IN PICTURES: More demolitions resumed in various parts of Harare on Friday as the Ministry of Local Government brought misery to families. The following a pictures of houses just being razed down Friday afternoon. Hundreds of people stood watching this morning as they were told their belongings will be turned into rubble by the end of day.

A 51-year-old Chipadze Primary School teacher in Bindura was this week slapped with the worst sentence for rape- 105 years imprisonment.
The teacher met “mercy” with 45 of those years suspended meaning he was effectively sentenced to a running 60 years in prison on seven counts of raping a 12-year-old girl.
Thomas Chamunorwa Paraziva (51) was convicted of seven counts of rape by Bindura regional magistrate, Mr William Billa.
Paraziva was sentenced to 15 years on each count for a total of 105 years but he will serve an effective 60 years after 10 years were suspended while 35 years will run concurrently.
According to the state represented by prosecutor, Ms Gossy Mudambo, Paraziva was the class teacher of the complainant who is in Grade 6.
The state alleges that during the period between February and May this year, Paraziva on seven occasions took advantage of the complainant who came to school early to rape her and threatening to beat her up if she refused.
On each occasion after committing the act, Paraziva would threaten to kill the complainant if she disclosed the matter to anyone.
The matter only came to light when the complainant’s mother probed her on why she was requesting to be transferred from Chipadze primary school.

ZANU PF’s new Harare East Member of Parliament HON Terence Mukupe, was on Tuesday pounced on by ZRP cops on charges of violence.
He was then detained overnight on public violence charges. He was later allowed out of prison the following day after paying a fine.
Mukupe led a group of youths that besieged Mabvuku Police Station and ordered the officer-in-charge to remove his uniform if he wanted to be a politician, the court heard yesterday.

Mukupe confirmed his experience in filthy cells saying he has since developed greater respect for President Robert Mugabe.
“I had my first taste of prison life. I must say it was a humbling experience. I came out with greater respect for my President RG Mugabe,” he said.
He continued, “I only spent a night whilst he spent 10 years with no prospects of being released.
“I was worried that my son was sick but I got comfort that my President lost his son and was denied the chance to bury him by our colonisers but they failed to break him.
“I have come out of my incarceration bolder and more vigilant.
“I will stand for what is right and for my people. The land barons and their God father will not break my spirit. “They killed my dog and have tried to intimidate me but I will stay the course as shown by our inspirational leader.
“I will soldier on with my quest for zero tolerance for corruption! Viva Zanu PF! Viva my hero and my President Mugabe”
 
Why Mukupe was arrested.
Meanwhile, the court yesterday heard that Mukupe was trying to rescue seven Zanu-PF members who were arrested for invading an open space in New Tafara leased to Shelter Zimbabwe by Harare City Council.
The seven are Jonasi Jonasi, Brian Mungwari, Richard Yuda, Emmanuel Kamuchira, Darlington Mutambara, Nevedi Takundikana and Linah Munhenzva. They are facing criminal trespass charges in contravention of section 132 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act.
The seven are represented by their lawyer Mr Musindo Hungwe.
While testifying against granting of bail for the seven, the investigating officer, Constable Batsirai Gadzai said Mukupe was subsequently arrested.
“He came leading a group of youths and they stormed the officer-in-charge’s office, referring to him as a small child. He also told him that if he wanted to be a politician he should take off his uniform.”
Prosecutor Mr Michael Reza, alleged that on Monday the accused went to an open space in New Tafara owned by Harare City Council.
It is alleged that the group unlawfully erected their cabins and distributed the land between themselves. They set up bill boards at the site with the names of their housing co-operatives.
The group allegedly threatened to use violence on the police and the lessee, Shelter Zimbabwe. The accused were arrested at the site while blocking Shelter Zimbabwe employees.

As the Heroes Day draws near, impoverished communities are being terrorised countrywide by being forced to foot the Heroes Day celebrations bill at the expense of their starving families; ZimEye.com can reveal that the Ministry of Local Government is making civil servants pay for the same function.
Local Government workers are being forced to pay $2 each for the Heroes Celebrations.
Civil Servants under Kasukuwere, are among the ones forced to pay for Heroes Day celebrations as reflected on impeccable document check-lists unearthed by ZimEye.com. The aforementioned documents are official and carry the “indelible” government stamp on them.

“We are forced to pay and to keep our jobs we just have to act,” one worker told ZimEye.com in confidence.
The orders to collect money from civil servants were effected during the time that Ignatius Chombo was Minister over that ministry. Minister Kasukuwere  was unavailable for commenting at the time of writing.
Meanwhile The local NGO, “Heal Zimbabwe” has expressed concerns over the reports that Village Heads in Zaka West were forcing villagers to contribute towards the Heroes day celebrations to be held on the 10th of August 2015.
The Trust said on 5 August 2015, Village Head Cleto Vhudzi, who also doubles as a ZANU PF elected Councillor, told villagers in Ward 24 that every household is obliged to pay $1 towards the Provincial Heroes Day Commemorations.
Most of the villagers are living in poverty; as they fail even to fend for their families due to shortage of cash and resources. Some of their children dropped out of school after they failed to pay fees.
“The traditional leader threatened that if people fail to pay the money voluntarily, ZANU PF youths would move around households collecting the money themselves,” said the Trust. “He also warned villagers against not paying because he will keep a register of those who would have paid and use it during the distribution of any food aid or farming inputs.”
The Trust said intimidation by Village Head Vhudzi is a direct violation of people’s fundamental human rights and freedoms which carry rights such as right to personal security and equality.
“Section 281 of the Constitution stipulates that Traditional leaders should not violate the fundamental rights and freedoms of any person,” said Heal Zimbabwe Trust.
“Zaka is not the only area where Traditional leaders are demanding money for Heroes celebration in their area.”
He said in Makoni District, some Village Heads are alleging that Manicaland Provincial Minister, Mandi Chimene issued a directive to Chiefs in the area to inform their Village Heads that they should contribute money towards the Heroes Day celebrations which will be held at Vhengere stadium in Rusape. Similar incidents have also been recorded in Mbire and Murehwa.
“It is worrying that the demand for money for Heroes Day celebrations comes against a backdrop of a harsh economic environment which has exacerbated the cost of living and is compounded by alarming rates of unemployment,” said the Trust.
“Heal Zimbabwe implores Traditional leaders to fulfil and uphold their constitutional mandate of treating all persons within their areas equally and fairly. They should also be conduits for the propagation of peace by resolving disputes amongst people in their communities so as to attain peace. Peaceful communities bring development.”

HUNDREDS of houses were yesterday destroyed by the Sheriff of the High Court at an area known as Mokum in Harare South after owners of the land on which the houses were built were granted a writ of ejection.
The houses were reduced to rubble, leaving thousands homeless when the writ of ejection granted in favour of Tobacco Sales Limited (TSL) and HGP Vostermans Private Limited was effected.
This came as Government has intensified the fight against land barons, politicians and co-operative chairpersons illegally settling people on council, private and State land.
The High Court order was granted on November 12, 2014 permitting TSL and HGP Vostermans Ltd to access the land that had been illegally taken over by Tirivepano housing co-operative and Nyasha dzaMwari housing co-operative.
The writ of ejection also granted the police the go-ahead to arrest those engaging in unlawful activities on the land and help restore law and order.
Officials from the Sheriff of the High Court destroyed the houses under the watchful eye of the police to avoid violence. The two housing co-operatives illegally occupied the land last year and sold residential stands of different sizes to unsuspecting prospective home owners for between $2 500 and $5 000.
The co-operatives’ senior officials Mr Caiphas Njaira and Mr Obert Masaletulini disappeared when the demolitions started.
National Assembly member for Harare South Shadreck Mashayamombe appealed to people in his constituency not to buy residential stands without verifying the status of the land.
“I want to warn people in the constituency not to resettle themselves,” he said.
“They must check with the Ministry of Local Government and the city council before getting the land.”
Mashayamombe said he will compile a report and submit it to the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing to find ways to assist those displaced.
“In the meantime, we will approach TSL and try to negotiate with them to accommodate the people until we find a suitable area to relocate them,” he said.
“We will also reach out to them to find out if they cannot compensate those who lost their houses.”

Electoral Court judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu has ruled that a registered voter can lawfully stand as a candidate in a National Assembly election even if he or she is not registered in the particular constituency vied for.
He also said a criminal record was not a reason to bar one from contesting in an election.
Justice Bhunu made the landmark decision during the pre-trial conference held in a matter in which former Zanu-PF chairman for Mashonaland West Province Mr Temba Mliswa is contesting the victory of Keith Guzah in the Hurungwe West parliamentary by-election.
In his challenge, Mr Mliswa — the immediate-past MP for the constituency — argued that Guzah was not eligible to contest in the by-election because he was not a registered voter in Hurungwe West.
He also argued that Guzah had a criminal past and that he was at law not allowed to contest in an election. Mr Mliswa further argued that Guzah used violence, vote-buying and intimidation to win the by-election.
The pre-trial conference was held in Justice Bhunu’s chambers yesterday, but lawyers representing all the parties confirmed that the judge found that Section 125 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe does not specifically require a candidate to be a
registered voter in the contested constituency.
The judge, according to the lawyers, said as long as one is a registered voter, he or she can qualify to contest for any seat in Zimbabwe before striking down the two grounds — that Guzah was not a registered voter in the constituency and that he had a criminal past.
Guzah’s lawyer Advocate Sylvester Hashiti said:“The judge ruled that in terms of Section 125 of the Constitution, you must only be a registered voter to qualify as a candidate and that the Section does not specifically indicate that the candidate must be registered in that particular constituency.
“It was also the judge’s finding that the same section of the Constitution does not regard criminal past as a bar.
“The judge then struck off the two grounds and referred to trial the issue of whether or not Guzah used violence, intimidation, vote buying or bribery to win an election.”
Mr Musindo Hungwe, who acted for Mr Mliswa, confirmed the same position.
“The judge ruled that Section 125 of the Constitution was silent on whether or not a candidate must be registered to vote in the constituency in question,” he said.
“He then interpreted it to mean that as long as one is a registered voter anywhere in Zimbabwe, he or she can qualify to contest in any constituency. The judge also found that the same section does not take having a criminal past as a disqualifier.”
In the by-election held on June 10 this year, Guzah polled 5 961 votes against Mr Mliswa’s 4 239 ballots. The by-election arose after Mr Mliswa was expelled from Parliament when Zanu-PF wrote disowning him.
He had been first expelled from the party for acting against the party’s leadership in conniveance with expelled former vice president Dr Joice Mujuru.

A headmaster at Sunview Private College in Chitungwiza has been hauled before the courts for allegedly squeazing a Form 2 pupil at the school on two occasions.
The head who is from Sunview Private College in Chitungwiza and who after the incident allegedly threatened to the “complainant from the institution if she revealed the offence, yesterday appeared in court.
Peter Ngandu (48) of Gwarigwati Village in Seke , however, denied two counts of indecent assault charges when he appeared before Chitungwiza magistrate Mr Lazarus Murendo. He was remanded to August 13 on $50 bail. In his defence, Ngandu told the court that the minor was bent on tarnishing his image since on the day in question the girl was absent from school.
“I have enough evidence that the complainant did not come to school on the day in question. Rather, she only came at around 6pm accompanied by her grandmother when she had slept at her boyfriend’s house,” he said.
Ngandu accused the minor of being a troublesome child who was also a gossip monger and a liar.
He claimed she also proposed love to Form 3 and Form 4 boys at the school.
“She would entice them with good quality food, money and her grandmother even confessed that the girl has problems of stealing at home and lying. She also called her grandmother’s friend in South Africa proposing love,” claimed Ngandu.
The prosecutor, Mr Tatenda Mukatera, alleged that on July 24 this year, Ngandu allegedly squeazed the 14-year-old’s breasts and she never told anybody. This was after Ngandu allegedly threatened to chase her away from the school.
He reportedly repeated the act by fondling her back when she was sweeping at the reception.
The matter came to light when she was asked by her grandmother about her missing cellphone, which she took to school.
This was the time she revealed to her that Ngandu had been fondling her and the matter was reported to police leading to his arrest.-State Media/Additional Reporting

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s overtures urging those who had left his party and crossed floors to a rival MDC outfit led by Tendai Biti to return to the opposition party have been snubbed.
Following an acrimonious fallout with some of his former comrades, including former treasurer-general Elton Mangoma who was calling for leadership renewal in the aftermath of Tsvangirai’s disputed loss to President Robert Mugabe in the 2013 elections, the MDC leader extended an olive branch to the rebels to renounce their rebellion.
Tsvangirai’s party deployed secretary for mobilisation and recruitment Job Sikhala to lure back the erstwhile allies.
Sikhala’s mission was doomed after he was snubbed by over a dozen high-ranking MDC Renewal Team officials.
Former MDC MP for Hurungwe West Severino Tall Chambati, who is now Renewal Team’s organising secretary for Mashonaland West province, told the Daily News yesterday that he and little-known officials including national executive member Tawanda Bvumo, provincial chairman Eddy Ndiraire and Tonderai Kusemamuriwo, had met Tsvangirai and turned down his request.
To his credit, however, Sikhala managed to rope back to the mainstream MDC former Chegutu mayor Francis Dhlakama and former Mashonaland West spokesperson Biggie Haurobi.
“Sikhala came to persuade us to return and he facilitated a meeting with Tsvangirai at his house some two weeks ago after we demanded to hear what he had to say,” Chambati said.
“We did not, however, agree on anything because the president did not give us assurances that we would be truly and genuinely accommodated. All he did was to tell us that we were welcome but we wanted to know how, what was there for us because we have not forgotten that Morgen Komichi once told us that the party was better without us.”
Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka confirmed that the former trade unionist met with the rebels.
“They had a very fruitful meeting with the president,” Tamborinyoka said.
“I am, however, not sure where that is now coming from. From the record, anyone is welcome to the MDC big tent especially the respected founding members of the party like Chambati.”
Chambati said he still had residual respect for Tsvangirai but said he was worried that the people who surround the former prime minister were “badly” advising him.

