Zim Standard
By Vusumuzi
Sifile
THE Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ)
confirmed last week it
was investigating the circumstances in which a plane
chartered by retired
former army commander General Solomon Mujuru, to fly
himself and his guests
to his daughter Nyasha's wedding last month in
Victoria Falls, was allowed
to take off with some of its panels
open.
The plane, a Boeing 737 chartered from Air Zimbabwe, flew
back to the
Harare international airport a few minutes after take-off after
the
discovery of the open panels.
The general had paid US$10
000 for the hire of the aircraft, reported
to be 20 years old.
CAAZ chief executive officer, David Chaota said on Friday while they
were
indeed investigating the incident, he would not elaborate.
"Normally, when such an incident happens, an investigation is
launched," he
said.
CAAZ keeps records of all flights - including aborted
take-offs - at
all the airports it operates.
Top-level sources
told The Standard that on 11 August, Mujuru,
Vice-President Joice Mujuru's
husband, and over 80 guests boarded the
chartered Boeing 737.
Other high profile passengers included the Minister of Water Resources
and
Infrastructural Development, Munacho Mutezo, Minister of Economic
Development, Sylvester Nguni and Phineas Chiota, the deputy minister of
Industry and International Trade, the permanent secretary in that ministry,
Christian Katsande, and Karikoga Kaseke, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority
(ZTA) chief executive officer, were also on the plane.
Reports
say they were hardly airborne when the plane aborted its
take-off after the
captain noticed that some of the panels had not been
closed.
"Everyone was surprised to see the plane returning to the runway and
landing," said a source. "The captain then informed us that there were some
panels that had not been closed."
The panels, also known as
cowlings, are used to access all critical
areas of an aircraft. They help
the pilot monitor and regulate engine
performance.
Aviation
engineers said an open panel increased pressure against the
flight, "and
this may lead to a short circuit and cause fire on the plane".
One
engineer said: "That was a very dangerous mistake: imagine what
would have
happened if the mistake had not been discovered earlier.
Something terrible
could have happened. An open panel would have disturbed
the airflow in the
engine, and that would have been disastrous."
For the return
flight, the plane was to have left the Victoria Falls
at 7PM on 12 August,
but it only left the following day at 3AM - eight hours
later.
Mujuru, who served as Josiah Magama Tongogara's deputy in the Zimbabwe
National Liberation Army (Zanla) during the struggle, decided against using
the plane.
The other guests flew back on the chartered
flight.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru confirmed her husband did not
travel back
to Harare on the chartered plane but joined her in a scheduled
ordinary
flight to Harare.
But other guests who attended the
party insisted he returned by road.
The Vice-President said she
could not comment on the incident as she
did not use the chartered
plane.
"I used the normal flight which left earlier. Why don't you
call those
who were in the flight?"
Attempts to contact the
retired general over the past two weeks have
been fruitless. He was said to
be at his farm and no one, including the
Vice-President would give his
mobile number.
Commenting on the delayed return flight, Air
Zimbabwe spokesperson
David Mwenga yesterday said the aircraft scheduled to
make the flight
delayed by one hour from another destination.
When it finally arrived in Harare, it had developed a technical fault
that
took 45 minutes to repair.
"We were supposed to pick up that party
around 8PM, but the flight was
delayed by two hours," Mwenga
said.
About the aborted take-off, he said there was no way a plane
would be
allowed to fly all the way to Victoria Falls with open
panels.
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
OFFICIALLY, a US$800 000 corruption study commissioned
by the
government in February should have been concluded last
week.
But it wasn't. The subject is one which gives most people in
government the jitters. It is said they ensured the project would be
still-born. The Pandora's box it would have opened would have ruined most of
them with one stroke of the pen.
Moreover, they must have
feared a few of them would end up behind
bars, perhaps as sacrificial lambs
for a government keen to present itself
as squeaky clean before elections it
knows it cannot win without some
electoral jiggery-pokery.
The
government claimed the report would have established the
occurrence of
specific types of corruption prevalent in Zimbabwe, as if that
was a great
secret.
It was expected to identify the causes of corruption which
many cynics
thought sounded as dumb as investigating why women become
pregnant.
The Standard's investigations have established the much
ballyhooed
study remains just that - a proposed study seven months after the
government
announced it would start.
The reputation of the
government for being absolutely economic with
the truth inhibited donors
from rushing in to help.
Most would-be donors doubted their money
would be put to good use.
There was another problem, not unfamiliar
in Zimbabwe: members of the
corruption commission demanded hefty allowances.
Some wanted to take up
positions of paid researchers to the commission, even
while they were being
paid to be commissioners.
"As you know,
this thing was not budgeted for," said a source. "The
government hasn't got
that kind of money. It wanted donors to pour in all
the money. But what
infuriated donors most of all were the demands of the
commissioners."
In February, the government announced that it
was embarking on an
eight-month baseline survey to study corruption, at an
estimated cost of
about US$800 000.
It pledged to provide
US$450 000 while the African Capacity Building
Foundation (ACBF) had been
asked to chip in with the remaining US$350 000.
The United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) was supposed to
provide the survey's technical
expertise and also give the definition of
corruption in the Zimbabwean
context, as well as analysing the existing
anti-corruption
legislation.
Professor Claude Mararike, who chairs the 15-member
steering committee
spearheading the corruption baseline survey, confirmed
the project was
virtually moribund.
"The government and other
partners are still working on the
modalities," he said. "They need to sort
out a few things first. It was our
wish to have the project up and running
but that has not been the case."
He said his committee was "still
waiting" and would start work as soon
as the funds were
available.
"Unfortunately, I don't have the mandate to talk to the
media,
otherwise I would have given you all the details," said Mararike,
declining
to comment on reports that the commissioners' allowance demands
had so
outraged intending donors that they had pulled out.
The
chairperson of the African Parliamentary Network against
Corruption (APNAC),
Willias Madzimure, whose network monitors corruption in
Africa, said last
week, from what he had gathered the researchers were
demanding exorbitant
allowances, flashy motor vehicles and mobile phones.
That apart, he
said, some of the commissioners wanted to become both
commissioners and
researchers, which clearly showed that they wanted to line
their
pockets.
"This turned away prospective financiers because it
clearly showed the
project would not succeed," he said.
A
spokesperson for ACBF, which was supposed to be the main financier
of the
graft study, said the organization was still committed to the
project. But
he declined to comment further.
No comment could be obtained from
the United Nations Development
Programme. (UNDP).
The Minister
of State Enterprises, Anti-monopolies and
Anti-Corruption, Samuel Undenge,
claimed he was attending meetings and
promised to call back.
He
never did.
Last year, the government established an Anti-Corruption
Commission,
headed by Eric Harid, the former Comptroller and
Auditor-General. Critics
say the commission has done virtually nothing to
fulfill its mandate.
