http://www.radiovop.com
Harare, October 27, 2012 - Paul Mangwana,
ZANU-PF's Constitutional Select
Committee (Copac) co-chairperson has opened
up that he feared for his life
after supporters of President Robert Mugabe
labelled him a sell-out on
national television accusing him of working
against the 88 year old leader's
party, an accusation he declines.
"If
someone labels you a sell-out, munouraisa munhu (you can cause someone
to
get killed)," Mangwana told the state television after he launched a $1
million dollar defamation lawsuit against the sole broadcaster which is
controlled by the Ministry of Information which is run by Mugabe's top
officials.
"I was supposed to have got the right to respond to the
serious allegations
that were directed at me. I never sold out, I
represented my party well at
Copac and the politburo knows that. It is not
allowed by the law of this
country that someone can tarnish the image of
someone without facts."
He did not explain how he fears for his life or
if there are people who have
threatened his life.
Mangwana was
reacting to a TV programme screened by the national
broadcaster, ZBC where
panelists accused him of selling out, describing him
as worse than those who
massacred Zimbabweans at Chimoio and Nyadzonia
during the liberation
struggle in the 1970s.
The panelists claimed Mangwana was worse than
Morris Nyathi, the alleged
traitor who guided Rhodesian forces in the brutal
pre-independence massacres
at Nyadzonia in Mozambique in 1976.
The
panelists further claimed that Mangwana supported homosexuality and was
paid
by imperialists to sell out on Zimbabwe’s interests.
However, the Chivi
Central MP said he believes that the new draft
constitution is a great
improvement from the Lancaster House constitution
which has been amended 19
times since the country's independence in 1980.
He said the recent
holding of peaceful second all stakeholders conference
shows that
Zimbabweans are mature enough as no violence occurred unlike in
the first
stakeholders meeting where militants of ZANU-PF disrupted
proceedings.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
Saturday, 27 October 2012 11:53
HARARE - After
suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of its coalition
government
partners over plans to overhaul the draft Constitution this week,
President
Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF is reportedly planning a comeback by using
his
status as a global political agreement (GPA) principal to reinstate its
discarded demands.
With delegates at the second Harare All
Stakeholders Conference rejecting
the “damaging and unjustified” 200-plus
amendments being championed by the
ex-majority party, Zanu PF was thwarted
at the conference’s session after
moving a motion for the support of
widespread changes to the draft — only to
hit a brickwall on the matter,
which would have also undermined the basic
principles behind the
constitutional process.
After the head-on collision, Mugabe and company
resorted to demands of
ceding control of the parliamentary process to the
executive, in a move that
has drawn the ire of several political and civic
society players.
Under the envisaged plan, the octogenarian leader, Prime
Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara — signatories to
the GPA — are
then expected to effect changes for the draft “to conform”
with their agenda
before a referendum.
But Welshman Ncube, leader of
the smaller MDC, is among those leading the
claims that Zanu PF is bent on
effecting its new demands through the back
door or principals’
forum.
And in demanding that Parliament backs off, Mugabe was not only
trashing the
notion of separation of powers, but was also making a blatant
mistake
smacking of “entrenched dictatorship”.
Several legislators
are opposing the executive’s planned Constitution-making
process takeover —
that was not in the coalition agreement.
One Zanu PF MP, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said it will be
regrettable if the party failed to
allow members to debate issues openly,
adding, people would leave,
compounding its already flagging support.
Successive speakers in 18
thematic committee meetings at the conference tore
into Zanu PF’s approach —
under which responsibility for finalising the
draft would pass to the three
GPA signatories.
In the envisaged plan, the principals could end up
playing a far bigger role
than the people’s contribution.
The biggest
defeat for Zanu PF was the dramatic failure to force the tabling
of the
national report at the conference despite spirited attempts by the
liberation party, including a last minute High Court application by Zanu PF
delegate Danny Masukuma.
Days after the conference, the Constitution
Parliamentary Committee (Copac)
now says it is geared towards compiling a
national report on the
constitution-making process that will capture the
comments and
recommendations from the just-ended Second All Stakeholders’
conference.
The report and the Copac draft are meant to be tabled to
Parliament for
debate but Mugabe is insisting that he must have the Copac
draft submitted
to him and other principals.