All eyes will be on President Robert Mugabe and former Vice President Joice Mujuru on Monday, when the two feuding liberation struggle stalwarts are expected to come face to face at the National Heroes Acre in Harare — their first meeting since General Solomon Mujuru’s popular widow was brutally purged from the post-congress Zanu PF late last year.
Although efforts by the Daily News yesterday to confirm Mujuru’s attendance at the annual commemorations were unsuccessful, well-placed sources told the newspaper that she was planning to do so, although this was “not a certainty”.
“Our understanding is that Mai Mujuru is planning to be at the Heroes Acre to pay her respects to the heroes of the liberation struggle, but this is not a certainty at the moment. If she does (go there), it will be a very interesting day as she would be bound to meet the president.
“As you may know, (the late) General Mujuru is buried next to the president’s late wife, Sally, with only a vacant spot for two graves separating them. It would be almost impossible for the two not to meet if she goes there,” one of the sources said.
Contacted for comment on the likelihood of the two meeting, Mugabe’s spokesperson, George Charamba, said Mujuru was free to attend the commemorations, going further to criticise the media for focussing unnecessarily on issues that they did not fully understand and appreciate.
“Let me tell you something very personal, ma-comrades anonzwisisana (comrades understand each other). They know when to quarrel and when to get together. You at the Daily News are outsiders,” Charamba said — in comments that hinted at a looming rapprochement between Mugabe and Mujuru.
But Rugare Gumbo, one of the spokespeople of the Zanu PF formation that uses the slogan People First, and which is closely linked to Mujuru, said yesterday that it was unlikely that he or any other top officials of their movement would attend the commemorations.
“I am not sure that I will go and it is unlikely that Mai Mujuru will go to the event either,” Gumbo said.
Former Presidential Affairs minister, Didymus Mutasa, another close ally of Mujuru, also dismissed outright any prospects of him attending the Heroes Day commemorations, saying scathingly that the people in charge “of the whole process have veered off course and are not worth associating with”.
“I didn’t go to Independence Day (either) because I don’t feel I have any friends within the current administration who I can mark the day with. If I want, I can have own celebrations with Mai Mujuru, Comrade Gumbo and Comrade (Kudakwashe) Bhasikiti, and the best place will be in private. I cannot remember that day with fake people,” Mutasa said.
On his part Bhasikiti, who is also another top ally of Mujuru, said he did not know whether the former VP would go to Heroes Acre, “considering that those in the ruling party hate her passionately”.
“I am not sure whether Mai Mujuru would go because that is very personal. What I can tell you is, I will not go because Zanu PF could unleash its supporters on me,” he said.
Mujuru’s close associates who spoke to the Daily News, while non-committal about the certainty of the former VP being at Heroes Acre next week, said yesterday that there was “absolutely nothing” that could stop her and them from attending the event that was set aside to honour the country’s fallen heroes.
“Our hero is buried there and it makes sense that we are part of that. Whether we are welcome or not is another issue but what cannot be doubted is that Solomon Mujuru was a distinguished hero,” said the close associate.
Solomon Mujuru, whose war-time nom de guerre was Rex Nhongo, died in disputed circumstances in August 2011, and controversy still shrouds the manner of his death after his remains were discovered following a mysterious inferno at his farmhouse in Beatrice — just outside Harare.
And while his funeral attracted the biggest crowd ever witnessed at the Heroes Acre, his name has still been dragged in the mud as the warring Zanu PF’s mindless bloodletting continues unabated.
A report prepared by the former liberation movement’s disciplinary committee, and which was adopted by the party’s politburo, made stunning allegations that the country’s celebrated struggle icon had, before his untimely death, plotted to assassinate Mugabe.
If Mujuru does eventually go to the Heroes Acre, it will also be the first time that she would likely come face to face with the Mugabe’s controversies, but increasingly influential wife, Grace — who once said infamously that if the former VP died, even flies would ignore her rotting carcass.
“The youths have alerted me about someone who is spearheading factionalism in this (Mashonaland Central) province and I told Baba (Mugabe) to ‘baby-dump’ that person. I told him that if he does not dump the person, we will do it ourselves,” Grace thundered.
But Zimbabwe’s fluid politics appear to be changing again, amid claims that Mugabe no longer believed that Mujuru plotted to oust and assassinate him, as well as suggestions to the effect that some post-congress Zanu PF bigwigs are actively working to lure her back to the warring party.
On the other hand Mujuru’s allies, who include Mutasa, Gumbo and Bhasikiti have dismissed any chances of their leader ever rejoining the faction-torn Zanu PF — with Mutasa going further to say Mugabe and Zanu PF would need to apologise first before that could even be considered.
“Look at the way she was belittled, look at the way lies were said about her. It’s a shame. If there are any good leaders left in Zanu PF, this is the time for them to confess that what they did to Mai Mujuru was iniquitous.
“They should publicly say we are sorry and if they can’t do that then at least should ask the chairperson of the disciplinary committee to do that on their behalf. Look, the longer you live with that atrocity God will curse you,” Mutasa said.-Daiily News

Book review: a novel about the intersecting of five troubled marriages in a morally bankrupt police state. [Robert Mugabe attends the funeral of Solomon Mujuru (Photo: Getty) ]
 

This novel comes with two mysteries attached, one substantial, the other superficial. The big mystery is the author’s identity. Gender-neutral, nominally Anglo-Saxon, almost provocatively bland, ‘C.B. George’

This novel comes with two mysteries attached, one substantial, the other superficial. The big mystery is the author’s identity. Gender-neutral, nominally Anglo-Saxon, almost provocatively bland, ‘C.B. George’ screams ‘pseudonym’ to any reader. A call to the literary agent confirms the suspicion: the author is keeping his identity secret ‘for personal reasons’, which may or may not be connected to Zimbabwe’s political situation.
The second puzzle is why said author chose The Death of Rex Nhongo as his title. The preface explains that ‘Rex Nhongo’ was the nom de guerre of Solomon Mujuru, the Zimbabwean general whose body was discovered lying in the charred debris of a farmhouse he had seized from a white farmer in 2011. The story is supposedly connected to what many Zimbabweans assume was a political murder. But the connection — everything hinges on a gun which may or may not have been used to kill Mujuru — is so slight that I found myself riffling fruitlessly through the pages, assuming I had missed it on first read-through. MacGuffins rarely come more elliptical than this.
Both questions are, however, essentially distractions. Because whoever wroteThe Death of Rex Nhongo knew what he was doing: I rather doubt that this muscular, confident novel is a first attempt. While I never quite swallowed the MacGuffin, I managed to stop caring. The book has almost nothing to say about the sudden demise of a man seen by many as President Robert Mugabe’s most credible challenger and likely successor. It is, instead, a sympathetic exploration of the intersection between five troubled marriages lived in the sour miasma of a morally bankrupt African police state.

April, a British diplomat, and Jerry, her well-meaning nurse of a husband, make up one couple. The author is clearly at home in the ‘expat’ world of barbecues around the pool, racial unease and hardened alcoholism. The emasculated Anglo-Saxon liberal male is in danger of becoming a form of post-colonial score-settling in African literature — white protagonists who can maintain an erection are few and far between — but C.B. George’s account of that strained relationship is horribly convincing.
Then there’s Shawn, a manipulative African-American with ambitions to become a gold smuggler, his distressed Zimbabwean wife Kuda and their daughter Rosie, who chatters gaily about what all the adults agree must be an imaginary friend, but is in fact a vampire. Rosie’s private conversations with the evil spirit — expression of a West African ancestry Shawn boastfully exploited to impress his friends — are a genuinely creepy thread running through the narrative.
The account of the stoical taxi-driver Patson’s marriage to Fadzai, who runs a workers’ food stall, is much warmer, as is the depiction of his brother-in-law Gilbert’s attempts to do the right thing by Bessie, the young spouse who works as April and Jerry’s live-in maid. As the characters stumble into each other’s trajectories, the author pulls off the impressive feat of being both forensic and forgiving.
In the final chapters we are suddenly treated to a summarised account of the fates — as tragic as they seem inevitable —allotted the various players. It’s a telescoping I could have done without, and which left me feeling slightly aggrieved. When a writer manages to make his readers truly care about his characters, he perhaps owes it to both his audience and his creations to see them through to the end.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 8 August 2015

Bulawayo Town Clerk faces arrest

Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is expected to overhaul the entire City Council shortly as the Affirmative Action Group (AAG) will this afternoon effect a citizens’ arrest on Bulawayo Town Clerk, Middleton Nyoni, at the Bulawayo City Hall Chambers.
The AAG is citing corruption, and abuse of office and maladministration by both council officials and councillors.
Nyoni is reported to have arrived at work on Monday after a lengthy leave due to ill-health. Mrs Sikhangele Zhou was acting during Nyoni’s absence.
Before muting plans to effect a citizens’ arrest on Nyoni, the AAG filed an urgent High Court chamber application on 31 July 2015 to compel Minister of Local Government, Saviour Kasukuwere and Provincial Administrator for Bulawayo Province, Konzani Dube to exercise their discretionary powers in terms of Section 114 of the Urban Councils Act (Ch 29: 15) and dissolve Bulawayo City Council.”
The Zanu PF aligned pressure group, wants Minister Kasukuwere to dissolve Bulawayo City Council and suspend its councillors pending a public enquiry. This will most likely see the tenure in office of Bulawayo’s 29 councillors, most of who were elected to office on a Movement for Democratic Change (MDCT) ticket, cut abruptly before their terms expire.
More to follow:

POLICE have been instructed to arrest ZANU-PF youth league national secretary for administration, Lewis Matutu, for extortion after he allegedly authorised party youths to forcibly take over a school in Caledonia under the pretext that it belonged to First Lady, Grace Mugabe.
The youths allegedly went on to collect school fees amounting to US$70 000 after misrepresenting that they were collecting the money on behalf of Grace Mugabe and converted it to personal use, a secretary at the school said yesterday.
Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, then ordered the arrest of Matutu and the youths involved. Kasukuwere later made a report to the ZANU-PF Politburo yesterday which also recommended tough action of those who abuse the party for personal gain.
“There was a long debate on illegal settlements in urban areas, especially in Caledonia where young people are going around extorting innocent people of their hard earned money using the party and its leadership. The Politburo agreed that this must stop forthwith. Law enforcement agents are going to pursue this issue with utmost vigour,” said ZANU-PF spokesman, Simon Khaya Moyo in his briefing to journalists at the end of the meeting.
Parents and guardians of pupils at Eastview School also gave harrowing narrations of how they were terrorised by youths acting on Matutu’s instruction. This emerged during Kasukuwere’s fact finding mission to the slum settlement on the outskirts of Harare.
Ironically, this comes as another prominent ZANU-PF youth leader, Godwin Gomwe, is appearing at the Harare magistrates court facing similar charges. Parents told Kasukuwere, who was accompanied by Energy and Power Development Minister, Samuel Undenge, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Lazarus Dokora and Harare Metropolitan Provincial Affairs Minister, Miriam Chikukwa, that party youths dislodged the local committee to run the affairs of the school at the beginning of this term in May and have been collecting school fees since then.
Parents said the militant youths took advantage of the confusion at the school, which currently has two headmasters, to fleece parents. They are accused of pocketing all the money, part of which was earmarked for construction of infrastructure.
Pupils at the school conduct lessons in dusty open shacks, with some pupils testifying that they fail to conduct lessons when it rains as they get drenched. Armed with Matutu’s letters, the residents of Caledonia recounted to the ministers how the violent youths ransacked the school, driving away pupils that failed to pay and attacked others with stones.
They are also reported have vandalised furniture and intimidated teachers.
“The youths came here with letters written by one Lewis Matutu who works at the party (ZANU-PF) headquarters and claimed they were sent by the first lady. They claimed that she was the owner of the school and demanded that all the school fees be surrendered to them,” one parent said.
“Many parents obliged and those who resisted had their children thrown out of school. Some children were beaten and stoned,” one of the parents, Tendai Sabvure, said.
An enraged Kasukuwere immediately instructed police to go after the youths, saying anyone who abuses the name of the first lady was inviting the governing party’s anger.
“Where are the police? We want you to get all these people arrested,” he charged at some of the police details present and the event before he told the press that they everyone involved in the scum would be brought to justice.
“Those who have been behind this scum will be dealt with. The full wrath of the law will visit them,” he said. “We are going to protect the name and image of our leadership. The first lady is not to be abused. If you abuse the first lady, you invite all of us to get involved and defend her. Those who are making money out of abusing the first lady must be warned. They must stop it.
“She has nothing to do with this chaos and you know very well how her standards are from the institutions she has built. This is definitely not what she would want to see. The first lady is not part of this corruption,” fumed Kasukuwere.
Matutu, who has also been taken to the High Court by a Zvishavane businessman, Tendai Mpofu, who is accusing him of swindling him of more than US$12 000 in a botched mining deal, was not immediately available for comment.
Dokora said his ministry would take over the school next month and quickly establish proper infrastructure.
Currently, the school has a massive enrolment of 1 496 pupils cutting across all levels from early childhood development to advanced level, all learning in shakes and attended to by just 19 teachers, only two of whom are qualified. Financial Gazette

ANALYSIS|Expelled Vice President Joyce Mujuru has effectively dislodged President Robert Mugabe as heads begin rolling at the beleaguered Shake-Shake building that houses ZANU PF, following leaked information that there are a good number of legislators, cabinet ministers and service chiefs who are working hand in glove with the ousted Mujuru.
Sources close to the goings on at the ruling party’s headquarters, who refused to be named revealed that they have a cache of documents that show that many current cabinet ministers, service chiefs, senior government officials, legislators and war veterans around the country were fully behind Joice Mujuru.
According to the sources many of the people who now claim to have been against her are actually at the forefront of supporting Mujuru as future leader.
This has also led the hatching of a plan to reschedule the 2018 general elections, which the ruling party is hoodwinking Tsvangirai with a vice president post.
Some of the leaders named include Ignatius Chombo, Douglas Mombeshora, and Prisca Mupfumira. Already several war veterans the likes of Rugare Gumbo, Nicholas Goche, Jabulani Sibanda, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and Marvelous Mkwebu have stuck by their guns to stand by Mujuru, while others such as Joseph Chinotimba are said to be sitting on the fence.
“There is no denying at all that Mujuru has badly affected the party. As we get into December, there will be more purges because many in the party are still silently supporting Joyce Mujuru,” a source close to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa said.
They added:
“What adds to hurt is the fact that Mujuru is celebrated by your media guys in the same way you once did Tsvangirai. This does not go well in the President’s favour, ” the source said.
According to Temba Mliswa’s last Bulawayo press address, many cabinet members and legislators are afraid to come out in the open, but will do so when the time is appropriate, that is before the 2018 elections.

THE GOVERNMENT has ordered parastatals to cut down on employees, taking advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling giving employers the green light to terminate contracts on three months’ notice.
According to reports, 18 000 workers have been fired in less than three weeks after the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court last month in a case between Zuva Petroleum and its former managers.
President Robert Mugabe has criticised the job carnage and recently described the labour law as an ass.But the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), a government body, says it received a government directive to cut down on its employees using the same law that has seen workers being thrown out without any benefits.
ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke told the local NewsDay on Tuesday that Cabinet had given them the green light to trim their workforce.
“It’s something coming to us. It’s not like we chose it ourselves,” he said. “It was a decision by the Cabinet that those parastatals who can take advantage of this ruling can do so, but as ZTA, we are not.”
Efforts to contact both Tourism minister Walter Mzembi and acting Information minister Prisca Mupfumira were fruitless as both ministers’ mobile phones were unreachable on Wednesday.
Labour ministry permanent secretary Ngoni Masoka said he could not comment because he was not in the office.
“I am out of office, but you can phone our offices and talk to acting secretary Marimba or the legal officer Sibiya,” he said. Both officials could also not be reached for comment.
By Wednesday, five parastatals had sent thousands of their workers home citing the court ruling. These include National Railways of Zimbabwe (350), Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (309), Air Zimbabwe (100), CMED (Pvt) Ltd (200) and Grain Marketing Board (400). Part of the termination letter sent to GMB workers read: “The GMB has decided to exercise its right in terms of the common law to terminate your contract of employment with GMB on three months’ notice. Consequently, you are no longer required to come to work with effect from 5 August 2015.”
The letter was signed by GMB deputy general manager (human resources) Sibongile Muchirahondo. Sources said 400 GMB workers, mostly from Bulawayo, had been affected by the job cuts amid reports that the parastatal was targeting 1 500 staffers countrywide.
Mupfumira, who doubles as Labour minister, has been on record over the past week saying government was seeking ways to stop the job losses triggered by the court ruling.
Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo said amendments would soon be made to stop the firing of workers willy-nilly.
“Cabinet last week approved the labour law amendment, which seeks to protect the workers as well as the employer.
“The (Zanu PF) politburo received a full briefing on the issue and now awaits the Bill to be tabled in Parliament,”
he said.
However, political analyst Takura Zhangazha said government was being populist in the manner it was handling the matter.
“The government is essentially talking about civil servants and does not view those that work for parastatals as such,” he said.
“It, is however, being populist in seeking to claim it does not fire its workers when the Minister of Finance (Patrick Chinamasa) has already announced an intention to downsize the civil service in keeping with the Staff- Monitored Programme of the IMF (International Monetary Fund.”
Zhangazha said under these circumstances, even civil servants were not safe. Opposition MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu accused the Zanu PF government of using deceptive language.
“The Zanu PF regime is notorious for doublespeak. They always indicate right, but almost, invariably, they always turn left. This regime is a curse on the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
“This regime doesn’t care one iota about the suffering of the ordinary person. “Zimbabwe is under the yoke of a fully-fledged kleptocracy; a renegade,fascist regime that only cares about one thing, that is its hold on power.”
MDC Renewal Team spokesperson Jacob Mafume weighed in, accusing the government of doing nothing to avert the situation.
“One must know that the parastatals are under the government and also the so-called companies are now owned by government-linked individuals,” he said.
“These are double standards of the highest order. The government is running with hares while hunting with the dogs.”
Meanwhile, Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora confirmed that his office had been inundated with teachers who did not receive their July salaries.
He said his ministry was referring those affected to the relevant authorities.
“The question of salaries is a dialogue between the workers and the employers. They are deployed to work in my ministry by the employer,” Dokora said.
“The question of salaries is a dialogue that you do with the employer.
“That engagement is ongoing between the two ministries and the (Civil Service) Commission. That is an ongoing engagement and I am glad that you said they did not receive their salaries and not that they were fired.”
The government says the over 3 000 teachers who did not receive their salaries last month had not been found at their workstations during a recent headcount as part of efforts to weed out ghost workers.
An audit carried out during the inclusive government era showed that there were at least 75 000 ghost workers in the civil service.-Newsday

