By Own Correspondent- Twenty-two-year-old Patience Kutama of Mkoba in Gweru went into labour at the magistrates court and delivered a bouncing baby girl while awaiting her sentence for stealing a cellphone from a reveller in a club.
Proceedings at the Kwekwe magistrates court halted as court personnel assumed midwifery roles assisting Kutama deliver her baby.
She was later rushed to Kwekwe General Hospital where the court followed up to deliver her sentence.
Kutama was jointly charged with Lisa Tongogara, also 22, and were each sentenced to a wholly suspended seven months jail term on condition they do not commit a similar offence in the next five years. Kutama, in her defence, told Kwekwe magistrate Miss Vimbai Mtukwa that she was dumped by her boyfriend and she wanted money to buy provisions for the baby.
“I am really sorry for what I did. I had run out of options as I needed money to fend for myself and the baby,” she told the court.
According to State papers, on 22 March 2019, the two accused were drinking beer at King Solomon’s Hotel when they met Calvin Zepi. At around 2 am, Zepi got drunk and fell asleep while holding his cellphone, a Samsung J7. The two accused then took the phone and hid it. Zeti made a police report the following morning. Kutama and Tongogara went to Gweru where they sold the phone for $80.
Detectives, however, managed to track the phone using a mobile tracker leading to the arrest of the two accused persons. The mobile phone was also recovered.
A lot of publications have run with this story already. Here is what Zimbabwe’s richest man, Strive Masiyiwa said:
Let me put the proverbial cat among the pigeons, a loaf of bread in South Africa costs R9.50. It costs R30 in Zimbabwe. 3x!!! Eighty percent of imported goods in Zimbabwe come from South Africa. It’s not uncommon to find those same goods costing anything above three times the cost.
The people who pay for a lot of goods are Zimbabweans living in South Africa, through their remittances. The cost structure – labour and goods – in Zimbabwe is distorted by the arbitrage of the United States dollar as a currency of settlement for rand imports.
This is not the same thing as joining a rand monetary area, or customs union, which is a much more complex process. This one can be done overnight, and even voluntarily.
Where the math is wrong
The very example that Masiyiwa gave betrays the error and it’s not his fault. The currency issues in Zimbabwe are just as confusing for residents. A loaf of bread in Zimbabwe is NOT costing R30.00.
Zimbabwe devalued currency by introducing the RTGS$ and floating it against all other currencies including the USD and the Rand. This official position was already late. Everyone knew already that since the introduction of the bond note, the money in our bank accounts was not at par with the USD which was the currency of record.
Even now, we all know the real value of the RTGS dollar is not determined by the interbank market because that market is inaccessible to any of us if we need to buy the USD or Rand. Of course banks will gladly buy USD from us at that rate but none of us will accept that unless you are a tobacco farmer who is being compelled to do so by the RBZ, the state and its guns.
So what is the Rand price of bread in Zimbabwe? First let’s use the official inaccessible interbank rate. Here are the interbank exchange rates on the last day of trading before the long weekend:
From RBZ
Using the above rates, bread in Zimbabwe is costing just above R15.
On the same day, 17 April, the parallel market rate between the USD and the RTGS$ was 4.85 and it was 2.87 between the Rand and the RTGS$. This puts the price of bread at just above R10. Quite close to the bread price that Masiyiwa quoted for South Africa.
Why this matters
Someone is obviously going to comment that I am knit picking or that I want to sound smart or that I hate Strive Masiyiwa. It’s crazy how we have lowered the standard of debate in this country. Anyway, the above matters because it defines the problem in Zimbabwe differently.
We will be in error if we interpret the problem under false assumptions because we will switch things around including currencies of record and still be stuck in the same place.
If you do price comparisons between Zimbabwe and South Africa using the reality of the currencies we are using here in Zimbabwe you will not find much of the arbitrage that Strive Masiyiwa mentioned. If we use his math it would mean Masiyiwa’s business Econet is also benefiting from arbitrage and the cost of telephony in Zimbabwe is much more expensive than in South Africa. This is simply not true.
The problem in Zimbabwe is that we were robbed of US dollars that we had been earning and saving since 2009 and they were swapped with RTGS$. The RTGS$ itself was devalued, first by real market forces and then later by official decree when the interbank market was introduced. However, our earnings were not adjusted to reflect this devaluation.
The price of bread in real terms has not gone up (in some instances it has actually gone down) but our capacity to afford it has been eroded. This reality will persist even if prices are quoted in Rand. We will still be charged for goods in a currency we are not earning whilst the currency we are earning is continuing to lose value.
Where adopting the Rand may make sense
Masiyiwa’s comment on how 80% of our imports are coming from South Africa is accurate. Adopting the Rand thus makes sense but not just businesses quoting prices in Rand as he suggests because that may make things worse. What would make sense is what Tendai Biti proposed: total adoption of the Rand.
Zimbabwe definitely needs a stable currency and the US dollar is not too good. South African businesses and others from other countries will continue flooding their wares here hunting for the USD. A strong and high demand currency is a curse when in the position Zimbabwe finds itself in right now.
However, the problem above may be achieved by other currency reforms that are not necessarily the adoption of the Rand. This is why diagnosing the problem is important before administering medicine; it broadens up the possible solutions.
The government is insincere in saying the price adjustments are not justifiable. They must admit that the problem is that Zimbabweans are daily losing their capacity to afford basic goods and services because of chaotic currency regimes. Admitting that as the real problem is the first step to solving it. Whether the solution is Rand adoption or not doesn’t matter as long as the solution is structurally sound based on the real problem.
By Own Correspondent- The sight of one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s close security aides being drenched in the rain while holding a briefcase has torched a twitter storm.
Social media users are speculating on the importance as well as the contents of the briefcase, particularly given that the agent was facing the people.
Some have speculated that this is actually a Heckler and Kock (H&K) MP5K Briefcase Gun.
Opinion By Lloyd Mwanawashe|JOB ‘Wiwa’ Sikhala, a prominent lawyer who has done so well in that field, human rights defender, historian and economic philosophy graduate is a mature, sober, fearless, benevolent and upright character.
He was born and bred in Gutu on the 30th of October 1972, to peasant farmers in the Devuli Purchase farms.
Wiwa did his primary education at Masema Primary School where he was the best student at his school. He further went for his ZJC at Chiwara Secondary school popularly known as Vumba. This is the school where he first met our President Adv Nelson Chamisa when Wiwa was in Form 1 and Adv Chamisa in Grade 5.
Wiwa as we know him was always challenging the school authorities at every turn for the poor delivery of education at school. He was staying with his brother Nathaniel Mphisa who was a teacher at the school.
His brother asked Wiwa’s parents to transfer him to another school to avoid consistent clashes between the authorities and Wiwa. At this rural secondary school Wiwa was the best student who will tell teachers to teach children correct stuff. He would not accept teachers to feed them with wrong and misleading data.
Wiwa was transferred to Mazungunye Secondary School in Bikita. He was staying in Chief Nhema’s area in Zaka with his uncle and walk 23 kms one way to school every day. This did not despair him from becoming one of the top students at school.
Of few students who passed at Mazungunye Secondary School Wiwa was among the best. Before deciding to continue with his A level studies which he later did at Jameson High school in Kadoma, Wiwa pursued his life long dream of becoming a Pastor for the Dutch Reformed Church in Zimbabwe (RCZ).
He became the Church’s Youth leader in Gutu and went for pastoral interview at Morgenster Theological College in Masvingo. He passed the interview with 86% and became second best student at the interviews behind the late Reverend Chivhoko.
The elders’ panel asked him to come after he got married. They wanted only married men to be admitted for Pastoral training and work. He became angry as he thought he was too young and unprepared for a family to be frog marched into a marriage so early.
Again, the Church elders asked him whether he will not going to follow the route of one of his relatives the late national liberation war hero Solomon Nkomo, who left pastoral training in the early 1970s, to join the liberation struggle.
Wiwa dispelled this assertion telling the panel that he was not Solomon Nkomo but Job Sikhala. He must be judged by his own deeds and work. After having been asked to marry so as to be admitted for Pastorship Wiwa said he was not yet prepared for a family.
He asked his parents to allow him to go to A level. Because of limited financial resources of his parents who also had to carter for Wiwa’s siblings Harry, Velemina and Anna who were already in secondary school he asked to be allowed to try his lucky to do his A levels in one year.
His uncle Hasman Ngwenya based in Kadoma, the shareholder at DeraSwiss Tunnery Company asked him to come to Kadoma and do his A levels at Jameson High school.
In 1994, he went and paid his examination fees when in lower Sixth. He astonished everyone by scoring 3Bs in 8 months sitting for A levels. Only two students this year passed to qualify to the University. The other one is the Dr. Steven Maya who was the lecturer in the Department of Politics and Administration at UZ.
Political Animal in Wiwa:
Wiwa grew up in Gutu South constituency which was under the late Shuvai Mahofa for a long long time. His collusion with school authorities was his defiant call at every turn that when he grew up, he want going to chase away Mai Mahofa out of Gutu and he becomes the MP.
Asking everyone who grew up with him, they thought anopenga because to them the political gurus of that moment where invincible. It was a dream they thought was illusionary.
Even his parents always warned him when he was growing up that what he was repeatedly saying “zvichamuurayisa”. He would sneak away from home walking 50 kms to Rasa Mountains to meet one politician called Wurayayi Zembe who would inspire him.
The most inspirational experience is when he and his village friend Moses Marukutira sold chickens to come to Harare to welcome back Rev Ndabaningi Sithole in 1992, when he was coming from exile in the United States of America. Villagers were shocked how kids would sneak out of home to go to Harare to welcome Ndabaningi Sithole whom they only read in books at school.
Waiting to be admitted at the University of Zimbabwe, Wiwa got a teaching post at Makura Secondary School in Gutu where he taught History, Geography and Religion Studies in 1995. This is the year when Ndabaningi Sithole was alleged to have planted a claymore mine along the Road to the National Sports Stadium to blow up Robert Mugabe.
The legend at Makura Secondary school says that Wiwa brought the newspaper in the classroom crying why the claymore mine missed Mugabe. His family was ZAPU and grew up in toxed ZAPU mindset.
The Headmaster of the School Jerifanos Runesu who ironical is now the Headmaster of the biggest School in Chitungwiza Zengeza 1 High School under Wiwa’s constituency is said to have called Wiwa to his office for severe questioning on Sithole’s story.
Wiwa is said to have told the Headmaster off, that he was telling students latest national news. He told the Headmaster that he must know that Makura Secondary School was only a transit zone on his way to the University, so he must respect him.
Two weeks after his admission at the University of Zimbabwe to study History and Economic History Wiwa was elected to be the Faculty representative by all Faculty students.
Three months down the line, the UZ was going for Students Representative Council (SRC) elections. It was taboo for 1st year students at UZ to contest for elections. Wiwa took the challenge upon himself to challenge the tradition and barrier by throwing his name into the race.
He did put in place a team of first year colleagues to fight for the victory. Campaigns against the current SRC was hot and Wiwa at one of General meetings called for the students went and grabbed the microphone from the incumbent SRC leader and started to address students.
That was the most fiery and oration with unmitigated aggression ever witnessed at UZ that propelled Wiwa into prominence by one shot. That was the period when the fight in Nigeria against dictator Sani Abacha was at its pick and the week when Ken Saro Wiwa the human rights activist for the Ogoni people was assassinated throw being thrown into the acid.
Someone from the crowd shouted you are like Ken Saro Wiwa, after our own Wiwa launched the most blistering tirade and attack against Mugabe’s regime. Senior students at the college got astonished with the political gravitas of a first year student Job Wiwa Sikhala.
That is the day Learnmore Jongwe, a second year Law student who was bidding for the SRC Presidency discovered Wiwa. He asked Wiwa for dinner that evening so as to lobby him to give him support for his Presidential bid. Since then Learnmore Jongwe became tight friends with Wiwa.
Having put a vocal team of Mapurisa Kuzipa, Derek Charamba, Kudakwashe Zvinavashe Gava, Governor Ndoro, Charles Mutama, Kaseke and Abigail Muchecheti, Wiwa stunned everyone by breaking the barrier that 1st year students can not be elected into the leadership of students.
He won to be the Secretary for Information and Publicity and Spokesman of the UZ. In the same year, the first congress to revive ZINASU was hosted at UZ and Wiwa again defiantly contested to be its Secretary for Information and Publicity and won overwhelming against the tide of those who were afraid of his spreading influence in the students movement.
Yes, you can try to discredit Wiwa but he has traits that you will never take away from him. The man is a fighter against all odds. He is fearless and abhors corruption, patronage and oppression. He is a man who respects you if you respect him. If you don’t respect him, my knowledge of him is that he doesn’t take a damn about you.
Student politics has never been the same again since the rising to power of Learnmore Jongwe as President, Daniel Molokela Tsiye(Fortune Mguni), as Vice President, Moffat Chikuni as Secretary General. Wiwa as Secretary for Information and Publicity. Wiwa led series of earthquake demonstrations at UZ and all other Universities and Colleges throughout the country.
At the ZINASU Congress Learnmore Jongwe was elected President, Daniel Molokela Tsiye Vice President, Charlton Hwende Secretary General and Wiwa Secretary for Information and Publicity. In his second year at the University Wiwa was elevated and elected Secretary General when Daniel Molokela was his President and Tafadzwa Musekiwa his Vice President.
This is the year when President Adv Chamisa was elected Secretary General of ZINASU. This crop of student leaders led a demonstration that led to the closure of the University of Zimbabwe and Harare Polytechnic for a year. Wiwa the fighter was at the forefront of these demonstrations.
It is during this period that our late iconic leader President Morgan Tsvangirai discovered the new crop of student leaders. He discovered President Adv Nelson Chamisa, Wiwa, Learnmore Jongwe, Tafadzwa Musekiwa, Daniel Molokela Tsiye and settled to launch a political party to challenge the ZANU PF hegemony in our politics.
Since 1997 pre launch of the MDC in 1999, those student leaders were already working hand in gloves with the ZCTU to put structures in place to form a party to challenge ZANU PF.
Wiwa together with President Adv Nelson Chamisa, Learnmore Jongwe and Tafadzwa Musekiwa were seconded by the students movement to represent them during the formative stages of the party. They became the integral part of the MDC from the beginning. They were the pillars at the Working Peoples’ Convention at the Women’s Beareau in Hillside in February 1998.
At the first Congress at the Aquatic Complex in Chitungwiza Wiwa was elected into the National Executive as the Secretary for Defense and Security and the intelligence supremo at the young age of 25 together with his colleagues Advocate Nelson Chamisa, National Youth Chairman, Learnmore Jongwe Sec For Information and Publicity and Tafadzwa Musekiwa.
In the year 2000, Wiwa was elected as the Member of Parliament for St. Mary’s and he became one of the most outstanding MPs of the party in Parliament. He raised very important and pertinent issues affecting his constituency and the country as the whole in Parliament. He was a solid Parliamentarian who was vocal and critical about the state of affairs.
During his tenure as an MP Wiwa was arrested 62 times alleged of every offense under the sun. On 13th January 2003, Wiwa together with his lawyer Gabriel Shumba Marechera, Charles Mutama and his close buddie Taurai Magaya was arrested and severely tortured at the Kabri Barracks for allegedly training a military wing to fight ZANU PF by Major General Mzilikazi who was head of military intelligence then and his entire barrack.
So solid and strong Wiwa is, he defied going into exile because of fear. He insisted that if Mugabe wants to kill him he can go ahead. The blood of the matyrs shall water the tree of freedom.
