http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Violet Gonda
31
July 2009
Another MDC legislator has been arrested for allegedly playing
a song that
denigrates Robert Mugabe, on his car radio. The MDC said in a
statement that
Stewart Garadhi, the MP for Chinhoyi, was driving from Harare
to Chinhoyi on
Friday morning when he was stopped by police officers 'who
accused him of
playing the song - Nharembozha - saying it denigrated
President Robert
Mugabe.' He is being held at Chinhoyi police provincial
headquarters.
At the time of broadcast it was not clear how the police
heard the song if
the MP had been driving at the time. A commentator
remarked: "Were they in
the car, or do they have fantastically large ears
that can hear a song from
a distance? It sounds like a case of the long ear
of the law!"
Several people including members of the general public have
been arrested
under the country's harsh security laws for 'making utterances
likely to
cause hatred, contempt or ridicule of the President and his
Office.'
It's reported 'Nharembozha' or Mobile Phone is a song on an MDC
campaign CD.
Newzimbabwe.com said: "One song on the CD which arguably makes
reference to
Mugabe says: Saddam (Hussein) is gone now and Bob is the only
one left."
Last year four activists from the Youth Forum were arrested in
Bikita for
playing the same CD. Police said the music was likely to 'provoke
ZANU PF
supporters.'
Meanwhile, there are at least 8 MDC MPs
including a Deputy Minister who have
been arrested and some of them
convicted in recent weeks, following the
formation of the inclusive
government in February. Deputy Youth Minister
Thamsanqa Mahlangu, who was
arrested on Tuesday on allegations of stealing a
cell phone, will remain in
custody until August 13th, after the State
opposed bail on Friday. Harare
Magistrate Kudakwashe Njerambini had granted
the MDC official and his
personal assistant bail of US$50 each, but the
State invoked a section of
the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, to
oppose bail.
The MDC has
accused ZANU PF of trying to whittle down its parliamentary
majority by
arresting some of its members. Several MDC MPs are also
appearing in court
facing allegations of abusing a government farming inputs
scheme. One of the
MPs, Ernest Mudavanhu of Zaka North has since been
convicted and was
sentenced to 12 months in prison.
But on Friday, another MDC MP Ransome
Makamure (Gutu East) was acquitted of
the corruption charges after a Harare
Magistrate threw out evidence
submitted by State witness Brigadier General
Douglas Nyikayaramba.
Nyikayaramba was the Chairman of the farming logistics
subcommittee.
The MDC statement said it was discovered during the trial
that when they
were given the agricultural inputs last year the Brigadier
General only
advised MPs from ZANU PF on how the inputs scheme worked. The
Brigadier is
said to have 'threatened one of his subordinates, Major
Mapuranga who was
also a witness in the trial, for giving evidence that
absolved Makamure of
any wrongdoing.' Furthermore, the army had told the
court that Makamure had
committed the offence in October, but had claimed
they only started the
input scheme and the guidelines of distribution in
November of last year.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=20472
July 31, 2009
By Raymond
Maingire
HARARE - Jailed Deputy Youth Minister, Thamsanqa Mahlangu was on
Friday
granted bail by a Harare magistrate's court but will spend seven days
more
in custody after the State filed a notice to appeal against the
order.
Mahlangu, who was arrested along with his aide, Malven Chadamoyo,
for
alleged theft of a cell-phone, was ordered to deposit US$50 bail with
the
Clerk of Court at the Harare Magistrates' Court.
He was ordered
not to interfere with State witnesses or to move away from
his given
address.
Meanwhile another MDC legislator Stewart Garadhi, was arrested
this Friday
morning in Chinhoyi barely hours after the acquittal of yet
another MDC
parliamentarian, Ransome Makamure, Gutu East, MP who faced
clearly
trumped-up corruption charges.
Garadhi was travelling from
Harare to Chinhoyi when he was arrested by
police from the Law and Order
section who accused him of playing a song,
Nharembozha, which they allege
denigrates President Robert Mugabe.
In the Mahlangu case, the State,
represented by Public Mpofu, immediately
invoked the notorious Section 121
of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence (CP
and E) Act which allows the
Attorney-General to suspend the operation of a
court ruling for seven
days.