Former State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa has caused a stir with a latest photograph of him. Zimbabweans have claimed that Mr Mutasa in physically unwell hence his forlon countenance and loss of glitter. PICTURES:

The British government is under fire for taking away into their “care” a 15 year old troublesome Zimbabwean boy from his mother who were flying past London en route to Harare, in a case that has sent shockwaves in the Zim diaspora community there, as the boy took advantage of the British police system by saying that he does not like his home country, Zimbabwe.
What further irked Zimbabweans was the fact that the Zimbabwean and Canadian embassies were not informed on time of the actions taken by UK. The boy has both Zimbabwean and Canadian citizenship.
Families this week blew their horn in online protests after the lad, an offspring of a well known South African religious leader, was taken into British care even though he has no UK residency and was in transit past the island country to Harare. Current legal guidelines until this week barred British social workers from taking the children of foreigners into care.
What shocked the Zimbabwean community was the fact that there is now a legal precedent which empowers foreign children to obtain an easy way to live on British taxpayer funds.
The lad, whose identity cannot be disclosed due to his age, was traveling back to Zimbabwe in March when upon arriving in the UK, he sought police help claiming that his mother was abusing him by forcing him to return to Zimbabwe.
Investigations showed that contrary to claims of abuse raised by the 15 year old, the lad actually has a posh life as is also enrolled at Harare’s expensive Eaglesvale Secondary School.
Police investigations which cleared the mother of any wrong doing also found the boy was a trouble maker in Switzerland, where he lived for over a year. It was unearthed that there is no case whatsoever against the mother as boy had earlier claimed to British police. Court documents reflect that at that tender age, he is now not only a habitual cannabis drug taker, but a trouble maker.
The Father together with the known church leader(grandfather), have not played any part in the child’s life and not been notified of these proceedings, the court found.
There was no order or determination made that the mother is incapable of taking  care of her child other than the decision to uphold the lad’s protest that he does not want to return to Harare.
But last week’s interim order stated that the lad is now placed in the care of the London Borough of Sutton until the finalisation of the proceedings or further order.  The verdict read in part:
 

16. EXPERTS

1. An application was made for the instruction of an expert in Canadian Law relating to the potential placement of the lad in a kinship placement in Alberta.

1. The local authority shall take the lead in instructing a lawyer qualified in the state of Alberta to advise on the legality of placement options for the child in Canada in the event that the court makes a care order or supervision order or special guardianship order or child arrangement order in favour of the sister and to advise on whether mirror orders can be obtained and the legal procedure to do this.

1. the local authority shall take the lead on the instruction on 7 August 2015

1. the local authority shall dispatch the agreed letter of instruction by 4pm on 11 August 2015

1. Such advice to be filed and served by 4pm on 24 September 2015.

17. OTHER ORDERS

1. The respondent mother the mother’s application in her letter dated 30 July 2015 to discharge the order of 21 May 2015 and any other court related order is hereby refused.

1. The need for the local authority to file and serve a formal part 25 compliant application in respect of the instruction of an expert in Canadian law be dispensed with

1. The Local authority is to use their best endeavours to serve notice of these proceedings on the Father, (Name Withheld) by 4pm on 27 August 2015, such notice to include service of the application, case summaries filed by the local authority, position statements filed on behalf of the Child’s Guardian, orders made by the court and contact details for the local authority solicitor. Permission for substituted service of notice of these proceedings and the above documents via the father’s lawyers in South Africa.

1. In the event that the Father wishes to take part in these proceedings he shall contact the Local Authority forthwith and, if so advised, shall seek an urgent directions appointment which the Court shall list as a matter of urgency.

1. The time for the Local Authority, as holders of parental responsibility for the lad under an interim care order, to apply for a replacement passport for the lad from the Canadian Embassy in London is extended to 4.00pm on 3 August 2015. Upon issue the London Borough of Sutton shall hold the replacement passport for the boy until further order.

1. The Local authority shall file and serve a kinship assessment on the child’s sister who is in Canada, known as a Home Study Report, such assessment to be filed no later than by 4pm on 5 November 2015. This assessment shall either be completed by a local authority social worker employee or agent of the London Borough of Sutton working in co-operation with Alberta Social Services, such assessment to be agreed in advance with the Alberta social services and Canadian Central authority. In the event that such agreement is not forthcoming by 4pm on 10 August 2015, the London Borough of Sutton shall instruct CFAB Child and Families Across Borders to complete the Home Study Report.

1. The local authority shall by 4pm on 3 August 2015 complete the CFAB referral form.

1. The local authority shall by 4pm on 3 August 2015 contact Anne Scully or her colleague, working at the Delegated Central Authority under the Hague Convention Alberta Ministry of Human Services to enquire whether the Central Authority would agree for a local authority social worker employee or agent of the London Borough of Sutton to work in co-operation with Alberta Social Services to carry out a Home Study Report in respect of the sister in Canada, requesting a response by 4pm on 10 August.

1. The Local Authority shall file its final evidence, final threshold and final care plan for the lad by 4.00pm on 20 November 2015. The local authority final evidence shall review and discuss all of the possible options for the lad and provide a balance sheet of all the advantages and disadvantages of each potential option.

1. The local authority shall by 4.00pm on 20 November 2015 file and serve a statement setting out the efforts made to trace the father prior to the final hearing listed below.

1. The Mother shall file and serve a position statement by 11am on 25 November 2015

Zimbabwe is expected to lower workers’ retirement age so that it becomes congruent to the life expectancy of its citizens which now falls far below the age 65.
A Parliamentary Portfolio Committee has recommended that the National Social Security Authority reduces the retirement age to be in line with the depressed life expectancy in Zimbabwe.
In its first report on the operations of NSSA, the Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare said the majority of Zimbabweans were dying before reaching retirement age, thereby depriving them of enjoying their benefits.
Zanu-PF MP for Gutu East, Berita Chikwama, chairs the committee that also implored NSSA to raise monthly pension payouts to at least $150 from $60.
Although 65 years is the normal retirement age, 60 years is considered the normal retirement age in terms of the National Pension Scheme while those in arduous employment like mining, agriculture and heavy truck driving can have an early retirement at 55 years.
“We hope that the ministry would seriously consider our recommendations regarding downward review of the retirement age considering the low life expectancy of Zimbabweans which, according to research, is currently estimated to be 54 years for males and, 52, 7 for females,” said Chikwama last week.
“This ultimately means most workers die before 55 years and never get to enjoy their retirement benefits.” Chikwama also urged Government to seriously consider raising monthly pension payouts.
“Increment of the monthly pension payouts would be a most welcome development for pensioners and beneficiaries as the paltry $60 hardly caters for the basic needs of families in the current economic environment,” she said.
The committee said the assurance by Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira that the NSSA Investment Policy was under review brought hope that it would end NSSA’s failed investments. Chikwama said the undertaking by Minister Mupfumira that the NSSA board would deliberate on the need to build referral hospitals country-wide was a welcome move for workers.
The committee said there was need for further decentralisation of NSSA services despite being represented in all the provinces and sub-offices in some districts.
“However, the majority of pensioners and survivors are still referred to the NSSA head office in Harare where they are tossed from one office to the other. In short, I am saying NSSA offices should be established in all the districts of the country closer to most of its beneficiaries as on retirement, most people move from towns to reside in rural areas. NSSA should improve the quality of its services to clients,” said Chikwama.

Outgoing US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Bruce Wharton has finished his tour of duty and will now be leaving Zimbabwe after being replaced.
Wharton says his country is on a drive to forge new diplomatic ties with nations once deemed as hostile.
Wharton, who paid a courtesy call on Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa offices today, said US recently mended relations with Iran and Cuba and is willing to forge stronger ties with Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s relations with the US have been frosty for the past 15 years.
Ambassador Wharton, who replaced Ambassador Charles Ray, is however upbeat the relations between his country and Zimbabwe are on the mend and can be better.
On the issue of Cecil the lion, which was allegedly killed by an American citizen Walter Palmer, Ambassador Wharton said the American government is waiting for a formal request through official channels from the Zimbabwean government so that the two governments can come up with a common position.
The US government has since appointed Ambassador Harry Kay Thomas to replace Ambassador Wharton, who is expected to complete his tour of duty next month.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Country Representative, Mr Reza Hussein also paid a courtesy call on Mnangagwa.
UNICEF is funding a number of projects in various sectors including education and maternal health.
Mr Reza commended strides made by the country in reducing the maternal mortality rate and improving access to primary education despite the prevailing harsh economic conditions.
Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan, Hamdan Ebeidalla who began his tour of duty in the country in 2013 also met the Vice President.
Zimbabwe has expertise in sectors such as mining that the republic of Sudan can exploit.

Twenty people this afternoon escaped death by a whisker after a commuter omnibus they were travelling on from Matopos, veered off the road trying to avoid a head on collision with a taxi, along the Matopos highway.

The accident comes within 48 hours of another kombi crash which killed four people along Bulawayo road in Harare.
In typical Hollywood style, the BUPTA commuter omnibus flew from the main road and landed at a nearby concrete wall, injuring all 18 passengers on board. The other two passengers who were travelling in a taxi sustained injuries, and were all taken to United Bulawayo Hospital for treatment.
ZimEye.com tried to get a comment from the police officers who were at the scene, but they refused referring all questions to the press and liaison office.
According to eye witnesses, the BUPTA Association commuter bus was racing with the unregistered pirate taxis, as is their cat and mouse business of fighting for customers, and lost control of the passenger vehicle injuring all passengers on board.
The commuter bus collided with the taxi in a bid to avoid head on collision before landing at a close concrete wall along the highway.

Villagers in the rural Gwanda villages are in a panic mode as the country’s statistics officials go through the villages conducting a national health survey which involves involuntary testing for HIV and amnesia.
The National Health Demographic Survey is being conducted nationwide by ZIMSTATS on behalf of the Ministry of Health. The exercise meant to last six months, involves random sampling of people to check on the prevalence of HIV and anaemia in the country.
The exercise includes involuntary testing of the respondents’ blood and where anaemia is detected the respondent is given treatment immediately, however HIV test results are not immediately disclosed to the person involved but retained for statistics. ZIMSTATS officials have been trained by the Ministry of Health to administer the tests and treatment.
However, Gwanda villagers who claim not to have been fully informed of the exercise are resisting the exercise and physically running away from ZIMSTATS officials carrying out the programme. Information gathered from the villagers indicates that the villagers are against the exercise as misinformation about the whole programme is being spread around.
Weird claims are amass within the communities such as that the exercise is being run to pick out HIV positive people in order to quarantine them out of the communities. Some are also being made to believe that the officials are in fact deliberately injecting them with the HIV Virus in order to reduce the population which government is failing to feed.
Samuel Ndlovu a headman in one village south of Gwanda told Zimeye correspondent that his village is in a serious panic mode as people are not sure what the exercise entails and resultantly wrong information about the exercise is being spread within the communities.
“This exercise was not fully communicated to the people, we only saw people making their way into the villages demanding to test people’s blood and not quite explained what they are being tested for,” he said.
“Normally when a government programme of this nature is to be done we get notices from councillors and other heads including radio announcements but this one was not explained we just saw people coming with posters and beginning to do the tests and that is not fair to us as villagers,” said one Thabang Setoboli from the same village.
The NHDS exercise is expected to be carried out countrywide in both rural and urban settlements. A quick check on the publicity of the exercise revealed that even the urban residents were not fully informed of the exercise and are resisting the programme. A ZIMSTATS official carrying out the exercise in Gwanda town confirmed that there is a general heavy resistance to the exercise which she attributed to low publicity and the stigma still associated to HIV/AIDS.
“There is indeed strong resistance to the exercise particularly in the urban areas and most likely this is due to lack of publicity on the exercise. We hope that sensitisation of the programme will be intensified as we progress and people will begin cooperating with us,” she said.
“There are numerous incidents where we are dismissed sometimes even violently by the people who claim that the exercise is not a priority to them at this juncture,” she added.
An official statement from both the Central Statistics Office, ZIMSTATS and the Ministry of Health is still being sourced as both offices in Gwanda and Bulawayo asked for written submissions on the matter.

A rapist who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for raping a girl, 5, stunned a packed court yesterday when he said that his manhood was as big as that of a donkey.
Therefore, he said, if he had indeed raped the girl considering his massive manhood, she was going to suffer ruptured private parts.
Frank Phiri, who was employed as a herdsman by a Bulilima family, told regional magistrate Abedneco Ndebele, that the sheer size of his male organ was reason enough to prove he did not rape the girl.
“When this girl came and testified against me, she was walking properly with no evidence that she had been raped. She wasn’t even limping. I’ve a huge pe**s, and if I had raped her, she wasn’t going to walk properly,” said Phiri.
“I didn’t rape the girl and I think all witnesses in this court were bribed to convict and send me to jail.” In mitigation, Phiri said he was a father of three children whose ages he did not know as he last saw them 10 years ago.
“I’ve five goats and no money on my person,” said Phiri. Ndebele, however, said it was clear that Phiri had raped the girl.
“The five year old girl was brave enough to testify against you in court and her testimony was straight to the point. You are found guilty as charged and therefore sentenced to 20 years imprisonment of which two years are suspended on condition of good behaviour,” said Ndebele.
During trial, Phiri presented four defence outlines claiming that he was being framed by the girl’s mother.
“This woman got angry when I refused to give her US dollars in exchange of Rands. She was irked by my actions and made a fake rape report,” said Phiri in his first defence.
“When the girl was taken to the hospital for medical examination, her mother gave the nurse-in-charge $50 as bribe so she could fabricate a medical report that proves the girl was raped.”
Phiri later claimed he was assaulted by police officers who made him admit to raping the girl.
“There’s something I’ve been keeping to myself which proves I didn’t rape her because I didn’t want to embarrass a lot of people. I also saw a group of children who took a plastic paper and rolled it up before inserting it into the girl’s privates. I witnessed them doing that,” he said leaving the court in stitches at the end of the defence case.
Prosecuting, Concilia Ncube said the girl’s mother left her daughter under Phiri’s supervision on April 22 around 7AM.
“The complainant’s mother left her daughter at her neighbour’s homestead under the care of Phiri who works as a herdsman as she went to fetch water from a nearby borehole. In her absence, Phiri summoned the child into his bedroom hut where he raped her once and ordered her to remain quiet over the incident,” said Phiri.
She said upon her return, the juvenile’s mother found her daughter crying and learnt that she had been raped by their neighbour’s herdsman.
Ncube said the woman reported the matter to the police resulting in Phiri’s immediate arrest.Chronicle

The MDC Renewal, the Tendai Biti led splinter political party that left Tsvangirai last year  after disagreements on several sections of their constitution, and administration of the main opposition, is set to change its name to become the People’s Democratic Party if the party’s national convention would approve it by the end of August, this year, it has emerged.
According to the senior member of the struggling upcoming political party Butholezwe Nyathi, who made the revelations today, the logistics have already been finalised.
“Yes…we are changing our name from MDC Renewal Team to this, if approved by our National Convention before the end of this month,” he said.
“The alternative is here. It is the New Way out of the government and leadership crisis that Zanu-pf put us in. We will also avail our economic policy called hope. Good morning Zimbabweans and others”, he announced.
The political formation’s strength was damaged early this year after its co-president Sekai Holland resigned and ditched their marriage with the Welshman led MDC, whose coalition was officially held at Stanely square in Bulawayo.