Wiwa is currently the Member of Parliament for Zengeza West. He has been very critical of many issues in Parliament. He is raising very pertinent and important national issues in the House. Giving credit where it is due Wiwa since he qualified as a lawyer has been a pillar standing for our party members. He has shown it on the aftermath of the 14th January crackdown by the Mnangagwa regime.
He braved to go into the Police camps where our people were detained when many lawyers were afraid to break police camps where our people were being tortured under the guard of soldiers.
He went and represented them in Courts and get all acquitted. Wiwa represented 186 of our cadres. They were all acquitted after he tenacious fought in Court. What a National Vice Chairman we will have as a party. Wiwa is the man ladies and gentlemen.
He represented many of our MPs who are facing various spurious charges in Courts. And they are all getting acquitted. He does his work with passion in silence but with bountiful results.
Vice Chairman needs a mature, team building and patient leader. He is currently the National Executive member who does not fight anyone or unnecessarily cross other people’s paths.
Wiwa is the man for Vice Chairman. Lets rally behind him.
Twenty-three families were left homeless after a hailstorm recently hit the Pote community in Hurungwe east.
Hurungwe east legislator Honourable Ngoni Masenda has since appealed for interventions in the form of temporary shelter as the families are in dire need of dwellings in which to sleep.
He said the main reason for the collapse of most of the buildings in Pote area village 22 was poor workmanship as mud was used as mortar during construction.
This comes barely a month after Cyclone Idai induced storms killed hundreds of people in Manicaland and left a trail of destruction.
The leaders of Sudan’s protest movement say they will name members of a transitional authority on Sunday, to replace the current military junta.
Following months of protests, the army ousted long-standing leader Omar al-Bashir last week.
But the protesters want the military to hand power to a civilian authority.
To back up their demands, huge crowds once again gathered outside the military headquarters on Friday, chanting: “Freedom, peace and justice”.
Thousand of people gathered in the centre of the capital, Khartoum, after Friday prayers in the biggest protests since Mr Bashir was forced from power, Reuters news agency reports.
The military has given in to several of the protesters’ demands, including saying they can name a prime minister and transferring Mr Bashir to a maximum security prison.
However, it has refused to step aside and many Sudanese fear that the same elite of military officials and politicians is still in power behind the scenes.
“If we don’t stay, it will be as if we hadn’t done anything, we will stay until we oust the military council,” 26-year-old protester Rania Ahmed told Reuters
The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been spearheading the protests, said it would name members of its transitional council at a news conference at 1700 GMT on Sunday outside the army base.
“We are demanding that this civilian council, which will have representatives of the army, replace the military council,” Ahmed al-Rabia, a leader of the umbrella group of unions for doctors, engineers and teachers, told the AFP news agency.
Meanwhile, the United States says it is sending Makila James, the deputy assistant secretary of state who is in charge of eastern Africa to Khartoum over the weekend.
“The will of the Sudanese people is clear: it is time to move toward a transitional government that is inclusive and respectful of human rights and the rule of law,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
The protests began four months ago, after subsidies for bread and fuel were cut, which led prices to shoot up.
But the unrest soon spiralled into demands that Mr Bashir, in power since a 1989 coup, step down.
While the military council is offering what it considers to be concessions, the protesters want more guarantees that the gains they have made so far will not be lost.
They have barricaded themselves into a large area of central Khartoum near the military headquarters, creating traffic chaos which is testing people’s patience.
But their presence and the pressure they are applying are pivotal to the discussions going on behind the scenes as politicians and technocrats furiously work towards a civilian transition.
Building a functioning, democratic state after 30 years of military rule does not happen in a week, and the opposition is far from being one cohesive unit.
Like in Egypt the military here is strong. Its generals will not give up power easily as they have a great deal to lose, even if they give the impression of moving towards democracy.
FC Platinum returned to winning ways and handed Hwange their first defeat of the season in a match played at Mandava Stadium on Saturday.
The reigning champions beat the coal miners 2-0 to move to the top of the log with 10 points.
The visitors put a spirited first half but disappointedly went to the break trailing after conceding a goal in the 34th minute by Farai Madhananga who connected Ali Sadiki’s cross with a header.
Never Tigere could have doubled the advantage early in the second period but fluffed a beautiful chance as he missed from an unmissable spot.
Nonetheless, he managed to put his name on the scoresheet when he netted in the 80th minute. His goal proved to be the final knock on Chipangano as the match ended in a 2-0 victory.
In Harare, CAPS United midfielder Blessing Sarupinda scored against his former team, Black Rhinos.
The Green Machine were 2-0 victors with Gabriel Nyoni scoring the other goal on the stroke of half-time.
Results: FC Platinum 2-0 Hwange Black Rhinos 0-2 CAPS United
A man literally took his fight over a ‘small house’ to his rival’s doorstep, going as far as writing threats on his rival’s walls and gate.
The threats, most of which are written in Shona, indicate that a rival suitor who drives a silver Mercedes-Benz seems to have irked the man who went to smear the walls to his home and gate with spray paint.
He warns his rival to stop sleeping around with his ‘small house’ or else he would be forced to resort to unspecified action.
Part of his threats read: “Warning mudhara webenz yesilver kuita basa rekukwira small house yangu.
MOTIVATION does not always come wrapped in praise and high regard — it also comes in the form of unfavourable reviews from critics, fans or the opposition.
Sebastien Desabre, the coach of Uganda’s football team, may well have spurred on Zimbabwe with his less-than-flattering opinion of the Warriors ahead of the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations finals in Egypt.
The Frenchman took many keen followers of African football by surprise this week with his remarks about Zimbabwe, suggesting that the Warriors were the weakest team in Group A — which also includes his team, hosts Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
While acknowledging the “great qualities” of the Zimbabwean side, Desabre, though, described the Warriors as “the least lucky team of the group”, adding that Egypt and the DRC posed a greater threat to his East African charges.
Ugandan football has been enjoying a purple patch in recent times.
Where in the past even their best players used to find it very difficult to break into other domestic leagues outside their own country, these days more and more foreign scouts look to Uganda as a hunting ground for football talent.
Denis Onyango, the experienced national team goalkeeper and captain, has been a mainstay of top South African club Mamelodi Sundowns for nearly a decade.
And like Zimbabwe, Uganda have also reached out to players born or raised in Europe, inviting the diasporans to represent the motherland in international football.
A few have positively responded to the call. One is England-born Bevis Mugabi, who plays for League Two side Yeovil Town.
Another is Moses Opondo, who has lived in Denmark since he was four years old and plays for top-flight club Vendsyssel FF.
Having a few guys playing in the professional environment of Europe is a boost to a lot of African teams, probably the reason Desabre is feeling a little bullish right now.
But to hold such sentiments, labeling Zimbabwe the underdogs of a group in which Uganda are involved, is slightly startling considering the inescapable reality on the ground.
It is strange that a team which until two years ago in Gabon had failed to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations in 40 years — a team that in all honesty was handed an easy group (with Cape Verde, Tanzania and Lesotho) in these recent past qualifiers — would have a coach with such low opinion of a side that unlike them had to move mountains to go to Egypt, a side whose reputation has been growing steadily on the continent.
Very few observers in Africa will disagree right now that Zimbabwe, man-for-man, do have a better and stronger squad of the two nations in question. You then begin to wonder what yardstick Desabre has used to give himself and his team an edge over the Warriors in this group.
After examining all factors, one can only arrive at one logical conclusion really: rankings.
Quite so, take a look at the Fifa rankings now and indeed you will see Uganda placed a distant 31 places above Zimbabwe — who are the lowest ranked side by far in the group.
But you just cannot take these rankings at face value, can you, especially in a big tournament like Afcon where form and quality matters most at the end of the day.
How does one explain, for example, that seven African countries presently positioned above the Warriors today on world rankings failed to qualify for this forthcoming edition of the Africa Cup of Nations?
Congo is one of those, fascinatingly. Zimbabwe took four crucial points off them in qualifying. Had it in fact not been for wasted glorious chances in the Brazzaville leg, the Warriors could have so easily defeated the Central African team home and away in the qualifiers.
Yet the Fifa ranking system tells a different story.
To further make a mockery of the rankings, Zimbabwe was also able to claim four points off the DRC, a feat best remembered for a famous away win in Kinshasa by the Warriors. This — come to think of it — against a DRC team ranked in the top 50 on the planet, the fourth best-placed African team in world rankings.
Again, had it not been of an unfortunate own goal in Harare, Zimbabwe would have defeated the DRC home and away in the qualifiers.
For heaven’s sake even Mauritania, the no-hopers going to the Afcon finals this year for the first time in their history, are ranked seven spots above Zimbabwe on the Fifa rankings.
Correspondent|Double tragedy struck for the family of Guinean footballer Aly Soumah who died in a tragic road crash on his way to his home country after being disqualified from participating from the ongoing U17 African Cup of Nations on age ground.
The 17-year-old lad had traveled with the rest of his mates to Dar Es Salaam- Tanzania for the U17 tournament but unfortunately he was left out the Guinea final 21 man squad by his coaches.
The decision not to pick him meant the lad could no longer participate in the tournament and he was subsequently sent home before Guinéa’s first game on Monday against Cameroon.
Unfortunately for the young lad’s family and the football world, Aly was involved in a road accident at the Kindia road in Guinea and died few hours later.
DIVISIONS are widening in MDC Masvingo province after the party disqualified Tongai Matutu from contesting against James Gumbi for the post of provincial chairperson.
Matutu was disqualified because he has not been in the party for five years since he defected to former MDC secretary-general-led Tendai Biti’s People Democratic Party (PDP) before returning to the opposition party two years ago.
Matutu told the Daily News his disqualification was not justified.
“Overview, the decision is unfair, bias and vindictive. The decision was made in the eleventh hour.
“Before I was disqualified I made all the consultations even with the highest office. I was made to believe that I was the right candidate to contest.
“I then prepared for the contest. I think I was not the preferred person that’s why I was disqualified at 3am. The process started at 10am but only to be disqualified at 3am.
“I know what happened. So many shenanigans were taking place. There were so many meetings before the congress.
“If it was the issue of template they should have told me before. I was not disqualified by the party but by individuals and for me it’s business as usual. I will remain in the party.”
Matutu added that the party will continue to be weaker in the province.
“Gumbi didn’t win fairly, why did he disqualify a popular candidate? He fraudulently manipulated the nomination. The unpopular candidate won the process and as a province we are weaker more than what we were.
“We are going to see more crises until the leadership resolve this issue holistically. It’s not about individuals but about the party.”
Commenting on the issue yesterday, MDC spokesperson Jacob Mafume said the party just followed its laws.
“Matutu was not disqualified; there is a template and according to the template he should have applied for a waiver for that five years period, he opted not to apply,” Mafume saidAfter the announcement of Matutu’s disqualification there was chaos as some supporters tried to protest the decision.
This comes as there are complaints from MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora that the playing ground remains uneven.
Mwonzora, along with MDC vice president Elias Mudzuri had initially thrown his hat into the ring declaring his ambition to take over from MDC leader Nelson Chamisa as president of the country’s biggest opposition party.
The former Nyanga North MP, however, made a dramatic U-turn last weekend announcing during the Manicaland provincial congress in Mutare that he will instead back Chamisa who already has been nominated by the majority of the party’s 13 provinces.
Mwonzora who has not received a single nomination for the position of president is now battling for his political life after his Manicaland home province did not nominate him for any position.
While Chamisa was always seen as the favourite to emerge winner, Mwonzora was banking on history – having defeated the popular MDC leader for the position of secretary-general at the 2014 congress.
Then, Chamisa was considered as a rank outsider in those elections.
Fit as a fiddle Kembo Mohadi in Cape Town with wife Juliet.
Own Correspondent|Just a couple of days after Vice President Kembo Mohadi was awarded a second protection order against his ex wife Tambudzani Mohadi, he has been spotted enjoying a “refreshing” time out with his family and new wife Juliet Mutavhatsindi in Cape Town.
Mohadi with his family in Cape Town
Mohadi was granted divorce with his wife of years by the High Court last month after over two years of legal wrangle.
At the divorce hearing, Tambudzani told the court that the couple had last enjoyed intimacy in 1999 and their marriage was no longer in existence.
Couple of weeks ago, Mohadi went wild at his ex matrimonial home in Beitbridge nearly killing his ex wife with an axe and was restrained by his security details.
On Wednesday Mohadi was back in court seeking another protection order against Tambudzani who he claimed was harassing him and his new wife Juliet.
The holiday in Cape Town could just be a deserved time out for Mohadi and his young wife.
Zimbabweans though will ask, at whose expense is the Vice President enjoying his time out?
An ambulance driver in Lilongwe, Malawi faces dismissal after he cruised past a presidential convoy as he had two critically ill patients – one was on oxygen – on board. He was taking the patients, a child who was on oxygen and a critically anaemic woman to Kamuzu Central Hospital.
The police followed the driver up to the hospital where they wanted to arrest him and impound the ambulance, but after discussions with hospital management, they just summoned the driver to police headquarters.
It is not known whether the police will arrest him or just caution him.
He has since been suspended from work.
District Commissioner for Lilongwe Lawford Palani defended the police action, saying the behaviour by the ambulance driver compromised the security of President Peter Mutharika. “What the driver did was indiscipline. He has to respect the head of state,” said Palani.
However, Malawians on social media are all up in arms against the police, saying the ambulance driver did nothing wrong as he wanted to save lives of two people.
“This is unfair. The president was going to Kasungu for political campaign, but the ambulance was going to hospital with critically ill patients. This is selfishness,” reads one comment.
[Opposition] United Transformation Movement presidential hopeful Saulos Chilima, who is also state vice-president, has time and again said when voted into power he would order that roads should not be closed just because the president wants to pass.
By Farai Maguwu| Today Police from Bambazonke went to Mashukashuka to record statements from witnesses. The accused officer, an Inspector was present in the company of an Assistant Commissioner whom we named in 2009 as one of the most brutal killers and torturers during Operation Hakudzokwi. Really shocked he is still in Marange, 10 years on!
As the Bambazonke Police officers recorded eye witness accounts, the Ass Comm was drinking beer at a nearby shop. The accused threatened witnesses on countless times. What was also bizarre is that the officer recording the statements was repeatedly disrupted by the Ass Comm who frequently called him to to the verandah of the pub where he was drinking.
Finally one of the officers from Bambazonke privately advised the complainant to make a complaint at Murahwa Provincial Police HQ, saying their hands were tied because they are very junior to the person they were investigating who also apparently enjoyed the protection of his superior, the Ass Comm. Our legal practitioner is working on the letter of complaint to be submitted tomorrow
The MDC Alliance’s alternative MP for Chiredzi West constituency, Hon John Manganye, has donated an ambulance, 30 wheelchairs, three 5 000-litre water tanks, blood pressure testing machines, beds and various other items to Chiredzi Town Council-run polyclinic.
Hon Manganye is also helping with the refurbishment of the structures, including repainting of the polyclinic.
The donation, worth several thousands of dollars, was handed over to the local authority.
Chiredzi Town Council is planning to decongest Chiredzi General Hospital.
MDC 5th Congress: Defining a New Course for Zimbabwe!
Former President Robert Mugabe is in Singapore where he is seeking treatment. Zimbabwe held its independence celebrations recently. If Mugabe was around, do you think he would he attend Independence Commemorations presided over by President Emmerson Mnangagwa?
By Own Correspondent| Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa says he is taking good care of his ailing predecessor, Robert Mugabe, who is currently in Singapore for treatment.
