TMCnet
[February 14, 2006]
(Comtex Community Via Thomson
Dialog NewsEdge)HARARE, Feb 14, 2006 (Xinhua
via COMTEX) -- A total of 355
people were rounded
up in Harare on Monday for various offences, as police
intensified
campaigns to thwart illegal activities in the city
center.
The suspects were arrested under an operation code named
"
Operation Valentine", which was recently launched by police to
curb
illegal activities this week.
Police were targeting vendors who were
selling foodstuffs to
people at undesignated points in the city center, in
breach of
council's orders to stop such activities.
Tuesday's Herald
newspaper quoted police sources as saying that
foodstuffs were likely to
spread diseases such as cholera and they
were going to enforce provisions of
the Health Act to stamp out
such activities.
Of the 355, 120 were
arrested for vending, 148 for obstruction
on pavements or traffic lights, 50
for touting, five for street
garaging, five motorists for dangerous parking,
two for conduct
likely to provoke breach of peace while 25 people were
arrested
for public drinking.
Harare provincial police spokesperson
Inspector Loveless Rupere
said the operation was launched after police
observed that crime
had become cause for concern in the Central Business
District.
Rupere said the operation was continuing until there is
sanity
in the city and police would be highly visible day and night
to
fight crime.
He urged the public to join in the fight against crime
and
desist from the habit of buying food from undesignated places.
Business Day
Dumisani Muleya
Harare Correspondent
ZIMBABWE's
rampant year-on-year inflation for last month surged to 613,2%,
gaining 27,4
percentage points on the December rate of 585,8%, raising fears
it is
marching towards the 1000% mark.
The Central Statistics Office said
yesterday that inflation accelerated due
to rising costs of food, housing,
education, water, electricity, gas and
fuel.
Central bank governor
Gideon Gono said recently the inflation rate would
rise to 700%-800%,
breaching the 622,8% record of 2004, before decelerating.
Analysts have
warned that, barring a major policy shift, inflation could hit
1000% by the
end the second quarter.
Analysts said that, given the controlled
prices of goods and services and
parallel market activities, inflation could
already be at 800%.
The critical factor in driving inflation has been
growing money supply
through massive printing of paper money to finance
government expenditure
and prop up collapsing economic
activities.
Broad money supply growth has been on an upward trend, from
177,6% in
January last year to 411,5% in December.
Since 2003, the
central bank has dished out a record Z$46- trillion in an
attempt to arrest
economic decline. But the money has largely ended up in
consumption
activities.
Further inflationary pressures have been fuelled by wage and
salary
adjustments, price increases and black market
activities.
Following the revision of value added tax from 15% to 17,5%
and introduction
of a number of new tax measures in September last year, the
prices of goods
and services have escalated.
The yawning budget
deficit of 8,6% is also a severe problem.
Government has been struggling
to reduce its huge fiscal deficit largely
caused by government's rising wage
bill from 15,5% in 2004 to 20% of gross
domestic product last
year.
Zimbabwe's economy shrank 3,5% last year after a 4% decline
in 2004 and a
10,5% fall in 2003.
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
14 February 2006
08:00
The poverty line for a family of five living in
Zimbabwe is now
Z$20-million (about R1 200) a month, Harare's Herald
newspaper reported on
Tuesday.
Its website quoted the
Central Statistical Office as saying the
average five-member Zimbabwe family
has to spend at least Z$7,8-million a
month on food to remain
healthy.
This average family would need to spend just more
than another
Z$12-million a month for accommodation, transport to get to and
from work to
earn this money, fees to educate children at the cheapest
government
schools, clothes and shoes.
There is no
provision for any luxury or even a toy, the paper
said, adding than
inflation is running at 600%. In South Africa, it is about
4%.
The minimum family income, just enough to live in
frugal
decency, went up by Z$3-million a month since December last
year.
Even a single person requires just more than
Z$4-million a month
for food, housing and other basic
expenses.