Another Zanu PF MP, who
sat in on Copac proceedings in the HICC, said: “This
conference has forced a
big climb-down for mukuru (Mugabe), and the
conference delegates have made
it clear that the draft captures what the
people said and must be put to a
referendum after it comes to Parliament.
“Our colleagues have shown that
they don’t want their party to get dragged
down by the damage the changes
are trying to do to the Copac draft.
“The big test now is for mukuru, and
it will be for him to persuade the
Prime Minister to make fundamental
changes to the draft and reorganise the
whole thing.”
But Tsvangirai
has said this is a parliament-led process and says he has “no
intention
whatsoever, at least on my part, to tamper or meddle with the
people’s
views.”
The ongoing constitution-making process is seen as a key test for
democracy
and one that could reshape the politics of one of southern
Africa’s
awakening economic giants.
The constitutional changes are
seen as important to avoid a repeat of the
post-election bloodshed in 2008
that killed over 200 people and took the
country of about 12,5 million
people to the brink of anarchy.
The draft that Copac had produced
addressed the corruption, gender equality,
political patronage, land
grabbing, devolution and tribalism which has
plagued Zimbabwe since it won
independence in 1980.
The changes allow for greater checks on
presidential powers, more devolution
to grassroots administrations and an
increase in civil liberties.
Critics say Mugabe wants to replace the
independence charter, which has been
amended 19 times since 1980, with
another Lancaster House Constitution.
Phillan Zamchiya, regional
coordinator for Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition,
said the constitution-making
process is minimalist, and the focus should be
on incremental
gains.
“However, we reiterate that the incremental gains made by
Zimbabweans and
the southern Africa region risk reversal if President
Mugabe’s authoritarian
wish to subvert Article 6 of the GPA and allow
Principals to have the final
say on the constitution is granted,” Zamchiya
said.
“We urge Zimbabweans to collectively launch a “Save the
Constitution
Campaign” as a way to stop the President’s unpopular
overtures.”
Brian Raftopoulos, an associate professor of Development
Studies at the
University of Zimbabwe said it is now clear that Sadc is once
again faced
with a severe test of its standing as a mediation
body.
He said Zanu PF was hell-bent on “foiling a process that has the
potential
to unravel its political hegemony in the country.”
“The
Zanu PF draft effectively dismisses the major reforms included in the
draft
and proposes a return to the kind of executive powers and party or
state
rule that Zanu PF has crafted since 1980,” Raftopolous said. - Gift
Phiri
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Richard Chidza, Staff Writer
Saturday, 27 October
2012 11:53
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe holds the key to violence
and peace in
Zimbabwe, MDC deputy treasurer-general Elton Mangoma has
said.
Mangoma was addressing families of 31 Glen View activists who are
in remand
prison for the murder of a policeman in May last year.
The
families early this week gathered at the MDC headquarters to receive
food
hampers from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Elizabeth. “Mugabe
holds the key to violence and peace,” Mangoma, who is also Energy and Power
Development minister, told the families.
“If he tells his people to
stop violence they will obey.
“This was evidenced by the peace that
prevailed at the just ended Copac
second All-Stakeholders’ Conference that
his word is law.
“There was no violence because Mugabe ordered them to
peace. If he lets
loose then you all know it will be mayhem.”
Mangoma
claimed there was selective application of the law that is why the
activists
were being denied bail.
“Mugabe is cruel and shows this by incessant
arrests and beatings under the
pretext of maintaining order and applying the
rule of law.
“But what kind of law separates these people accused of
Petros Mutedza’s
murder; while on the other hand a policeman accused of
killing a gold panner
in Shamva is out on bail?
“We have a colleague
who was murdered in Mutoko but the killers are walking
free.
“Mugabe’s message is simple, he is saying everybody else stay
away from
politics except on a Zanu PF ticket,” said Mangoma.
“Two
weeks ago I was once again arrested; I told Mugabe that my father was a
liberation fighter who was jailed together with him (Mugabe) by Ian Smith’s
Rhodesian regime, and my mother suffered a lot.
“Now Mugabe is
arresting me and my mother is suffering again under a black
government. But
we will continue to ask for Mugabe’s departure until this
country is free,”
he said.
Mangoma said the MDC has no policy of vengeance and would not
punish anyone
when it gains power because they abused them under
Mugabe.