According to the law, the State is supposed to seek permission
through the
same court to file an appeal against the order in a higher
court.
Mahlangu, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) legislator for
Nkulumane
constituency, was arrested on Monday on allegations of stealing a
mobile
phone belonging to war veterans' leader, Joseph Chinotimba.
He
and Chinotimba were among the delegates who attended a conference
convened
last weekend to draw up a "national vision" for Zimbabwe for the
next three
decades.
Mahlangu is said to have admitted walking out of the Harare
International
Conference Centre, venue for the conference, with the
cell-phone but denies
theft.
His lawyer, Charles Kwaramba, says the
cell-phone, valued at US$40, was
picked up by somebody who handed it over to
the legislator thinking that it
was his because he has a similar
instrument.
Despite realising that it was not his phone, Mahlangu is said
to have kept
it with the intention of handing it back to the organisers of
the
conference.
He was further remanded to August 7, 2009 and is due
to face trial on August
12, 2009.
The State on Thursday had opposed
his admission to bail, claiming he was
likely to abscond because of the
strength of the case against him.
But Presiding Magistrate Kudakwashe
Jarabini ruled that the offence was too
minor to warrant any fears the
minister might abscond.
In granting Mahlangu bail, Jarabini said his
decision was further influenced
by the value of the phone and the fact that
it had been recovered. If
convicted, Mahlangu is likely to pay a negligible
amount as fine.
Meanwhile, two women who are jointly accused with him
were also granted free
bail but were not freed as the State also invoked
Section 121 of the
Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
The two,
Geraldine Phiri (21), who is identified as Mahlangu's girlfriend
and her
friend, Patience Nyoni (27), are alleged to have been found in
possession of
the phone's sim card.
Kwaramba, Mahlangu's lawyer, said the State was
abusing the court process by
invoking the law on political opponents to
President Robert Mugabe's
Zanu-PF.
"This is an abuse of the court
process," he said.
"In fact, we are in the process of challenging Section
121 at the Supreme
Court. What kind of a law would allow someone to stand up
and overrule a
court's ruling without justifying that action?
"The
sad thing is that this law is only being applied on Zanu-PF's political
opponents."
The MDC says the continued arrest of its legislators is a
subtle attempt by
Zanu-PF to reduce its slender parliamentary majority
outside the electoral
process.
The MDC says at least seven of its
legislators now face what it describes as
trumped-up charges. The number
will remain at seven after the arrest of
Garadhi in Chinhoyi and the
acquittal of Makamure in Masvingo.
Garadhi, who is accused by the Law and
Order Section of playing a song that
allegedly denigrates the President, is
currently being detained at police
provincial headquarters in
Chinhoyi.
Meanwhile, Makamure who faced trumped-up charges of corruption
was today
(Friday) acquitted by Magistrate William Bhila.
Bhila
questioned the evidence submitted by one of the key witnesses,
Brigadier
General Douglas Nyikayaramba.
It was discovered during the trial that
Nyikayaramba who is the chairman of
the farming logistics subcommittee only
advised MPs from Zanu PF on how the
agricultural inputs scheme worked when
they were given the inputs last year.
It also emerged that Nyikayaramba
had threatened one his subordinates, a
Major Mapuranga, who was also a
witness in the trial for giving evidence
that absolved Makamure of any
wrongdoing.
The magistrate also questioned why the army was alleging that
Makamure had
committed the offence on October 24, 2008 when the army claimed
that they
only launched the input scheme and the guidelines of distribution
on 4
November 2008.
Other MDC MPs are appearing in court facing
allegations that they abused the
inputs scheme. One of them Ernest
Mudavanhu, of Zaka North, has already been
convicted and sentenced to 12
months in prison.
The MDC says there has been a systematic crackdown on
its MPs, in recent
months as Zanu-PF seeks to decimate the party's slim
majority in Parliament.
The police department falls under the jurisdiction
of the Ministry of Home
Affairs. One of the co-Ministers is Giles Mutsekwa a
top functionaary of the
MDC.
Meanwhile, the party's secretary-general
Tendai Biti, who is the Minister of
Finance, says he received an envelope
containing a bullet on Monday.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
31 July
2009
Zimbabwe's media fraternity have this week been given cause to
cautiously
hope for real media reform, after the publishers of the banned
Daily News
and Daily News on Sunday were approved for an operating
licence.