The Herald said those with incomes less than the
poverty datum
line are quite likely to be going hungry, living in very
unhealthy housing
or be inadequately dressed. -- Sapa
The Times, UK February 14, 2006
From Jan Raath in
Epworth
WHEN police knocked down Joram
Kombonyatsera's home under
President Mugabe's notorious "Operation Sweep Out
The Filth" in June, they
were so thorough that they smashed the concrete
drain that he had built to
make sure that he would not
return.
They used rubble from the houses that they had destroyed
to fill
in wells that served 750 families in this section of Epworth, a huge
slum on
the south-eastern boundary of the capital,
Harare.
Mr Kombonyatsera did return, like many of the
700,000 people
across the nation estimated to have lost their homes in the
operation. He
now lives in one broom-closet-sized room that survived the
destruction. He
draws water from newly dug shallow wells and defecates in a
cleft in granite
boulders close by. "Nowhere else to go," he
said.
The effect of such changes, the overloading of sewerage
systems
and a chronic shortage of fuel for refuse carts is now being felt as
a wave
of cholera, previously rare in Zimbabwe, sweeps the
country.
The state-controlled Daily Herald newspaper reported
yesterday
that five people had died of cholera in Epworth and another twenty
were
being treated in a tent encampment there. They were believed to have
drunk
infected water at a wedding.
The Health Ministry
announced another eight new deaths in the
Kwekwe and Gokwe districts in
central Zimbabwe. Twenty-seven people are
reported to have died of cholera
across the country in just over a month -
eight of them in Harare. At least
another 250 victims nationwide are being
treated.
"The
Government says it is nothing unusual, that we have seen
cholera in Harare
before," said Peter Iliff, the secretary of Zimbabwe
Doctors for Human
Rights. "They're wrong. It's in the heartland now. Before,
cases in Harare
were traced to people who had brought the disease with them
from
neighbouring countries like Mozambique and Malawi. Now it's
home-grown.
"There is transmission inside the city now. There
is going to be
a lot of cholera," Dr Iliff said.
Epworth
has no water-borne sewerage system. Cylindrical pit
latrine buildings stand
alongside nearly every home in what is one of
Zimbabwe's most densely
populated areas. "When it rains like this, the
toilets can fill up and spill
over," said Edmore Chirenje. "When it is hot,
the smell is terrible." Even
where there are sewers, they are often choked
through lack of
maintenance.
The Government reacted to the outbreaks of
cholera in Harare by
shutting the main township market near the city centre
and relocating it to
other townships where there is no provision for
lavatories or water. Police
have also banned street fish and meat
vendors.
The threatening health catastrophe posed by the
swamp of human
waste in the townships is compounded by mountains of
uncollected rubbish in
the city, including one outside the gates of the
Roman Catholic Cathedral of
the Sacred Heart.
HOW IT
STRIKES
.. Acute intestinal infection caused by eating
food or water
contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio
cholerae
.. Source of contamination in an epidemic is
usually the faeces
of an infected person
.. Infection is
largely by ingesting contaminated water or
food; person-to-person
transmission is rare
.. Often few or no symptoms. In severe
cases they include
profuse watery diarrhoea, vomiting and leg cramps, which
can lead to
dehydration and shock. Without treatment death can occur within
hours
.. One in twenty victims have severe
symptoms
.. Easily treated, replacing lost fluid and salt
with oral
rehydration solution
.. With quick treatment,
fewer than 1 per cent die
Sources: WHO; Centres for Disease
Control and Prevention
VOA
By
Blessing Zulu
Washington
13 February
2006
As economists and even the head of Zimbabwe's central bank
had predicted,
inflation continued to rise in January to a 613% annual rate
after 585% in
December, the Central Statistical Office said, citing housing
and food costs
and school fees.
The latest push in consumer prices
brought the 12-month rate within hailing
distance of the country's all-time
high inflation rate of 623% reached in
January 2004.
Reserve Bank
Governor Gideon Gono said in his recent monetary policy
statement that
inflation should peak at around 800% in March before
declining
again.
Elsewhere, analysts were voicing pessimism about the chance of an
agriculture-based economic recovery following the threat by State Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa to impose "criminal sanctions," on white farmers
raising crops without authorization on land that the state in effect
nationalized with a 2005 constitutional amendment.