The State Media writes claiming former Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Minister Didymus Mutasa is in an attempt to grab two schools for his enrichment.
Didymus Mutasa is embroiled in a nasty fight to control two community schools in Nyanga so that he can pocket at least $150 000 annually in school fees and has since directed school officials to pay rentals to him.
Mr Mutasa, who is reported to have hit hard times, recently wrote to the school officials informing them that Nyafaru Primary and Nyafaru Secondary schools in Kairezi Range, under Chief Tangwena on the border with Mozambique, belong to him.
The schools are a cash cow considering that they have a combined enrolment of 776 pupils.
Of these pupils, 511 are at Nyafaru Secondary, which offers boarding facilities at $360 a term, while day scholars pay $60.
The primary school has an enrolment of 265 pupils and each child pays $20 a term.
The fees translate to close to $50 000 a term in fees and $150 000 a year.
Documents in possession of The Herald show that the schools belonged to Nyanga Rural District Council after Nyafaru Development Company (Pvt) Ltd, a company linked to Mr Mutasa, donated them to the community.
In a letter to the Manicaland Provincial Education director dated December 10, 2004, the company, through its managing director Mr Pearson Kasu, relinquished the schools to Nyanga Rural District Council following pressure from the Tangwena community.
“This letter replaces our letter of 23 October 2004,’’ wrote Mr Kasu. ‘’It is also a response to your letter of 5 October 2004 in which you requested through Nyanga Rural District Council that the company should write a letter of accepting to relinquish its authority over the two schools to Nyanga Rural District Council.
‘’We, therefore, respond as follows – the company resolved that it relinquishes its authority over the two schools to Nyanga Rural District Council. The company recommends that the books of the two schools be audited to facilitate the smooth handover and takeover and the company’s accountant and manager will assist the audit.”
Mr Mutasa is the chairman of Nyafaru Development Company whose directorship includes his wife Mrs Getrude Mutasa, Mr John Deary and Mr Pearson Kasu.
Nine years after the firm’s letter of relinguishing the schools, Mr Mutasa, through his lawyers, wrote to the Manicaland provincial education director reclaiming them.
Reads his letter dated February 2013: “We represent Nyafaru Development Company (Pvt) Ltd, the responsible authority for the above captioned schools (Nyafaru Primary and Secondary).
Please be advised that we have since reconsidered our position of relinquishing authority over the schools to Nyanga Rural District Council. We intend to remain as the responsible authority, thus withdraw our offer of 2004 which negotiations did not materialise. May you be guided accordingly.”
Lawyers that represented the Tangwena community in the matter at the time wrote to the provincial education director for Manicaland contesting the decision by Mr Mutasa and Nyafaru Development Company to re-take the schools that are situated on several hectares of fertile land.
“Our response on behalf of our clients is simple and crystal clear and is to the effect that the contents of the letter that was written to you are not true and are meant to mislead you,’’ said the lawyers.
“Nyafaru Development Company, which is defunct and was defunct even in 2004, relinquished control and authority over the two schools and it is indeed a closed chapter which was and is fruitful. We advise you that the said company cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time. What was done was properly done and concluded and it cannot be reopened at this juncture.”
Using Nyafaru Development Company as cover, Mr Mutasa wrote to Nyafaru Primary and Secondary schools demanding payment of close to $200 000 in what he termed rental arrears.
Reads his letter dated March 24, 2015: “We act for Nyafaru Development Company (Pvt) Ltd and are advised as follows: Our client is the owner and responsible authority of Nyafaru Secondary School, charged with the establishment, maintenance and administration of the school and owns land and buildings on which the school is situated.
We have been instructed by our client to demand payment by the school to the company of rentals in the sum of $2 000 a month, backdated to the 1st of January 2009, as well as legal costs for recovery of the rentals.”
The lawyers said Nyafaru Development Company was justified to seek rentals as it was the lawful owners of the land and the schools.
“In this light, we hereby demand: the total of US$150 000.00 which is rentals from the 1st of January 2009 to March 2015, they said.
Holding over damages of US$2000 per month calculated from the 1st of April 2015 up to the date the school begins to be run with accountability to the company. Legal costs US$93.00.”
Another letter was written to Nyafaru Primary School demanding payment of over $15 000 in rentals.
The documents in The Herald’s possession show that Mr Mutasa interferred with the running of the school using his political muscle before he was kicked out of Zanu-PF and Government.
At one point, he wrote to then Education and Culture Minister Aeneas Chigwedere seeking the dismissal of Nyafaru Secondary School headmaster Mr Bernard Maoko not only from the school, but employment as well.
In a letter bearing a Zanu-PF letterhead, Mr Mutasa wrote: “I refer to our previous correspondence and discussion about the removal of Mr Bernard Mawoko from the headmastership of Nyafaru Secondary School.
We now appeal to you as the ultimate authority in the Ministry of Education and Culture to remove him from Nyafaru Farm and preferably from being a civil servant in your ministry.”
Added Mr Mutasa: “We have had problems running our farm and school on his account. He has taken me to court and disputes my authority on the school. Generally speaking, he is not one of us. He employs MDC lawyers and tactics to disrupt the smooth running of the school, which I have, personally, helped to establish and run since 1960.”
The Tangwena community has vowed to fight Mr Mutasa to the end. Mr Mutasa was not immediately available for comment. A woman who answered his mobile phone said he was not available.

President Robert Mugabe has revealed that he did not marry Grace out of love but just for baby making.
Zimbabwe’s Head of State confessed the deepest secret to the shock of  Zimbabweans saying there was no attraction or bond whatsoever between him and Grace.
He said he acted due to pressure from his mother. “The doctors said your wife cannot bear children anymore because of the kidney ailment . . . So too my mother, she would say, “My child, you will grow old without a child.’ Aah! And she was telling others and my uncles – ‘Ko iye Robert kana akangowana zvake musikana waanotora, kuti ndingowana mwana wandinobata ndisati ndafa?”
“So, there was that impulsion too on the side of my mother. So after the death of Sally, I decided to marry. I just made up my mind. I married this girl. It was a definite choice. It was not something just out of fancy or emotion, but a definite decision that I must marry and the girl I must marry is this.”
Mugabe added saying that there was nothing at all, and not even natural instinct that bonded him with Grace shortly before they mated. He said, “as I say, she was very young, and I wondered whether me, so many years older than she, would be able to put up with this young girl. I think she must have had the same problem in her own mind. As young as she was, would she be able to put up with this man in his seventies. But we got married and got to learn each other’s likes and dislikes,” said Mugabe.
He also added that he usually quoted Shakespeare when writing Grace’s birthday card. “The day before yesterday, the 23rd of July, which was the actual birthday of Amai Mugabe, in the morning, I rose and went and got the two boys, Tino and Bellarmine, and then we went and sang, ‘happy birthday to you’ to the mother,” he said.
“But I did not give my wife a card. I had written it the usual way to say – I reiterate what I have said before – that I love you and love you so much; that I will still continue to love you.
“I said to her, I had earlier on quoted Shakespeare on the card but on second thoughts I refrained from doing so. She said why, and I said, well, I was going to quote what Shakespeare said in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’.
“There was this lady called Cleopatra, very beautiful and from Africa, and the Roman commanders, you know Egypt and that part of North Africa was occupied by Romans, all admired her. Even Julius Caesar did, and after him, a guy called Antony.
“And he (Antony) says about Cleopatra – and this is what I thought I should also say to my wife: ‘Age does not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’. She gives her most, she takes. If you look at my wife, you’ll think she is 30, 35.
“That’s why I thought I wanted to say age does not wither her nor is she spoilt by those customs which tend to make some of our wives in the eyes of their husbands primitive.
“So, age does not wither her nor custom stale her variety. There she is. I got married to her and the age between her and me, the difference doesn’t change. I wish she would grow and grow in age faster than myself.
“She was very young – just about 20-plus. And at that time my mother Bona had gone in years. I had married earlier a Ghanaian lady and she had died of kidney ailment. We had one child who died when I was in prison, Nhamodzenyika. He was about three-and-a-half-years-old. I went to see where he was buried.

Beleaguered Jukwa inventor and mastermind Edmund Kudzayi, has been kicked out of his Sunday Mail editor-ship job role.
Kudzayi who was arrested on allegations of setting up the controversial Baba Jukwa Facebook page and later acquitted, is now on the street after the State insisted it is still pursuing extra-territorial investigations and are prowling to proceed by way of summons after Kudzayi admitted creating the Amai Jukwa facebook page but denied having anything to do with Baba Jukwa.
 
Higher Education Minister Jonathan Moyo who headed the Information Ministry is the one who appointed Kudzayi.
Zimpapers Group Chief Executive Mr Pikirayi Deketeke on Monday announced in a statement four senior appointments to fill vacant positions at the head office and the newspaper and radio divisions.
Mr Farai Matanhire is the new Group Chief Finance Officer replacing Mr Adolf Majome, who left the group last year.
Mr Matanhire previously worked as finance director at Lafarge Cement Ltd and also held senior finance positions at several other companies.
Mabasa Sasa, who has been acting editor of The Sunday Mail since June 2014, has been appointed as the substantive editor of the publication.
He previously served as Editor of the Southern Times based in Namibia from April 2011 to November 2013 when he became Deputy Editor of The Herald.
Comfort Mbofana has been appointed general manager of Zimpapers’ radio station, Star FM.
He previously served as deputy general manager and programmes manager of the same radio station.
Joram Nyathi replaces Sasa as Deputy Editor of The Herald after serving as Senior Assistant Editor and Group Political Editor since December 2013 until his latest appointment.
The appointments are with effect from August 1, 2015.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s party is fighting tooth and nail LOCAL Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, after the latter fired two Gweru councillors.
Kasukuwere said he expelled  them for allegedly misusing council property and engaging in corruption.
The fired councillors are Albert Chirau of Ward 11 and Moses Marecha of Ward 5, both of the MDC-T who were on suspension.
The duo received their expulsion letters yesterday while a third councillor, Kenneth Sithole of Ward 4 received a final written warning.
Chirau and Marecha confirmed receiving the letters of dismissal from Kasukuwere but refused to comment directing The State Media to their party spokesperson, Obert Gutu. Sithole, who was also on suspension for allegedly assaulting a council employee, was found not guilty by the courts but issued with a final warning by Kasukuwere.
Gutu said, “Yes I confirm that two of our councillors in Gweru received expulsion letters from the Ministry of Local Government. The move is null and void as we understand that the Minister violated Section 278 (2) of the Constitution which calls for the establishment of an independent tribunal to exercise the function of removing from office, mayors, chairperson and councillors. So we’re going to take the legal course for the matter to be addressed.”
Kasukuwere used Section 114 (1) Chapter 9:15 of the Urban Councils Act to fire the councillors. It states that the Local Government Minister can suspend and dismiss a councillor after an independent committee thoroughly inquired into the councillor’s misconduct prior to dismissal.
Prior to their dismissal, Chirau and Marecha had been first suspended and ordered to stop conducting council duties in their respective wards until the outcome of the investigations conducted by the Ministry.
“Following allegations of abuse of office and council property levelled against you, I with immediate effect suspend you from being a councillor for Ward 5 according to Section 114 (1) Chapter 9:15 of the Urban Councils Act. I will send a team to investigate you as soon as possible and you will be advised accordingly,” reads a letter signed by the then Minister of Local Government, Ignatius Chombo and addressed to Marecha.
The suspension letter dated May 21 was also copied to city Mayor, Clr Hamutendi Kombayi and the Town Clerk, Daniel Matawu.
Gweru City Council’s Workers Committee, which is notoriously known as “Boko Haram”, had for the past year been calling for the expulsion of Chirau and Marecha. They previously held demonstrations against the councillors at the Town House.
Workers’ committee spokesperson, Cornelius Selipiwe said workers were overjoyed with the decision by the government to fire “the corrupt councillors”.
He said Chirau and Marecha did not deserve to be in the council.
Selipiwe said: “It was good that the government sent in an investigation team to look into the allegations of corruption and misuse of council property against the two councillors. As workers’ committee we’re there to raise alarm and that’s what we did in this case. We expect more heads to roll after the audit report is released because we feel there is a lot of rot in this municipality. It’s our hope to bring back progress into the City of Progress.”
Chirau was accused of renting out a council club house in his ward and pocketing the rentals while Marecha was accused of selling pit sand and gravel in Senga Suburb to a public contractor and pocketing the money.
On the other hand, Clr Sithole once appeared before a Gweru magistrate court charged with assaulting a council driver Simbarashe Lebo following a dispute over the late payment of salaries by the local authority. Clr Sithole was found not guilty.

Following the court ruling that employers can now fire workers as they wish, ZCTU has set the 8th of August to take to the streets of the main towns of Zimbabwe to make their voice heard.
The following is a statement released by Japhet Moyo, the Secretary General.
 
PRESS RELEASE
 
RE: ZCTU National Demonstrations Against Job Losses
This Press Release is to inform the workers and the general public that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)’s highest decision-making body in between the Congress, the General Council, met on 1 August 2015 and resolved that workers in Zimbabwe embark on a national protest against the continuing job losses and the threat to the existence of trade union.
The demonstrations will be held on Saturday 8 August 2015.
This follows the Supreme Court ruling that authorized employers to terminate employment contracts on notice and without giving any reason.
The national demonstrations will be held in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Chinhoyi and Mutare. The police will be informed on these activities.
We urge all workers, sympathizers and those who have lost their jobs to join hands to denounce what is currently happening and to call upon the government to immediately stop the abuse of workers.
Japhet Moyo
Secretary-General

After several years of suffering in silence, Nkayi community who are relatives of Zimbabwe’s Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko have resolved to take him head on.
The kinsmen who opened up to ZimEye.com on Monday, said that they have since alerted the two Chiefs, Dakamela and Sikobokobo on their intention to deliver their outburst to the vice president, who they say is responsible for their predicament.
“We have since written a petition to blood relative Phelekezela, who is showing no interest in our lives. He has been traveling to this area in a chopper, while we are involved in fatal accidents due to the road which has become a death trap.
“How can he neglect us when he was born and bred here in Nkayi. Mabhena was fired from the government because he challenged the state on the road condition, and now Mphoko wants to do the same,” complained Zwelibanzi Mkwananzi.
Another relative who identified herself as Idah Mphoko of Dakamela village told ZimEye.com that their brother, Mphoko is doing little to deliver them from poverty and under development that is stalking the Bubi district.
“We were expecting swift development from Phelekezela, who is well versed with problems facing his district of birth and yet he ignores,” said Idah.
Another villager Saliwe Nkomo, of Nkayi, who told ZimEye.com that Phelekezela was his cousin, said that Mphoko must take advantage of his position to deliver his relatives from the bondage of poverty.
“We celebrated after his appointment last year, but we celebrate for a negligent relative. Mzenda developed his home area of Gutu, and constructed roads to his homeland for his relatives, while our cousin Phelekezela is doing the opposite,” she said bitterly.
Asked to comment on the situation, Chief Sikobokobo downplayed the plight of the community, and blamed it on DDF, who he said was delaying the roads services.
“This is all DDF’s problem, because they are not doing their job. I will meet the management of the local government to discuss the road issue and map the way forward,” he said.
Chief Dakamela, opted to play the ball close to her chest and said, “I think it’s in the government’s plan to deliver Nkayi from all their predicaments, so let’s be patient for a while and see what happens.