Harid claimed last week the commission had
made significant progress.
"We tabled the 2006 annual report and
this year's report is with the
printers," he said. "I cannot give the
details because it has not been
tabled in Parliament. If you like you can
get the 2006 report from
Parliament."
Analysts say
commissioning baseline surveys and establishing
commissions "without any
teeth or political will" to tackle rampant
corruption in both the public and
private sectors would not help the
country.
There have been a
number of commissions to investigate corruption
since 1980, and most of
their findings have never been made public.
Several senior
government officials were named in the Willowgate
scandal, the
Pay-for-Your-House scheme and the War Victims' Compensation
Fund, but their
cases were either dropped or left hanging.
One person jailed over
Willowgate was hastily granted a presidential
pardon and
released.
The First Lady, Grace Mugabe, was among those named in
the
Pay-for-Your-House scheme, while police commissioner Augustine Chihuri,
Vice-President Joice Mujuru, her husband retired General Solomon Mujuru,
among others, were named in the War Victims' Compensation Fund
hearings.
It is now widely believed senior politicians and
businessmen seen as
transgressing are hauled before the courts on
allegations of corruption. But
once they "repent", the charges are either
dropped or left hanging for
future use.
According to
Transparency International (TI) corruption perception
index 2006, Zimbabwe
is ranked 130 out of the 163 countries, closer to
Africa's most corrupt
nations - Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Kenya, all on 142.
But
Madzimure believes corruption levels in Zimbabwe have surpassed
the TI
benchmark, especially in the wake of serious shortages of basic
commodities
precipitated by the government's directive to slash prices by
50%.
To access a basic commodity, the MDC MP said,
poverty-stricken people
have to pay "someone in the system".
"The level of corruption now is unacceptable. I think it is higher
than the
TI Index, especially with the current shortages," Madzimure said.
Zim Standard
By Vusumuzi
Sifile
TWO of the country's leading civic society organisations
have warned
President Robert Mugabe his announcement of a wage freeze last
week was
"satanic", illegal and "hopelessly unconstitutional".
Last week, Mugabe invoked the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures)
Act
to freeze all wage and salary increments.
But the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions and the National
Constitutional Assembly said the decree
smacked of government hypocrisy, as
it rendered useless ongoing dialogue
through the Tripartite Negotiating
Forum (TNF).
Legal experts
have noted that although the government could use the
decree to control
rentals and other charges, the same measure could not be
used for wages and
salaries as these fall under the Labour Act, which has
not been
amended.
In a statement, ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe,
said the
measures were "satanic, economically wrong and morally
suicidal".
He said the announcement was an indication Mugabe was
out of touch
with reality, and should brace himself for a showdown with with
the workers.
"There is no rationale in freezing salaries when only
last week prices
of commodities were reviewed upwards - what hypocrisy!"
said Chibebe. "The
move by the State means that battlelines have been drawn
between the ZCTU
and government . . . This means that we keep going round in
circles and
never stick to agreed programmes of action to finding lasting
solutions to
the crisis in Zimbabwe."
Chibebe said the measures
were "unacceptable in a democracy" and
"tantamount to condemning all
Zimbabweans to poverty".
"President Mugabe, it would seem, is not
in touch with the reality on
the ground and we wonder on what planet he
lives. It is no secret at all
that he is well catered for - he has never
slept on an empty stomach, he has
never walked from State House to his
Munhumutapa offices, his children have
never been chased away from school
because they had not paid fees, and he
has never experienced water and
electricity cuts. Freezing wages and
salaries, when an average wage in the
industry is $1 million is tantamount
to condemning all Zimbabweans to
poverty."
Yesterday, NCA chairperson Lovemore Madhuku said the
decree was
"hopelessly unconstitutional".
"Wages and salaries
cannot be dealt with under a presidential decree,
they fall under the Labour
Act. The Labour Act has not been amended, and
unless it has been amended,
the decree on wages and salaries cannot be
effected. Obviously, they should
realise this mistake, a wage is not a
price," Madhuku said.
Economic commentator John Robertson said yesterday the new measures
were an
attempt by the government to find excuses for not reviewing civil
servants'
salaries.
"This is only going to make things worse," he said. "The
government is
trying to protect itself from the demands of civil servants.
They now have
an excuse for not reviewing their salaries upwards and want to
get everyone
under their umbrella.
"They cannot talk of a price
freeze when the goods are being sold on
the black market. The real price at
the moment is the black market price,
and this will only worsen the
situation."
Robertson predicted that like the July price blitz, the
new measures
would backfire.
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
BRITAIN yesterday said despite a vicious attack on its
government from
the State-run media last week, it would not change its
policy towards
Harare.
The British Embassy's head of press and
public affairs in Zimbabwe,
Gillian Dare said if Harare thought that Britain
would soften its stance
because of the change in Prime Minister it was
wrong.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair - who has been hard
on
President Robert Mugabe's administration - was replaced by Gordon Brown
in
June this year.
"If the government of President Mugabe
believed that there would be a
change in British policies because of the
change in Prime Minister, they
were mistaken," Dare said.
In a
comment last week, a State-run newspaper viciously attacked
Britain for
unveiling a statue of former president of South Africa Nelson
Mandela in
London and describing him as the world's most revered statesmen.
The paper accused Brown's government of making "political capital" out
of
Mandela's stature and described the move as racist hypocrisy.
It
claimed that Britain rewarded Mandela because he did not disturb
the
interests of white capital when he was President.
"He preached
reconciliation instead of justice."
It is unlikely that such a
vitriolic attack on Britain could find its
way into the paper without
approval from government, as has been the norm.
It is suspected that the
comment is a pre-emptive action of what is to
follow.
Efforts
to get a comment from Mugabe's spokesperson, George Charamba,
were
unsuccessful yesterday.
Mugabe's administration, analysts say,
hoped that Brown would give it
a sympathetic ear, unlike Blair.
The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader has been careful not to rubbish
Brown
since he assumed office, presumably hoping for a change of policy in
London.
But that approach has evidently been discarded.
The fuss that
Harare has made over Mandela's statue is ironic. In
1994, the British
government conferred Mugabe with an honorary Knight
Commander of the Order
of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II which he gleefully
accepted.
Then he was a darling of the West and enjoyed receiving the same type
of
reception in London that Mandela is getting.
Now that the tables
have turned and there are moves to strip him of
the Knighthood, Mugabe's
spokesmen are livid.
Mugabe fell out of favour following
allegations of gross human rights
violations against his fellow countrymen
and orchestrating the country's
economic decay that has impoverished more
than 80% of the population.
Britain is ready for a more productive
relationship with Harare and to
assist in the country's economic recovery,
Dare said.