A Special Board Committee on the Associated Newspaper of
Zimbabwe publishing
group appointed by the Information Ministry in November
2007, on Wednesday
sent a letter to the company's lawyers and to the
Information Minister
Webster Shamu saying the application for registration
for its publications
was successful.
"This letter serves to advise
you that your application for registration as
a mass media service provider
was successful," the committee's acting
Chairperson, Edward Dube, wrote to
the lawyers. "Associated Newspapers of
Zimbabwe is therefore advised to
contact the relevant authority for their
licence," Dube added. A similar
letter was also sent to Shamu.
Media rights groups have welcomed the
decision, saying the way is being
paved for an active free media to operate
in Zimbabwe. Pierre Ambroise from
the Africa Desk of the France based
Reporters Without Borders, which has
been advocating for media freedom in
Zimbabwe for several years, called the
move 'fantastic.'
"We
encourage Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's government to move ahead
with
plans to amend the 2002 press law, in order to eliminate draconian
articles
that were used to suppress independent media," Ambroise added. "The
promised
Zimbabwe Media Council must be quickly created and its members must
be
guaranteed complete independence."
But the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media
Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA-Zimbabwe) on Friday said the move should
be greeted cautiously.
MISA-Zimbabwe Chairman Loughty Dube said the
un-banning of the Daily News
'does not give any reason for hope,' explaining
that committees and councils
should not be the judge and jury of media
freedom.
"As long as we have bad laws, there is no press freedom. What is
needed is
an overhaul of the media laws across the board," said
Dube.
MISA-Zimbabwe and other media groups have been advocating for a
self-regulatory media, arguing that political interference in any form will
not usher in media freedom. The dissolution of the restrictive Media and
Information Commission was hoped to change the media sphere in the country,
but journalists and media in general are still being restricted.
Two
senior journalists were earlier this year charged with publishing
falsehoods
about the detention of 18 activists, after police raided the
offices of the
private weekly Zimbabwe Independent in May. The government is
also so far
still ignoring a court ruling on media accreditations, and still
requires
hefty fees from journalists - US$4,000 a year for Zimbabwean
reporters
working for foreign media. The state media at the same time
remains tightly
controlled and have a monopoly on the airwaves.
A new media commission with
powers to regulate the media is still being
formed, leaving it unclear how
much power it will exert. Parliament's
Standing Rules and Orders Committee
(SROC) has shortlisted 28 applicants for
public interviews next Monday to
sit on the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC).
Of the 28 successful applicants,
six are women, one a lawyer, Chris Mhike,
and a church minister, Useni
Sibanda. Veteran journalists Henry Muradzikwa,
Kindness Paradza, Zimbabwe
Union
of Journalists President Mathew Takaona, Miriam Madziwa, and
Ropafadzo
Mapimhidze have also been shortlisted.
Meanwhile in an
encouraging move, leading international broadcasters have
been cleared to
return to Zimbabwe. The government this week gave the
British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) and the US television news channel
CNN permission to work
in Zimbabwe again. The BBC has not had a media
presence in the country since
its Harare correspondent, Joseph Winter, was
expelled in 2001. CNN had to
pull out of Zimbabwe in 2002.
"After many years of government mistrust of
international news media, the
return of these two leading international
broadcasters is a decisive step in
the restoration of press freedom in
Zimbabwe," Reporters Without Borders'
Ambroise said.
The decision was
a result of a meeting earlier this month between
Information Minister Shamu,
the BBC's world news editor, Jon Williams, and
its Africa bureau editor,
Sarah Halfpenny. Shamu met CNN's Johannesburg
bureau chief, Kim Norgaard, a
few days later. MISA-Zimbabwe's Dube meanwhile
said the decision to allow
the BBC and CNN back into the country is a
'political' move, which has not
been supported by real media reform.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=20485
July 31, 2009
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - The former chairman of the now defunct Media and
Information
Commission, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, is among applicants
short-listed to be
interviewed for appointment to the new Zimbabwe Media
Commission.