After the much celebrated large folder of deals signed by Robert Mugabe earlier this year, and another penned by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe is this Friday signing another batch of eight project deals, as the country gets sold off.
Already the diamonds at Chiadzwa have been sold off to China for a whole 20 years since 2013 after ZANU PF sold the mine fields away in exchange for a small building complex now called, the Zimbabwe Defense College.
The Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda revealed this development at a reception held for so called “Chinese experts” in Harare last night.
The said team of experts from the National Development and Reform Commission of China, were found to be really members of China’s Communist party.
The State Media claimed that this is a follow up to the various memoranda of understanding signed between Zimbabwe and Chinese companies when Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa visited the Asian country last month.
About eight projects from key sectors such as roads and railways, energy and power, tourism, mining, manufacturing among others, will be put into effect.
Sibanda said eight deals to be signed are set to be completed at the shortest possible time.
“Cooperation on national economic planning, transportation infrastructure has been given high priority, according the Chinese team leader, Mr. Dong Shongshen,” he said.
China and Zimbabwe have sound political relations and the two countries are working towards boosting their economic cooperation.

ZIMBABWE’s POLICE Commissioner-General Augustice Chihuri has opened an embarrassing can of worms by boasting that he personally worked to stop the MDC from constitutionally rising to power.
Augustine Chihuri has all, but confirmed that State security agents played a critical role in stopping the opposition MDCs from dislodging the ruling Zanu PF party from power and brutally thwarted opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s’ “regime change agenda” since 1999.
Speaking at his graduation ceremony at the Mt Carmel Institute of Business Intelligence in Harare where he was conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree on Saturday, Chihuri said the details of police’s brutal purge on opposition activists formed part of his thesis titled Policing in Zimbabwe, Pre-Colonial, Colonial and Post-Independent Zimbabwe.
He accused the main opposition MDC-T of trying to use violence to unseat Zanu PF, but said police managed to keep it “at its minimum.”
“The Western-funded opposition parties wanted to cause chaos in the country and this needed a ZRP (Zimbabwe Republic Police) that was firm and the force kept violence at its minimum,” Chihuri said.
He said his thesis had 40 chapters focusing on the role of the police in the pre- and post-independence era including his era at the helm of the ZRP.
“There was an illegal regime change agenda and policing under the inclusive government was neither easy,” Chihuri said without elaborating.
Chihuri blasted the “illegal sanctions by the European Union and United States after government undertook the land reform programme”, saying this compromised the operations of the force.
Opposition parties and civic society groups have often accused police of being partisan and biased towards Zanu PF.
Chihuri was one of the three graduands who were conferred with a PhD. The other two are Timothy Chivinge and Samuel Makore.
Forty-five other students graduated with diplomas in Business Intelligence among them Assistant Commissioners Garikai Masocha, Panganayi Sande, Matembo Nyirenda and Elliot Muswita.
Senior Assistant Commissioner Abigail Moyo and several members of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Air Force of Zimbabwe and others from the corporate world also graduated at the same ceremony.
Rector of the institute Professor Mufaro Gunduza said the country needed business intelligence for the economy to tick. – Newsday

A Central Intelligence Officer together with a policeman plotting to arrest and throw MDC-T Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora into prison for allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe, was humiliated by the lawyer, it has emerged.
In his address attended by ZimEye.com in the United Kingdom’s academic cradle, Oxford, Mwonzora said he dealt smartly with the State security agents who were plotting to incarcerate him.
The incident was triggered by Robert Mugabe’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth, Mwonzora said.
“Zimbabwe pulled out of the commonwealth around 2000 and I was interviewed on television by a foreign journalist. And the question was
“Mr Mwonzora Zimbabwe has just pulled out of the commonwealth. What is your comment?”
“And my comment was “the decision to pull out of the commonwealth was an act of foolish bravery.
“Unfortunately the CIO got hold of the tape. And I was arrested and I was brought to court,” said Mwonzora.
He continued, “So they brought a very senior police officer to be the main witness against me. And of course I had conducted my own research.
“So I said to the officer. You are saying that I said something offensive. What was the offensive word…or the words I said?,” said Mwonzora.
He added: ” …and he said it was the word “foolish.”
“And then I said: ‘what is the spelling of foolish’?”
And he said: “foolish.”
The I said, “what of ‘fullish?….it is almost full – fullish,”‘ ‘revealed’ Mwonzora before the crowd broke into applause and laughter.
Mwonzora was acquitted shortly after the CIO and cop lost the case.

First Lady Grace Mugabe triggered infighting has led to unprecedented chaos at Mashonaland Central’s  at Kitsiyatota mine resulting in the near-assassination of provincial strongman Martin Dinha.
A ZANU PF Provincial Coordinating Committee was yesterday called to look into the issue.
The Zimbabwe Informal Sector Organisation, ZISO, has revealed that this follows fierce internal fighting within ZANU PF for the control of both the lucrative minefields and the province at large. The warring factions are led by Bindura North legislator Kenneth Musanhi and Gift Kanosvamhira on the one hand while the other group is led by Martin Dinha and Jonah Ngwenya.
ZISO said it is disturbed by the politicization of the mining operations in the area.
“The infighting is so severe that Martin Dinha was almost assassinated by unknown assailants,” the organisation said.
The Kitsiyatota mine was recently handed to ZANU PF youths who were given exclusive rights, albeit verbally, by Grace Mugabe.
Youths led by Gift Kanosvimhira working reportedly under an outfit known as the Presidential Youth Initiative and another other group led by Ruwizhi Fernando, Jonah Ngwenya and Batsirai Musona are fighting each other over the control of the gold-rich Kitsiyatota minefields.
On the 28th of July 2015, Kanosvimhira was summoned by the officer commanding Bindura at the Provincial Police Headquarters where he was told by the Dispol that he would be forced to seize operations if he continued to allow MDC-T aligned activities to carry out mining operations, ZISO announced.
The meeting was also attended by prominent ZANU PF activists in Bindura such as Jonah Ngwenya, Ruwizhi Fernando, Batsirai Musona and a woman`s league member only identified as Mai Mbereko.
 

A man who killed his girlfriend after finding her in bed with another man, is suing government for the life sentence handed him in 1995.
The man slapped with life imprisonment over 20 years ago has approached the Constitutional Court contesting the punishment on the grounds that it is torture, inhuman and degrading treatment which violates the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Obedia Makoni was given a life sentence in April 1995 for murdering his girlfriend after finding her being intimate with another man.
Through his lawyer, Mr Tendai Biti, Makoni is now seeking an order declaring the life sentence without judicial review or parole unconstitutional.
He wants the court to nullify sections 112 and 115 of the Prisons Act (Chapter 7:11), which he argues contravene sections 51 and 53 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Section 51 provides that every person is entitled to inherent dignity in their private and public lives and the right to have that dignity respected and protected, while Section 53 provides for freedom from torture, cruel and inhuman treatment.
The two sections under the Prisons Act, Makoni argues, are unconstitutional because they deny the right of parole to prisoners and were no longer justified in an open democratic society as envisaged by the Constitution.
“I do not question the right of State to impose life sentence in respect of serious offences,” said Makoni. “It is my respectful contention that imposition of a life sentence that literally means life that is not subject to judicial review or parole amounts to physical, psychological torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It is therefore unconstitutional.”
Makoni argues that Zimbabwe is a member of the international community and was bound by several conventions and instruments that deal with rights of prisoners.
“It should be bound by a growing amount of jurisprudence on the rights of prisoners,” said Makoni.
“It is my contention that life imprisonment cannot literally mean life. The denial of parole rights to prisoners serving life imprisonment is unconstitutional.”
In the application, Makoni contends that he had been a good and exemplary prisoner who had served 20 years. “I have paid my dues to the society and contend that subjecting me to a further day in prison amounts to cruel and degrading punishment.”
Makoni further argues that life imprisonment robs a prisoner of hope.
“My dignity, my expectations have been crushed,” he said. “And to think that only death will set me free from the walls of Chikurubi is surely unacceptable.”
Makoni has now been granted the position of a senior “prison officer”.
He now performs various duties like the summoning of prisoners with visitors, supervising the preparation of prison meals, hygiene, among others.
His prison garb has the highest rank which can be granted to any prisoner on good behaviour.
Makoni claims in his papers that he is free to roam around Chikurubi without supervision and prison officials have confidence in him.
“Yet despite this good behaviour, I have absolutely no hope of being granted any amnesty or release,” he argues.
The Commissioner of Prisons and Correctional Service, Retired Major General Paradzayi Zimondi and Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa are cited as respondents in the constitutional application.
They are yet to file their responses to the application, which was filed in the Constitutional Court recently.

A group of armed bandits slipped pass police officers at a road block to pull off a daring heist at two nearby petrol stations early Friday morning.
Chinhoyi’s businesses have been hit at least seven times this year, but the heist on Friday was committed with relative ease by the robbers.
The armed robbers who were eight (8) in number, pounced on two service stations and stole money and goods worth nearly $30 000.
The whole raid occurred on Friday at around 1:45am.
They were driving a Toyota Harrier and were armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and a pistol when they pounced on a guard manning the PetroTrade Service Station.
One of them struck the guard once with a metal bar before tying his hands with tape and also taped his mouth to prevent him from making noise. They broke into the service station’s convenience store and gained entry into the manager’s office. The robbers stole a computer, a Chubb safe containing $1 280 and PetroTrade fuel coupons and motor oil stock all valued at $28 600 before hot wiring a Nissan Vannette truck parked outside.
They loaded the loot and left in the two vehicles. After the robbery, six of the robbers allegedly proceeded to Trek Petroleum Service station in the same town in the stolen Nissan Vannette truck.
They drove to the pump and asked the attendant to fill their truck with 20 litres of petrol.
As the attendant was about to start refuelling, one of the robbers jumped out of the truck and grabbed him from the back demanding all the money he had.
Others joined in and they searched him and took away $505 from his pockets while two others went to the office and ordered the attendant to surrender all the cash.
They took away $354 from his pockets, but panicked after seeing another truck coming to refuel.
They fired a shot in the air and drove off at high speed. Police investigations are in progress.(State Media/Additional Reporting)

Expelled former Vice President Joyce Mujuru has been officially appointed President of ZANU PF(People First), former Mugabe-strongman Didymus Mutasa has said.
Mutasa made these revelations to Daily News Chief Writer Fungi Kwaramba who interviewed the Former State Security minister about his health, family and regrets at 80 years. Attempts to obtain a comment from Mujuru herself failed as she declined commenting despite receiving the message.
Below are the excerpts of Mutasa’s interview.
Q: Cde Mutasa congratulations on your 80th birthday, isn’t it now time for you to retire from politics?
A: Thank you very much. No I don’t think I should retire from anything, I should actually take more responsibilities now more than ever before.
I feel much wiser and quite interestingly concerned about our people’s welfare and any other issues that the country should be concerned about.
I feel for instance that we should be thinking about how our suffering people are going to get to next year when things are this bad.
Q: I see you are spotting a beard these days, why?
A: I am going back to my youth days except that it is whiter while at that time it was nice and black. But I feel this white beard is not bad.
Q: Do you have siblings?
A: No they all passed away and I am left alone, I look after a lot of people including my sisters’ children.
Q: How many children do you have?
A: (muses) I have married quite a number of times and I have quite a number of children. My first wife gave me three children and I think those are the best known. Then I married my present wife Gertrude, we have two children together. I also have Sabina with whom I have one child and Sarudzai with whom I have three boys including the last one who is four years old.
Q: Do you think things should have been done differently after Independence?
A: I am looking back at our constitution. I liked the constitution we had at independence when we had a titular president and a prime minister.
Looking at the present chaos, with our two houses we should have made the Upper House the house of chiefs and let them use that house to discuss issues of concern to the country and they would choose one of their own as President of the country. We missed out on that.
Q: What is your favourite food?
A: I have none. I have left food issues to my wives. They cook what they want and I eat whatever they cook.
Q: What about music?
A: Again I have none really that I feel special about, but there was music that was played by Jim Reeves, he is my favourite musician but you don’t find that music anymore.
Q: They were rumours that you had collapsed and died, do you suffer from any ailment?
A: I am still fit as you can see. People say I have collapsed and I am dead but since I came back from India with my wife my health is good. I can run as fast as my four-year-old boy.
Q: You have friends buried at the Heroes Acre are you attending Heroes day this year?
A: Unfortunately no, I didn’t go to Independence Day celebrations because I don’t feel I have any friends within the current administration who I can mark the day with, if I want I can have my own celebrations with Mai (Joice) Mujuru, Rugare Gumbo, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and the best place will be in private. I can’t bear a day with fake people.
Q: Are you worried about not being buried at the Heroes Acre?
A: I don’t mind. I have been taken out of the heroes realm but that is not what I am after, I will be very happy to be buried at my roots in Madzangwe with my forefathers, that is my wish.
Q: Where is People First?
A: It is getting off the ground slowly and it is usually difficult when you are starting, but now it is all over the country especially in Matabeleland. So many people are behind us.
Q: Themba Mliswa, your nephew, says Mai Mujuru is scared and holding back the struggle. Is she the best candidate to lead People First?
A: There are no doubts about her, we recently met her and endorsed her as our leader, for quite a number of reasons.
All of us in People First must apologise not only to the people we have misruled but to the entire world, you don’t run a government like we did up to 2014, I mean you break your own constitution into pieces, good heavens, we can’t repeat that, Mai Mujuru would never do that.
Q: How are you surviving outside politics, do you run any business?
A: I don’t have any businesses.
Q: What about the many properties you are said to have like houses in Rusape.
A: The Rusape house they are talking about I bought with my money, they are persecuting me now through (Manicaland province minister) Mandi Chimene. When I bought it they didn’t give me the receipt or title deeds of that house.
Q: But you were the godfather of Rusape, who could dare you when you were still minister?
A: You must have heard such things from very ignorant people, you will be told that this is the only minister to whose house we would go, do they do that to a person they fear. I was never a godfather, I was a man of the people.
Q: Bhasikiti recently took a lady who was following him to the police, do you feel safe here?
A: (pointing) At that corner there, there is always a car parked purposelessly.
Those people are from CIO, wasting meagre resources chasing shadows. They should not station anyone there, I want them to come in and we will give them tea or a hot meal because we are hospitable, but they make people stay in the mountains watching me, why?
Q: So you are being watched?
A: I don’t care; they have been watching me since the sham congress.
Q: Are you not afraid?
A: Not a bit, they can do anything and the moment that happens the world would know.