"But we cannot do this unless we see Zimbabwe remove
draconian laws,
restore respect for fundamental freedoms, human rights and
the rule of law,
and embark on the economic and fiscal reforms set out by
the International
Monetary Fund."
Zim Standard
By Kholwani
Nyathi
BULAWAYO - The opening of the third school term could
plunge the
education system into fresh crisis because of the continuing
shortage of
basic commodities.
In the aftermath of the
government decree on prices, basic
commodities - including school uniforms
and stationery - have disappeared
from the shops.
Tertiary
institutions have not been spared: the National University of
Science and
Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo has postponed the start of its
first semester
by a month, to 24 September.
A survey of government and private
schools, especially boarding
schools, revealed that most were not prepared
for re-opening as they could
not guarantee enough food for
students.
They said delays by the Cabinet Taskforce on Price
Monitoring and
Stabilisation in announcing a new school fees structure for
the term had
stymied planning.
Last week, the Minister of
Industry and International Trade, Obert
Mpofu, chairman of the taskforce,
insisted the "government will announce the
new fees structure before the
schools open because we cannot allow a
situation where education is priced
beyond the reach of the people" .
But the Roman Catholic Church,
which runs a number of mission schools
across the country, has warned it
might be forced to close them down if it
was forced to charge sub-economic
fees.
Although the Association of Trust Schools (ATS), representing
a number
of private boarding schools, on Thursday said it would only be able
to
assess the situation this week, parents have said they fear mass
starvation.
They said children should only be allowed to return if
schools were
assured they would be provided with basics such as maize-meal
and meat.
The southern parts of the country have gone for a month
without
maize-meal while the closure of private slaughterhouses during the
price
blitz caused a severe shortage of beef in urban areas across the
country.
In Matabeleland South, there are already serious doubts
that Mzingwane
High School would reopen as usual: it closed its last term
prematurely after
students rioted over food shortages.
In
Bulawayo, the situation has been exacerbated by the water crisis,
with some
suburbs going for a month without it. The city has 127 primary
schools and
47 secondary schools, all affected by the water cuts.
Council
spokesperson, Pathisa Nyathi, said the United Nations Children's
Fund
(UNICEF) had committed itself to supply schools with 5 000-litre water
tanks
to alleviate the crisis.
But he admitted the council, battling
against fuel and water bowser
shortages, was racing against time to acquire
and install the tanks before
Tuesday.
Education, Sport and
Culture minister, Aeneas Chigwedere could not be
reached for comment as he
was said to be out of his office last week.
Meanwhile Rutendo
Mawere reports from Gweru that parents were worried
that they would not be
able to buy anything for their children.
Jessica Mombeshora said
she had tried almost every shop in the city
centre but had not found
anything to buy.
"I am very worried about my two children who will
be returning to
Loreto in a few days," she said. "I can't imagine how I am
going to be able
to get supplementary food for them. It has always been the
case that I buy
them tinned foods, drinks, cereals and snacks but these
things have
completely disappeared from the shops."
Mavis Zano,
a boarder, said she was afraid to go back to school
without any food. "Most
boarding schools have never been able to provide
adequately for boarders,
even under normal circumstances," she moaned. "Now,
with the current
scarcity of food, we will face a double tragedy and we are
likely to
starve."
Some parents and schoolchildren said chances were high the
children
would starve. "Even the schools may not be able to source enough
food for
our children," said Onias Zhanje. "There is no maize-meal, sugar,
milk,
meat, beans, rice, eggs, bread and several other things that boarding
schools require to function normally."
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
TEACHERS will embark on a go-slow industrial action
from Tuesday, when
schools open for the third term, to press for a 400% pay
rise, one of their
unions said last week.
Progressive Teachers'
Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary-general,
Raymond Majongwe said from that
day teachers would conduct lessons only with
examination
classes.
After 14 days, the teachers would then embark on a
fully-fledged work
stoppage.
Majongwe said the teachers,
regardless of their trade union
affiliation, had agreed on industrial action
to press for better pay and
working conditions.
But there was
no immediate confirmation of participation from Zimbabwe
Teachers'
Association (Zimta) president Tendai Chikowore or CEO Peter
Mabande as their
phones went unanswered.
Majongwe said: "If the government does not
review our salaries
meaningfully by 18 September, teachers will sit in
schools and stop teaching
the examination classes."
He said the
teachers were legally obliged to give a notice of 14 days
before going on
strike.
The teachers are demanding a monthly salary of $15 million,
$5.2
million for transport allowance and $3 million for
housing.
Majongwe said the lowest paid teacher earned just above
$1.6 million a
month as well as transport and housing allowances of $1 076
275 and $300 000
respectively.
The figures fall way below the
poverty datum line (PDL),
conservatively estimated to be around $5.5
million.
"Teachers are finding it difficult to survive on these
slave wages,"
Majongwe said. "They cannot clothe and feed their families,
send their
children to school and attend to social gatherings in their
immediate
families, such as funerals. The teachers' social decency has been
eroded."
He said historically teachers used to be the torch-bearers
and even
paid school fees for vulnerable children in the communities they
taught.
Today, they spend most of their time selling basic
commodities to
students, instead of teaching.
The PTUZ leader
urged parents and students to bear with the teachers.
"The ultimate
victims of this unfolding social phenomenon are the
students," he said.
"Therefore, a struggle by teachers to be adequately
remunerated is a
struggle for every Zimbabwean."
This would be the third time this
year that teachers have gone on
strike, if the government fails to address
their grievances.
Efforts to get a comment from the Minister of
Education, Sports and
Culture, Aeneas Chigwedere, were unsuccessful as he
could not be reached.
Zim Standard
BY GODFREY
MUTIMBA
MASVINGO - Workers with blackened faces carry huge
bundles of burnt
sugar cane in the scorching heat of the Lowveld
sun.
Their clothes are tattered and their buttocks exposed as they
go up
and down the fields barefoot and with little food to eat.
Ironically, their new employers sit relaxed, wining and dining on the
verandahs of the mansions they grabbed from former owners of the
land.
Welcome to Hippo Valley in Chiredzi where memories of the
slave trade,
when Africans were subjected to forced labour on white-owned
plantations,
easily come to mind.
Farm workers employed by the
newly-resettled farmers in the sugar cane
industry in the Lowveld claim they
are getting a raw deal from their new
paymasters - a paltry $200 000 a
month.
The cane cutters say they have been reduced to destitution
as their
meagre pay is not enough to buy a two-litre bottle of cooking oil,
at $800
000 on the black market.
They spend the whole day in
the fields in the scorching sun, battling
to reach their targets: ten tonnes
of cane a day which fetches $360 million
for the new farmers.
Disgruntled cane cutters say they were better off under their previous
employers, the white commercial farmers.