Mahoso has become a legend in his life for the anti-west
diatribe that he
propounded in prodigiously long articles churned out in the
Sunday Mail over
the years in defence of President Robert Mugabe and
Zanu-PF. More
significantly he presided over the former Media and
Information Commission
as it subjected the independent press to
unprecedented interference from
government under former Information
Minister, Prof Jonathan Moyo.
Journalists were arrested and subjected to
severe harassment while media
establishments were targetted for physical
attack. Three newspapers, the
Daily News, The Daily news on Sunday and The
Tribune eventually fell by the
wayside in 2003.
Interviews of the
prospective commissioners are scheduled to take place in
Harare on Monday.
Other notable names short-listed include those of Chris
Mutsvangwa,
Zimbabwe's former ambassador in Beijing and a relentless
guardian of
Zanu-PF's interests and Vimbai Chivaura, a university lecturer
who is also
fiercely pro-Mugabe. Also short-listed are veteran journalists
Henry
Muradzikwa, who is the former editor of Ziana and The Sunday Mail and
more
recently short-term director general of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Holdings,
as well as veteran Zimbabwe Union of Journalists president,
Matthew Takaona.
Takaona has been ZUJ president for more than 10 years.
Parliament's
Standing Rules and Orders Committee says it has received over
600
applications for commissioners who will sit on four constitutional
commissions that are being established by government and will start
conducting interviews on Monday to select successful
candidates.
Parliament last month invited interested candidates to submit
applications
to be considered for appointment to the Zimbabwe Media
Commission, the
Independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the Zimbabwe
Anti-Corruption
Commission and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, four
bodies that are
being set up in terms of a constitutional amendment enacted
earlier this
year.
Advertisements placed in local newspapers by
Parliament's Standing Rules and
Orders committee stipulated that those
applying to be commissioners must be
chosen for their knowledge and
experience in the field applied for.
Tongai Matutu, chairman of the
Standing Rules and Orders Committee, told The
Zimbabwe Times that the
Speaker had advised that over 600 people had applied
to sit on the four
commissions.
The parliamentary committee sat on Monday to consider
applicants that had
been short-listed.
"Interviews are commencing
Monday next week," Matutu said. "We have sorted
them in terms of priority,
the ZMC first followed by ZEC, then the
Anti-Corruption Commission and then
the Human Rights Commission. We are
(processing) them in
phases."
Matutu said there was an overwhelming response from applicants
seeking to be
appointed to the Media Commission.
"The field report
from the Speaker short-listed 24 people out of 126 who had
applied to sit on
the ZMC," Matutu said.
Parliament is expected to forward 12 names out of
the 24 who have been
short-listed to President Mugabe, who will then choose
a final list of nine
commissioners to sit on the ZMC.
The Zimbabwe
Times understands that out of the 24 applicants, eight are
women. The names
of a lawyer Chris Mhike, and a church pastor, Useni Sibanda
appear on the
short-list. Journalists Kindness Paradza, Miriam Madziwa and
Ropafadzo
Mapimhidze as well as media studies lecturers Clemence Mabaso,
Nqobile
Nyathi, Rino Zhuwarara and Lawton Hikwa, have also been
short-listed.
The new media commission is set to replace the Media
and Information
Commission, which introduced stringent conditions for the
registration of
both Zimbabwean and foreign journalists as well as for the
registration of
media organisations.
Matutu said the Standing Rules
and Orders Committee will also shortlist six
applicants out of the 24 who
will sit on the Broadcasting Services
Authority, set to regulate the
airwaves.
He said interviews would take one and half days for each
commission, meaning
names could be forwarded to President Mugabe before the
close of next week.
The setting up of the media commission is touted as
the starting point in
the planned democratisation of the media that has been
under the fierce
control of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
The
formation of a government of national unity in February raised new hopes
for
genuine media freedom in which journalists are free to practice their
profession while the public has access to information from a variety of
sourcces.
Just last week, Information Minister Webster Shamu told a
BBC and CNN
delegation in Harare, led by CNN Johannesburg bureau chief Kim
Norgaard and
BBC World News editor Jon Williams, that the two international
news
organisations, banned in 2001 after their correspondents were kicked
out,
were free to return to Zimbabwe.
