack could have anything to do with the escalating tension in the GNU.
Police spokesman Andrew Phiri said the purpoted bomb blast was not reported to the police.
The MDC said in a statement: “The MDC does not take this attack lightly given that there have been increasing criticisms and verbal attacks on Hon Biti lately. On Friday, Robert Mugabe and the service chiefs reportedly issued an ultimatum to Hon Biti to review civil servants salaries saying the issue was now a threat to national security. The ultimatum comes at a time when Mugabe has launched an attack on Hon Biti, blaming him for
all the financial problems facing the country.”
A senior MDC official said: “I think it would be wrong to associate this with anything at the moment. Until the police complete the investigations it would really be very foolish and wrong to suggest anything at all.”
Biti has been the chief negotiator with Zanu PF over an election roadmap that is installing a fraud-proof voting system.