"We are living in
poverty since these war veterans took over the
farms," said Justin Chauke,
who works for a war veteran known as Comrade
Satan. "They pay us a meagre
$200 000 a month, and we do not know how they
expect us to
survive."
Chauke said: "This is tantamount to slavery. We have
nowhere to go
since some of us are not educated. Our former employers,
though white, paid
us handsomely and we and our families could afford a
decent life."
The Zimbabwe Sugar Milling Industry Workers' Union
said they were
aware of the pathetic plight of cane cutters.
Secretary-general Admore Hwarare said they had engaged the new farmers
to
review their workers' pay in compliance with government
regulations.
Hwarare said: "As a union, we are proposing $1 million
as the minimum
for a worker to afford a decent living."
A
number of the cane cutters said they could not afford even a bucket
of
maize-meal, now $350 000.
"I failed to pay school fees for my
children," said another cane
cutter, "and had no option but to have them
join me as farm labourers, so
that we could get more money for our
upkeep.
"Instead of getting $200 000, my three children and my wife
and I get
$600 000: we combine the salaries so that we are able to buy
enough food."
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
LAWYERS acting for a human rights organisation are suing
a senior
police officer for barring them from attending a memorial service
for the
late Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) national chairman Isaac
Matongo.
The memorial was abandoned when armed police dispersed MDC
activists
and villagers at Mushayavanhu village, 15km east of
Mupandawana.
Officials from the Restoration of Human Rights
Zimbabwe (ROHR) were on
their way to donate soccer balls at the memorial
when police, mounting a
surprise roadblock at the intersection of
Buhera-Gutu Mupandawana roads,
stopped them.
Among the
officials was Stendrick Zvorwadza, the vice-president of the
organisation
who was threatened by the heavily armed police with unspecified
reprisals if
they proceeded to Matongo's home.
The activists, including several
other people, waited for hours at the
roadblock before returning to the
growth point.
ROHR Zimbabwe's lawyers, Mbizo, Muchadehama and
Makoni, said ROHR
Zimbabwe was a lawful organisation and his clients were
demanding an
explanation from Loveness Matapura, cited as the
officer-in-charge, Bikita
police station.
"Could we please hear
from you on or before the 31st of August 2007,
failing which our
instructions are to make a High Court application
declaring your actions
unlawful? Thereafter other remedies available to our
clients will be pursued
without further recourse to you," said the lawyers
in a letter dated 21
August 2007.
It was not clear if Matapura, who was reportedly
giving instructions
to the police, had responded to the letter by the end of
day on Friday.
Zim Standard
By our
correspondent
ANGER is growing in Harare's eastern suburbs over
the inability of the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) to supply
water to the area, where
most homes and business operations have been
without the commodity since
early July. There are fears that the water
shortage could last for months,
even years.
Private meetings
are being held to gather interest in drawing up a
petition for
responsibility for Harare's water supplies to be removed from
Zinwa and
restored to the City of Harare. Legal opinions are also being
sought on
action to revoke the mandatory minimum charge on Zinwa bills and
to
compensate residents and businesses for having to draw water from other
sources such as boreholes, wells and supply by tanker trucks.
Health concerns are key to the growing discontent, but consumers are
also
feeling greatly inconvenienced by what has become a chronic inability
by the
water authority to fulfil its mandate.
Contacted for comment last
week, a clearly overwhelmed Zinwa official
said he was at a loss, adding the
list of requirements for the authority to
function properly were just "too
much".
They expected, he said, the plight of residents in Harare's
eastern
suburbs would have been addressed by this weekend.
"Added to the insult of having no water is the fact that we are
charged
bills for no service," said a Chisipite resident, "and Zinwa has
been
disconnecting people who do not pay bills, which includes a standard
minimum
charge that must be paid irrespective of whether or not the service
is
provided."
Zinwa call centre staff provide a range of
"explanations" for callers,
advising that the fault lies, alternatively,
with electricity supplies,
broken pumps, problems at Morton Jaffray water
works, fuel shortages, lack
of capacity within pipes and other
problems.
"We are often told that water supplies will be resumed
'tomorrow',"
said the Chisipite resident, "but tomorrow never
comes."
Although water supplies to the eastern suburbs have been
erratic for
the past few years, the problems have intensified since Zinwa
took over the
responsibility from the City of Harare and the view among many
residents of
the area is that Zinwa considers itself beyond
reproach.
"One call centre staff member advised me privately that
Zinwa
management does not consider the welfare of its customers of
importance,"
explained a resident from Greendale. "Management has said to
call centre
team members that they should give 'any old answer' because
customers' views
are to be disregarded.
"This person also told
me that it was unlikely that we would have
water again in the foreseeable
future and that we had better gear ourselves
for a prolonged dry spell that
could last years."
The call centre staff member's views are
corroborated by a lack of
communication to customers by Zinwa, either
directly or through the media.
"Occasional statements are made
apologising for a day's shortage here
and a night's shortage there," said
the resident from Chisipite, "but there
has to date been no statement on the
general position on the eastern suburbs
and why there has been no water
pumped into the area for almost two months,
apart from a few hours one night
in early August.
"The current position regarding water is appalling
and must be
addressed immediately. The government, especially the minister
responsible
for water, must take responsibility for this situation and do
something,"
the Greendale resident said. "Even in Bulawayo, where there is a
genuine
crisis, there is an effective system that works well and keeps
customers
supplied on a downscaled basis. How absolutely disgusting that
this does not
happen in Harare!"
He compared this to the
position regarding electricity supplies, which
were handled in a
professional manner by the authorities responsible for
this
commodity.
"Electricity is rationed on a planned basis and even
when there are
faults these are attended to, and the staff at call centres
is able to
advise status of supply and what is being done to resolve it," he
said.
"Zinwa is a disaster and I can assure government that Zinwa will cost
them
votes in the next election."
He castigated the Harare City
Commission for a "complete lack of
interest in the situation" and also said
the state media had been instructed
not to allow coverage for the water
problem "beyond saying what wonderful
things were being done by Zinwa to
keep water flowing, even though it is
not".
The Greendale
resident said the call centre staff member who had
confided in him had said
the water shortage would spread and that the
chronic absence of water would
probably affect the northern suburbs of
Borrowdale, Greystone Park, Mount
Pleasant and Vainona within a few weeks.
"The silence surrounding
this issue is even more appalling than the
water crisis itself, he said.
"Something must be done and the media must
draw attention to yet another
failing on the part of central and local
government and yet another result
of the mismanagement of the country."
The Combined Harare
Residents' Association (Chra) said the water
problems were a result of acute
incompetence on the part of Zinwa.
"The water crisis has worsened
since Zinwa came onto the scene. The
fact that nothing has improved since
introduction of Zinwa shows that the
solution is not to be found in Zinwa,"
said Chra. "Water management should
be returned to the city authorities and
by city authorities we mean a
properly elected council that is answerable to
residents and not the
minister."