Mnangagwa said this in an interview with the national broadcaster:
“He has not been feeling well. At the age of 95, I think he is reasonably in good health. Currently he is not in the country.
He left on April 2 to Singapore, he will be away for about 29 days and he will come back.
I am making sure that I do the facilitation for him to receive treatment, take him to Singapore and to bring him back, all the facilities, I make sure that it is done.”
Mnangagwa ascended to power in November 2017 in what analysts described as a “soft” military coup.
The International Monetary Fund board on Friday approved an $118.2 million credit that will be rushed out for cyclone-devastated Mozambique to help with the recovery efforts.
The zero-interest, 10-year loan will help shore up the country’s budget amid the reconstruction efforts after the massive damage caused last month by Cyclone Idai, the IMF said in a statement.
The storm cut a path of destruction through Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe on the night of March 14-15, causing damage worth $2 billion, according to the World Bank.
In Mozambique alone, more than 600 people died among the 1.85 million affected while over 340 died in Zimbabwe.
“Emergency assistance and reconstruction costs are estimated to be enormous, making this storm the worst and costliest natural disaster to ever strike the country,” said Tao Zhang, deputy managing director of the Washington-based lender.
In addition to the loss of life, he said the country suffered “substantial damage to physical infrastructure and productive capacity.”
The IMF’s Rapid Credit facility (RCF) gets funds to the country quickly, and will allow the government to reallocate priorities to focus on emergency assistance to the poorest and for reconstruction.
The aid also can “play a catalytic role in securing grants from donors and the international community,” he said, since “the bulk of emergency assistance and reconstruction needs will have to be covered by the international community mostly in the form of grants.”
However, the official stressed that as the government continues its efforts to shore up its finances, including through debt relief from private creditors, “it will be critical to increase the economy´s resilience and preparedness to natural disasters and climate change.”
The land of our nativity, beloved motherland Zimbabwe, is currently gripped by an infectious sense of political excitement that is unmistakable as the prevailing mood of the times across the national political terrain. One would be forgiven to think that its time for national general election! Nay! It is congress time for the most popular political party ever, the Movement for Democratic Change led by the equally popular and people-centered President Advocate Nelson Chamisa.
Embodied in views he has often times expressed at various occasions for all and sundry to hear, President Chamisa has made it abundantly clear that this congress is not so much about jostling for positions but most importantly about propositional value, generational renewal and ideological groundedness. Through this irrefutably democratic process of mandate-seeking by office aspirants in the Party as given and guided by the party’s constitution,the movement is rebranding and rejuvenating itself for the final lethal onslaught against ruling kleptocrats who have held the nation hostage for the past 39 years. Our quest in pursuit of reclaiming our stolen vote remain supreme until victory is realised!
However,it is illustrative to note that this congress is taking place at a historical juncture when the country is embroiled in a multifaceted crisis of unprecedented proportions. The economy is in doldrums. Unemployment has plummeted to catastrophic levels. The food security situation is bleak and the broad mass of the population is susceptible to diseases that are curable and preventable due to the collapse of the healthcare system. The general cost of living has skyrocketed to astronomic heights as incomes continue to be eroded by inflationary pressures.
Admittedly, the ZANU PF ruling cabal has proven to be a dysfunctional vehicle for translating political independence into economic freedom for the generality of the populace. It is for this reason that the MDC was formed – to retire the old liberation movement that has failed to transform itself into a national people’s development project.
Since 1999 when the MDC burst on the national political scene, the inexorable march towards the removal and ultimate liquidation of ZANU PF has been pursued relentlessly but remains elusive to this day. The question therefore that must preoccupy the minds of all progressive social democrats as we inch closer to the grand finale of our Congress on the 24-26th of May 2019 is why is it taking long and how can we quicken the overthrow of this monstrous dictatorship from power in a peaceful and democratic manner. Such an interrogation of our present predicament is not only necessary but also urgent.
Besides being a broad arena for political contestation in pursuit of positions of power, congress should also be used as a podium for propositions,introspection and comradely cross-pollination of ideas on crafting a counter hegemonic way forward. It is in this vein that we take it upon ourselves to start a discussion investigating the nature of the monster we are confronted with in Zimbabwe. Ladies and gentlemen,before us is a competitive authoritarian regime..a partocratic system that needs to be dismantled!
We summon and enlist the scholarly views of Steven Levitsky and Lucan A Way, respected professors of political science at Harvard University, to help explain the phenomenon of competitive authoritarian regimes.
“A competitive authoritarian regime is a civilian regime in which formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power but in which the ruling incumbents abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage against their opponents. In most cases elections are held regularly and normally deemed free, credible and there is reasonable competition but there is no fairness and the playing field is very uneven. Freedom of expression, association, assembly, speech and conscience is respected limited arbitrarily using legal sanctions. Executive authority and power is deemed to derive from the people. The constitution is considered the supreme law of the land and the country – a constitutional democracy. Independent institutions are put in place but are captured and staffed by the incumbent’s loyalists who pander to the whims of their patron. State institutions are manipulated to the advantage of the incumbent. Courts,commissions even state-owned enterprises are used to prop up the incumbent’s bid, covertly.”
In competitive authoritarian regimes, unfair media access, use of discretionary economic power and abuse of state resources and legal repression is deployed to favour the incumbent at the expense of opponents. In most cases,elections are used as mere facades and smokescreens for democracy in order to gain legitimacy in pursuit of regime acceptability in the international family of nations.
In recent years,many dictatorships are being forced to conform to democratic tenets through the leverage that liberal global institutions wield and use as carrot and stick such as development finance and aid. The political conditionalities being attached to development assistance and foreign aid by pro- democracy bilateral and multilateral global institutions like IMF,World Bank and AfDB is that a country must respect the rule of law and property rights,protect human rights and democratise in order to be eligible for help to develop. Failure to do this the country risks losing out on development finance and aid. This has raised the cost of authoritarianism. Hence the emergence of competitive authoritarian regimes that pretend to be democratic while they are not..ZANU PF is one such a regime.
It is common knowledge that ZANU has been using its discretionary economic power and abuse of state resources to oil its party machinery.
Examples abound!
The distribution of land on partisan lines has been used to ensure that all beneficiaries remain beholden to the ruling party through state ownership of the land as awarding them titled deeds means losing control over them. That’s how ZANU enforces loyalty and anyone deemed disloyal could risk having their leases arbitrarily revoked. Agricultural inputs and food aid are distributed on partisan lines. Even mining claims to artesenal miners(formally makorokoza) whose businesses have been regularised given on partisan basis. There lies the anatomy of fear in the majority of the rural folk and all those in farming and mining communities who constitute 70% of our population. The fear is not in ZANU as an institution but fear of being deprived of their sources of livelihoods. In this case the assertion that politics is the concentrated expression of economics rings true.
Access to media is biased and coverage by the state broadcaster, both radio and TV,is partisan. Independent media is not that effective as it only reaches a small urban elite. The law itself is skewed in favour of the incumbent. Use of draconian pieces of legislation to suppress political activity is a reality. Use of patronage and corruption where tenders,business contracts and economic opportunities are awarded to cronies who plough back donations to the party remains the order of the day. All these are methods used by ZANU to oil its machinery against us.
It is against such odds that we have to marshal our energies after Congress. Now is the time to strategise on how to surmount such challenges.
Our submission is that for us to adequately confront an electoral competitive authoritarian regime like Zanu with its hyper-incumbency advantage the Party needs to be sufficiently resourced. A well crafted resource mobilization strategy must be put in place. Its time to think massive party commercial investments. Why can’t we own farms in the name of the party? Why can’t we run commercial investments vehicles as sustainable sources of funding the struggle going forward?Continued reliance on donor funding and state funding under the Political Parties Finances Act is no longer sustainable for a huge party like ours.
Media reforms remain critical together with electoral reforms. Institutionally,we need to have structures in every village. It is time to “de-hararenize” the Party and make it a mass party. This involves breaking the patronage network of ZANU. Let’s villagise our movement. Indeed under the capable leadership of President Chamisa,victory is certain.
With a radicalised youth that is ready to claim its share of the national cake through resource nationalism we can fund our struggle and rid ourselves of ZANU PF. It is time Mdc youths demand farms. It is time Mdc youths demand mining claims. Its time we disrupt the patronage network system that has sustained ZANU PF this far. It has to be fire with fire going forward!
Of course our duty as young social democrats is to start a debate on how to confront this monster. We believe in robust debate for the best policy direction. Let’s start the conversation!
The struggle continues!
Simba Mukori is a reaseacher and development practitioner.
Stephen Sarkozy Chuma is a media practitioner and MDC National Youth Assembly Secretary for Information and Publicity Candidate.
Norton legislator Temba Mliswa has surprisingly thrown Zanu PF under the bus saying he prefers to sit in parliamentary portfolio committees chaired by MDC Alliance members as opposed to Zanu PF.
Posting on Twitter, Mliswa said sitting in committees chaired by Zanu PF members of parliament is a waste of time, though he did not shed light on the reasons behind his preference.
” If I have to sit in a Parly Committee, I’d prefer it to be chaired by @MDCAllianceZW as opposed to @ZANUPF_Official as its a waste of time otherwise,” said Mliswa.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday blasted the State over clumsy work in its appeal challenging the acquittal of businessman Wicknell Chivayo of the $5,6 million fraud charge involving the Zimbabwe Power Company’s Gwanda Solar Project.
The State was seeking leave to appeal against the decision of the High Court absolving the businessman and his company Intratrek Zimbabwe of any criminal liability in the Gwanda solar project.
Justice Bharat Patel expressed his disquiet over the manner the State’s heads of argument were crafted, describing them as “the most appalling heads of arguments I have ever seen.”
Lead prosecution counsel Ms Sheron Fero from the Prosecutor-General’s Office had asked for a postponement to file fresh heads of argument.
She dissociated herself from the heads of argument, which she also described as “kindergarten stuff”.
“I request your indulgence to file different heads of argument to correct the anomalies that are there,” she said. “There are typographical errors, which are akin to kindergarten stuff.”
The State also conceded that the points raised by Chivayo’s lawyers on the validity of the State’s application were valid and that the PG’s office would need time to consider the appeal.
Said Mr Fero: “I also looked at the substance of those heads and noted that they do not articulate the issues for purposes of this application. The defence has raised valid points in respect of the validity of the application itself, which I believe in the interest of justice, we need to craft proper heads.”
When Justice Patel sought an explanation as to who had crafted the heads of argument, both Ms Fero and Mr Zivanai Macharaga, also from the Prosecutor-General’s Office, distanced themselves.
Justice Patel agreed to have the matter postponed after Ms Fero told him that she wanted time consider the matter carefully. Justice Patel said if the State intended to proceed with the matter, they will have to file a fresh set of heads of argument by April 29 and the matter will be heard on May 8.
The defence had up to May 4 to file their papers.
Chivayo was cleared of the fraud charges, while the other two counts of breaching Exchange Control regulations suffered a stillbirth, shortly before the trial commenced.
In acquitting, Chivayo last month, Justice Owen Tagu ruled that the matter was a civil and not a criminal suit.
By Own Correspondent| Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company Security Manager for Chiadzwa Mine, Benjamin Chinyanga resigned ahead of his disciplinary hearing, a local publication reported.
The hearing followed security breaches at the mine in December 2018 and January 2019.
Said Sugar Chagonda the company’s spokesperson:
“The state diamond miner will leave no stone unturned when it comes to curbing all forms of leakages and pilferage of the precious stones in line with our zero tolerance to corruption policy and our quest to become a world class diamond producer.”-263Chat
Correspondent|During His earthly Ministry, Jesus Christ performed Miracles by touching, healing, and transforming countless live. However, Bishop Daniel Obinim has revealed that he has perform more miracles than Jesus Christ and all the prophets in the Bible.
While there are many explanations for what a miracle is, it can probably all agree that the word “miracle” describes an event that occurs outside the bounds of natural law, and which is beneficial in its result. According to the founder and leader of, International God’s Way Church, he has performed lots of angelic and spiritual things that beats the canal mind or are mind bubbling.
Bishop Obinim revealed that Jesus Christ only transformed himself three times and He(Jesus) said his followers will do more than he did because his life was short lived on Earth.
The outspoken prophet emphasized that no Prophet in the Bible has done miraculous things that he has been able to do because they all had different directions or path.
Image credit: youtube.com
He further disclosed that the miracles he has performed for so many years are more than the miracles performed by Jesus Christ and any other Prophet in the Bible.
Jesus said ‘the Miracles am performing, the wonders and the signs; Those who believe in me, you can perform more than that’.Jesus was making reference to this that he didn’t have enough time so he curtailed his time.
He worked for about 3 and a half years then he left but those of us now we have more time. I Angel Obinim, I have worked for so many years more than that of my father and the miracles, the angelic performances, the wonders and signs that I have performed; they are countless because I have enough time.” Obinim said this in a sermon at the Kumasi branch of his Church.
By Own Correspondent- Zanu Pf youth league leader Pupurai Togarepi has said the country’s solutions lie from within the country calling on all citizens to dialogue.
The 55 year old youth leader said everything that is needed for the country’s prosperity is found locally hence the need for everyone to abandon self hate and unite.
Said Togarepi:
“All we need is found here in Zimbabwe, unity, peace, love, resources and development. Unfortunately we mislead ourselves seeking outside influences. Its never too late to seek unity for the good of our people. If you are genuine then abandon self hate and lets dialogue”.
All we need is found here in Zimbabwe; unity, peace, love, resources and development. Unfortunately we mislead ourselves seeking outside influences. Its never too late to seek unity for the good of our People. If you are genuine then abandon self hate and lets dialogue
On Thursday, Zimbabwe marked the anniversary of its 1980 independence from Britain. The anniversary coincides with efforts to heal the wounds brought on by state-sanctioned massacres in the 1980s.
Some 20,000 people were massacred during the presidency of Robert Mugabe, human rights organizations say. One of the most affected areas is Tsholotsho, a rural district about 600 kilometers southwest of the capital, Harare. There, people are opening up about reburial efforts and requesting compensation from the government.
Melwa Ngwenya stands near a grave holding the remains of his son Sibangani, killed in February 1983 in Tsholotsho, Zimbabwe. Ngwenya seeks compensation for the state-sanctioned massacres known as Gukurahundi.
Local resident Melwa Ngwenya says a recent decision by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration – to allow victims in shallow or mass graves to be reburied – is not cause for celebration on this Independence Day. Ngwenya says his son was beaten to death during the massacres when Mnangagwa was state security minister. The killings were known as Gukurahundi.
According to Ngwenya, the army assaulted his son, Sibangani, who died along with eight others in February 1983. They were buried in a shallow grave about five kilometers from the family home.
“I don’t usually come to this place,” Ngwenya said, standing at Sibangani’s grave site. “… For the pain and sorrow to go, I have to be given something to console me. A two-bedroom house will console my spirit that, yes, my son died.”
Women wait to collect water at a borehole in Zimbabwe’s Tsholotsho District, April 18, 2019.
Gukurahundi debate
Under Mugabe’s rule, people were persecuted for discussing the massacres, and reburial of the victims was prohibited. On the eve of Independence Day, his successor, Mnangagwa, said that citizens were now free to talk about Gukurahundi.
“The question of Gukurahundi – personally, I don’t see anything wrong [with] debating it in newspapers, on television,” the president said on state TV. “… Actually, it’s critical that we have that debate. Some of the issues could’ve been resolved a long time back. … Gukurahundi has nothing to do with other people. It is an internal matter which has happened among us Zimbabweans, which we must discuss among ourselves.”