Warriors gaffer Callisto Pasuwa has resigned from his post as head coach.
Pasuwa, who had indicated his intention to resign before the under 23’s game against South Africa, says he does not want to take the nation for granted and is fed up with the retrogressive attitudes shown by the Zimbabwe Football Association.
Pasuwa however said he committed himself to fulfilling Saturday’s final qualifier against South Africa as solidarity with his boys and his exit is due to the fact that he feels he is no longer needed by ZIFA.
“The players asked me to come that is why I had to come and take up the position, but I feel ZIFA does not want me because they have not been able to attend to any of their several promises they made me and my manager.
“That is why I am saying maybe it’s good for me to stop now. I have done my best with the team,” he said.
Pasuwa appears not to be the only one frustrated by ZIFA, with Zimbabweans in Pietermaritzburg also blaming the football institution for the Young Warriors’ failure to qualify after a 3-nil loss to Amagluglug.
The Young Warriors succumbed to two quick goals and were 2-nil down by the 8^th minute before Keagan Dolly made it 3-nil in the 90^th minute to see South Africa qualify for Senegal’s U23 Africa Championships finals on a 4-1 aggregate score. – State Media

A ZAKA woman in Masvingo who forever rue the day she boasted about her husband’s amazing performance in bed to her friend.
She caught her friend and her husband having sex in the garden. The love triangle was heard at Chief Ndanga’s traditional court where Ezekiel Chinjeke from Chinjeke Village was dragged to court by Jealous Mutumwa from the same village.
Mutumwa told Chief Ndanga that Ezekiel lowered his dignity in the village by sleeping with his wife Agnes Mutumwa.
Ezekiel, who was denying the accusations was, however, left with egg on the face when his wife Zadziso Mauro produced his clothes and underwear and that of Agnes which she took after she caught them red-handed having sex in her garden.
Asked by Chief Ndanga why she committed the offence, Agnes said her friend was the reason of her actions after she bragged to her about her husband’s good performance in bed.
She said her actions were also out of anger after Zadziso advised her to divorce her husband and find another man sexually gifted like her husband.
“I did it out of anger after Zadziso bragged saying her husband has a big manhood and was good in bed. She courted my anger after she said I should divorce my husband and find another man like her husband. I then secretly went to her husband and told him everything that Zadziso had told me. Her husband then asked me to accompany him to their garden where we later had sex. She caught us in the act and took our clothes and underwear,” Agnes told the court.
Agnes later demanded her clothes and underwear from Zadziso saying she was afraid that she might bewitch her as punishment for sleeping with her husband.
Passing judgment Chief Ndanga ordered Ezekiel to give Mutumwa a beast as compensation for sleeping with his wife.-SouthernEye

Eight people are feared to have died in a horrific accident which occurred along Bulawayo road near the Mr Maplanka area Monday morning.
The Sprinter (pictured) sped right under and into a Haulage truck.

There is no chance of anyone surviving from the sprinter, commented an eye witness.
An initial count put the figure of the deceased to (8) eight, but this was not verified at the time of writing.
The truck driver is said to have accelerated into the over-speeding Sprinter. More to follow…

The perpetrators of the violence on former Hurungwe West legislator Temba Mliswa’s Spring Farm were arrested on Friday and after being held at Chinhoyi Police Station, were brought before the court in Chinhoyi Saturday morning.
The three Zanu PF members who allegedly terrorised Mliswa’s farm workers at in Karoi in May, appeared at the Chinhoyi Magistrates Court on Saturday facing assault and theft charges.
Nigel Murambiwa (30), Tapiwa Masenda (27) and Chinjai Kambuzuma (32) were granted free bail and remanded to August 14 by Chinhoyi magistrate Nyaradzo Ringisai.
The prosecution says that the ruling party supporters invaded Mliswa’s farm ahead of the June 10 by-elections and repeatedly assaulted the politician’s employees with sticks, iron bars and logs accusing their boss of seeking to contest the by-election as an independent candidate.
Their acts are on video footage.
The development is set to humiliate former Local Government and National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo who appears in video footage organising attacks on Mliswa.
The suspects also allegedly stole the farm workers’ kitchen utensils and other valuable goods worth $1 000 during their stay at the farm shortly before Mliswa lost the by-election to Zanu PF candidate Keith Guza.
They are being represented by Mike Mutsvairo.

Citing corruption, abuse of office and maladministration by both council officials and councillors, the Affirmative Action Group (AAG) has filed an urgent High Court chamber application to compel Minister of Local Government, Saviour Kasukuwere and Provincial Administrator for Bulawayo Province, Konzani Dube to exercise their discretionary powers in terms of Section 114 of the Urban Councils Act (Ch 29: 15) and dissolve Bulawayo City Council.”
The Zanu PF aligned pressure group, wants Minister Kasukuwere to dissolve Bulawayo City Council and suspend its councillors pending a public enquiry. This will most likely see the tenure in office of Bulawayo’s 29 councillors, most of who were elected to office on a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) ticket, cut abruptly before the expiration of their terms.
“I speak for myself and truthfully so. I have no skeletons in my cupboard” says Bulawayo Mayor His Worship Martin Kizack Moyo.
Among other things, the AAG states that it is “gravely concerned about the apparent acts of corruption in the City Council which seems to be perpetrated by both Council executives and councillors in favour of individuals within Council.” For example, while tens of thousands have been on the housing waiting list since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Cllr. Gift Banda, who is also the Deputy Mayor, was allegedly awarded one thousand (1000) stands. While Banda could not be reached for comment, the deposition also states that “there have been numerous reports on the awarding of property located in Ascot to the same Cllr. Gift Banda.
“You can’t get land in Bulawayo without greasing Directors or councillors no matter how genuine you qualify. It is impossible,” says AAG’s Principal Officer, Silani Mtshiya.
In a related issue, “Bulawayo City Council tenders worth $8 749 914.52 have had serious irregularities due to massive corruption, nepotism, negligence and collusion by Bulawayo City Council officials,” notes the litigant’s founding affidavit.
“A tender for rehabilitation of filter beds and clarifiers to Tzircalle Brothers had been official awarded to Consolidated Engineers and Merchants (CEM), at a cost of US$4, 5 million. The previous contractor, that is, CEM was paid the money but did no work, for the same tender to be awarded to Tzircalle Brothers at costs of US$2, 5 million. The net effect of this corruption and negligence … is that in the last five years, Bulawayo water has remained brownish and not safe for consumption,” reads the affidavit.
The litigant notes that as a result of the corruption, the right to safe, clean and portable water as provided for in the national constitution is greatly compromised.” Bulawayo resident, Patricia Tshabalala, who takes care of orphaned children in Mpopoma Township, criticised the City Council saying “often times the water is dirty and I suspect at times that it is the cause for discomfort and diarrhea among the kids. We want clean water.”
In addition, the AAG petition states that “there have been gross irregularities, abuse of office and maladministration in the award of over 700 high density stands in Pumula South Phase 3, 391 Emhlangeni Stands, 303 Mahatshula North Stands,” which situation “militates against our members’ constitutional rights to shelter as provided for in Section 28 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”
The sworn statement further states that the Acting Head of Roads, a blue-eyed boy of the Director, holds a diploma from the Polytechnic and despite his 20 years of experience is not registered by the Institute of Engineers. This is notwithstanding the fact that he allegedly supervises engineers with Masters Degree qualifications and 10 years experience.
Furthermore, the affidavit states that “another contract to rehabilitate Aiselby Sewage works was awarded to Consolidated Engineers and Merchants (CEM) in 2010 FOR $800 000 and like all other contracts nothing was satisfactorily done or even done (Contract No. C24/2010). This contract is (sic) now been sneaked in to the projects portfolio five years later to re-do the works and is about to be awarded at a price of $300 000 to a company called Spectrum. Nothing has been done to recover the money paid to CEM. It seems all Council engineering contracts even in the roads suffer the same fate.”

THE Zimbabwe Electricity and Distribution Company (ZETDC) has threatened to switch off electricity for defaulting customers on the post-paid meter system starting this week accusing them of neglecting to pay their electricity bills.
The outsanding bills have reached  $1 billion, the Zesa subsidiary has said. ZETDC managing director Julian Chinembiri told NewsDay yesterday that the debt has an impact on most of the power utility’s expansion projects.
“People are defaulting on the payment plans that they made. We have automated the payment plan platform. The moment one defaults on the payment plan they will be switched off. The disconnections will begin this week,” Chinembiri said.

He said when the company introduced payment plans for its customers there was a slight improvement in payments but after a while customers started to default again. 

The power utility has close to 500 000 of its customers on prepaid meters and about 100 000 still on post-paid meter system.

“We have sent specifications for some more prepaid meters and we are waiting for the State Procurement Board so that we go to tender,” he said.

Chinembiri said the $1 billion debt owed by various customers that include commercial and domestic consumers had made it difficult for the utility to service its financial obligations and also to access fresh capital from financial institutions.

The debt has also reportedly stalled expansion projects at Kariba and Hwange Power Station, which are meant to boost power generation and reduce load shedding.

Zimbabwe produces 1 256 megawatts (MW) of electricity against a local demand of 1 950MW. -State Media

First Lady Grace Mugabe is preparing to rule on expelled Mash West chair Ziyambi Ziyambi’s future.
In what will be the first time in ZANU PF a Women’s League boss hears affairs of provincial bosses, Grace is to rule on allegations that Ziyambi is insubordinate to her.
“Ziyambi can now pray that the disciplinary committee will not descend heavily on him because the body that passed a vote of no vote is the appropriate committee. That is why you see Kasukuwere retaining Guzah and the whole committee,”a source said.
Ziyambi was booted out of the party’s provincial structures by his executive committee over allegations of dishonesty, disloyalty and failing to prepare the ground work for elections of a substantive committee.
Ziyambi’s case will be heard by Women’s League boss First Lady Grace Mugabe who publicly dressed him down in Kadoma, accusing him of treachery, insubordination, dishonesty and sabotaging programes particularly organised by the Women’s League which she leads.
Meanwhile ZANU PF national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere yesterday doused a raging fire in President Robert Mugabe’s backyard when he appointed Ephraim Pepukai as the party’s interim provincial chairman for Mashonaland West following the ouster of Ziyambi Ziyambi.
 
Mugabe’s home province has been the centre of fierce factional fights since the ouster of Ziyambi and his predecessor Temba Mliswa.
Announcing the changes during a tense provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Chinhoyi yesterday, Kasukuwere ordered Chengeta and his deputy Keith Guzah to ensure elections of a substantive chairperson were held by October this year.
Chengeta is Zanu PF central committee member and chairman of Ngezi Rural District Council.
Kasukuwere told the PCC that his deputy Omega Hungwe and Josaya Hungwe would spearhead the restructuring process in Mashonaland West starting next week.
The Zanu PF political commissar pleaded with members to bury the hatchet and work for the good of the party rather than expending their energy in petitions.
Efforts to get comment from Ziyambi were fruitless.(Newsday/Additional Reporting)

Bulawayo’s Ward 4 Councillor Silas Chigora who last year on his own used domestic shovels and brooms to rehabilitate potholes in his ward, has won an international community volunteer award, from the ZDDT and KAF NGOs.
The community leader was presented with the prestigious honour during the Councillors’ leadership strengthening workshop that was jointly held by Sebenzela-Shandira Zimbabwe Trust over the weekend, whose ideology has inspired a number of community leaders into engaging themselves in voluntary developmental activities.
Speaking to ZimEye.com soon after receiving the prize, councillor Chigora expressed appreciation for the honour and vowed to do more for his ward and beyond.
“I am very grateful for this award, which I am taking as a lifetime achievement, as this has added value to my curriculum vitae and profile. I will forever cherish the day I started doing voluntary work, as the world around me has been watching and saluted my philosophy.
Chigora also credited his honour to ZimEye.com, for their coverage on a number of his community voluntary activities, which he said earned him hundreds of positive comments from all Zimbabweans abroad.
“I received hundreds of comments from Zimbabweans abroad and I was so impressed when I realised that it was due to ZimEye.com’s coverage on my activities. Thank you ZimEye.com, you have assisted me jumping a step up in my life and I will not miss any of your daily bulletins,” he said.

A GUTU man will spend the next 64 years in jail for raping his 13-year-old daughter on numerous occasions, sometimes in his wife’s presence.
A court heard how the man, 35, of Gwama Village under Chief Mataruse, would force his biological daughter into sex.
During one incident, he waylaid his victim in her bedroom while she was taking off her school uniform and on another, he pounced on her when her mother was outside in the garden.
The man, the court heard, would on other occasions sneak back home from funeral wakes leaving his wife behind, only to be caught sweating it out on top on his daughter.
He pleaded not guilty to raping his daughter when he appeared before Masvingo senior regional magistrate Judith Zuyu last Thursday. The magistrate, however, convicted him due to overwhelming evidence.
Magistrate Zuyu said he deserved the harshest sentence the court could mete out. “Your cruelty and perversion leaves the court with no option but to give you one of the harshest sentences.You betrayed the trust that your daughter had in you by taking your own offspring for a wife. You don’t deserve to be part of this normal and God-fearing society. You must go to jail so that you can come back a reformed man with a conscience and respect,” said Zuyu.
She said by raping his daughter in full view of her mother, he exhibited socially awkward behaviour which could only be corrected by prison life.
“The court wonders what kind of sexual starvation makes you get attracted to your own daughter in the presence of your wife. Cases of this nature are on the increase and culprits shouldn’t be treated with kids’ gloves. Prison life remains the only option to whip your character into line,” Zuyu said.
Prosecuting, Mukai Mutambe said sometime in December, 2014 on an unknown date, the girl’s mother left her homestead to visit her parents in Mukaro area.
“During the night while the girl was sleeping in her bedroom hut, her father took advantage of his wife’s absence and sneaked into the girl’s blankets. He forcibly removed her panties, wore a condom before raping her once while threatening her with unspecified action if she screamed,” said Mutambe.
The court heard that he would on several occasions rape his victim and the girl would not report the matter out of fear.
“At one time, he left a funeral wake in the village to go home where upon arrival he raped the girl. His mischief came to light when he attempted to rape the girl in the presence of her mother. On another occasion and on a different day, he waylaid his victim in her room and raped her once,” she said.