A Harare lawyer said the
take-over of the functions and assets of
local authorities by Zinwa was
beyond the legal power of the Zinwa Act.
"If it were felt that
urban local authorities were failing to manage
water and sewer effectively,"
he said, "and that Zinwa had the capacity . .
. rather than Zinwa taking
over entirely local authorities could have been
encouraged to enter into
co-operative agreements in terms of Section 223 (1)
of the Urban Councils
Act."
Zim Standard
By Nqobani Ndlovu
BULAWAYO - The Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) has reportedly stopped
feeding
remand prisoners amid reports of worsening food shortages in prisons
across
the country.
This comes at a time when the country is in the grip
of crippling
shortages of basic commodities, including the staple
maize-meal.
The prison service has been under scrutiny from
parliamentary
committees and human rights activists for overseeing
deteriorating
conditions at prisons.
The service has reportedly
ordered relatives of inmates to bring food
for remand prisoners, citing
failure to source fresh supplies.
Authoritative sources told The
Standard the situation deteriorated
when major suppliers gave the service an
ultimatum: pay up or no more
supplies.
The suppliers claim they
are owed "billions of dollars".
Senior prison officers at Khami and
Grey prisons in Bulawayo reported
food supplies were fast running out after
two major city wholesalers
abruptly stopped deliveries over
non-payment.
Zim Standard
By Jennifer
Dube
THE government will not grant amnesty to exiled
businesspeople,
including bankers, to implement its planned national
indigenisation
exercise, a cabinet a minister said in Harare last
week.
Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Munyaradzi Paul
Mangwana said
the government was determined to have all exiled
businesspeople put on trial
on their return into the country.
Mangwana has in the past invited Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to
participate
in the government's planned National Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment
exercise.
His calls sparked speculation the government was trying
to lure back
exiled businesspeople who skipped the country after accusations
they had
committed economic crimes for which they could be arrested and
charged.
Economists have in the past said exiled businesspeople,
among them a
number of high-profile bankers, would not return to the country
if the
government did not undertake political reforms ensuring respect for
property
rights, among other conventional pillars of democracy and free
enterprise.
"The government will not use the programme to give
amnesty to
criminals who ran away," said Mangwana. "When they come back,
they will face
trial."
He said the government was only
interested in doing business with
honest people from the
Diaspora.
"When we talk of our people in the Diaspora, we are not
talking of
those criminals. We are talking of honest black Zimbabweans who
are all over
the world and we have received several enquiries from some who
are eager to
participate in the exercise," he said.
Even those
who could only spare very little of their monthly incomes
could still
participate in the exercise through consortia or buy shares
through a
government trust to be set up for that purpose, Mangwana said.
In a
week's time, the government will bring before Parliament a
controversial
Bill that will force all foreign-owned companies to cede
majority ownership
to "indigenous black" Zimbabweans.
The Indigenisation and
Empowerment Bill, which has generated much
anxiety among the few foreign
investors who remain in the country, was
recently submitted to the
parliamentary legal committee, which assesses
proposed Bills which may be
deemed to violate Zimbabwe's constitution.
Last April, the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono
proposed that the government grant
amnesty to exiled businesspeople through
his tottering proposed social
contract.
Most memorable to Zimbabwean economic sector is the 2004
financial
services sector fiasco which saw a good number of businesspeople
skipping
the country in the wake of what they perceived as government
persecution on
allegations of improper dealings.
Among them
were bankers Otto Chekeche, Francis Zimuto, Julius Makoni
and James
Mushore.
Trust Bank Holdings chief executive officer and founder
William
Nyemba, Barbican Bank boss Mthuli Ncube and Intermarket chief
executive Nick
Vingirai, and Africa Resources Limited head Mutumwa Mawere
also left the
country in unclear circumstances.
Zim Standard
Comment
THE next time a politician stands before voters
telling them how good
the ruling party is and deserves another chance,
voters should have the
courage to ask: How many more people have to die for
government to be
convinced Zinwa is not up to the task?
Which
is more important, protecting the lives of people or pushing
ahead with the
takeover of water and sewer services by a bunch of people
that have brought
a new meaning to the word incompetence?
It is clear that the
government cares little about what the people or
what even its own
legislators say. It ignored a parliamentary portfolio
committee which found
that Zinwa did not have the capacity or competence to
take over the running
of the water and sewage functions from local
authorities. The committee
advised the takeover be scrapped.
But the government has vowed it
will go ahead with the project even as
health officials show that recent
deaths are due to the incompetence of
Zinwa and that whole urban areas are
threatened because Zinwa cannot be
relied upon to provide water
regularly.
The emergence of Zinwa has brought greater hardships to
the poor
throughout the country as they are required to travel long
distances in
order to settle their bills. Just how this improves the lot of
the majority
is beyond comprehension.
MPs and government take
an oath of office to serve this country and
the interests of its people. The
government has failed to convince citizens
of this country how the transfer
of the water and sewage functions to Zinwa
will serve their interests
because it is staggering from one disaster to the
next. The government has
not heeded repeated objections to the takeovers and
the only way to deal
with someone who is recalcitrant is to send them
packing.
One
of the myths that have been promoted - though without any evidence
to prove
it - is that Zanu PF is a people's party and that the government
governs in
the interests of the majority. When it speaks of the "people" it
refers to
the card-carrying members of the ruling party. Zanu PF is
contemptuous of
the majority of Zimbabweans. Its view is that Zimbabweans
are incapable of
thinking for themselves. It is for this reason that
whenever the people try
to reassert themselves, Zanu PF and the government
rush to conclude they are
someone's puppets. Zanu PF's view is that the
majority of Zimbabweans cannot
think for themselves, therefore they need to
have someone planting ideas in
their heads and inciting them.
If the government persists with the
imposition of Zinwa, the people
must make a stand and demonstrate that they
will not allow their lives to be
endangered because the State will not
listen to professional and
parliamentary advice.
Two weeks ago
the City Health Department warned cases of diarrhoea
were so bad in the
capital they were treating 900 cases daily. There have
been outbreaks of
cholera in Kadoma and Chegutu, while in towns such as
Chinhoyi, Gweru,
Marondera and Karoi residents have gone for months without
water. Just how
many more people must die in order to convince the
government that this is a
man-made catastrophe?
Heads should roll. The government has caused
enough damage and is
endangering lives. When it does not wish to listen, it
should pay the price
for its arrogance.
Voters should mobilise
themselves and speak to the government and the
ruling party in the language
they understand: a good kick in the teeth and
show it the door during next
year's election, for its refusal to shelve the
takeover and its arrogance in
ignoring advice.
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by Bill
Saidi
AFTER a long-distance relationship spread over nearly seven
years, we
were finally face-to-face, in the reception area of The Standard
offices.