But Ngwenya, still grieving for his son, is skeptical. “He is not sincere,” the 80-year-old said of the president. “He is blindfolding us. He is trying to silence us because we want compensation.
“I want to have a place to mourn my son,” he said, saying it should be “a permanent structure, something to stay in.”
Calling for compensation, Ngwenya added, “If he {Mnangagwa] cares about our cries and if the government cares about us and has sympathy, it must build me at least a two-bedroom house.”
Mbuso Fuzwayo, of the rights group Ibhetshu Likazulu, says it’s not enough just to lift a ban on reburying Gukurahundi massacre victims.
Only half of the issue
The rights organization Ibhetshu Likazulu has been vocal in calling for addressing the Gukurahundi issue. The group’s secretary, Mbuso Fuzwayo, says Mnangagwa has to deal with more than just allowing people to discuss the massacres and reburials openly.
“It is not those who are in mass or shallow graves who are going to be buried. Everyone will have peace when he knows where his father, daughter, son is lying,” Fuzwayo said. Mnangagwa “doesn’t talk about women who were raped. He is talking about half of what happened. Gukurahundi is complex.”
Now it remains to be seen if the government has the will and funds to accommodate the people’s demands on Gukurahundi.
Opinion By Rofhiwa Phaswana|President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a serious challenge in dealing with the Zuma faction within the ruling party.
Most of Ramaphosa’s political lieutenants are marred by controversies that favour his detractors as we head toward the elections.
No one can argue that the inclusion of unethical leaders such as Bathabile Dlamini, Nomvula Mokonyane and Malusi Gigaba on the IEC national list of the party’s parliamentary representatives is not political suicide.
However, viewing them in a dark light along factional lines and asserting that the inclusion of the likes of Gwede Mantashe, Thabang Makwetla and Vincent Smith on the list is not problematic, is biased.
The balance of forces is not favouring the incumbent president because his confidants are tarnished in a similar manner as former president Jacob Zuma’s cabal that orchestrated or presided over state capture.
While Ramaphosa enjoys the prerogative powers to hire his own cabinet after the elections should his party win, which is highly likely, he doesn’t have power to remove Zuma people as members of parliament because their presence is a view of branches.
Following the embarrassing revelations in the book Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture, which shed light on how ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule captured the Free State to benefit the Guptas, Zuma came out urging him to be strong.
Both Zuma and Magashule, who are morally and ethically compromised, have never forsaken one another.
While the ANC hasn’t confirmed that the Magashule has tampered with the national list of its parliamentary representatives, what we know is that it reflects the Zuma faction.
It would be a fair comment to say without any doubt that Ramaphosa is not in full control of the fragmented ruling party.
Saif al-Islam, the son of the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has been confirmed as a candidate in the Libyan presidential elections.
Saif al-Islam, who is the son of the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was confirmed as a candidate for Libya’s presidential elections.
A tweet posted by Africa Research Centre reads, “Saif al- Islam Gaddafi, Son of the late Libyan Leader Col Muammar Gaddafi is to run as a candidate in the country’s presidential elections this year.
His candidacy was announced by officials in the Libyan Popular Front party during a news conference in Tunis on Monday.”
Saif al-Islam has always supported the holding of presidential elections in Libya. He was once an heir to Libyan fortunes, but since he was released in 2017, he has not chosen to appear in the public very much, being a fugitive even.
Khaled Guel told al-Araby al-Jadeed, a pan-Arab newspaper, “The humanitarian situation is deteriorating and the path forward is unclear. Therefore many Libyans now believe that the only way to save the country is through Saif al-Islam.”
Libya has been locked in an unending state of chaos following the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed political revolt. The country is fractured, and unity is a remote possibility with how things are. Libya is divided into two parts – the eastern, which is governed by the elected local parliament, and this legislative body is backed by the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar; and the western part is run by the UN and EU-backed Government of National Accord and led by Tripoli-based Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj.
It is hoped that by the end of the year, at least these elections should have been conducted.
Correspondent|Movement for Democratic Change leader Nelson Chamisa, who initially said he wanted dialogue but this should not be convened by his main rival Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front but by someone from outside Zimbabwe, seems to be softening his position.
Chamisa, whose party is holding its congress next month and seems to be assured of retaining his post, yesterday tweeted: “Where we are going now requires us to think and act together as Zimbabweans. Our dire situation is no longer about MDC or ZanuPF but about Zimbabwe. We have a nation to build and a generation to defend. We have the power!”
The MDC leader lost to Mnangagwa is last year’s elections but has refused to recognise the ZANU-PF leader insisting that he won the elections though he lost the case at the country’s highest court.
Chamisa was backed by one of the former G40 kingpins, Patrick Zhuwao, former President Robert Mugabe’s nephew who responded to his tweet: “Spoken like a true leader. Well done.”
In response to Joseph Budzi who said: “Dialogue Dialogue Dialogue is the only way to go.. Let’s find each other,” Chamisa, who set five conditions for his party to negotiate with Mnangagwa, tweeted: “I said it and will say it again…Resolution of our negative politics and the debilitating governance crisis upon genuine dialogue is the only genuine door out this economic morass, social quagmire and squalid living conditions we so sweat under.”
On Wednesday Chamisa tweeted: “Our politics must be more about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. It’s about Zimbabwe and It’s people.”
This seems to be a softening of his die-hard stance that talks must be convened by someone from outside Zimbabwe.
Some observers say recent moves by the International Monetary Fund to work with Mnangagwa’s administration could have jolted Chamisa and his party which accused the IMF of working to perpetuate tyranny.
Others said Chamisa is now desperate to join the conversation in the hope of creating a government of national unity so that he can be accommodated as at the moment it is only him and Welshman Ncube who are outside the legislature. All the other senior leaders of his party are either Senators or Members of Parliament.
ZANU-PF supporters say Chamisa is slowly recognising that he will be left by the train, as Mnangagwa once said, as Mnangagwa’s administration is quietly reviving the country though this is grossly overshadowed by currency woes, skyrocketing prices and the shortage of fuel.
Mnangagwa said his administration would create 780 000 jobs in the next two years as it had approved 59 projects which are at various stages of implementation.
Mnangagwa had announced several mega-deals which have not yet materialized since he came to power.
However, if he manages to create these jobs in two years he will literally have swept the rug from under the MDC’s feet.
Instead of heaping the blame for the present crisis on ZANU-PF, Chamisa said Zimbabweans were to blame for their present predicament.
“We really have none but ourselves as the only viable and credible answer to all our questions,” he tweeted.
When asked by Chibabest Mavisto: “Exactly what are u suggesting? Tell us your plan mere talk wont cook ‘rice’. Actions speak louder than words”, Chamisa responded: “Come let us reason together! No problem is ever too big enough or insurmountable when our hands and minds are put together for the common good.”
When told by Jerry M that “Greedy politicians from Zanu &MDC are responsible!” for the crisis in the country, Chamisa responded: “When something is part of the problem it is not the entire problem. Yes, dishonesty, corruption and greedy leadership across the political divide account for the sad and ugly circumstances we find ourselves in.”
Villagers dig up trapped bodies of cyclone Idai victims
A BULAWAYO activist has petitioned the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) to investigate the Department of Civil Protection (DCP)’s disaster management preparedness after blame was largely heaped on the agency for the Cyclone Idai-induced deaths and loss of property.
Cyclone Idai barrelled through Zimbabwe, killing nearly 400 people, displacing 16 000, while hundreds others are still missing.
In a petition to the ZHRC dated April 10, activist Khumbulani Maphosa blamed the loss of life on DCP’s poor disaster management response, adding that the agency failed to prepare for and reduce the effects of the cyclone.
Maphosa argued that the Meteorological Services Department released adequate information “that could have given any responsible authority enough time, opportunity and space to make sound and critical decisions to protect and promote right to life during the cyclone”.
“The DCP had an administrative duty and mandate to protect the people of Chimanimani from death by way of Cyclone Idai and one of the measures to do that was to order and facilitate evacuation to higher ground and provide temporary shelter [in the form of tents] to those evacuated in order to save precious lives,” he said.
“The DCP failed in its administrative mandate to respect and promote the right to life because they omitted or failed to reach a decision to order an evacuation (even if it meant assisted evacuation) of people from Chimanimani’s low-lying areas to higher ground.”
Government declared the cyclone-induced flooding a national disaster after it caused considerable damage to properties, livelihoods and infrastructure.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday launched a humanitarian and reconstruction appeal for districts affected in the storms’ path.
Maphosa implored the ZHRC to investigate “gross incompetence, omission and failure of the DCP to order or facilitate the evacuation of people of Chipinge and Chimanimani from low-lying areas to higher ground”.
“Investigate why the DCP did not facilitate the erection of temporary shelter before the commencement of Cyclone Idai on higher ground since it already had visual images of the damage happening in Mozambique and it was aware of the dangerous speed of the cyclone.
“…the DCP Management and the National Civil Protection Committee be held responsible and liable for the deaths of 185 Zimbabweans (according to government statistics; 259 according to United Nations agencies) due to Cyclone Idai,” Maphosa’s petition adds.
ZCDC Security Boss Resigns A Day before Disciplinary Hearing.
Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) Security Manager for Chiadzwa Mine, Benjamin Chinyanga has resigned just a day before the commencement of his disciplinary hearing.
The resignation follows a spate of security breaches at the mine.
Chinyanga who is understood to have been on suspension since the 20th of March this year, is said to have tendered his letter on 16 April 2019.
Contacted for a comment,ZCDC Spokesperson Sugar Chagonda could neither deny nor confirm the resignation of Chinyanga saying the company is set to curb all diamond leakages in line with their zero tolerance to corruption.
“The state diamond miner will leave no stone unturned when it comes to curbing all forms of leakages and pilferage of the precious stones in line with our zero tolerance to corruption policy and our quest to become a world class diamond producer.”
The state-owned company in January fired 80 of its employees, many of them suspected of involvement in diamond ore looting at Chiadzwa.
A breach of security occurred in December 2018 followed by another one in January 2019 with the latest having been recorded in March resulting in the arrest and prosecution of four people who are before the courts.
REPORTS of two government commissions of inquiry into post-independence massacres in Matabeleland and the Midlands “have been lost”, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) says it has been told.
Retired High Court judge Selo Nare, whose commission will shortly carry out public hearings into the 1980s massacres and propose a way forward, says they asked the government for the reports of the Dumbutshena Commission of Inquiry which investigated the events surrounding the Entumbane uprising between November 1980 and March 1981; and the Commission of Inquiry into the Matabeleland Disturbances also known as the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry which investigated the killing of civilians by the Fifth Brigade between 1983 and 1985.
“It’s unfortunate though that the previous commissions’ reports have been lost. Nonetheless, the government is still looking for the whereabouts of the Dumbutshena and Chihambakwe reports,” Nare was quoted as saying by the Centre for Innovation and Technology.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the 39th Independence celebrations at Phelandaba Stadium in Gwanda.
In 2000, two human rights groups, the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), filed an application in the supreme court seeking an order compelling Mugabe to make public the two reports.
But then Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, in affidavits filed with the court on behalf of Mugabe, said the Dumbutshena report could no longer be located.
Mnangagwa, now the president, was a key architect of the massacres which independent reports by rights groups say left 20,000 people dead. He recently invited a public debate on Gukurahundi (a Shona word which means the rains that wash away the chaff).
Survivors and rights groups say any genuine discussions around Gukurahundi should begin with the government making public the two reports, which have been kept under lock and key.
The Dumbutshena Commission, chaired by the former Chief Justice Enoch Dumbutshena, presented its findings to then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 1981.
The commission looked into sporadic violence that broke out starting in April 1980 when Mugabe’s Zanu PF won 57 parliamentary seats out of 100 in the first elections after the war. The violence was reported in the vicinity of Guerrilla Assembly Points all over the country.
In November that year, there was a battle between ZIPRA and ZANLA guerrillas, moved from rural Assembly Points to Entumbane in Bulawayo. There was a second more violent outbreak of clashes in February 1981 at Entumbane which spilled over to Ntabazinduna and Connemara in the Midlands. More than 300 guerrillas, mostly former ZIPRA, were killed after Mugabe’s government sent in air support.
The Chihambakwe Commission, chaired by the late Supreme Court judge Simplisius Chihambakwe, was set up in September 1983 to investigate atrocities by the Fifth Brigade which was deployed in Matabeleland starting in December 1982 with orders to “combat dissidents”, reference to a few dozen former ZIPRA fighters who refused to put down arms after rejecting Mugabe’s rule.
The commission began its work in January 1984. It was made up of Justice Chihambakwe, two lawyers John Ngara and Prince Machaya (Zimbabwe’s current Attorney General) and the commander of 1 Brigade Mike Shute.
In November 1985, the government, through Mnangagwa, announced that the Chihambakwe Commission’s report would not be made public, which was read by some as confirmation that it was damning on the government.
Not many people are helpful Nare’s commission will get anywhere with its much-hyped Gukurahundi re-examination, pointing to the fact that Mnangagwa and some generals involved in the killings would not prepare their own jail.
“As a leader of the commission, my wish is to see justice prevailing and to amicably solve this problem that is dividing the nation,” Nare maintained. “We shall be soon carrying out public hearings with the affected people where reconciliation will be the main agenda, as well as taking people’s views on the way forward. President Mnangagwa has opened the doors for free dialogue without fear.”
He said the public hearings will begin during the first week of May in Kezi before moving to Gwanda, Tsholotsho, Lupane and Nkayi. In order to cover ground, the commission will be split into two groups, one responsible for Matabeleland region while the other will deal with Midlands province.
Nare said his commission will be supporting exhumations and reburials of victims, with the first they have facilitated set to take place on May 27 in Sipepa, Tsholotsho.
“There’s a mass grave near the railway line. It has come to our attention that when it rains, some human bones are exposed. We are therefore inviting and hoping that relatives of the victims will come in their numbers to identify the remains through DNA testing,” he said. — ZimLive
We have all been in situations where we are super tired and want to sleep but can’t, because we have to send a happy birthday message early in the morning to that special person before anyone else does. What do you do in situations like these? You obviously take painswaking up during the middle of the night just to send the message.
But don’t worry, today you will learn how to schedule WhatsApp messages on Android devices so that you won’t have to wake up at 2 a.m to be the first to wish your boyfriend or girlfriend a happy birthday. Here we will be taking a look at how you can schedule text messages on WhatsApp with an app called SKEDit Scheduling App. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
How to Schedule Messages on WhatsApp using SKEDit
SKEDit is an app that allows you to schedule WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts, emails, SMSs, and even set call reminders with ease. In other words, the app allows you to put your communications on autopilot, so to speak. Follow these steps to schedule WhatsApp messages on Android using SKEDit Scheduling App:
Step 2: After the installation, open the app and Sign up using Email ID or Sign in with Facebook.
Step 3: Before proceeding, you need to Add Services you wish to automate. In this case, it will be WhatsApp. So select WhatsApp and then tap on Done option.
Step 4: On the Home screen, tap on WhatsApp and then Enable Accessibility settings.
Step 5: Now you need to select the person you want to send the scheduled message. Simply, tap the plus icon (+) on the top and add a WhatsApp recipient.
Step 6: Write the message you want to be sent later automatically and schedule it to be sent at a later date through the app itself.
You can also attach media files if you wish. If you wish to repeat the messages, you can set it using the Repeat option.
Step 7: Once you have selected everything you needed then simply, tap on the icon with a tick (top right of the app) and your WhatsApp message will be scheduled. Wait!!! Before your message is sent, the app will ask you to disable the screen lock of your phone if it on.