In a development that is set to humiliate president Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, his cousin and businessman Mr Philip Chiyangwa, is demanding over $100 million in compensation from residents settled at the ancestral lands of Odar Farm.
The farm is popularly known as Southlea Park cannot be sold as a farm under the conditions the businessman says he has repossessed it because they are all to do with Mugabe’s land reform programme which does not dish out title deeds.
Mr Chiyangwa’s Sensene Investments flighted an advertisement in the media last weekend in which it pegged $50 per square-metre for high-density stands and $16 per square-metre for low-density stands.
Commercial and industrial stands would be charged between $100 and $250 per square-metre respectively. With more than 6 000 residents settled on 200 square-metres in high-density stands, the figure translates to $10 000 per individual and $60 million rich pickings for Mr Chiyangwa.
For a 2 000 square metre stand, an individual has to pay $32 000 at $16 per square metre.
Residents were also asked to pay $150 as registration fee. He will rake in about $40 million from those in low-density suburbs and commercial and industrial stands.
“Payment terms available up to the 36 months. Every occupied stand must be paid for. All residents should regularise their occupation by August 31, 2015 to expedite the process of issuing tittle deeds,” read the press notice.
However, it will not be an easy go for Mr Chiyangwa as the Odar housing development consortium chairperson, Mr Benny Matenga, vowed to resist takeover. Odar housing development consortium convened a meeting with residents at the weekend in which they vowed to resist efforts by Mr Chiyangwa.
Government, through the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing returned Odar Farm to Sensene Investment, part of Stoneridge Park and Nyarungu Estate whose beneficiary was Mr Chiyangwa.
But the consortium that settled more than 7 000 residents on the land has argued that giving the land back was unlawful in that it was not consistent with a Supreme Court judgment confirming the acquisition of the land from the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association.
Consortium executive members representing employees from 56 companies argued that they settled at the farm under the employer-assisted Garikayi/Hlalani Kuhle Phase two.
They convened a meeting with residents on Saturday where they took turns to denounce Mr Chiyangwa.
“You should never lose sleep with what Chiyangwa is doing. Do not panic. We have gone to court challenging the transfer of title to his company. We are confident that we will win. ‘We faced a temporary setback last week and the court ruled that the matter was not urgent. No one is going to pay him a single cent,” said Mr Matenga.
He said they would not rest while waiting their case awaits to be heard in the High Court, as they would take their case to senior Government officials including the Presidium.
“We did not invade this land. We were given by the Government and this property was owned by white men. Chiyangwa is now coming as an agent of the whites to say it is his property.
“If Government wants us to pay compensation, it should come here and convey that message to you as residents. It cannot be my responsibility to do that,” said Mr Matenga.
When contacted for comment, Mr Chiyangwa described the Matenga-led executive as “criminals” fleecing the people. (State Media/Additional Reporting)

There was drama in Masvingo when a Police Officer was caught pants down by parents with a 14-year-old girl in the back of a disused Kombi.
Reports are that the married, 27-year-old cop bedded the minor- a student at St Anthony High School- over nine times.
Walter Bere’s shenanigans came to light when he was busted making love to the girl from a disused commuter omnibus parked near the school grounds during a sporting event. Irate parents reported the case to Masvingo Police Station leading to the arrest of Bere.
The State represented by Moreblessing Rusere said on September 27, 2014, Bere whose sexual encounter with the complainant dates back to December 19, 2013 was caught caressing the girl who was lying on his legs.
The girl was 14 by then.
Clara Mukwapuna, the boarding mistress then took the student to the staff room where she was ordered to write a report in connection with the matter. The school authorities then phoned the girl’s parents in October 2014.
The girl’s mother and elder sister reported the matter to Masvingo Central Police Station to avoid the possibility of the case being swept under the carpet at Zaka where the accused is stationed.
It is the girl’s submission to the court that at one time she was at logger-heads with the accused’s wife over her intimate relationship with him
Bere was hauled before Regional Magistrate Judith Zuyu last week charged with statutory rape.
Some of the places where he had romps with the girl since 2013 allegedly included the matrimonial home, his friend’s home, in a disused vehicle parked in a garage at Jerera Growth Point in Zaka and several other hideouts.
The girl told the court that she was only miffed with the sexual encounters the first day they slept together but fully consented on the rest of the days. Bere said in court that he didn’t realize that the girl was underage.
The two also had sex in Chiredzi some 100km away from Zaka where the girl attends school.

Barely days after an inferno razed down a shopping complex in Glen View and another in Gweru, another fire attack has hit Machipisa Shopping Complex in Ruwa.
The fire which broke out early yesterday, was triggered by a suspected electrical fault, the State Media reported saying.
Eye witnesses told journalists the fire at Machipisa also known as “Pinkaldo shops,” was fuelled by food stuffs that were stored in the shops storeroom.
The owner of the complex Fanny Machipisa said the fire which was detected around 7am was put out by members of the community.
Among the destroyed property were five refrigerators and groceries.

Barely a few days after news of the killing of Cecil the lion, another beast has been reported to have been killed by a second US tourist.
The National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (NPWMA) has said the second American was involved in an illegal bow and arrow hunt of a lion around the Hwange National Park in April.
The man was named as Jan Casimir Seski of Murrysville, Pennsylvania.
Messages left by the Associated Press at Seski’s home, and with an answering service for his medical practice, were not immediately returned. A Zimbabwean Headman Sibanda has been arrested in the case and is assisting police with their investigation, the NPWMA said.
Meanwhile after all the hype about the reported shooting of another monitored Hwange National Park lion known as Jericho, it has emerged that the reports were after all incorrect as Jericho the lion is alive and well.
The Zimbabwe Conversation Task Force who were the first to disclose the death of Cecil had erroneously reported that Jericho who is also another monitored lion had been killed in a manner similar to Cecil causing a further outcry on the shooting of lions at the park. In a statement in their Facebook page the task force retracts their statement on the death of Jericho claiming a case of mistaken identity.
The task force claims to have received three reports from the park by reliable sources that Jericho had been killed. The misinformation was only retracted after the park began receiving a signal from Jericho’s collar. According to the statement Jericho is alive and has in fact adopted Cecil’s cubs.
The correct information now appears to be that indeed another lion has been killed the Cecil way at the park. The trust while relieved that it’s not Jericho who has been killed though condemns the killing of yet another lion.
“….although we are relieved that it was not Jericho, we are not happy that yet another lion has been killed….” reads the statement.

BULAWAYO City Councillors have demanded an allowance increase of more than 450 percent, a move that will see an ordinary councillor getting $1 000 every month.
The move has, however, attracted a backlash from residents who accused the local authority of having misplaced priorities.
The city’s mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo, made the request of the allowance increment last Thursday during a meeting between councillors, council officials and the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Cde Saviour Kasukuwere.
“It is a matter between us and the minister, of which I believe it won’t be professional for me to discuss it in the media,” said Clr Moyo.
Minister Kasukuwere also confirmed the request by the councillors but said he would not be approving anything that would see the bulk of council resources being directed towards paying the councillors.
“While I understand that the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is one of the best performing councils in the country and the councillors really deserve to be incentivised, I cannot approve anything that will see these councillors get ludicrous amounts.
“I will sit down with my Permanent Secretary Engineer George Mlilo; we look at the figures which they are suggesting and duly advise what we think. The response might be positive but I must emphasise that service delivery has to determine the amount of allowances they get,” said Minister Kasukuwere.
Council sources, who spoke to this publication, revealed that the councillors had written to the new minister requesting the increase, a move that had been blocked by the previous minister Dr Ignatius Chombo, who now leads the Home Affairs portfolio.
It was revealed that according to the new figures that were being proposed by the councillors, an ordinary councillor would be receiving $1 000; council committee chairpersons, $1 200; the deputy mayor, $1 500 while the mayor would take home $1 600 every month.
Currently, the mayor, Clr Moyo, is getting $350; the deputy mayor, Clr Gift Banda, $300; committee chairpersons, $240 while ordinary councillors get $220.
The demand by the councillors, translates to a 455 percent increase for ordinary councillors.
In Harare, the approved allowances are that the mayor gets $450; deputy mayor, $395; committee chairpersons, $340 while ordinary councillors get $290.
“Councillors wrote to the minister some time ago and on Thursday they took advantage of the minister’s presence to make the request verbally. It is our hope that this request is granted because most of us are now full-time engaged as councillors because it is virtually impossible to be a councillor and hold a normal 8am to 5pm job,” said one councillor.
The councillors are demanding that the increase be effective this monthend.
However, Bulawayo United Residents’ Association (Bura) chairperson Mr Winos Dube had no kind words for the councillors saying this was a clear sign of misplaced priorities, noting that it was high time people realised that being a councillor was not a career path.
“Those people are there simply to ensure that they safeguard people’s monies ensuring that they are used for service delivery but they are now busy demanding these high allowances for themselves.
“It is now becoming clear to everyone that they are not there to represent us but themselves, we now hope that the minister does not give in to such ridiculous demands,” said Mr Dube.
The latest revelations might put the councillors at loggerheads with employees as the increase would mean councillors would be getting way more than the lowest paid council worker. It is the same councillors who blocked a request by the workers to get an increment.
According to the council’s salary schedule contained in a confidential council report, the lowest paid worker, who is in Grade One gets a basic salary of $180 that can be incentivised to Notch Six where they can get up to $241.
Grade two workers get $255 and their maximum notch is $340. Grade three workers get a basic salary of $360.
The workers’ request was rejected by the councillors who argued council was in no financial position to award them the increment but instead a Cost of Living Adjustment, which would see workers get a determined allowance across the board.

A NATIONAL University Science and Technology (Nust) lecturer, David Foya, has been caught in a sex storm and is being sued for $40 000 in damages for having an adulterous relationship with a married student.
The affair was uncovered after intimate messages were discovered by the woman’s husband on her WhatsApp phone-application.
Foya, a lecturer in the Faculty of Business, according to court papers seen by the State Media, is being accused by Bongani Ngulube, the husband to Judith Moyo, of bedding his wife to the extent that he has lost “love, warmth and affection for my spouse”.
He said he had also lost the support and “services” of his wife as a result of her romantic affair with Foya.
Moyo is a teacher at Montrose Girls High School and was Foya’s student when she was advancing her education at Nust.
Summons filed at the Bulawayo High Court revealed that Ngulube, who wedded his wife on 22 December last year, wants $15 000 for contumelia (a deliberately offensive act or something producing the effect of deliberate disrespect) inflicted upon him by Foya as a consequence of his adulterous relationship with his wife.
He is also demanding $25 000 for “loss of comfort, society and services of his wife” because of the sexual affair.
Ngulube has applied for a default judgment against Foya after the lecturer reportedly failed to file his plea in the stipulated time in terms of the High Court rules.
In his declaration, Ngulube said he was still married to Moyo and added that Foya fell in love with his wife when she was his student at Nust.
“The defendant (Foya) has ridiculed and laughed at the plaintiff (Ngulube) in public on diverse occasions and the affair has caused plaintiff much discomfort and pain. The plaintiff has been greatly humiliated and demeaned by the defendant’s conduct, which conduct has embarrassed plaintiff among his friends, family and members of his church,” declared Ngulube’s lawyers.
Some of the WhatsApp messages which Ngulube filed in court as evidence are that of Foya and Moyo inviting each other for sex and deciding where to be intimate.
Nust recently crafted a gender policy that addresses the issue of sexual harassment of students by lecturers at the institution.

Controversial Harare businessman Phillip Chiyangwa is in trouble with 20,000 home buyers of the Harare South stands he illegally muscled away from the Odar Housing Development Consortium (OHDC) using former Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo.
Chiyangwa for whom Chombo twisted papers on land ownership of Odar Farm to the detriment of thousands of property owners there, and was in May told off as he is on the wrong side of the law this month albeit managed to obtain a favourable judgement from the High Court but one based on a mere legal technicality.
A storm is brewing in Harare South’s Odar Housing Development Consortium where the residents have since threatened to disregard the new landowner Phillip Chiyangwa, revealing that he acquired it corruptly.
The consortium involving 56 companies claim they were given the 605 hectares of land which they developed under the Garikai Phase 2 in 2006 and were required to compensate the farm owners through the government.
The residents further claim the value of the compensation was supposed to come from government but they were shocked after Sensene Investments, a company linked to property magnet Chiyangwa claimed ownership of the land.
Addressing thousands of residents in Southlea Park yesterday, OHDC chairman Benny Matenga urged beneficiaries to resist the takeover, claiming they were working towards paying compensation once the government announced the quantum.
The tense meeting was characterised by repeated name calling of Chiyangwa and demands for officials in the ministry of Local Government to be transparent in the manner they conducted their business.
Matenga said anyone who wanted to involve themselves in the OHDC land would be met with resistance as they threatened to take the matter to President Mugabe, urging him to investigate Local Government officials who might have “corruptly” involved themselves in the matter.
Speaking to journalists during the meeting, Harry Muzondo, who is in the management committee of OHDC, said they were mobilising to block Chiyangwa.
“We are not going to comply with any order or instruction that seeks to interfere with our operations. The government cannot direct us to pay compensation to Chiyangwa or any other person,” said Muzondo.
“The ownership of the land vests in the State and only the acquirer, who is the President, can reverse the land acquisition process. There is a bogus agreement which alleges that the land is being given to Chiyangwa but as residents, we are saying if Chiyangwa failed to develop his other nearby properties why should he come to us where 70% of servicing is almost complete.”
The consortium leaders warned members against working with Chiyangwa. “If there is any other member of the consortium engaging Chiyangwa outside our agreement, they are warned that they are doing so at their own risk and they will face the music,” he said.
But Chiyangwa yesterday labelled the members “criminals.” “I have reported to the police. They are criminals who want to play with my name. I am not going to answer to anything,” Chiyangwa said.
“I have title deeds to the land. You can go to the authorities that gave me. Why do you ask me about things that you don’t have proof [about]? It is like people seeing me walking about and saying I have HIV, who are they to say that? Are they doctors? Have they tested me?”
He said he would have been arrested a long time ago if he had acquired the land fraudulently.
Chiyangwa is now demanding $150 from each of the 8 000 beneficiaries as registration fee with his company, after which the stands would be revalued and current occupiers of the stands would be asked to pay the balance between the revalued amount and what they have already paid to Odar Consortium.
Matenga said yesterday that Chiyangwa was putting the value of the stands at $50 per square metre, which translated to about $10 000 for a 200 square metre stand, which is the average size of stands in the high density area of the farm.
Low density stands were being pegged at $16 per square metre while commercial and industrial stands were valued at between $100 and $250 per square metre.
Add to this, Chiyangwa is said to be demanding compensation for developments on the farm which value was yet to be determined by government according to the agreement between Odar and government.
“This is part of the reasons why we are taking Chiyangwa to court, besides the very fact that we do not agree that this farm belongs to him,” said Matenga.-Standard/Additional Reporting

A 38 year old Zimbabwean man from Bulawayo has hanged himself to death with an electric cord in a Johannesburg flat after being dumped by his live in girlfriend.
The man whose identity has been made available to media is said to have been seen hanging from the balcony of the flat by a passer in the early hours of this morning.

By Shiellah Sibanda|MDC Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora raised a whopping $10,000 yesterday in the United Kingdom’s Oxford town at a function organised by party members in Oxford.
The meeting lasting a little over three hours, was attended by a 200 strong crowd who despite their small number managed to pull the massive figure of donations for the party.

The meeting was described as one of the best ever as it also confirmed that a State Media claim that Mwonzora was on invitation from the British government, was false and misleading. Documents seen by ZimEye.com show that Mwonzora, Thabitha Khumalo, and Theresa Makone traveled to that country entirely on invitation of residents here who are passionate about their party in preparation of the 2018 elections. National Chairman Tonderai Samanyanga told ZimEye.com, “how can they write saying they (Mwonzora and others) are going to Sweden, Norway and Australia and all that sort? And it only shows that they wrote just to get to a story, that’s all, ” said Samanyanga.
About US3000 was cash being £1850, and the rest was raised in donated goods.
The function was organised by the Oxford branch which is hailed the most organised and vibrant in the entire party. It is led by Chrispen Chamburuka and the function was decorated to the fibre by Cerina Masihiringwane.

MDC Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora

Zimbabwe’s national airliner, Air Zimbabwe, has fired 10 of its senior managers.
Taking advantage of the prevailing chaos created by the Supreme Court ruling allowing companies to fire workers without any retrenchment pay, the parastatal has hit hard on its long standing managers.
But the State Media claimed that it is all to do with a restructuring exercise recommended by a foreign investor that the airline engaged by the airliner. But checks with the company and the Ministry of Transport revealed there was no such arrangement and no investor at all being engaged.
Fifteen managers were summoned at the end of the day Friday and 10 of them were served with letters of termination of contract on three months’ notice.