The greetings were effusive, of old friends reuniting
after a long
spell. He had my image from the picture that accompanied the
column in The
Daily News.
I had no idea, until now, what he
looked like: an affable Asian, with
a ready smile, white-haired, short,
sprightly, a hard-working man.
We had talked on the telephone since
2000 when the crisis which has
brought us to this final stretch to
Apocalypse was born out of the murderous
land invasions.
He
always asked me why I was such an incurable optimist: didn't I see
there was
no light at the end of the tunnel, not a flicker of hope in this
darkness?
He was so persistent at one time I thought perhaps he
was right. What
was the use? Nobody had the courage to call Zanu PF's
bluff.
I knew I couldn't give in so meekly. Africa, no, the world
would not
countenance that. Dictators had been overthrown all over. No, I
said to him
many times, just hang in there.
Earlier this year,
he had telephoned me to say most of his workers had
not turned up for work:
there were only a few who could afford the bus fare
into town. He was
thinking of selling the factory - what was the use of
flogging a dead horse?
Hadn't he told me this over and over again over the
years we had kept
contact?
WEhen we met in July at The Standard offices, the
conversation was
almost the same; why did I think there was still any
chance?
A few weeks later, in August we met at the lifts of a
skyscraper along
Third Street, the offices of the largest property and
insurance company in
the country.
We were almost as excited as
we were at our first meeting ever, after
speaking to each other on the
telephone, from 2000.
"It's all done," he said to my unuttered
question, he was waving a
piece of paper, with the finality of a rifle
barrel pointed at the condemned
man in a firing squad. "It's
finished!"
There was such a ring of profound triumph and relief in
his voice; I
knew his relief had to be equivalent to the exuberance of the
first man to
exclaim "Eureka!" during the Klondike gold rush.
It had been a long, bitter struggle for him, a version of his own
Chimurenga, against odds almost as overwhelming as those confronted by the
Patriotic Front soldiers during the 15-year liberation
struggle.
For him, as for many other entrepreneurs after the
nightmare of 2000,
it had the futility of staggering barefoot, in tattered
clothes and battered
spirit, to a mirage, an oasis seen in the haze which
would solidify into a
pile of sand as he reached it.
Finally,
he was signalling to me as the lift doors closed with a soft
hiss, he had
sold the factory, would get his money and would fly out of this
country on
the fastest plane he could find . . . to any other place on
earth.
Millions of other Zimbabweans had done that, some on
foot across the
Limpopo, to be turned into lunch, dinner and breakfast by
crocodiles or
lions.
Before the ANZ titles were finally
silenced by the heavy anvil of
intolerance that is wielded by AIPPA, I had
for years talked to two men on
the telephone, two men I had never met -
until I met one of them this year.
There was comfort, for them, in
the anonymity. They poured out their
hearts to me: why did I insist that all
was not lost? Didn't I see "The Man"
for what he was - he would destroy
everything in his path until he achieved
victory?
We laughed a
lot, at each other, at ourselves, for daring to believe
this nightmare would
end in our favour, in the people's favour, that Evil
would not triumph over
Good.
The other person was white and said he was terminally ill - I
could
hear his painful cough some times, but he said he was pleased to speak
to a
"totemless" Zimbabwean - like himself.
As a columnist I
have talked to and been touched by many people, but
never as tenderly or as
menacingly as by these two men: why did I believe
they ought to believe me
in persisting that all was not lost?
Today, I can imagine my Asian
friend and his family flying off into
The Unknown, across the Indian
Ocean.
Yet still I remain optimistic. There are Zimbabweans I know
who will
endure the shortages, the insults and the kicks and even the murder
of
relatives.
I know there is a glint in their eyes, a
perennial grim, rueful glint:
you should have left when you had the chance,
my old friend.
Now, we have to do the unthinkable: reject one who
thought was our
saviour.
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
WHAT a valiant fight we put up! Even
as the enemy
advanced in massive numbers on our last bolthole, our heroic
troops could be
heard singing defiantly: "To dream the impossible dream."
They refused to
surrender and fought to the last soldier. The same could not
be said of
Fiddler's treacherous courtiers. They constantly planned palace
coups or
collaborated with the enemy. But The Fiddler outsmarted and
outlasted them
all.
It had been a titanic struggle against the
forces of evil. (Note
titanic with a small 't', not the ship that had a
one-sided quarrel with an
iceberg.) Good should always triumph over evil but
our evil enemy was
inexorable. Not only had they found ways to proliferate
themselves -
probably by using cloning techniques supplied by George Bush -
but they were
constantly changing their form. We came to refer to those
barbaric hordes as
the army of "regime shift shapers", also known as
"transformers". One day
our foes would be dressed up in smart business suits
and the next they would
have lightened their skins and would be wearing
khaki shorts and veldskoens.
Sometimes they assumed the form of totemless
opposition supporters sponsored
and provisioned by the West. We would
eliminate one political party and
absorb residual elements into an army of
national unity, only to find that a
new opposition party had sprung up from
nowhere or had been manufactured at
an underground robotics company. Other
times the enemy would be pretending
to be informal traders, slum dwellers,
clergypersons, trade unionists or one
of the endless stream of extravagantly
foreign funded NGOs. They even
recruited termites to undermine our
sovereignty. We considered taking legal
action against the termites using
the precedent of a Brazilian case in 1715
in which monks sued some termites
who were destroying their food and
furniture. The lawyer for the termites
pointed out that the termites had
been there first and, in any event, the
termites were far more industrious
and productive than the monks. Despite
this argument, the court ordered the
termites to move to another area where
they could live and work undisturbed.
The termites complied with the court
order and marched out of the monastery
to their new home.
Our enemy has behaved appallingly by flouting every single Geneva
Convention. On one occasion they dispatched a monkey on a suicide mission to
take out our electricity supply. On another occasion they dispatched an
ex-Agriculture Minister to ensure no crops would be grown so that we would
starve. Whereas we occasionally treated all captured combatants most
humanely, our brave soldiers when captured were subjected to the most
bestial forms of torture, for instance, by being made to read only the
column of the Chairman of MIC.
One day the enemy appeared in
the guise of an endless queue. The
Manica Post did an excellent job of
exposing this crude propaganda ploy.
Clearly the queuers had been rented for
the day to create the impression
that people had to queue for everything,
even war.
So the game was up. As the song goes: "It was just one of
those
things/Just one of those marvellous flings/ It was great fun/ But it
was
just one of those things."
Fiddler's remaining adjutants
took the easy way out by projecting
metal objects into their heads. The
Fiddler, of course, would never resort
to such a cowardly act. After all,
his external accounts would be very
lonely without him. Like a good golf
player he would skilfully extricate
himself from the bunker. Now how exactly
do you get to Equatorial Guinea?