The government has also lifted
punitive import duty on newspapers, declaring
free duty on foreign
newspapers. Just yesterday, a committee set up to
address the long-standing
stand-off between the Daily News and the
government said the newspapers
publishers had in their application satisfied
all requirements and the
company was now free to approach the licencing
authority for a
licence.
It appears that the first major assignment for the ZMC, once it
is fully
constituted, will be to issue the Daily News licence.
Matutu
said Parliament was moving with haste to set up the four
constitutional
commissions.
The Independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will replace
the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission, accused by the MDC of partisan support of
Mugabe and
Zanu-PF in the last polls. The Anti Corruption Commission is
expected to
deal with widespread corruption, while the Zimbabwe Human Rights
Commission
is expected to review the human rights situation in the
country.
If Mahoso is appointed to the new media commission he will have
the dubious
distinction of finally issuing a licence to The Daily News, a
newspaper that
he has zealously denied one for six years.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Lance Guma
31 July
2009
A SADC summit in August which is meant to review the progress of the
unity
government has put Mugabe's regime under pressure to clear outstanding
issues, political commentators have said. The week has seen a flurry of
developments including the un-banning of the Daily News newspaper and the
Information Ministry allowing CNN and the BBC to resume reporting inside the
country for the first time in almost 8 years. In addition, Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday met the country's security chiefs for the
first time under the National Security Council, something that was supposed
to have happened several months ago when the bill creating the council was
first passed into law.
Other issues relating to the appointment of
provincial governors, permanent
secretaries and the swearing in of Deputy
Agriculture Minister Roy Bennett
are reported to have been resolved. Bennett
is expected to be sworn-in in
August, while ambassadorial candidates from
the two MDC formations will
begin their induction training next week Monday.
A compromise was struck to
retain the current permanent secretaries on the
basis that they were career
civil servants who possessed the qualifications
to run the Ministries.
Commentators who spoke to Newsreel said Mugabe is
under pressure to appease
the SADC heads of state given that Tsvangirai and
Mutambara wrote to the
regional group and its chairman, South African
President Jacob Zuma,
complaining about outstanding issues. Tsvangirai is
currently in South
Africa for 'several engagements,' which we are told will
include a meeting
with Zuma, where the state of the coalition government
will be discussed.
Under the Global Political Agreement which formed the
basis of the unity
deal, SADC and the AU are the guarantors of the deal. In
January SADC
resolved to use its annual summit to assess progress made in
the coalition.
But even as the coalition takes steps forward, other
developments including
the indiscriminate arresting, convicting and jailing
of MDC MP's continue to
cast a shadow over the government. The MDC also want
the appointment of
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General
Johannes Tomana
reversed because it was done without the consent of the
other coalition
partners. Mugabe has refused to budge on removing his 'money
man' Gono, and
his 'blue-eyed boy' Tomana. Sporadic attacks on MDC activists
continue
countrywide with ZANU PF supporters acting with complete
impunity.
Analyst Glen Mpani says Mugabe and Zanu PF want to create the
perception
they are committed to the deal but will revert back to the normal
behaviour
after the SADC review next month.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tichaona Sibanda
31 July 2009
The
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa
on
Friday ahead of a meeting with South African President Jacob
Zuma.
Tsvangirai's spokesman James Maridadi told SW Radio Africa the
Prime
Minister had several engagements lined up in South Africa, starting
with an
investment dinner at Sandton Convention Centre on Friday
night.
Maridadi said Tsvangirai was also scheduled to meet Zuma sometime
this
weekend to appraise him on the inclusive government, but MDC sources
told us
Tsvangirai wants Zuma to pressure Robert Mugabe to reverse the
appointments
of of Attorney General Johannes Tomana and Reserve Bank
Governor Gideon
Gono.
The MDC leader is said to be frustrated by the lack
of progress in solving
the outstanding issues in the GPA, after Mugabe
refused to budge on his
re-appointment of Gono and Tomana. The three
principals have since declared
a deadlock on these two issues, meriting
intervention from SADC as
guarantors of the deal.
Zuma, who holds the
rotating Chairmanship of SADC, was sent a letter by
Tsvangirai and Arthur
Mutambara two months ago, asking for assistance in
resolving the outstanding
disputes in the inclusive government.