He said white
farmers working land had not applied to the government to
plant crops after
the nationalization measure, though no such requirement
was
announced.
Labor and Economic Development Research Institute Director
Godfrey Kanyenze
told reporter Blessing Zulu that Harare has only itself to
blame for its
economic woes.
Zimbabwe has been plagued for months
with critical shortages of food, fuel
and other commodities as the
agricultural sector, which earned a large
portion of the country's export
foreign exchange earnings, has collapsed
under the shock of land reform.
Zim Daily
Tuesday, February 14
2006 @ 12:03 AM GMT
Contributed by: correspondent
University of Zimbabwe student leaders have written to the
United Nations
secretary general protesting the shock increase in tuition
fees at
Zimbabwe's main universities. Tuition fees shot up fivefold last
week,
shocking students and their families.
Government claimed to
have increased the fees in line with the
cost of education in the country.
According to the new fees structure, arts
students will have to pay Z$30
million a year, up from around six million.
Medical students now have to pay
Z$45 million up from nine million. But it
is some postgraduates who will
face the biggest hike.
A year's tuition would cost between
$60 and $90 million, up from
around $1 million. In a letter to Anan, which
was also copied to UZ
chancellor President Mugabe, his vice Levy Nyagura,
the Parliamentary
Commitee on Education, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
and the NGO Human
Rights Forum, the students said the new fees' structures
were not only
unaffordable but "a direct threat to our fundamental right to
education
embedded in the universal declaration of the human
rights."
"It is a clear reversal of the gains of the
revolution, which
thousands of the sons and daughters of this land died to
achieve," the
petition, signed by UZ Information chief Mfundo Mlilo said. "
We doubt that
the Chancellor, His Excellency, the President Cde. Robert
Mugabe was
consulted who at the time you made this decision was in Khartoum
(Sudan)
where all presidents in Africa endorsed a plan of action developed
by a team
of ministers pledging to devote sufficient resources to what they
termed the
Second Decade of Education. They acknowledged the existence of
parallel
initiatives in education on the continent such as Education For
All, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and NEPAD."
The students said the decision to raise the fees was "sputum
aimed directly
at the academic face." "It is unprocedural as it is wrong and
we doubt if
the students especially of this university will accept them,"
the petition
said. "We fear the pandemonium that will befall the institution
of higher
learning as you make to implement this.... We are sure you know
that many
students of this university come from peasant grounds and will
never afford
these fees."
The students accused Mugabe of being a
hypocrite. "You are aware
Comrade Minister how your own education and that
of our President Robert
Mugabe was funded," the petition said. " Remember
the Catholics who funded
President Mugabe's education because Amai Bona
could not afford the fees."
Government awarded the students a 90% increase
in payouts and yet approved a
5000% increase in tuition
fees.
The students demanded an immediate withdrawal of the
new fees
structure and to initiate negotiations with student leaders.
Zimdaily
understands that opening of the new term has been delayed by two
weeks
because of the fee hikes. Gift Nyandoro, the chairman of the Zimbabwe
Youth
Network for Good Governance, an organisation that lobbies for student
welfare in tertiary institutions, said the hikes were "unsustainable". He
predicted "sit-ins, strikes and lecture boycotts" if the authorities went
ahead and implemented the new fees.
"There's no way you
can expect a student to foot such a bill,"
he said. "Where would a peasant
son or daughter find such fees?" Students
have met the increase with howls
of protest describing the hikes as
"astronomical." "The increase actually
means education is going to be out of
the reach for many as the fees are
astronomical," said one student.
The Herald
(Harare)
February 14, 2006
Posted to the web February 13,
2006
Harare
MUNICIPAL clinics in Chitungwiza have been hit by a
shortage of essential
drugs and equipment after a major supplier severed its
contract with the
cash-strapped council over non-payment of a bill running
into billions.
The latest development comes amid revelations that
Nat-Pharm cancelled its
contract with the council in December last year
after the municipality
failed to settle its bills.