“Zanu PF is judging the MDC and Tsvangirai on the basis of how
they treated
us over the past 12 years.
“They are afraid that we will
retaliate but I can tell you Tsvangirai is not
a vindictive person and the
MDC has no policy of vengeance,” he said.
Elizabeth Tsvangirai donated
food hampers to families of the 31 imprisoned
activists while the MDC this
week disbursed $400 to each of the families for
their upkeep and promised
them Christmas hampers.
http://www.voazimbabwe.com
Violet
Gonda
26.10.2012
Water Resources Minister Sam Sipepa Nkomo, who is
under fire from Bulawayo
residents, was scheduled to hold a special meeting
with the locals and civic
society organizations on Friday night to discuss
crippling water shortages
in the City of Kings.
Zimbabwe is facing a
critical water crisis but Bulawayo is among the hardest
hit areas with the
local authority cutting supplies to residents for at
least three days a
week, a situation activists say is dangerous in the era
of typhoid and other
diseases such as cholera.
Nkomo told VOA: “If residents are getting less
than what they are supposed
to get then it’s a problem. I will have to check
with the (Bulawayo) mayor
and find out why they are not sticking to the
schedules that they have
announced publicly.”
The minister, who was
in Botswana with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to
discuss, among other
issues, the possibility of a critical Harare-Gaborone
joint water project to
save drought-stricken regions in the two countries,
said the water shortages
are a result of low rainfall that has left dams and
boreholes with little
water.
He said the government is speeding up the connection of the
Mtshabezi Dam to
try and reduce the water shedding hours.
“We are
also trying to get the Nyamandlovu Aquifer to boost the water
situation in
Bulawayo.”
The minister has come under attack from residents who say he
is not doing
enough, but he said: “I have done everything humanly possible
and some of
the things have to be done by the city council.”
“All I
have done is to make sure that money is available. I have spoken to
government and I have spoken to donors and the money has been made available
and the actor here is the city,” said Sipepa.
He said it will take
about three months to rehabilitate the water systems,
repairing broken down
boreholes and pipes.
The minister said he had a successful trip to
Botswana and he will soon be
holding a meeting with his counterpart from the
neighboring nation to
discuss a request by Batswana to extract water from
the Zambezi.
Nkomo said: “I pointed out that Zimbabwe will not support
Botswana to get
water upstream of the Victoria Falls because if they do that
then there will
be less water going through the Falls and it will become an
international
problem for us. And they understand that.”
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Government is going to buy a new house for
President Robert Mugabe’s family
and renovate his Highfield home as a
tourist attraction.
27.10.12
by Tavada Mafa
Tourism and
Hospitality Minister Walter Mzembi told the opening of 2012
Sanganani/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Africa Fair in Harare, that
cabinet had okayed the development.
“We will this weekend be visiting
President with tour operators and tourists
to see the house and discuss its
history in the liberation of its country.
It is very good response we have
got from the industry and we very happy and
puts us under pressure to do
what we must do and make sure that these houses
are enshrined,” Zimbabwe
Tourism Authority Chief Executive Karikoga Kaseke
told Journalists Friday in
Harare.
Kaseke added, “There will be tour operators and Tour guides who
will be
giving people the history of the country’s liberation residing
there.”
According to ZTA properties belonging to the late Vice President
Joshua
Nkomo, former ZANU leader Herbert Chitepo, ZANU founder Enos Nkala
and
President Robert Mugabe in Harare’s Highfield suburb are going to be
renovated and converted into tourists attractions.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Over 80 companies that have closed down in
Bulawayo will be taken over and
allocated to locals through the Ministry of
Youth Development,
Indigenization and Empowerment, a government official has
said.
26.10.12
by Ashly Sibanda
Fidelis Fengu, the
Deputy Chairperson of the Special Advisory Board in the
ministry, told
journalists in Bulawayo that a list of companies that are set
for take-over
is almost complete.
“We are identifying all the closed companies in
Bulawayo. There is no reason
why these companies should remain closed when
youths are jobless.
“We want to take over these companies and indigenize
them so that people can
go back to work, so that the youths can be
empowered,”
Fengu said during the press conference.
He said the
Youth Ministry was also crafting an insurance policy that would
force banks
to finance the take-over of the companies and youth projects
across the
country.