Now you don’t have to worry about anything. Once you schedule messages, forget about it and move on to the next task. It is as simple as that.
Villagers dig up trapped bodies of cyclone Idai victims
A BULAWAYO activist has petitioned the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) to investigate the Department of Civil Protection (DCP)’s disaster management preparedness after blame was largely heaped on the agency for the Cyclone Idai-induced deaths and loss of property.
Cyclone Idai barrelled through Zimbabwe, killing nearly 400 people, displacing 16 000, while hundreds others are still missing.
In a petition to the ZHRC dated April 10, activist Khumbulani Maphosa blamed the loss of life on DCP’s poor disaster management response, adding that the agency failed to prepare for and reduce the effects of the cyclone.
Maphosa argued that the Meteorological Services Department released adequate information “that could have given any responsible authority enough time, opportunity and space to make sound and critical decisions to protect and promote right to life during the cyclone”.
“The DCP had an administrative duty and mandate to protect the people of Chimanimani from death by way of Cyclone Idai and one of the measures to do that was to order and facilitate evacuation to higher ground and provide temporary shelter [in the form of tents] to those evacuated in order to save precious lives,” he said.
“The DCP failed in its administrative mandate to respect and promote the right to life because they omitted or failed to reach a decision to order an evacuation (even if it meant assisted evacuation) of people from Chimanimani’s low-lying areas to higher ground.”
Government declared the cyclone-induced flooding a national disaster after it caused considerable damage to properties, livelihoods and infrastructure.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday launched a humanitarian and reconstruction appeal for districts affected in the storms’ path.
Maphosa implored the ZHRC to investigate “gross incompetence, omission and failure of the DCP to order or facilitate the evacuation of people of Chipinge and Chimanimani from low-lying areas to higher ground”.
“Investigate why the DCP did not facilitate the erection of temporary shelter before the commencement of Cyclone Idai on higher ground since it already had visual images of the damage happening in Mozambique and it was aware of the dangerous speed of the cyclone.
“…the DCP Management and the National Civil Protection Committee be held responsible and liable for the deaths of 185 Zimbabweans (according to government statistics; 259 according to United Nations agencies) due to Cyclone Idai,” Maphosa’s petition adds.
Elizabeth Warren on Friday became the most senior Democrat, and the first 2020 presidential candidate, to call for the start of impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump following the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election and the Trump campaign.
“To ignore a president’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways,” the Democratic senator from Massachusetts said in a statement Friday, one day after the release of a redacted version of a 448-page summary of Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation.
“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States,” Warren said.
Mueller did not make a conclusion about whether the president unlawfully obstructed justice, but did outline nearly a dozen cases in which the president had attempted to stop the inquiry or narrow its scope.
Warren’s remarks make her one of the most prominent Democratic voices to advocate for impeachment, joining congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. Those progressive House members have pushed a formal impeachment resolution.
Backers of impeachment have argued that the Democrats have a legal and ethical responsibility to launch the proceedings and continue the investigation into Trump and the question of obstruction of justice.
Other Democrats fear that it would be politically unwise to begin the impeachment process close to the 2020 presidential election, raising concerns that a protracted political battle could alienate some voters and arguing that voters ultimately care more about issues like heathcare and the economy. Some have said they are also wary of vice-president Mike Pence replacing the president, given Pence’s conservative political record.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has repeatedly said she is not in favor of impeachment. In March, Pelosi said the process would be “so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path”. She did not shift her stance after the release of the Mueller report this week.
Mueller’s report would have signaled the end for anyone other than Trump
Some Democrats have instead focused on their calls to have Mueller testify before Congress and for the justice department to release an unredacted version of the report.
So far, Warren is the only Democrat running for president in 2020 to formally call for impeachment hearings. Though Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, indicated earlier on Friday that he would support Congress opening impeachment proceedings. “It would be perfectly reasonable for Congress to open up impeachment hearings”, Castro told CNN.
Both senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker argued it was too soon to talk about impeachment. “I think that there is definitely a conversation to be had on that subject, but first I want to hear from Bob Mueller.” Harris said.
Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor, said there was “evidence that this president deserves to be impeached”, but that it was up to Congress to make that decision.
The former representative Beto O’Rourke argued he believed voters cared more about policy discussions, telling reporters, “I don’t know that impeachment and those proceedings in the House and potential trial in the Senate is going to answer those questions for people.”
Farai Dziva|Senior government officials in Masvingo Province attempted to seize donations made by an MDC A official last week.
MDC A losing candidate for Chiredzi West constituency during last year’s elections, John Manganye, donated an ambulance, 30 wheelchairs, three 5 000-litre water tanks, blood pressure testing machines, beds and various other items to Chiredzi Town Council-run polyclinic, sending shivers down ruling party honchos’ spines.
Manganye is also helping with the refurbishment of structures, including repainting of the polyclinic.
Government sources claimed Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister, Ezra Chadzamira initially blocked council officials from publicising Manganye’ s name.
“Chadzamira blocked council officials from mentioning Manganye’s name but he gave in due to incessant protests from angry stakeholders,” a government source claimed.
By Farai D Hove| Two weeks ago Emmerson Mnangagwa made a public pronouncement that his local currency is worthless. He said this as he praised US President Donald Trump for a donation of 2.5 million dollars to cyclone victims. Mnangagwa was speakimg at Ngangu, Chimanimani when he became the first head of state in Zim history to denounce his own currency.
Mnangagwa was attacked by journalists, analysts and the general public and this time, Econet boss, Strive Masiyiwa has said Zimbabwe must adopt the South African Rand.
“Let me put the proverbial cat among the pigeons,” said Masiyiwa.
He continued writing, “a loaf of bread in South Africa costs R9.50. It costs R30 in Zimbabwe. 3x!!! Eighty percent of imported goods in Zimbabwe come from South Africa. It’s not uncommon to find those same goods costing anything above three times the cost.
“The people who pay for a lot of goods are Zimbabweans living in South Africa, through their remittances. The cost structure – labour and goods – in Zimbabwe is distorted by the arbitrage of the United States dollar as a currency of settlement for rand imports.”
Writing on Facebook, Masiyiwa said it only makes sense for every business in Zimbabwe to quote their customers for goods and services in the SA rand. “It would go some way to eliminating the dollar arbitrage.”
“This is not the same thing as joining a rand monetary area, or customs union, which is a much more complex process. This one can be done overnight, and even voluntarily,” he said.
Farai Dziva|Senior government officials in Masvingo Province attempted to seize donations made by an MDC A official last week.
MDC A losing candidate for Chiredzi West constituency during last year’s elections, John Manganye, donated an ambulance, 30 wheelchairs, three 5 000-litre water tanks, blood pressure testing machines, beds and various other items to Chiredzi Town Council-run polyclinic, sending shivers down ruling party honchos’ spines.
Manganye is also helping with the refurbishment of structures, including repainting of the polyclinic.
Government sources claimed Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister, Ezra Chadzamira initially blocked council officials from publicising Manganye’ s name.
“Chadzamira blocked council officials from mentioning Manganye’s name but he gave in due to incessant protests from angry stakeholders,” a government source claimed.
THE recent wave of price hikes leaves government in a catch 22 situation. Their history of populism and new trends set by the new dispensation under President Emmerson Mnangagwa seem to be contradicting each other.
On the one hand, government wants the market to determine trends in the economy, obviously riding on sound policy foundations. However, on the other, restive Zimbabweans — who have endured decades of imposed poverty — desperately want relief, similar to the one they tasted during the short-lived government of national unity (GNU) that lasted between 2008 and 2013.
For most Zimbabweans, it is doable as long as government adopts the right policies that spur not only economic revival but also growth. As things stand, Zimbabwe’s economy — which is agro-based, has been on a free-fall since the turn of the millennium when the clueless Zanu PF administration led by former president Robert Mugabe unleashed war veterans and other Zimbabweans onto white-owned farms under the guise of the land reform programme.
This development left large tracts of fertile farmland derelict. Instead of engaging in farming, the new settlers went on to cannibalise equipment on the farms, destroying the potential the country had in agriculture.
As the madness continues, government — which has already issued threats — may be forced to control prices. Ironically, Mnangagwa has already announced that he prefers a policy of non-interference with business, a policy position most successful world economies pursue.
This could however, come at a heavy price for Mnangagwa, who needs all the support for the next elections in 2023 given the narrow margin with which he beat opposition leader, the 41-year-old Nelson Chamisa in the July 30, 2018 polls.
Populist policies like price controls could find favour with the masses but their benefits are short-lived as commodities may disappear from the formal market as businesses try to evade government controls. In terms of political expediency, Mnangagwa may reap all the possible gains but such policies are retrogressive as they will further hurt the doddering economy. Shortages are nothing new for Zimbabweans.
They have walked this road before having traversed the same wilderness during the hyper-inflationary period of 2007-8. Lifetime savings for a significant number of Zimbabweans were wiped away as the economy went haywire.
Balancing people’s expectations on the one hand and economic revival on the other will be crucial for Mnangagwa going forward.
Farai Dziva|MDC A president Nelson Chamisa says Zimbabweans are the saddest people in the world.
Chamisa made the remarks in an interview with a national daily newspaper.
” We are turning 40 next year, it’s time to take stock of the benefits of the liberation struggle to say: how far have we come in fulfilling the gains of the liberation struggle.
The liberation struggle was about the will of the people, one-man, one-vote, it was about sovereignty, land.
How far have we gone in addressing those fundamental questions? We continue to have disputed elections. In 2018, the elections were disputed on account of deprivation of the will of the people; that shows you and that confirms that we have achieved nothing in terms of the ethos of the liberation struggle.
On the land issue, we have not genuinely empowered our people and you see now there continues to be problems around fundamental issues of title.
The land issue continues to be a hanging question. The third issue has to do with prosperity and opportunities for the people of Zimbabwe.
We are the saddest people in the world, we score least on the index of happy people in the world, because of government’s illegitimacy, governance deficit, because of the absence of comprehensive reforms, institutionally, constitutionally, economically and politically these fundamental reforms are lacking,” said Chamisa.
“If you look at our laws we continue to have trails of repression from the Rhodesian times. Look at how people continue to have a police force which is questionable, typical of the Selous Scouts.
We still have deep-seated divisions, you can’t have independence when we have divisions around tribes, when you have unhealed wounds around past challenges, around Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina, erosion of pensions; all those things are wounds on the hearts and minds of people of Zimbabwe.
Independence must mean something, Independence can’t be paper independence, it can’t be rhetoric. It has to be independence in the means of production, independence in the economy, in the ownership of the means of production; those issues have not been addressed.”
Farai Dziva|MDC A leader Nelson Chamisa has castigated Zanu PF for distorting the history of the liberation struggle.
Chamisa told a national daily newspaper in an interview the ruling party should not mislead the nation by deliberately distorting the meaning of the liberation struggle.
” They [ZANU PF] want to distort history and rewrite it in their own terms, in their own persuasion, but clearly the struggle of the liberation of our country was not a sole effort.
It was not a partisan effort, it was not a political effort, and it was a people’s effort. The liberation struggle was and still remains a people’s project.
Nobody should appropriate themselves the liberation of this country, this country belongs to its owners and authors being the people under the auspices of the almighty God and nobody is supposed to appropriate the sole proprietorship of our country.
We fought as a people, yes, we used different vehicles, Zanu was one of them, Zapu was another and any other vehicle, that vehicle can’t become the destination. The destination was a liberated Zimbabwe,” said Chamisa.
Own Correspondent|The saga in which Vice President Kembo Mohadi was reported to have turned murderous and wanted to kill his former wife Tambudzani has taken a new twist.
Vice President Mohadi has gone to court instead claiming that Tambudzani is the one who wanted to attack him in the presence of police officers when he went to collect personal property from his former matrimonial home in Beitbridge.
“On March 30, 2019, I had to go to my former matrimonial home in the company of the police so that everything would be done peacefully and within the ambit of the law. The respondent (Muleya) had to be restrained by the police from attacking me. I proceeded to collect my property and left and since then I have never been there and will never be there,” Mohadi said in his plea for protection.
This is the second time that the Vice President who enjoys high level VIP state security protection is applying for such an order against her over the last year.
“… on April 1, 2019, the respondent went to my farm Lot 1 of 10 Farm, Jompembe Beitbridge Umzinganwe Estate which is a property which was awarded to me. She started giving my workers orders different from what I had given them. Meanwhile, she is dictating how business should be conducted at the farm.”
Mohadi also accused Muleya of visiting his workplace in Harare, and later his residence where he now stays with his new wife, Juliet Mutavhatsindi, “to cause commotion and chaos”. She was restrained by security agents manning the two places, he said.
In her opposing affidavit, Muleya challenged the authenticity of Mohadi’s affidavit before the court saying the signature appended on the document does not resemble that of her former husband.
“It is a manifest forgery and the document before this honourable court is a forged document. I dispute its authenticity,” Muleya said.
A man from Marula in Matabeleland South could not accept seeing his mother being poked by another man and knifed him to death.
The incident which left villagers in a state of shock happened last week on Tuesday. A police source said Behaviour Moyo (25) always accused his mother Thandiwe Moyo of having a sexual affair with Mehluli Sibanda. But it seems his accusations fell on deaf ears. Despite that Thandiwe never stopped Mehluli from sneaking into her bedroom hut during the night. As a result last Tuesday, Behaviour confronted Mehluli and accused him of disrespecting his family.
But Mehluli did not take kindly to the accusations, as a result an argument ensued between the two. At the height of it, Behaviour allegedly drew an Okapi knife from his pocket and stabbed Mehluli.
“He stabbed him twice on the chest and once on the head. Mehluli bled profusely and died while he was being rushed to a hospital,” said the police source. A family source said after Behaviour killed Mehluli, he sent his sisters a WhatsApp message.
“He sent us a text message saying I have killed that dog that was sleeping with our mother. If you go along the railway line you will find his lifeless body,” said the police source. One of the villagers reported the matter to the police leading to Behaviour’s arrest.State media
TWO teenagers believed they could get drunk without spending their money but feeding off grown men until tragedy struck.
The two (names withheld) from Pumula suburb one day found their target at a popular nightspot in Bulawayo but little did they know they were in for the highest jump.
Their “target” bought them drinks for the whole night until midnight when he suggested they go get some food from one of his friends with a restaurant in the plush suburb of Burnside. It was around 3am but that didn’t matter for the two because they were getting what they wanted.
One of them told B-Metro that they sized their “target” up and seeing he was driving a vehicle that seemed to be a Government Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), he must have been a senior civil servant and they trusted his pockets as surety.
“When he suggested food, we did not think twice because we had been drinking for the whole night and not eating anything. When we got out of the bar we saw the car he was driving and we thought he was harmless,” said one of the women.
He drove to their destination, a big house with a wall up high and a big gate. That’s when they asked themselves what was going on. After all the house didn’t look like a restaurant.
“When we got to Burnside we took many turns and l got confused but l was the only one awake because my friend had dosed off. We got to a big house with a large wall and gate and at that moment my mind told me something bad was about to happen because l have never come across a food joint hidden between houses,” she added. They got inside the house but instead of food their host became rude.
“We went inside the house and everything changed as he became rude towards us,” she said. The worst was about to happen. “He went to one of the rooms and came back carrying a rope. He tied us and raped us without a condom. After he was done he dumped us on the roadside and we were found by people who took us to the hospital after calling the police,” she added. At the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) they were given PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) a drug that is taken when one has been potentially exposed to HIV to prevent becoming infected.