The MDC accuses Mugabe of using the
Attorney General to get back ZANU PF's
Parliamentary majority by using
trumped-up criminal charges to drive out
elected MDC MP's.
Mugabe's
ZANU PF lost its grip on the legislature for the first time in its
history
after the 2008 March elections when the MDC took control of the
Lower House
and drew level in the Senate.
The inclusive government was formed to end the
ZANU PF led violence that
erupted after the polls and to rescue the economy
from a decade of freefall
driven by hyperinflation that left the local
currency worthless.
The country this month began the process of drafting a
new constitution
meant to pave the way to fresh elections. On Thursday,
Tsvangirai attended
his first meeting with military chiefs at the inaugural
session of the
National Security Council created under the unity
deal.
The council is a new organ created to oversee the security forces and
to
prevent Mugabe from exercising total control over them.
http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za
Eyewitness News | 4 Hours
Ago
Zimbabwe's Central Bank Chief Gideon Gono has reopened all
Bureaux de Change
offices.
The money-changers were banned in 2002
when they were accused of fuelling
the black market.
Customers were
vetted to make sure they were not from the police.
President Robert
Mugabe's government said the bureaux were offering inflated
rates of
exchange and banned them.
The problem is the Bureaux de Change offices
have limited use.
No tourist needs to buy Zimbabwe dollars anymore as
they are no longer in
circulation.
HARARE , 31 July 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabweans
have been given the good news and bad news about their water supplies. First,
the government declared the end of the devastating cholera outbreak; then,
residents in the capital, Harare, were told to expect widespread cut-offs of
water supplies over unpaid bills.
Photo:
WHO/Paul Garwood
Checking
on cholera
When the last case of the waterborne
disease in the Harare township of Budiriro was recorded on 3 July 2009, the
cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 had claimed the lives of more than
4,200 people out of about 100,000 known cases.
Health and child welfare
minister Henry Madzorera told local media: "The nation experienced the worst
cholera outbreak between August 2008 and June 2009, but the epidemic has been
successfully contained and has ended."
Zimbabwe's dilapidated water
reticulation system and decaying sanitation system were widely blamed for
Africa's worst outbreak in 15 years. The collapse of infrastructure mirrored the
country's rapid economic descent, when routine maintenance of the water and
sanitation networks was neglected and the scarcity of foreign currency meant
water treatment chemicals could not be imported.
The Zimbabwe National
Water Authority (ZINWA) was unable to provide clean water - or any water at all
- so residents took to digging shallow wells, which were contaminated by the raw
sewerage spilling into the city's streets. The responsibility for water
provision has now reverted to local municipalities.
Analysts link the
fading away of cholera to the onset of the dry season, which reduces favourable
conditions for the waterborne disease to spread, and to widespread education
programmes.
"All districts, provinces and cities will conduct
post-mortems of the epidemic in their areas, evaluating their responsive
strategies, and plan forward for future outbreaks, which have a strong
likelihood of recurring in view of continued sewerage and water problems,"
Madzorera said.
Raw sewage still spills onto the streets of some
suburbs, providing a dank reminder of the danger that cholera
could return with the coming rainy season, but work on restoring the city's
water and sanitation systems has begun.
No free water
Harare's municipality this week placed a slew of adverts in the
local media, warning residents that the water supply would be disconnected if
they did not settle US$23 million in outstanding accounts, and has since made
good on their threats.
"Harare Water would like to inform its valued
customers that with effect from Monday, 27 July 2009, there will be a massive
disconnection of water in the low-, high-density, commercial and industrial
areas to all those consumers with outstanding water bills," the adverts said.
The mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda, dismissed complaints by residents and
insisted that all monies owed be paid. "I have not received water at my house
for more than four years but I still pay my bills. No one is going to be
relieved of their obligation to pay their dues to council," he told IRIN. "What
we may consider is to reduce the amounts, but not total waiver."
Unemployment is estimated at 94 percent, and
since the local currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, was withdrawn as an antidote to
hyperinflation, the accounts are expected to be settled in US dollars.
If clean water is cut off, then
it will force residents to look for alternative sources, which will obviously be
dirty. Disconnecting water is like cutting off life
"We have held several meetings with residents, who have said they are
prepared to pay outstanding bills so that we can restore service delivery. I
think we are winning the heart-and-minds war after explaining to residents that
our coffers are dry," Masunda said.