Fengu accused banks of resisting finding youths
projects.
“The youth have always been said to be a risky investment area.
Banks do not
want to bankroll our projects. We have tabled a proposal to the
ministry to
create an insurance policy that will save as collateral to the
banks so that
we manage risks associated with giving loans to the youth,” he
added.
Over 80 companies have closed shop in Bulawayo in recent years,
rendering
more than 20 000 workers jobs.
Other companies have either
downsized operations or relocated to Harare
citing unfavorable business
conditions in the city.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Chengetayi Zvauya, Parliamentary
Editor
Saturday, 27 October 2012 11:58
HARARE - Ex-Zanu PF legislator
Great Makaya has won a right to run a
telecommunications venture, which
means Zimbabwe can have a sixth data and
mobile operator.
This comes
as the 65 year-old businessman had approached the High Court to
restore his
Information Media Investments (Private) Limited (IMI) licence
annulled by
the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of
Zimbabwe (Potraz)
10 years ago.
In a ruling yesterday, High court Judge Francis Bere
reinstated the licence,
in a development which may see the entry of another
telecoms player in the
Zimbabwean market.
In his application, Makaya
had mainly argued that his company had been
granted a 25-year licence by
Chenhamho Chimutengwende’s then Information
ministry in 1998 and he had even
entered discussions with France’s Alcatel
to roll out a network through its
Global Star division.
However, the project failed to take off after the
European technology giant
withdrew its technical and financial support when
the European Union (EU)
imposed a travel and asset freeze on President
Robert Mugabe’s inner circle.
Makaya says he had searched for partners
for a decade without joy, as there
were no individuals or companies willing
to partner him due to the embargo.
“From 1999 until early 2009, the
applicant searched far and wide on every
continent for a financial and
technical partner to provide capital and
requisite technology.
“The
prospective partners which applicant courted all declined on the basis
of
the imposed economic sanctions," said Makaya.
He said he only secured a
Korean company as a partner in 2009 to fund the
telecommunications
project.
The Asian business company indicated that it was willing to
invest but was
not willing to do so unless it received a confirmation of the
validity of
his telecommunications licence.
Potraz informed Makaya
that his licence had expired after he failed to
regularise it within the
stipulated deadline of April 2002, when all
telecommunications licence
holders had been called upon to do so by the
regulator.
Makaya said
he had made several failed appeals to Communications minister
Nicholas Goche
to review Potraz’s decision to cancel the licence.
The project, he said,
had the potential of generating over 1 000 jobs,
according to the
businessman’s papers.
Makaya is seeking that his telecommunication
licence he was issued in
December 1998 be regarded valid.
Makaya’s
lawyer Terence Mazhindu of Mugomeza and Mutezo law firm welcomed
the ruling
saying it was a “reasonable judgment and my client will now
proceed with his
telecommunication roll out programme.”
Potraz lawyer James Muzagazi said
he can only comment after reading the full
judgment.
http://www.herald.co.zw
Saturday, 27 October 2012 00:00
View
Comments
Zesa appears to be spending around US$6,1 million on free light
bulbs for
consumers, most of whom do not pay their inflated bills, while it
slows down
on the spread of pre-paid meters. It all seems very odd. Of
course energy
saving fluorescent bulbs will save a lot of energy. Zesa
reckons it could
save 200MW as darkness falls, enough to keep Bulawayo lit
up. But the saving
will not be so great, unfortunately, simply because many
households already
use these bulbs and so much of the expected savings have
already been made.
Consumers are not stupid. They can see the savings almost
immediately.
What may have made a little bit of sense a few years ago, now
makes no sense
at all. The energy-saving bulbs are hardly new technology. A
variety of
makes are readily available on all supermarket shelves and cost
around twice
as much as equivalent tungsten filament bulbs. People have been
buying them.
Some other utilities did give out free bulbs years ago, but just
one to a
household to prove that the new bulbs did produce decent light and
were
quite safe. Most countries did what Zimbabwe should have already done
and
which it can do right now: they banned the manufacture and import of
filament bulbs and stocks on shelves soon ran out, leaving just the
fluorescent bulbs and now the first LED bulbs that are likely to become the
standard within a few years.
Some countries, with factories pouring out
the old filament bulbs, had to
tread carefully as they brought in the bans,
giving enough notice to
industrialists so factories could be
converted.