The two girls chose not to follow the issue up with the police because they are scared of what their parents would do to them (they are under-18 years of age). A woman who claims to have driven them to hospital, a Mrs Mahlangu, said she was the one who made the police report.
“I saw what looked like rubbish bags and when l got closer l saw that it was two girls tied up. I uncovered their mouths to find out what had happened and they told me half the story and l decided to call the police,” she said.State media
The First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa has raised concern over a high number of young mothers she met during her two visits to Chimanimani and Chipinge in the past week.
The first lady visited Chipinge hospital on Saturday and Ngangu Township on Tuesday and on both occasions, she raised alarm on the issue, which she said needed urgent intervention.
Speaking at Ngangu, Amai Mnangagwa said she would visit the province again soon for a discussion with the women to find out why young girls were getting married early and having children.
“I am not happy with what I am seeing here ladies. I see a lot of young mothers, why is that so? Let us help each other, I do not want to see such a scenario where young girls have babies, it is not proper,” she said. “The children are saying they are being forced, is that true? After we are done with this mission, I will come back here so that we sit down and talk about this because rape is a serious crime. Men cannot rape young children and go on with life as if everything is normal.”
On Saturday, the First Lady challenged her African counterparts to join in the fight to end child marriages in Southern Africa. Amai Mnangagwa raised the concern after meeting a number of girls who had given birth and others who were waiting to deliver at Chipinge District hospital.State media
SEVEN people were seriously injured after a Toyota Wish they were travelling in was hit by another vehicle after the driver made a turn in front of oncoming traffic.
The accident happened in Headlands. The Mutare-bound Wish which was coming from Harare landed on its roof after the heavy impact.State media
Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Eza Chadzamira has exhorted Chiredzi Town councillors to bury their political differences and close ranks to make sure the sugar-cane growing town attains municipal status by 2023.
He said tugs-of-war along political lines will derail plans to grow Chiredzi Town despite its rich potential, thanks to a vibrant sugar industry.
Addressing guests during the commissioning of a 2,4km road refurbishment project, Minister Chadzamira said the development of a sound road network in Chiredzi was key in the attainment of the province’s $8 billion economy by 2030.
The road project was financed by a $590 000 grant from the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara). “The road is a part of the local authority’s 100-Day Plan in response to the clarion call by his Excellency, the President, ED Mnangagwa, on the need to improve delivery of public services and goods,” said Chadzamira.
“The commissioning, therefore, in my opinion is symbolic of the potential Chiredzi and indeed Masvingo has in terms of being a transport and economic hub linking Zimbabwe and the region to foreign markets.
“Let us think outside the box and dream big as we envision the opportunities offered in this region.” Chadzamira said local authorities should improve on the ease of doing business by taking advantage of the current realignment of laws being effected by Parliament.
“We should be alive to the changes in the Regional Town and Country Planning Act and the creation of the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency, which Government is pursuing,” he said.State media
By Own Correspondent- Masvingo Minister of State for Provincial Affairs today visited the Mwenezi District Hospital and was disheartened by the dilapidated state he found the hospital in a ZBC Online report claimed.
Photo Credits: ZBC News Online
Honorable Chidzamira and other government officials were told by the District Medical Officer that the hospital was marred with challenges like water, laundry machines, kitchen equipment, bed linen, and drugs, these are their immediate needs.
According to ZBC News Online:
“It emerged that the running of the instituition is basically in intensive care”.
Most boarding schools in Matabeleland have increased fees to between RTGS$1 200 and RTGS$1 500 a term and many parents said they are contemplating withdrawing their children because they cannot afford the fees.
The parents said school authorities in coming up with the new fees had not taken into account the prevailing economic hardships.
In interviews yesterday, parents said providing for their children for the second term that starts on May 7 is proving to be a challenge as they have to buy winter uniforms whose prices have also been increased.
Government gave schools the go ahead to raise fees after they applied to review fees upwards citing the tough operating environment characterised by increases in the prices of goods and services.
Most boarding schools including Government schools have increased fees to between RTGS$1 200 and RTGS $1 500, up from between RTGS$500 and RTGS $700. Some of the schools that have already increased fees, have informed parents that they might be forced to meet again before schools open for another fees review.
Some private schools have asked parents to pay part of the fees in United States dollars. Day schools also increased fees by more than 100 percent.State media
By Own Correspondent- A 19-year-old woman has been arrested after she assisted her male colleague rape her employer’s seven-year-old minor child who had been left in her custody after her employer traveled to South Africa.
According to a local publication, while the employer was away the maid aided her male friend to rape the 7-year-old.
The child is alleged to have been raped on three occasions. On one of the occasions, the maid and her boyfriend were in the same room where the rape occurred.
On another occasion, the maid is alleged to be the one who instigated the rape. After these horrific crimes, the maid who is from Kambuzuma quit her job and returned to Harare.
However, the abuse came to light when the minor was taken to a hospital after she had experienced health problems.
The police managed to track down the maid, therapist and the maid’s boyfriend. The three appeared before Beitbridge regional magistrate Crispen Mberewere on Wednesday facing charges of rape. They were not asked to plead and were remanded to April 23 for trial.
In a similar case, another maid was sentenced to 12-years in prison after she assisted a mine worker to rape one of the children who had been left in her charge.-Newsday
ATLETICO MADRID striker Diego Costa refused to train yesterday after being told that his club is to fine him for a verbal outburst in a recent defeat to Barcelona, Spanish newspapers including AS , El Pais and Marca reported.
Atletico and Costa’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Costa has been banned for eight La Liga games by the Spanish Football Federation for verbally abusing referee Jesus Gil Manzano when he was sent off during the 2-0 loss at Barca on April 6, meaning he will play no part in the rest of the season.
AS, El Pais and Marca and others said Costa had learned on Wednesday that he was to be fined for the club for the misdemeanour, and reacted to the news by refusing to train yesterday despite being fully fit.
Atletico’s general manager Clemente Villaverde criticised Costa after the defeat to Barca, which effectively handed the La Liga title to the Catalans.
He said the striker’s behaviour was “reprehensible and seriously damaged the club”, although coach Diego Simeone was more forgiving.
“Costa is an animal who can do things that make us suffer like what happened at the Nou Camp when we really needed him,” Simeone told Goal.com in an interview published yesterday.State media
A neighbour to the man who fell and died on the way to a funeral in Bulawayo has said the community is in a state of shock following the tragedy.
The man said when Crispen Simango left Entumbane on the fateful day, he was drinking beer with his friends.
“They left Entumbane at around 8PM on Monday and were drinking beer. His friends say the incident happened around 11 PM,” said the neighbour.“The guys were sleeping at the back of the UD truck and during the course of the journey, he woke up wanting to urinate. It seems he lost balance and fell and died on the spot. One of the friends banged the truck to alert the driver who stopped a few metres away from the scene. They found him already dead.”
He said when the incident occurred, Simango was going to a funeral following the death of one of his neighbours in Entumbane.State media
By Own Correspondent- A man from Matabeleland South stabbed his mother’s lover accusing him of disrespecting their family by sneaking into his mother’s bedroom.
A local publication reported that Behaviour Moyo (25) suspected that his mother Thandiwe Moyo was having a se_xual affair with Mehluli Sibanda and warned her that he would handle the matter.
His mother did not heed the warning and kept sneaking Mehluli into her bedroom at night.
Unable to handle what was happening, Behaviour confronted Mehluli over the issue. Unfortunately, the situation quickly escalated as Mehluli did not respond well to the accusations resulting in the two engaging in a brawl. It is alleged that Behaviour drew an Okapi knife from his pocket and stabbed Mehluli.
Police sources said he stabbed him twice on the chest and once on the head. Mehluli bled profusely and died while he was being rushed to a hospital.-BMetro
A family member who spoke to B-Metro added, He sent us a text message saying I have killed that dog that was sleeping with our mother. If you go along the railway line you will find his lifeless body.
Behaviour has since been apprehended and is now awaiting trial.
A 26-YEAR-OLD man from Bulawayo was stoned and stabbed to death allegedly by a group of unknown assailants.
Edward Hlanganani from Old Magwegwe suburb was found by a passerby lying in a pool of blood on a tarred road about 200 metres from his home at about 6AM yesterday.
His family told The Chronicle that Hlanganani was brutally attacked on his way home from Marisha Bar in the same suburb on Wednesday night.
He had three deep gashes on the head suspected to have been caused by a sharp object. His face was heavily fractured while his teeth were loose. There was a big stone stained with blood which was on the road, about four metres from the body.
When The Chronicle visited the murder scene yesterday, his body had already been ferried to a mortuary. His wife, Ms Sithatshisiwe Lunga, said her husband left home at around 9PM on Wednesday to buy cigarettes from Marisha Bar.
“My husband left around 9PM to buy cigarettes and then he came back and said I should put his phone on the charger while he would be outside smoking. “He left the house to go buy another packet of cigarettes saying the one he had was finished,” said Ms Lunga who appeared to be shocked.State media
By Own Correspondent- Forget Ndoro (30) was dragged to Chief Nembudziya’s traditional court for impregnating Siphiwe Ndawana (26) and Gertrude Sibanda (29) by their very angry husbands Talent Nhamo and Matthew Njere, respectively.
Ndoro did not deny the allegations and admitted responsibility for the pregnancies in a development which left the community of Mangwere Village under Chief Nembudziya in Gokwe shocked.
The chief confirmed the development to a local publication and said:
“I presided over a matter of a married man who had relationships with two married women resulting in two pregnancies. I don’t take such matters lightly and l ordered him to pay 10 cows for disrespecting other men in such a degrading manner.
When l asked him about the matter he did not deny it. He said his illicit affairs with the two ladies started as a joke before turning into serious affairs.
I told him that he must take full responsibility for his two unborn children. He must also pay all expenses required when the women give birth. The chief also said that he was worried about the increase in the number of extramarital affairs in his area.”-StateMedia
Snakes have been found in Liberian President George Weah’s office, forcing him to work from his private residence, the BBC has learnt. Press secretary Smith Toby told the BBC that on Wednesday two black snakes were found in the foreign affairs ministry building, his official place of work.
All staff have been told to stay away until 22 April. “It’s just to make sure that crawling and creeping things get fumigated from the building,” Mr Toby said.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosts the office of the president, so it did an internal memo asking the staff to stay home while they do the fumigation,” he said.
The office of the president has been based in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since a fire in 2006 gutted the nearby presidential mansion. A FrontPage Africa news website video shows workers trying to attack the snakes when they appeared near the building’s reception. “The snakes were never killed,” Mr Toby said. “There was a little hole somewhere [through which] they made their way back.” Police and presidential security were seen guarding Mr Weah’s residence in the capital Monrovia. A fleet of vehicles including escorts jeeps were parked outside.
Mr Toby said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started to fumigate on Friday.
“That building’s been there for years now, and [because of] the drainage system, the possibility of having things like snakes crawling in that building was high,” he said.
The president is definitely returning to his office on Monday after the fumigation whether or not the snakes are found and killed, Mr Toby said. BBC
Mutare City Council revenue collection is in a mess as close to half of all the properties in the city are non-existent on the local authority’s billing system.
This means that more than 20 000 families or companies are either living or operating for free in the urban municipality for they have not paid a cent for services and other deliverables.
The shocking figures were revealed by the Town Clerk Mr Joshua Maligwa on Wednesday.
He said council was prejudiced millions of dollars over the years. “The billing system is in a mess and we need to correct it with urgency. These are loopholes that have been bleeding council financially over the years,” he said.
“This shocking anomaly was exposed by our Geographical Information System team which is working with the new ICT manager to capture and update all properties into our database. In Mutare we have a total of 48 843 properties but after the GIS exercise 15 000 of these were there in our database. From the 48 843 only 27 000 were captured in the billing system which means that the remaining figure was not being billed.”
Mr Maligwa said of the 27 000 properties that were being billed only 18 000 were being charged all the utilities council was providing while the remaining 9 000 were not paying for some of the services in unclear circumstances.
“Shockingly, there were about 7 000 properties with negative figures on their accounts running into thousands of dollars which meant that council owed them money. The impression here was that these clients were paying their bills in advance. Paying for services they have not been offered. You will be surprised to see that some of the properties that were not being billed are located right in the Central Business District,” he said.
The town clerk said the local authority was collecting around $2,3 million every month but the figure is expected to rise to about $3 million by July this year and to reach $5 million by year end as council moves quickly to complete the GIS exercise.
“We have done Hobhouse and by end of May we would have finished doing the CBD and industrial area,” he said. – Manica Post
Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) security manager for Chiadzwa Mine, Mr Benjamin Chinyanga has resigned just a day before the commencement of his disciplinary hearing. The resignation follows a spate of security breaches at the mine.
Mr Chinyanga who is understood to have been on suspension since March 20 this year, is said to have tendered his letter on the of 16 April 2019.
Contacted for comment by Great Dyke New24, ZCDC spokesperson Mr Sugar Chagonda could neither deny nor confirm the resignation of Mr Chinyanga saying the company is set to curb all diamond leakages in line with their zero tolerance to corruption.
“The state diamond miner will leave no stone unturned when it comes to curbing all forms of leakages and pilferage of the precious stones in line with our zero tolerance to corruption policy and our quest to become a world class diamond producer,” he said.
The state-owned company in January fired 80 of its employees, many of them suspected of involvement in diamond ore looting at Chiadzwa.
A breach of security occurred in December 2018 followed by another one in January 2019 with the latest having been recorded in March resulting in the arrest and prosecution of four people who are before the courts.- state media
Farai Dziva|Senior government officials in Masvingo Province attempted to seize donations made by an MDC A official last week.
MDC A losing candidate for Chiredzi West constituency during last year’s elections, John Manganye, donated an ambulance, 30 wheelchairs, three 5 000-litre water tanks, blood pressure testing machines, beds and various other items to Chiredzi Town Council-run polyclinic, sending shivers down ruling party honchos’ spines.
Manganye is also helping with the refurbishment of structures, including repainting of the polyclinic.
Government sources claimed Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister, Ezra Chadzamira initially blocked council officials from publicising Manganye’ s name.
“Chadzamira blocked council officials from mentioning Manganye’s name but he gave in due to incessant protests from angry stakeholders,” a government source claimed.
Farai Dziva|MDC A president Nelson Chamisa says Zimbabweans are the saddest people in the world.
Chamisa made the remarks in an interview with a national daily newspaper.
” We are turning 40 next year, it’s time to take stock of the benefits of the liberation struggle to say: how far have we come in fulfilling the gains of the liberation struggle.
The liberation struggle was about the will of the people, one-man, one-vote, it was about sovereignty, land.
How far have we gone in addressing those fundamental questions? We continue to have disputed elections. In 2018, the elections were disputed on account of deprivation of the will of the people; that shows you and that confirms that we have achieved nothing in terms of the ethos of the liberation struggle.
On the land issue, we have not genuinely empowered our people and you see now there continues to be problems around fundamental issues of title.
The land issue continues to be a hanging question. The third issue has to do with prosperity and opportunities for the people of Zimbabwe.
We are the saddest people in the world, we score least on the index of happy people in the world, because of government’s illegitimacy, governance deficit, because of the absence of comprehensive reforms, institutionally, constitutionally, economically and politically these fundamental reforms are lacking,” said Chamisa.
“If you look at our laws we continue to have trails of repression from the Rhodesian times. Look at how people continue to have a police force which is questionable, typical of the Selous Scouts.