Although
Chitungwiza Health Services Director, Dr Mike Simoyi and the Town
Clerk, Mr
Simbarashe Mudunge could not disclose the exact amount owed to
Nat-Pharm,
they confirmed they were in arrears since December last year.
"I know we
had our last consignment in November last year and there has not
been
anything delivered to the town's four clinics since then," Dr Simoyi
said.
As a result of the unavailability of equipment, including
material for
expecting mothers at delivery, all clinics in Chitungwiza have
been
referring all cases to the already overloaded Chitungwiza Central
Hospital.
Dr Simoyi confirmed Chitungwiza Central Hospital was
complementing their
efforts as and when they had problems in the ante-natal
units.
"In fact, it was reported to me that Chitungwiza Central Hospital
now
requires us to provide its ante-natal clinic with some beds to deal with
an
overflow of expecting mothers," Dr Simoyi said.
Chitungwiza
Central Hospital, whose labour ward is still to be expanded,
cannot cope
with the current 30 deliveries per day while its nursing staff
in that area
is not adequate.
The situation has led to the labour ward having to make
some mothers deliver
on mattresses and attending late to some emergency
cases.
Municipality clinic officials interviewed yesterday said they were
asking
expecting mothers to bring their own cotton wool as they have not
received
any supplies since November last year.
Expecting mothers
need plenty of cotton wool and suture material during
delivery to curb blood
loss.
Despite failure by the municipal clinics to execute any deliveries,
expecting mothers have continued paying maternity fees to clinics, which was
increased to $1,2 million this year.
Dr Simoyi said the money they
charge expecting mothers was for the
ante-natal and post natal
care.
"We would want the situation to improve so I will table the drug
payment
issue tomorrow (today) so that we find ways of ensuring timely
payments in
future," Dr Simoyi said.
IOL
February 14
2006 at 01:22AM
Harare - Villagers are starving in southern
Zimbabwe due to the acute
shortage of grain, Home Affairs Minister Kembo
Mohadi said on Monday.
Mohadi, who is also the member of parliament
for the arid Beitbridge
constituency of southern Zimbabwe, told state radio
that although recent
rains have increased hopes of a good harvest, there was
insufficient grain
to meet people's present needs.
"It's really
terrible, there's no grain whatsoever. Our people are
actually starving,"
Mohadi said in a rare admission of the scale of food
shortages
here.
He said small milling companies were to blame, as they were
receiving
consignments of scarce grain from the state-run Grain Marketing
Board (GMB)
to the detriment of ordinary people.
"Small
millers are being given allocations to the detriment of the
people, and
there's nothing left for them," he said. The GMB is the only
body authorised
to buy and sell grain in the country.
Last week a private business
weekly reported that the government was
probing millers for allegedly
fuelling the black market by hoarding grain
allocated to them by the GMB and
then selling it above the official price.
Dismal harvests over the
past five years have reduced Zimbabwe, a
former regional breadbasket, to a
country dependent on grain imports.
This year the United Nations'
World Food Programme (WFP) also plans to
supply emergency food aid to some
three million Zimbabweans, or a quarter of
the population. - Sapa-dpa
People's Daily
Zimbabwe and Zambia are working together to
develop trade,
agriculture, tourism, education and communication for the
mutual benefit of
their economies.
Zimbabwe's Foreign Affairs
Minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, said on
Monday that the cooperation was
expected to resolve all historical
imbalances caused by
colonialism.
He was speaking during the official opening of the
14th session of the
Zambia, Zimbabwe Joint Permanent Commission of
Cooperation.
"We have engaged into a mutual action towards the
development of both
countries," he said. "It is my sincere hope that Zambia
and Zimbabwe will
remove any hurdles standing in the implementation of
decisions that will
deepen cooperation between them."
Ronnie
Shikapwasha, Zambia's Foreign Affairs Minister, said the two
countries could
benefit more from the Victoria Falls - one of the seven
wonders of the world
- that they share.
"In this regard, the two countries should
collaborate in the
developments at Victoria Falls," Shikapwasha
said.
He recommended joint packaging, marketing and advertising of
common
resources and joint participation in international tourism fairs and
exhibitions, trans-boundary natural resource management, and heritage
management in a bid to uplift the status of both countries.