But those, like Zimbabwe, which never made the old-fashioned bulbs
simply
announced an import ban and watched as consumers quickly converted as
the
short-life tungsten bulbs expired. The utilities achieved their desired
conversion without spending a cent.
Zesa and its parent energy ministry
could do exactly the same. Zimbabwe has
laws that allow the Government to
either ban specific imports or to impose
such high duties that the undesired
item becomes too expensive.
Why has Zesa not pushed for such an import ban?
The case is good so it would
not need much more than a Minister phoning
another Minister.
The money saved from an ill-considered policy to give some
households a
free-gift could be put towards some of the programmes Zesa
keeps telling us
it desperately needs. Not all households will benefit;
those that have
already switched will get nothing except the contempt of
Zesa staff, a
strange reward for taking Zesa advice.
Zesa has already
paid US$2 million for 1,8 million bulbs that are not in
short supply and
plans to spend another US$4,11 million on the rest of what
seem a huge
order.
That US$6 million could have been spent on a lot of other things that
would
reduce consumption, like the pre-paid meters just about every consumer
wants
desperately, so desperately that there are rumours, probably untrue,
that
Zesa staff are taking hefty bribes to let a consumer jump the
queue.
But the rumour-mongering is a sign of frustration over delays and a
sign
that people really want Zesa to move faster on the meters.
But with
warehouses bulging with the new bulbs and more no doubt on order,
what is
Zesa to do?
They can quickly do something right. They can get the law used to
ban
imports of filament bulbs, so achieving the desirable end of seeing
these
phased out and they can sell their fluorescent bulbs to wholesalers
and
shops at a little more than cost price and get their money back.
They
can then use that money to buy stuff they are short of. They do not
need to
compound a silly and expensive mistake by insisting on repeating it.
Dear Family and Friends,
Tension had been building for weeks, everyone was
expecting trouble,
propaganda and rumour had reached ridiculous proportions
and no one
thought there was a chance of a peaceful final meeting on the
draft
new constitution. For three and a half years every step of our
new
constitution making process has been littered with
bickering,
accusations, intimidation and threats. We’ve had rowdy
youths
barging their way into meetings and breaking them up;
meetings
cancelled or abandoned; delegates assaulted; rapporteurs
threatened,
recording equipment seized and MP’s fleeing venues to get away
from
violent elements. To be honest many people didn’t think we would
even
get to the closing All Stakeholders Conference while others had
already given
up on the whole process saying it had been politically
hijacked long
ago.
No one expected that the final conference would go smoothly and we
sat
on the edge of our seats waiting for trouble, but it never came. Or
it
never came in the crude, big -stick way, which has become the
trademark
of decision making in Zimbabwe. Unbelievably over a thousand
men and women
met in Harare for two days and only one incident made
front page headlines
when a Zanu PF delegate, Temba Mliswa, grabbed a
camera being used to record
proceedings and took it away. Other
incidents were going on that didn’t make
news headlines but were
highlighted in a press statement by a quartet of
NGO’s known as
ZZZICOMP. The group recorded delegates who intimidated,
harassed,
heckled and issued verbal threats to other delegates. They said
there
was widespread coaching of delegates by all three political
parties
which left them parroting party opinions.
So far most people
haven’t seen the new draft but those that have
are far from happy about
clauses which are clearly the result of
political negotiation rather than the
opinions of ordinary people.
It’s not really clear what happened to the pages
of amendments Zanu
PF were insisting on or what happened to resolve any of
the most
contentious issues such as dual citizenship, diaspora
voting;
presidential running mates, land rights, a prosecuting authority
or
the devolution of power.
I know that my rights as a Zimbabwean are
not protected in the draft
new constitution. I also know that it is extremely
unlikely that the
multiple thousands of born and resident Zimbabweans struck
off the
voters roll in the last ten years will even be allowed to vote in
the
referendum on this draft new constitution. Don’t get so upset
about
it, people say, it’s just another step in the process. But
which
process: the Zanu PF process, the MDC process or a process for
our
children and future generations of Zimbabweans regardless of
which
political party they choose to support. Until next time, thanks
for
reading, love cathy. 27th October 2012. Copyright � Cathy Buckle.
www.cathybuckle.com