We still have deep-seated divisions, you can’t have independence when we have divisions around tribes, when you have unhealed wounds around past challenges, around Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina, erosion of pensions; all those things are wounds on the hearts and minds of people of Zimbabwe.
Independence must mean something, Independence can’t be paper independence, it can’t be rhetoric. It has to be independence in the means of production, independence in the economy, in the ownership of the means of production; those issues have not been addressed.”
Farai Dziva|Zimbabwe is likely to face a critical shortage of meat products, it has emerged.
This comes as farmers cry foul over the recent price hike of maize and soya beans and the removal of government subsidies.
Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) economist Reneth Mano told a daily newspaper on Wednesday that the livestock industry was at risk.
“By just changing, overnight, the grain marketing policies without consultations to the commercial livestock sector, which has been a major partner of government and GMB (Grain Marketing Board), the farmer has been introduced to a big shock.
Now, there is a risk to the billion dollar industry
And the main threat really is if you are a poultry breeder and you are producing day-olds and you cannot access maize at affordable prices, you may have to cut production.
If you are into piggery, with imported breeding stock, like a lot of our medium and large-scale producers, when you cannot feed pigs you may have to scale down or kill some of them.
“The country has an annual demand of 91 million birds, 266 000 slaughter cows and 140 000 pigs,”said Mano.
Cristiano Ronaldo is demanding a major overhaul at Juventus following Tuesday’s shock Champions League defeat against Ajax.
While his great rival Lionel Messi tormented Manchester United and ensured Barcelona’s presence in the semi-finals of the competition, Juventus threw away a lead and were deservedly beaten by Erik ten Hag’s precocious young side.
Ronaldo, who won three Champions League titles in succession with Real Madrid and appeared in eight consecutive semi-finals, is, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, furious with Juve’s capitulation and unhappy with the rigid tactics employed by Max Allegri.
The 34-year-old’s arrival last summer, at a cost of €112million, was expected to guarantee Juventus’ presence in the latter stages of the competition and, after his hat-trick in the previous round against Atletico Madrid, it appeared as though his signing would reap instant European dividends.
Defeat on Tuesday, however, has left the Portuguese icon devastated with his mother revealing ‘He was very sad. He would have liked to have gone to the final. He will be there for the next one. What did he say to me? ‘Mom I don’t make miracles’.’
Ronaldo is now expecting the Juventus’ hierarchy to oversee a major rebuilding process in the summer to bolster and ageing squad. Paulo Dybala could be sold for up to €100m, ironically to fund a move for the player dubbed ‘the new Ronaldo’, Benfica’s Joao Felix.
The scorer of Tuesday’s midweek defeat Matthijs de Ligt is also high on Juve’s wanted list, as well as Lyon’s all-action midfielder Tanguy Ndombele who is also wanted by Manchester City and Chelsea.
Who will be at Juventus helm at the start of next season, meanwhile, remains a matter of intense speculation with Allegri set for crunch talks this week, despite the 51-year-old insisting he maintains the club’s backing.
Antonio Conte, who has enjoyed a season-long sabbatical following his sacking by Chelsea, has been linked with a return to the Turin giants and has confirmed he intends to return to management imminently.
‘I still don’t know where I will go,’ he told talk show ‘E poi c’è Cattelan’, in an episode that will be aired on Thursday evening.
‘But certainly I’ll choose a team who has a project that convinces me
By Own Correspondent- The Democratic Republic of Congo has declared a national day of mourning following a boat accident which left at least 13 people dead and 114 others missing on Monday night in Lake Kivu.
Only 13 people are reported to have been rescued alive.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi announced that he would make it obligatory for passengers on the lake to wear life jackets.
He said this in a statement on Thursday. Tshisekedi said 114 people were still missing following the incident on Monday night, which saw the boat capsize after it left the city of Goma on Lake Kivu’s northern shore.
The motorised vessel was headed for the town of Kalehe to the west. According to the passenger manifest, which does not list stowaways, there were 49 adults and seven children on board the boat, which was reportedly laden with goods.
Frequent boat accidents
Travel by boat is one of the most commonly used methods of transport in the DRC, with the vast country’s thousands of kilometres of waterways linking areas that are otherwise unconnected by roads.
According to a 2016 study by the World Bank, river transport “has become the last resort in many areas, where the more infrastructure-intensive transport networks of roads or railways have broken down, or never existed”.
But boat accidents are a frequent occurrence in the impoverished former Belgian colony, with mishaps typically caused by the overloading of passengers and cargo on dilapidated vessels, some of which are not adequately stocked with life jackets.
At least people 27 people drowned last September when a vessel capsized on a tributary of the Congo River in northern DRC, according to local officials.
The incident took place just two months after 26 people were killed in a separate boat accident on the Congo River in July and 50 others were declared dead after a vessel tipped over in northwestern DRC in May.
Apollinaire Bulindi, an honorary provincial minister and engineer urged Tshisekedi on Tuesday to make good on a campaign pledge to repair the Goma-Bukavu highway that many of the passengers involved in this week’s accident may have taken but is currently unusable, the AFP news agency reported.
But the central government in the capital, Kinshasa, has weak control over remote areas in the country, including the eastern DRC, which is wracked by instability and an ongoing Ebola outbreak that has already claimed 843 lives, according to the country’s health ministry.
A 26-YEAR-OLD man from Bulawayo was stoned and stabbed to death allegedly by a group of unknown assailants.
Edward Hlanganani from Old Magwegwe suburb was found by a passerby lying in a pool of blood on a tarred road about 200 metres from his home at about 6AM yesterday.
His family told The Chronicle that Hlanganani was brutally attacked on his way home from Marisha Bar in the same suburb on Wednesday night.
He had three deep gashes on the head suspected to have been caused by a sharp object. His face was heavily fractured while his teeth were loose.
There was a big stone stained with blood which was on the road, about four metres from the body.
When The Chronicle visited the murder scene yesterday, his body had already been ferried to a mortuary.
His wife, Ms Sithatshisiwe Lunga, said her husband left home at around 9PM on Wednesday to buy cigarettes from Marisha Bar.
“My husband left around 9PM to buy cigarettes and then he came back and said I should put his phone on the charger while he would be outside smoking.
“He left the house to go buy another packet of cigarettes saying the one he had was finished,” said Ms Lunga who appeared to be shocked.
“I did not think my husband could be the one found dead on the road when neighbours called me to the scene where my husband lay in a pool of blood. No one knows who attacked him”.
Mr Mehluli Mpofu (27), a neighbour, said before Hlanganani was murdered, they went to buy cigarettes at the bar and returned home together.
“I escorted Edward to buy his cigarettes before he was murdered. I never thought he would go back again alone to buy another packet of cigarettes. I wish I had escorted him again, maybe he was not going to be attacked by the gang,” said Mr Mpofu.
Hlanganani’s uncle, Mr Cardinal Dube, said their area was not safe at night and urged people to avoid being out during late hours.
“Our area is no longer safe. We also had a report of another man on the same night who was robbed of his money and cellphone by a gang of men,” he said.
Bulawayo police spokesperson Chief Inspector Precious Simango could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Mutasa Rural District Council (RDC) has announced plans to oppose MDC Alliance Mutasa Central ward 10 councillor Franck Chitembwe’s High Court appeal against the decision by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to hold a by-election for his seat on May 11, according to court documents.
Chitembwe, whose seat was declared vacant following his incarceration for public violence, had filed an urgent High Court application seeking an order to set aside Zec’s decision to hold a by-election next month.
Chitembwe was slapped with a two-year jail term for public violence during the January 14-16 fuel price hike protests before he successfully applied for bail pending appeal last week.
The matter was heard at the High Court Mutare Circuit on Tuesday before Justice Isaac Muzenda, who postponed it to April 24 after indicating that Mutasa RDC chairperson, Tonderai Bandure, who is cited as the second respondent in the application, wants to oppose it.
Chitembwe’s lawyer Chris Ndlovu of Gonese and Ndlovu Legal Practitioners confirmed the new development to NewsDay yesterday.
“The matter was heard in the chambers at High Court on Tuesday and (Justice) Muzenda postponed the matter to April 24 because Mutasa Rural District Council chairperson was preparing his papers to oppose the application,” he said.
The application also comes after the nomination court sat early this month, with three candidates successfully filing their papers.
Chitembwe cited Zec chairperson Priscilla Chigumba as the first respondent, while Bandure was cited at the second respondent.
The three candidates — Tanyaradzwa Rose Mukodza (MDC Alliance) Justice Chirimo (NCA) and Magret Tindika (Zanu PF) — were cited as the other respondents.
In his application at the High Court last Friday, Chitembwe said he was seeking the intervention of the court to nullify Zec’s decision to hold the by-election on May 11.
“The first respondent (Zec) has set in motion the process of a by-election in ward 10 of Mutasa Rural District Council. The nomination court has considered and accepted the nominations from prospective candidates,” the application reads.
“Now that I am out of custody and am free to serve my ward and my community, I now seek the honourable court to intervene and set aside the actions of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to hold the by-election in ward 10 of Mutasa Rural District Council.
“In fact, I dare say that at the time the second respondent, Mutasa Rural District Council notified Zec of a vacancy in ward 10 Mutasa Rural District Council, no such vacancy existed.”
In the application, Chitembwe further said: “I had duly filed my notice of appeal and I had not been convicted of an offence involving dishonesty, breach of trust and physical violence.
“Our wish is that the declaration by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of a vacant seat for ward 10 in Mutasa Rural District Council is hereby set aside. The nomination of the third to the fifth respondent as candidates in a scheduled by-election of Mutasa Rural District Council ward 10 be and hereby set aside.
Former Peru president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has according to reports from AFP, passed away. He was urgently taken to hospital on Wednesday as he was said to be suffering from high blood pressure, lawmaker Gilbert Violeta said.
Violeta told RPP radio station the 80-year-old was being treated in intensive care.
He is due to have a cardiac catheter fitted to examine his heart.
Kuczynski was arrested last week and was being held under 10-day preliminary detention until April 20, accused of money laundering.
He is one of four ex-presidents embroiled in various corruption scandals linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht — alongside Ollanta Humala (2011-16) Alan Garcia (1985-90 and 2006-11) and Alejandro Toledo (2001-06).
Garcia died in hospital on Wednesday after shooting himself in the head at his home as police were about to arrest him over the graft investigation.
The public prosecutor accuses Kuczynski of passing laws to favour Odebrecht when he was finance minister during Toledo’s government.
The former Peru president Alan Garcia has been reported dead, he was reportedly died in hospital on Wednesday after shooting himself in the head at his home as police were about to arrest him in a graft investigation, a party official said.
“Alan Garcia has died, long live Apra,” said Omar Quesada, the general secretary of Garcia’s American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Apra) party.
The prime minister of Mali and his entire government have resigned, following an upsurge of violence in the country.B
On Wednesday, a motion of no confidence was submitted as MPs blamed Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga for failing to handle the unrest.
Last month, scores of herders were killed by a rival ethnic group.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a statement that he accepted Mr Maiga and his ministers’ resignation.
“A prime minister will be named very soon and a new government will be put in place after consultations with all political forces,” the statement said.
Mali has been struggling to control violence since Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists gripped the desert north of the country in 2012.
Despite an ongoing military drive and a 2015 peace agreement, jihadists still dominate areas huge areas of the country, having migrated from the north to the more heavily populated centre of the country.
The government has come under increasing pressure over its inability to restore stability, particularly after the massacre of 160 Fulani herders in the Mopti region.
Armed with guns and machetes, the attackers appeared to be members of the Dogon ethnic group, which has a long history of tension with the nomadic Fulani people.
The country was shocked by the killings and tens of thousands of people protested on the streets of the capital Bamako on April 5.
The president said in a televised address on Tuesday that he had “heard the anger”.
Former international footballer George Weah is forced out of the President’s office in Liberia after two snakes appeared in a hole in the wall
Liberia’s president and former international footballer George Weah is working from home after two snakes were found in the building that contains his office.
The black snakes were seen this week briefly emerging from a hole in a wall of the reception area of the building in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital.
Deputy press secretary Smith Toby said that the former international soccer star and President Weah was told to stay away until the Foreign Affairs building can be fumigated.
George Weah raises the Golden Ball trophy during his time at AC Milan in 1996Liberia’s President George Weah pictured at the inauguration ceremony of Senegalese President Macky Sall in Dakar on April 2
The president’s office has been located in Ministry of Foreign Affairs since a fire gutted the presidential mansion in 2006.
The deputy press secretary said his office has opened an inquiry on the matter and a fumigation process has begun to take care of ‘crawling and creeping things.’
It is less than a month since the building was last closed for fumigation between 29 March and 1 April.
‘The snakes were never killed,’ Mr Toby said. ‘There was a little hole somewhere… they made their way back.’
The Executive Protection Service was unable to kill the snakes as they vanished back through the same passage from which they first appeared, a source told FrontPageAfrica.
‘That building’s been there for years now, and [because of] the drainage system, the possibility of having things like snakes crawling in that building was high,’ Mr Toby said.
The president’s office has been located at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia, Liberia since a fire destroyed the president’s mansion in 2006. The ministry was closed on Friday after two snakes were seen in the reception area
Liberia is home to poisonous snakes – including black mambas and cobras – and officials are not taking chances.
The 51-year-old president won FIFA ‘s 1995 prestigious Ballon d’Or during his time at AC Milan. He also played for Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea and Manchester City during his football career.
Weah assumed the presidency in January 2018 and his swearing in, fittingly, was held at a football stadium.
He and other staff members are expected back in the office – regardless of whether the snakes have been found or not – on Monday, April 22.
State Media reports that the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday congratulated Zimbabwe for attaining 39 years of independence,
The solidarity messages came ahead of today’s 39th independence anniversary celebrations being held under the theme, “Zimbabwe @39—Embracing Devolution for Vision 2030.”
In a letter to President Mnangagwa President Putin congratulated Zimbabwe on the commemoration of the attainment of Independence from Britain, commended the cordial relations between the countries.
“Dear Mr President, Please accept my sincere congratulations on the occasion of the National Holiday of your country — the Independence Day,” said Putin
“The Russia-Zimbabwean relations have friendly character that was fully confirmed during our meeting in January in Moscow.
“I am confident that through our joint efforts we will ensure further enhancing of mutually beneficial cooperation in different spheres for the sake of our people’s in the interests of strengthening security and stability in the African continent,” he said.
Putin wished President Mnangagwa good health and success as well as peace and prosperity for the people of Zimbabwe.
President Mnangagwa told a gathering at a function to assess progress at Karo Resources Platinum Mine in Mhondoro-Ngezi that President Trump had sent a letter congratulating Zimbabwe.
“With regards to our Independence tomorrow, I am happy that President Trump has sent us a letter to congratulate the people of Zimbabwe for the celebrations we have.
“This is indicative of the re-engagement we have where we say Zimbabwe is open for business. Zimbabwe wants to embrace and be embraced,” he said.
Zimbabwe became independent on April 18 1980 after a protracted 14-year liberation struggle against the minority Smith regime.
The country’s Independence Day is celebrated every year and all provinces will commemorate this day while the main event led by President Mnangagwa will be held at the National Sports Stadium in Harare.
Officers from the Zimbabwe National Army, ZPCS and the Zimbabwe Republic Police drills went through their drills in preparations for the celebrations. Thousands of people from across the province are set to converge at the stadium where the uniformed forces usually spice up the event with various entertainment activities and displays.
Where we are going now requires us to think and act together as Zimbabweans. Our dire situation is no longer about MDC or ZanuPF but about Zimbabwe.We have a nation to build and a generation to defend.We have the power!