"To
this effect, there is need to come up with an expanded program of
cooperation such as Zambia- Zimbabwe general tourism bilateral sector
agreements," Shikapwasha said.
He noted the abundant
opportunities for mutually beneficial
cooperation in the agricultural sector
in such areas as fisheries, research,
control of large grain borer and
migrant pests management, in order to
increase food security.
Other outstanding areas of cooperation such as traditional medicine
development should also be pursued, urged Shikapwasha.
Zambia
and Zimbabwe Joint Permanent Commission of Cooperation started
in 1981 with
a view to face the challenges of globalization with added
strength and
vigor.
Source: Xinhua
The Herald (Harare)
February
14, 2006
Posted to the web February 13, 2006
Harare
THE
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) yesterday received
state-of-the-art hydro-geological computers worth $5,3 billion from the
United Nations Children's Education Fund (Unicef).
In a speech read
on her behalf by Mr Munesu Munodawafa, principal director
in her office,
Vice President Cde Joice Mujuru said Zinwa was mandated,
through the Water
Act, to efficiently manage Zimbabwe's water resources,
whose effective
management called for comprehensive data and records.
Cde Mujuru stressed
the need to identify appropriate software that would
assist the water
authority in gathering, analysing, processing and archiving
hydro geological
information.
"I would like to sincerely thank Unicef for this generous
donation. I am
very much aware that Unicef is heavily involved in a number
of programmes
and projects in the country.
"On behalf of the
Government and the people of Zimbabwe, I would like to
thank you very much
for standing shoulder to shoulder with us during these
trying times," Cde
Mujuru said.
She said the donation would help in providing information on
water
facilities in any ward or district with respect to types of aquifers,
borehole yields, depths, diameters, functionality and water
levels.
Cde Mujuru highlighted the importance of easy access to essential
information, which she said was vital in planning and budgeting for
development projects.
"I would like to take the opportunity to urge
and encourage Zinwa to
effectively utilise the software for the benefit of
all stakeholders,
especially those in the rural water supply sector," said
Cde Mujuru.
Unicef country representative Dr Festo Kavishe said the fund
continued to
strive to support programmes, in the water and sanitation
sector, that
reduced child mortality, offered improvement of health and
education and
contributed to poverty reduction.
He said in 2004, upon
request from the Government, Unicef supported the
development of a
consolidated domestic water supply and sanitation national
policy.
"As the country gathers momentum to achieve the Millennium
Development
Goals, this policy will act as an excellent guide for overall
national water
and sanitation development," said Dr Kavishe.
He said
Unicef -- as the leading UN agency for water and sanitation -- was
co-ordinating interventions in these areas in Zimbabwe.
Dr Kavishe
said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) start with children
and could
only be met and sustained when the rights of children to health,
water and
sanitation, education, protection and equity were realised.
He said lack
of information had created challenges in effective monitoring
and reporting
on MDGs on water and sanitation.
"It is in view of this challenge that
Unicef feels obliged and is proud to
support Zimbabwe in its efforts to
improve monitoring of the water and
sanitation sector through information
collection, management and sharing,"
he added.
He said Unicef
provided aid worth US$60 million to Zimbabwe over the past
five years and
would continue to help in different sectors.
Minister of State for Water
Resources and Infrastructure Development,
Engineer Munacho Mutezo said the
donation was timely and was bound to help
Zimbabwe achieve its goals by
bringing resources and expertise together to
manage water in a holistic
manner.
"We as a ministry and Zinwa cannot express our joy as one of our
dream comes
true today. We are both mandated to plan, develop and manage the
water
resources of the nation.
"The planning aspect of our mandate
involved gathering data on all available
water resources in the country,
both ground and surface water.
"We have had two databases on groundwater,
one developed in the mid-80s,
which became obsolete and was replaced by
another one in the late-90s, which
again rapidly became redundant in a short
space of time," he said.
Eng Mutezo urged Zinwa staff to fully make use
of the equipment and look
after it properly saying accurate information
would assist Zimbabwe to
effectively develop and manage water resources.