"I have been assured by senior staff
that as things stand, they are ready for any cholera outbreak, and that they
learnt their lessons in the last outbreak," he said.
However, the
government minister responsible for water, Sam Sipepa Nkomo, disputed the
mayor's claim. "The residents cannot be expected to pay for water which they did
not receive or use."
There was concern that cutting off water supplies
could fuel another cholera epidemic. "Instead of disconnecting water supplies to
residents and commercial interests with genuine outstanding bills, the Harare
authorities should negotiate easy payment methods, otherwise we will have
another cholera disaster," he said.
"Remember, cholera killed more than
4,000 people and infected close to 100,000 people. Water is life, because
everything that we do revolves around water," Nkomo pointed out.
"If
clean water is cut off, then it will force residents to look for alternative
sources, which will obviously be dirty. Disconnecting water is like cutting off
life."
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=20461
July 31, 2009
Jupiter
Punungwe
THE recent hullabaloo over the loss of a cell phone by a Zanu-PF
politician
purportedly to an MDC politician would make good comedy. Instead
it makes
worrying reading that politicians can engage in such a frivolous
spat, over
a mere cell phone, when they are supposed to be applying their
minds to the
important issues of drafting Zimbabwe's
constitution.
The spat also highlights a number of facts about Zimbabwe's
political
situation. Fact number one is that Zanu-PF is still in control.
This should
be clear from the continued detentions of MDC activists,
continued inability
to bring Zanu-PF perpetrators of violence to book, that
the MDC are nothing
but window dressers. They are the beautiful curtains
hiding the ugly fact of
continued Zanu-PF dominance in Zimbabwean
politics.
Mahlangu's plight also disturbingly illustrates the continued
selective
application of justice. Hundreds of militants, who pummeled,
thrashed and
pounded MDC activists to pulp, are walking scot-free in
Zimbabwe. The police
seem paralyzed, unable to take even any rudimentary
action such as laying
charges against some who are quite well known and can
easily be identified
by their victims.
Zimbabwe police are known to
be ruthlessly efficient. For example they
quickly traced and fished out
escaped convict Masendeke from Mozambique
about a decade ago. The same
ruthless efficiency was demonstrated in the way
they quickly tracked down
the whereabouts of Chinotimba's SIM card. One is
left wondering what happens
to this effectiveness when they are called upon
to deal with cases involving
political violence.
MDC officials should by now be aware that Zanu-PF is
like a crocodile. The
party can lie patiently and quietly waiting for a
victim to make the wrong
move. When the victim slips up they pounce with
unbelievable ferocity and
ruthless efficiency.
MDC officials should
thus know that it is incumbent upon them to be extra
careful in their
dealings. These dealings should also be based on principle
not the kind of
mendacious opportunism that landed Mahlangu in trouble.
In the past I
have often lamented the lack of solid principled ground upon
which the MDC
stands. If have complained that they are a bunch of
opportunists hunting
personal gain more than they are hunting for freedom
for ordinary
Zimbabweans. Mahlangu's actions are clearly the actions of an
opportunist.
That the MDC are opportunists does not mean that Zanu-PF
is free of
opportunism either. The actions of Chinotimba also reek of
opportunism
albeit impractical opportunism. Chinotimba is claiming US$19
million for
loss of business. That amount is enough to pay the salaries of
all of
Zimbabwe's teachers for six months. One wonders why Zimbabwe is
struggling
with poverty and sending officials all over the world begging for
money if
Chinotimba can make enough money to pay the entire civil service in
a few
fortnights.
Instead of travelling all over the world to beg for
money the Prime Minister
should just pop over to Chinotimba's
home.
Humour aside, it is clear that Chinotimba's claim lacks any
practical and
logical basis. It epitomizes the shallowness and lack of
analytical power
that plagues most Zimbabwean politicians. They are shy to
apply their minds
to situations and are very quick to make outrageous and
poorly thought out
demands.
Neither Mahlangu nor Chinotimba emerges
from this saga with flying colours.
Unfortunately, the Zimbabwean political
establishment is littered with
people of Mahlangu and Chinotimba's
calibre.