Own Correspondent|MDC Bulawayo province has denied giving their own son, Professor Welshman Ncube a nomination into the MDC presidency choosing to second him into the Secretary General position.
It was generally expected that Bulawayo, which is Ncube’s home city was going to nominate him unanimously for the Vice President a position he has been seconded to by other provinces.
Party President Nelson Chamisa was yet again nominated as the sole presidential candidate. Chamisa now has nine nominations out of 13.
Morgen Komichi, Lilian Timveous and Tendai Biti were nominated as his deputies.
Thabita Khumalo was nominated for the national chair post with Job Sikhala being her deputy. Makokoba MP James Sithole was nominated for the provincial chair beating Nketa MP Phelelela Masuku.
Deputy mayor Tinashe Kambarami was nominated for the provincial youth chair ahead of the incumbent Mlandu Ncube.
MDC provincial spokesperson Edwin Ndlovu yesterday confirmed the new list of nominees but said: “If any programme is conducted by the national leadership it becomes national and the national spokesperson is the right person to talk to.”
Party spokesperson Jacob Mafume said everything went well in the elections.
“Everything went on well, the attendance was huge, the delegates were happy, to see their president, they voted their new provincial executive led by Sithole.
“Everything went smoothly, yes there might be issues here and there on two or three districts but in the end they managed to vote.
“We can’t really talk of manipulation when the votes tallied, we had an electoral college so how can one manipulate votes in that way?” said Mafume.
Farai Dziva|MDC A official Tongai Matutu says he will remain loyal to party leader Nelson Chamisa in spite of the fracas at provincial congress in Masvingo on Tuesday.
See below a statement from Matutu’s campaign team:
We greet you in the name of MDC Masvingo revival.
Our team’s mainspring has always been to revive the Party’s fortunes in the province and attaining provincial leadership was a means to attain our strategic objective.BUT reviving the party’s fortunes is a promise, sure we will.
We were denied victory that we deserved. We were the people’s choice and we had worked for that outcome. We are known and proven fighters for democratic space.. ZANU inozviziva and the setback we experienced has pleased ZANU PF.
We will be busy with the grassroots work in the wards and the branches.. We are going to continue to perfect the art of recruitment and mobilisation initiative..we had started before Congress.
When dust settles, we are going to roll out programs and activities that will be centred around polling stations in the wards province wide.. we shall seek to support and promote anyone or any group of people with a view to revive and grow the Party.
When time comes, we shall as we have always done in the past call upon the contribution of sacrifice, dedication, commitment and above all discipline of our membership grouping to see a revived province in the shortest time possible.
We shall not fight Gumbi and team for the unfairness and undemocratic transgressions they have openly pepetrated on our grouping.. we shall give them space to fly and shine if they can. All we know is that ZANU PF is the opponent we shall focus all our eyes on the ball, we shall not entertain side shows, we shall remain focused on fighting the real enemy.
We are affirmative in our response to call of duty. Yes, we can, Yes we will. Its promise.
Chamisa chete chete,
2023 Chamisa Ku State house,
Chisa Chamisa chisaaaaaa
ZBCTV should be closed because it serves no purpose in Zimbabwe.
If you ask adults and children about their favourite television programmes you will be shocked to note that that less than 2% still watch ZBCTV.
Why should Parliament continue to approve ZBC funding from taxpayers who have rejected the broadcaster?
The programmes on ZBCTV aren’t inspiring, they are boring and outdated.
Most Zimbabweans are prepared to part with their foreign currency to pay DSTV subscriptions.
Nearly all houses in urban areas have satellite dishes, a sign that ZBC has lost its viewership in its own country. Zimbabweans have no source of local national news .Studio 7 has overtaken Radio Zimbabwe and other local radio stations as well.
Farai Dziva|Highlanders FC have issued an update on injured star Mbongeni Ndlovu.
The player was taken to hospital during their Independence Cup victory over arch rivals Dynamos on Thursday.
Ndlovu suffered a head injury in the second half and was immediately rushed to the Avenues Clinic in Harare. But following a medical examination, the full-back was discharged later in the evening.
Highlanders got their goals from Bukhosi Sibanda and Tinashe Makanda in the second period. They won the match 2-0 to lift the Uhuru Cup for the eighth time.
Farai Dziva|Under siege MDC A Secretary General Douglas Togarasei Mwonzora has said the opposition will continue to push for democratic change despite intimidation and harassment.
Mwonzora who stands accused of working with Zanu PF to topple MDC A leader Nelson Chamisa has reaffirmed his commitment to democratic processes.
“Caught up with outspoken Tinashe Jonasi at Rotten Raw Magistrates Court recently. He is being persecuted for his beliefs. Was happy to note that his spirit is unbroken.
We should never give up on that which we believe in. One day Zimbabwe will be democratic,”Mwonzora posted on his official Twitter account.
Jonasi made the headlines when he vowed to arrest Emmerson Mnangagwa for violating human rights.
Farai Dziva|Senior government officials in Masvingo Province attempted to seize donations made by an MDC A official last week.
MDC A losing candidate for Chiredzi West constituency during last year’s elections, John Manganye, donated an ambulance, 30 wheelchairs, three 5 000-litre water tanks, blood pressure testing machines, beds and various other items to Chiredzi Town Council-run polyclinic, sending shivers down ruling party honchos’ spines.
Manganye is also helping with the refurbishment of structures, including repainting of the polyclinic.
Government sources claimed Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister, Ezra Chadzamira initially blocked council officials from publicising Manganye’ s name.
“Chadzamira blocked council officials from mentioning Manganye’s name but he gave in due to incessant protests from angry stakeholders,” a government source claimed.
Yesterday Zimbabwe marked 39 years after attaining independence from Britain. It is important to note that I have deliberately avoided the use of the word ‘celebrated’ because there is nothing worth celebrating besides the change of white faces at the top echelons of power.
True to what Fannon referred to as “Black Skin White Masks”, our post independence leaders have learnt everything and forgot nothing from the repressive colonial state.
In fact what our post colonial leaders have done is to strategically position themselves as conduits that link the West and of late the East in this looting spree to siphon our motherland of her precious mineral resources.
Corruption and daylight thievery by the highest office in the land is in full swing under the pretext of ‘mega deals’ and sadly these unholy mega deals will have deleterious ripple effects to future generations who will have to bear the brunt of debt.
From Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror to Emmerson Mnangagwa’s so called new dispensation, repression and coercion is the order of the day.
The more things change is the more they are remaining the same or getting worse in this part of the continent!
In fact the post colonial state has betrayed those who sacrificed their lives in pursuit of freedom and the fundamental principle of ‘One man One Vote’ which was one of the reasons why waged the painful 14 year Second Chimurenga.
39 years on we are still struggling with the ghost of LOMA as repressive laws and statutes like POSA, BAZ and Criminal Law and Codification Reform Act have been deliberately realigned to whip any dissenting voices into their cocoons.
39 years on we still have a government that believes in use of live bullets and Gestapo like tactics in silencing critics and voices of discontentment!
From Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation to Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, the motherland still has a single television station as a means to stifle freedom of expression!
However there is a ray of hope in that we have an alternative government in form of a party, MDC whose founding principles are deeply rooted in social democracy.
As such the MDC under the able leadership of President Nelson Chamisa has a duty to extricate the people of Zimbabwe from claws of oppression.
What that means is that the party needs not to fall into the rigours of the vicious cycle by emulating ZANU PF tactics especially when holding own its internal processes.
Stephen Sarkozy Chuma is a media practitioner and MDC Youth Assembly National Secretary for Information and Publicity Candidate.
Econet boss, Strive Masiyiwa has said Zimbabwe must adopt the South African Rand.
“Let me put the proverbial cat among the pigeons,” said Masiyiwa.
He continued writing, “a loaf of bread in South Africa costs R9.50. It costs R30 in Zimbabwe. 3x!!! Eighty percent of imported goods in Zimbabwe come from South Africa. It’s not uncommon to find those same goods costing anything above three times the cost.
“The people who pay for a lot of goods are Zimbabweans living in South Africa, through their remittances. The cost structure – labour and goods – in Zimbabwe is distorted by the arbitrage of the United States dollar as a currency of settlement for rand imports.”
Writing on Facebook, Masiyiwa said it only makes sense for every business in Zimbabwe to quote their customers for goods and services in the SA rand. “It would go some way to eliminating the dollar arbitrage.”
“This is not the same thing as joining a rand monetary area, or customs union, which is a much more complex process. This one can be done overnight, and even voluntarily,” he said.
PORTO. — Jurgen Klopp admitted he cannot wait to lead Liverpool into a Champions League football semi-final against Barcelona after watching his side crush Porto 4-1 in Portugal on Wednesday night to complete a 6-1 aggregate victory in their last-eight tie.
On a wet night at the Estadio do Dragao, Liverpool weathered an early storm against Porto before scoring from their first attempt just before the half-hour, Sadio Mane prodding home for a goal given after a lengthy VAR review.
Already in control of this tie after a 2-0 win at Anfield in the first leg, Liverpool had effectively killed off Porto there and then, but Mohamed Salah, substitute Roberto Firmino and Virgil van Dijk added further goals after the break.
Eder Militao scored a consolation for the hosts 21 minutes from time, but this was another miserable night for them after they lost 5-0 to the same opponents on this ground a year ago.
Liverpool now march on to a clash with Lionel Messi’s Barca, the first meeting of the clubs since a last 16 encounter in 2006/2007 that the Reds won on away goals.
“I’m looking forward to it. The news that there is a proper football game between Barcelona and Liverpool is great,” said Klopp as his side move a step closer to matching their run to the final a year ago.
By Own Correspondent|President Emmerson Mnangagwa admitted that fighting corruption was not an easy task.
He went on to use the words ‘ deep and wide’ when he was trying to explain the magnitude of corruption at various stages.
According to him, there are corruption elements even in the channels that are supposed to help in uprooting corruption.
“To fight corruption, you need the police to investigate, but there are elements of corruption in the police. Once you get past the corruption in the police, the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) has to prosecute, but there are also elements of corruption in the NPA.”- Newsday
“Then the case must go to court and there are also elements that are corrupt in the Judiciary, so the fight is so wide and deep.”
Farai Dziva|Khama Billiat wants to use the final rounds of the ABSA Premiership season to prepare for the 2019 Afcon Tournament.
Billiat is set to join Zimbabwe at the continental showpiece in Egypt in two months’ time and is looking to enter the tournament on a good note.
According to KickOff.com, the Kaizer Chiefs striker said: “Definitely, it will give you confidence before AFCON, and you’ll be on top of your game if you actually finish the season strong.”
“Going to such a big tournament with a lot of confidence will help you, and it’s always a player’s aim to be on top of his game.
Also, it’s not only for AFCON, you never know who is watching and what happens after, so every game and every time you’re given a chance, but you also need to be on top of your game – because you’re always as good as your last game.”
Farai Dziva|There are reports that Econet Wireless is incoveniencing its clients by secretly hiking Ecocash and data services tariffs.
There are claims that the tariffs have increased by 80%.
” Econet has increased massively ecocash charges.
I have just sent RTGS$ 10 to a relative and they deducted 29 cents, yesterday it was 16 cents.
Have you heard anything concerning this please?” A disgruntled customer told a weekly newspaper.
Farai Dziva|Prominent human rights activist Prosper Tiringindi believes the country’s independence has lost significance due to gross violation of fundamental rights.
See his argument below:
39 years of independence, yes it is the day but the question is, are we really independent?
Let’s go back to history, during the time of Ian Smith our kids went to school and there was the social welfare to feed the less privileged and we used to receive foodstuffs from government.
There were missionary hospitals that offered free medication.
39 years after independence, no books in schools, even if you have money you will not get medication in hospitals.
By Own Correspondent| Officials in Ivory Coast are destroying 18,000 tonnes of rice that has been declared unfit for human consumption, a report by the BBC has said.,
The shipment of rice, from Myanmar (also known as Burma), had been refused entry at several West African ports in recent weeks, including Lome, Conakry and Accra.
The goods were finally unloaded in Abidjan and then tests were done, which showed there was a problem with the rice.
The BBC reported that the rice was taken to a landfill site.
Farai Dziva|Zimbabwe is likely to face a critical shortage of meat products, it has emerged.
This comes as farmers cry foul over the recent price hike of maize and soya beans and the removal of government subsidies.
Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) economist Reneth Mano told a daily newspaper on Wednesday that the livestock industry was at risk.
“By just changing, overnight, the grain marketing policies without consultations to the commercial livestock sector, which has been a major partner of government and GMB (Grain Marketing Board), the farmer has been introduced to a big shock.
Now, there is a risk to the billion dollar industry
And the main threat really is if you are a poultry breeder and you are producing day-olds and you cannot access maize at affordable prices, you may have to cut production.
If you are into piggery, with imported breeding stock, like a lot of our medium and large-scale producers, when you cannot feed pigs you may have to scale down or kill some of them.
“The country has an annual demand of 91 million birds, 266 000 slaughter cows and 140 000 pigs,”said Mano.
Farai Dziva|MDC A president Nelson Chamisa says Zimbabweans are the saddest people in the world.
Chamisa made the remarks in an interview with a national daily newspaper.
” We are turning 40 next year, it’s time to take stock of the benefits of the liberation struggle to say: how far have we come in fulfilling the gains of the liberation struggle.
The liberation struggle was about the will of the people, one-man, one-vote, it was about sovereignty, land.
How far have we gone in addressing those fundamental questions? We continue to have disputed elections. In 2018, the elections were disputed on account of deprivation of the will of the people; that shows you and that confirms that we have achieved nothing in terms of the ethos of the liberation struggle.
On the land issue, we have not genuinely empowered our people and you see now there continues to be problems around fundamental issues of title.
The land issue continues to be a hanging question. The third issue has to do with prosperity and opportunities for the people of Zimbabwe.
We are the saddest people in the world, we score least on the index of happy people in the world, because of government’s illegitimacy, governance deficit, because of the absence of comprehensive reforms, institutionally, constitutionally, economically and politically these fundamental reforms are lacking,” said Chamisa.
“If you look at our laws we continue to have trails of repression from the Rhodesian times. Look at how people continue to have a police force which is questionable, typical of the Selous Scouts.
We still have deep-seated divisions, you can’t have independence when we have divisions around tribes, when you have unhealed wounds around past challenges, around Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina, erosion of pensions; all those things are wounds on the hearts and minds of people of Zimbabwe.
Independence must mean something, Independence can’t be paper independence, it can’t be rhetoric. It has to be independence in the means of production, independence in the economy, in the ownership of the means of production; those issues have not been addressed.”
Farai Dziva|MDC A leader Nelson Chamisa has castigated Zanu PF for distorting the history of the liberation struggle.
Chamisa told a national daily newspaper in an interview the ruling party should not mislead the nation by deliberately distorting the meaning of the liberation struggle.
” They [ZANU PF] want to distort history and rewrite it in their own terms, in their own persuasion, but clearly the struggle of the liberation of our country was not a sole effort.
It was not a partisan effort, it was not a political effort, and it was a people’s effort. The liberation struggle was and still remains a people’s project.
Nobody should appropriate themselves the liberation of this country, this country belongs to its owners and authors being the people under the auspices of the almighty God and nobody is supposed to appropriate the sole proprietorship of our country.
We fought as a people, yes, we used different vehicles, Zanu was one of them, Zapu was another and any other vehicle, that vehicle can’t become the destination. The destination was a liberated Zimbabwe,” said Chamisa.