Zim Standard
sundayview by
Judith Todd
IN mid-March, my parents invited the Shamuyariras to
dinner. Halfway
through, Nathan said: "Judy, I hope CIO is not still
interfering with your
mail?" I had to think on my feet, as it were, although
I was sitting down.
What worried me was any possible fright to my
mother, so I tried to
pass his question off as a light-hearted matter and
said: "Minister, I haven't
told my mother about this, but everything seems
to have led to vastly
improved relations with the CIO, and Mr Stannard and I
are even due to have
lunch with each other."
The minister
seemed amused, and my mother and the two New Zealand
visitors seemed
unperturbed. I supposed, sitting warmly around the table,
the possibility of
the CIO opening my mail seemed unreal to everyone but the
minister, my
father and me. But of course, whatever I hoped, my mother would
have known
exactly what was happening. Her sensitivity was ultra acute.
Now
and again, I thought I had reached the age and the condition when
nothing
was so bad that it could shock me. That particular thought was in my
mind on
Monday 24 March when Michelle Faul rang to say that we must meet,
which we
did high above Harare on the Meikles Hotel pool deck at lunch time.
She
worked for Associated Press and was a stringer for the BBC.
Four
days earlier, Michelle had been instructed to meet Nathan
Shamuyarira. She
was told that "we" are tired of her reporting; she would
have no further
assistance from the ministry - which meant she would lose
her accreditation.
She couldn't be deported, as she was a citizen by birth
of Zimbabwe, so the
only way to deal with her was detention at Chikurubi.
She was
rightly very frightened, and at the same time ashamed of being
scared. She
was leaving Zimbabwe within the next 48 hours, deprived of her
home, her
right to work and, basically, of her citizenship.
After our painful
lunch, I got back to the office to find a white
woman of about 60 who asked
if I could spare a few minutes. Between Michelle
and now this lady, I
realised that there were still things that could
profoundly shock
me.
She sat down, introducing herself as Margie Schwing, and
although she
never actually wept, she was on the verge of tears and
struggling for
control throughout the awful story she told me. She had been
in Park Street
in November, and all of a sudden was surrounded by five men
who said they
were from CIO and took her off to Harare Central police
station. From there
she was moved to Chikurubi Women's Remand Section. She
appeared once in a
magistrate's court and the CIO opposed bail because they
said they were
still investigating fraud.
From what Mrs Schwing
said, it was CIO throughout, and not the fraud
squad. She said she still
didn't know why she had been held. She was
released at the end of February,
suffering from pneumonia, and was taken to
Parirenyatwa Hospital
outpatients. Due to one of those strokes of good
fortune, Mrs Schwing had
been alone when a member of her church saw her and
came to ask what was
wrong. She was accompanied by two CIO agents, one of
whom had gone to get
her prescription filled, while the other had gone to
the
toilet.
The friend was extremely practical and whipped out a
notebook, and
took down the name and address of Mrs Schwing's son, who
apparently worked
for Tabex in Malaysia, and then darted off before CIO
reappeared.
The conditions she described were terrible: women not
knowing of any
rights they might have; beatings by wardresses; people having
their hair
torn out; a woman having teeth punched in; the use of hosepipes
on prisoners
by the wardresses; malnutrition among toddlers and babies
picked up with
their mothers. She said that on New Year's Day as the women
came out of the
cell blocks, they each received a blow with a hosepipe and
the accompanying
greeting: "Happy New Year!"
Mrs Schwing
also said something that I thought might be the truth of
the matter,
although she apologised for saying it, because, she said, it
sounded so
unreal. She had been at a party before her detention, and Simon
Muzenda was
there. He had been very nice to her, and introduced her to a lot
of people.
Mrs Schwing heard a young man, who seemed to stay close to her
all the time
at the party, saying to someone else: "It's just not fair! I'm
also in
business. Why doesn't Muzenda introduce me to all these people?"
So, she said, it may have all started with jealousy. To me, that didn't
sound unreal.
On Tuesday 1 March 1986, Lieutenant General
Lookout Masuku and the
veteran PF Zapu politician Vote Moyo were officially
released from
detention. As was the case under the Smith regime, the names
of detainees
could not be published, so there hadn't been news of them in
the papers for
the four years they had been imprisoned in Zimbabwe under
Robert Mugabe. Now
their freedom was headline news.
Lookout's
wife Gift managed to get permission for me to see him on
Sunday 9 March from
3.30PM to 6PM at Parirenyatwa Hospital. There were four
heavily armed
soldiers outside his room. I sat down with them, and said I
gathered they
had a permit for me to see Masuku. They were perfectly
pleasant and said
that was fine, so I walked into the private ward.
Lookout was
attached to two drips but sitting up in bed, and he gave a
small scream when
he saw me, jumped up and hugged me hard. The drips were
suspended from a
wheeled stand, so he was mobile.
There was no awkwardness. It was
as if we had known each other for
years and had seen each other yesterday.
But the joy was precisely because
we hadn't seen each other for more than
four years, and because it was so
wonderful to see one another again. I
couldn't begin to fathom the hell of
uncontrolled suffering he had been
going through. There were some days he
had no memory of, which was probably
just as well. The full story would
probably never unfold, but if it did, it
would be bleak. For example, it
turned out that the "specialist" the prison
authorities had told his lawyer
he had seen in December was neither a
specialist nor even a registered
doctor.
I wondered, too, about
the doctor at Chikurubi. I had learned he was a
Russian Jew on contract,
that he had worked previously in Israel and that he
was very timid. I
wondered if he had ended up in his position because he had
such good
qualifications.
We talked non-stop, an interested guard listening
in the corner, until
after six, when the soldiers very reasonably asked me
to leave, as visiting
hours were over. That was sad, because we didn't then
think we would be
seeing each other again in the foreseeable
future.
I rang Gift the next day to thank her, and to say I'd had a
wonderful
time. Of course, "wonderful" was the wrong word. Lookout was
skinny and his
arms were very swollen from trying to find veins for the
drips, and he was
very, very sick. But he sat up all the time I was with him
and was mentally
as bright as a button. There was a heart-rending moment
when he said: "But
what of the future? When I went to prison I got high
blood pressure. Then I
got kidney troubles. Now I have this. What is going
to happen to me next?
I said: "Oh Lookout!" as though, how could he
ask such a question?
But he said: "No, Judy, I mean it. Let's be
practical about the whole
thing."
I feared he was absolutely
right. I had been consulting Professor Noel
Galen, who was very gloomy about
Lookout's future.
Late on Monday night I returned a call from
Gift.
"Have you heard anything?" she asked.
I said I
had heard a rumour that Lookout was to be released. She said
it was true. I
said: "How do you know? Who told you? Is there a piece of
paper?"
She laughed and said the fact that she was telling me
meant that it
was true.
She travelled up the next day from
Bulawayo, and I spent half an hour
with her and Lookout at Parirenyatwa. As
he was now a free man, no permits
were required to see him and the armed
guards had been withdrawn.
At about six that Tuesday evening, an
unknown man walked in and stood
by the bed. Lookout was polite but cool. I
kept thinking, what an odd
doctor. He didn't ask how Lookout was feeling -
he just kept informing him
that he would be seeing him again, the next
night, in hospital, in Bulawayo.
When he left, they simultaneously
said: "CIO." Then I remembered him.
*Excerpt from Judith Todd's
latest book, Through the Darkness; A Life
in Zimbabwe, available from www.zebrapress.co.za.
Zinwa: an unmitigated failure
THE Ministry of Water Resources and
Infrastructural Development has
had as its responsibility, the construction
of water conservation facilities
in the country. In fulfilling that mandate,
over the years, many dams were
built. The dams were built either for
irrigation or for portable water
supplies, including making sure towns and
cities never run out of water.
During periods of drought, the government
always tried to rise to the
occasion.
I can give three examples
of proactive action by the government in the
past. During the 1991/2
drought, the government moved in Bulawayo and
drilled many boreholes in the
Nyamandlovu aquifer and connected the water to
the city. In Chegutu, when
the town was running out of water, a canal was
built which enabled water to
be pumped from Darwendale into Serui River and
then the water flowed down to
the reservoir serving Chegutu.
In Mutare, water was pumped from
Pungwe River to Smallbridge dam in
order to supply the city. These measures
were carried out by a government
which at that time was a caring
government.
In its wisdom, the government decided to abrogate its
responsibility
by handing over the water conservation and maintenance to
Zinwa. One would
probably understand if the matter ended there. The function
of Zinwa is to
build and maintain dams. Local authorities that are big would
then buy water
from Zinwa. Small water consumers were always supplied by the
ministry of
water and later by Zinwa.
I know for certain rural
people experience huge transport problems
going from wherever they are to
pay for water at Zinwa offices. For example,
people in Lower Gweru, because
they fall under the Shangani Catchment area,
had to go to Bulawayo to pay
for water when there are Zinwa offices in
Gweru!
The government
has now decided that no, the suffering of people must
increase by directing
that Zinwa must take over the distribution and selling
of water in all
cities. Harare city council, like a sheep to the slaughter,
meekly agreed to
hand over. Gweru also agreed without raising an eyebrow.
Only Bulawayo and
Masvingo resisted.
What has happened to the water supply in Harare
and Gweru? Is there
any improvement at all? In Harare the situation is worse
with Zinwa; as for
Gweru, it is pathetic because even restaurants serve food
while their
customers cannot use toilets as there would be no water. The
toilets would
be locked. In short, Zinwa has been an unmitigated
failure.
The water problem of Bulawayo is well known and
documented. Like
Masvingo, they are refusing to hand over water supply to an
organisation
that has a history of failure.
The Chronicle of 23
August 2007 had a report that the minister
responsible for Zinwa, Engineer
Munacho Mutezo said government would not
intervene in the water crisis of
Bulawayo until the council agreed to hand
over to Zinwa. Zinwa is supposed
to maintain the boreholes drilled in 1992
but has failed.
There
is water in Mtshabezi dam, which Zinwa should ensure is made
available to
the people but no. Now we have a whole minister of a government
that used to
care, showing the true intentions of his government.
There can
never be a clearer message to the people of Harare, Gweru,
Masvingo and
Bulawayo than that provided by minister Mutezo.
Renson
Gasela
Secretary for Lands and Agriculture
MDC
--------
Zhing-zhongs exposed
FOR some time now
ordinary Zimbabweans have complained about the
quality of Chinese imports.
Some within, and in other nations believed
Zimbabweans were being
pesky.
However the recent recall of more than 20 million toys made
in China
for the world market has brought home the truth about the quality
of Chinese
products. The question I would want answered is how many of these
were
recalled from this country? Obviously none! So we are happy to endanger
the
lives of innocent children in the name of the Look East policy and
solidarity with the Chinese?
If the toys are of questionable
quality, what is this likely to tell
us about the rest of Chinese imports -
machinery, fertilisers, chemicals,
clothes and footwear, food and
drugs?
It is regrettable that we can put solidarity ahead of the
safety and
well-being of our citizens. I can't think of an instance in which
the term
sell-out is more appropriate, in describing the conduct of our
government
when it comes to the flood of Chinese goods to the detriment of
local
industry.
Dumisani Mpofu
Kadoma
---------
We can do it all by ourselves
WITH
ministers of the calibre of Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Industry
and
International Trade, who needs sanctions to muck up the economy?
Certainly,
only the extremely naive believe the lie that international
sanctions are
solely to blame for Zimbabwe's demise.
Disillusioned
Harare
----------
Improving Zimbabwe's
chaotic voter registration
THE government has always
handled the voter
registration in a very dishonest manner.
The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) is, in reality, a smokescreen
to hoodwink the world into
believing in the legitimacy of the elections. The
ZEC has been working with
a grossly outdated electoral register and they
have never done anything to
ensure this is updated. It is also working from
a position of weakness
because their results and findings may be ignored by
the current government
at any given time.
The government should have empowered the ZEC to
enlist the services of
all our media organisations -- radio, television and
newspapers - to spread
information on voter registration.
When
this type of media is used only by government, the general public
usually
takes everything said as nothing but propaganda. This is evidenced
by
Zimbabweans who no longer trust what they hear and see on radio and
television, and what they read from government-controlled
publications.
The education system of the country should be
harnessed to help
educate the citizens of this country about their right to
vote. Since every
youth intending to sit for a national examination is now
compelled to obtain
a national registration card, the same should be the
case where voter
registration is concerned. Every youth planning to write a
high school
examination should first obtain a voter's card. This way, every
high school
candidate will get a voter's card earlier on in life, thus
eradicating
future hassles of registering as a voter.
Now that
we live in the age of computer technology, all or most
registrations can be
done at birth. The newly born is supplied with a birth
certificate, an
identity card, a voter registration card and even a
passport. These can be
renewed as the citizen grows older. No prospective
voter will be missed by
this way of registering a country's citizen because
99% of a country's
citizens will have to pass through the registrar's
office.
The
use of soldiers, police and militia is counter-productive because
once they
notice these government servants, Zimbabweans lose interest and
trust. The
youths, irrespective of their political affiliations, should be
given time
on radio and television to debate voter registration. Piecemeal
and hurried
registration of voters will only bring out a skewed result.
It must
be admitted that a few officers have been trained to conduct
the voter
registration exercise but this is too little too late.
The ideas
listed here are not from a rocket engineer but I hope that
somebody in
authority will take them up and think carefully about them.
Advanced
Masvingo