VICE-PRESIDENT Phelekezela Mphoko has joined the bandwagon of businesspeople taking advantage of a recent Supreme Court order that gives employers the greenlight to terminate contracts and has dismissed about 100 workers at his Choppies supermarkets.
This comes amid reports that President Robert Mugabe’s company, Gushungo Holdings, is also struggling to pay its workers with some employees from the dairy producer still to be paid their July salaries.
Mphoko, who was appointed by President Mugabe following the Zanu PF congress late last year, is reportedly a major shareholder in the supermarket chain that has its roots in neighbouring Botswana.
A man answering the phone of Choppies’ national human resources manager Maron Munyavi sounded jittery when contacted for comment. He at first confirmed he was indeed Munyavi but upon realising the subject of the discussion he changed goalposts and denied he was Munyavi although he could not explain his earlier confirmation or how he came to be in possession of Munyavi’s mobile phone.
“Who told you that? I am not Maron Munyavi, this is a wrong number, get comment from Choppies head office in Bulawayo at DC,” the man said apparently showing intimate knowledge of the company structures and operations.
In a letter dated June 30 to a reported 90 workers from Choppies security department the vice-president’s company said it was terminating their contracts in terms of Section 24 (5) (a) “of the commercial sectors Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) incorporating Statutory Instrument 45 of 1993 and all its amendments”.
“Please note that you are given three months’ salary in lieu of notice not given to terminate your services with Choppies Zimbabwe, and the effective date of termination is 30 June 2015. The contract which was entered by you and Choppies Zimbabwe in accordance with provision of Section 24 of CBA of the Commercial sector of Zimbabwe,” said the letter.
Mphoko’s company cites case laws including Rhodesian cases.
“The termination is made in accordance with section 24 of NECCSZ (National Employment Council for the Commercial Sector Zimbabwe) and this held to be test in the case of Art Corporation Limited vs Moyana 1989 (1) Zlr 304 (s), Blackley vs City of Harare 1978 Rlr (Rhodesian Law Reports) 403,” the letter added.
Workers interviewed by The Standard said they had refused to sign the “memorandum of agreement” but Choppies had gone ahead and paid into their accounts amounts ranging from $1 000 to $1 500.
“We did not sign anything because we think it is unfair. It has been common practice by Choppies to dump people as and when they wish. They use political power and now that Mphoko is vice-president they have told us they are untouchable,” said a worker.
Ironically the workers claim Choppies has engaged a professional security firm to provide the same services that the workers where providing.
“We were accused of theft but these accusations were never proven. Last year we had assistance from another security company whose contract was also terminated on accusations of theft buy its security personnel,” The Standard heard.
Choppies said it would pay all statutory terminal benefits that included three months cash in lieu of notice and all outstanding accrued annual leave days and overtime as agreed or specified in terms of Section 12 of the Act.
Meanwhile unconfirmed reports claimed last week that Mugabe’s Gushungo Holdings was having difficulty paying its workers.
“We have always been paid on the 22nd of each month but this time we have not been paid our July salaries yet. We have not been paid and are not sure when we will,” said a worker who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Repeated efforts to seek comment from the firm’s management headed by Stanley Nhari were fruitless. Nhari’s mobile phone was not being picked up on Friday and remained unreachable yesterday.
Mugabe’s government is also finding it difficult to pay its civil servants as economic stagnation continues to take its toll.
According to the Supreme Court judgment an employer or an employee may terminate a contract of employment service by giving notice in terms of the contract but such notice shall be three months in the case of a contract without a limit of time or a contract for a period exceeding two years. Standard

Government has attempted a plastic assurance on civil servants saying it will not wantonly retrench civil servants but will reduce the wage bill through other means.
In what analysts say is mere gesture and no substance, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira told the State Media that a committee headed by Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, has been established to examine options and present to Cabinet recommendations to this in coming weeks.
Sections of the private media have misinterpreted Government’s plan to reduce the wage bill from 80 percent of revenue to less than 40 percent to mean thousands of civil servants face retrenchment.
However, Minister Mupfumira said that authorities had no plan to retrench.
“It is laughable that there has been this misrepresentation. When we are talking about reducing the wage bill, we are not talking about retrenching or firing people.
“We are looking at cost-cutting. There is a distinction. The process that is underway, therefore, is not to fire people, but cutting on expenditure. As Government, we also want to make it clear that we will not act in the manner some companies have by firing workers haphazardly.
“We will not do that. No one will be fired. In fact, we are actually in the process of expediting the Labour Act (amendments) so that we protect our workers and make sure retrenchments are done orderly without firing people randomly.”
She added: “We have been on this exercise for the past two months and what we are doing is very clear. We are looking at ways of being efficient; increasing productivity.
This is work in progress and I cannot state the recommendations because these will be presented before Cabinet, which will then discuss these findings. The report will be out soon, and we will make all the recommendations public.”
In his Mid-Term Fiscal Policy Statement last Thursday, Minister Chinamasa said Government was working on reducing its wage bill to create “fiscal space” for long-term growth.
This plan is in line with the IMF’s Staff-Monitored Programme. “Significant progress over the exercise to develop measures to rationalise the wage bill has been made, with the Civil Service Commission having also completed the physical head count for all civil servants as part of the staff audit.
“Cabinet has given a directive to the minister responsible for the Public Service and the minister responsible for Finance to urgently propose remedial measures to gradually bring down the share of the wage bill in the budget from over 80 percent to under 40 percent.
“Cabinet will be considering the full package of necessary proposals in the next couple of weeks.
“The above interventions to manage the wage bill are meant to create the fiscal space necessary to enter medium to long-term growth for sustainable platform for improved remuneration.”
The IMF’s programme is part of a process to normalise relations with Zimbabwe’s creditors and to mobilise development support. Its present phase covers October 2014 to December 2015, when a review is due.
The IMF says the programme’s main objective is to strengthen Zimbabwe’s external position as a prerequisite to arrears clearance, normalising debt servicing and restoring access to external financing. It recommended that the wage bill be about 30 percent of expenditure.
A staff monitored programme is an informal agreement between governments and the IMF to monitor implementation of a country’s economic programme.
This agreement does not entail financial assistance or endorsement by the IMF executive board.
In a letter to the IMF in April 2015, Minister Chinamasa and Reserve Bank Governor Dr John Mangudya said Government was committed to cutting its wage bill. They said some of the measures included identifying duplication and redundancies and revamping the Salary Service Bureau.
“We remain committed to improving our fiscal position as a means for further raising our capacity to repay. To this end, we have already started taking actions to lower the wage bill. To this end, measures to reduce the wage bill will be presented to Cabinet.
“The Civil Service Commission has been working on streamlining public sector employment by conducting a restructuring exercise to align ministries’ staffing with their mandates, to identify duplication and redundancies.
“By end-2015 we expect to complete decentralisation and modernisation of the Salary Service Bureau, which would place a payroll assistant in every district, strengthening control over the wage bill and minimising irregularities.
“At the same time, we will develop a medium-term strategy to bring the wage bill to a level that would create sufficient room for development spending.
“We remain committed to reducing domestic arrears and improving service delivery.”
After presenting 2015 National Budget, Minister Chinamasa told Parliament that cutting the wage bill would be gradual, adding that it would be imprudent to lay off workers.
He reasoned that most civil servants are in health and education, both sectors Government has heavily invested in.
“As far as Government is concerned, we regard education and health as the biggest investment because our biggest asset is our population. Consultations are under way on options to reduce the wage bill.
“But let me say the solution won’t be an overnight thing, but gradual. It will take place over a period. We are going to tackle this problem squarely and bravely.”
Plastic Assurance.
According to economist Perry Ncube, the government announcement “is not only void of substance but contradict what the finance ministry has already embarked on seeking to reduce the wage bill. ”
It is near plastic paper and no substance said Perry.

In what is believed to be government cruelty, another market was yesterday burnt down.
Kudzanayi Market in Gweru saw traders there left counting massive losses after fire gutted their goods worth thousands of dollars early Friday morning.
Several vendors were left in tears after their stalls were gutted by fire. When the State Media visited the market in the morning many traders could be seen salvaging the remains of their wares while others could be seen trying to rebuild their stalls.
Some vendors said they have made a huge loss and they are not sure what could have caused the fire. They however said they blame their security guards for failing to protect their goods.
The incident comes a few days after a home industry complex in Glen View’s Area 8 in Harare was gutted by fire destroying the entrepreneurs’ property.
Kudzanayi Market houses more than one thousand traders.
Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has been blamed for the destructive incidents which came soon after his ministry ordered vendors off the cities.

ZIMBABWE’s TRANSPORT Minister Obert Mpofu’s business empire in Hwange has crumbled after several of his operations in the mining town either closed down or relocated to Victoria Falls.
Mpofu’s Minus restaurant, Matetsi meats butchery, KST Bypass fuel service station all leased from Hwange Colliery Company (HCC), KoMpofu sports bar and KoMpofu butchery at Mpumalanga high density suburb in Hwange closed last month.
The Minus restaurant and Matetsi meats butchery reportedly owe the HCC a substantial amount of money in outstanding rentals, although the figure could not be independently verified by Southern Eye.
The HCC estates board, which leases the coal mining company’s properties could not be reached for comment to confirm the outstanding monies as the estates manager, a Mr Mapanga was repeatedly said to be out of office since Tuesday.
When contacted for comment on Wednesday this week, a Mr Sibanda, who was said to be Mapanga’s deputy,also refused to shed light on the issue.
But Mpofu yesterday confirmed the collapse of his businesses operatons in Hwange saying the HCC rentals were unsustainable.
The minister said he had relocated his butchery and restaurant together with his employees to Victoria Falls.
“We relocated the restaurant and butchery to Victoria Falls because rentals charged by the HCC were unsustainable. The employees have also been transferred to Victoria Falls,” he said.
“As for the fuel service station, we did not close it but rather it is undergoing renovations to accommodate huge fuel tanks.”
However, Mpofu refused to be drawn to comment on allegations that his companies owed the HCC thousands of dollars in unpaid rentals.
The closure of Mpofu’s Hwange companies came less than a month after the former Mines minister was dragged to the Labour Court by security guards at his Moya Security firm over salary arrears.
Moya Security had reportedly ignored a court order to pay the security guards outstanding salaries in four-monthly instalments from May 30.
In recent past, Mpofu has been accused by workers at his several businesses of failing to pay salaries on time.
His financial institution, Allied Bank, surrendered its operating licence in January this year due to lack of capital.

Two robbers from Chipinge stripped a woman naked and tied her together with her husband to a tree before looting the couple’s vehicle of money and other valuables.
The robbers Tapiwa Mbirimi (27) and Tonderai Mbirimi (33) who are brothers from Gaza Township, Chipinge even had the guts to order the couple to telephone to get someone to bring more money on the guise that the two had a problem with their car.
Grace Manzunzu brought $1 300 to the 80km peg along Mutare – Masvingo Road where Shupikai Gwandiziba and her husband Kasma Nhemachena had been abducted but the robbers took the money and disappeared.
The robbers were slapped with six years jail each after appearing before Masvingo Magistrate Victor Mohammed.
Gwandiziba and Nhemachena stay in Aphiri in Masvingo. Nhemachena is employed by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare at Benjamin Vurombo Building, Masvingo.
James Murambiza representing the State said that on February 8, 2015 at 12pm, the complainants were travelling along Masvingo-Mutare road driving a Red Toyota vehicle when the vehicle developed a fault.
The husband was driving and he pulled off the road to sort out the problem. The two accused approached them from the bush armed with logs and ordered Gwandiziba and Nhemachena to open their motor vehicle so that they could search the vehicle.
The complainants resisted resulting in Mbirimi brothers assaulting the complainants with the logs all over the body and a fight ensued.
Gwandiziba who was sat at the passenger seat disembarked in a bid to assist her husband who was being attacked by the accused, but Tapiwa Mbirimi attacked her. Tapiwa realised that he was overpowered and produced an Okapi knife and stabbed Gwandiziba on the chest, finger and thigh.
The accused then force marched the complainants into the bush where they tied the hands of their victims and instructed Gwandiziba to remove her clothes since they were blood stained.
They then stole $100, one Samsung GT- 1205 and a Nokia Asher cell phone belonging to Gwandiziba and $20 and Nokia E75 cell phone from Nhemachena.
Mbirimi returned from the vehicle and demanded for some more money and continued assaulting Nhemachena.
Gwandiziba told the two accused that she had money at home and she phoned Grace Manzunzu to collect cash from her house and bring it to the scene purporting that they had a breakdown.
Manzunzu brought $1 300 which was taken by Gwandiziba who then handed over the money to the Mbirimi brothers.
The two accused then released the complainants and disappeared into the bushes.
The robbers were arrested at Nyika Growth Point.
Magistrate Victor Mohammed slapped the two brothers with six years imprisonment and suspended two years for five years on condition of good behaviour.

The ZANU PF controlled National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has fired a record 355 workers.
The move comes immediately the after Supreme Court ruling which now allows companies to terminate contracts on three months’ notice and without pay.
According to sources, the massive layoffs at NRZ, which were expected to affect up to 1 200 workers, have seen two departments being shut down being the Inspectorate Services Section and Research Design and Development.
Targeted employees who were given letters of employment termination were mostly those who book off sick continuously and those with pending disciplinary cases, as well as the vocal and militant ones, an NRZ official claimed yesterday. They said about 60 first-year apprentices were laid off. NRZ spokesperson Fanuel Masikati could not be reached for comment last night. The parastatal has not been paying workers for some time now.

A pastor for Living Word Ministries in Beatrice has been arrested for killing a woman, his wife, with a kitchen knife on the very day of worship Sunday last week.
Pastor Madaritso Ranch (of Malawian origin) allegedly committed the heinous act before fleeing towards the Mozambican border. He was arrested before skipping into that country yesterday.
His wife, Pamella Muzondi’s body was discovered early Friday morning but relatives believe she may have been killed five days before and the body left hidden in the couple’s bedroom. “She was killed on Sunday and we only discovered her on Thursday,” a relative told ZimEye.com
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The body was found in a pool of blood as she lay in the bedroom.
Pamella is survived by a three-year old child.
The case is being investigated by Beatrice Police Station. More to follow…

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Professor Welshman Ncube says that First Lady Grace Mugabe runs to Singapore at every little ailment while an average Zimbabwean woman runs to prophets who end up raping them claiming to be treating them.
Writing in his Fridays weekly publications entitled “Zimbabwe’s walking sick ” Professor Ncube describes how the ZANU PF government has failed to provide the country with affordable public health service while the elite seek medical treatment outside the country. The MDC leader describes the failures by government to provide basic public health as failing a Zimbabweans of their constitutional right as provided for in the constitution.
“…one of the primary functions of any government must be to secure the health of its citizens. This is why among our national objectives the constitution obligates the state to take all practical measures to ensure the provision of “basic accessible and adequate health services throughout Zimbabwe” and the Bill of Rights declares that every citizen has the “right to have access to basic health -care services, including reproductive health care services” and that none shall be “refused emergency medical treatment in any health -care institution, writes Professor Ncube.
According to the MDC leader, President Mugabe and his “cronies ” seek medical treatment outside the country and all but confirm the lack of confidence in the country’s health delivery system. Ncube accuses President Mugabe and his wife of rushing to Singapore for every little ailment without considering local treatment.
“To add another line to Zimbabwe’s health horror script, President Mugabe and his cronies despise local medical treatment to the extent that he commutes to the Far East every quarter for ‘eye treatment’.”
First Lady Grace Mugabe was not skated the wreath of the Professor as she also runs to the Far East for medical attention contrary to the highly acclaimed former First Lady the late Sally Mugabe who opted for local hospitals till her death at a Parirenyatwa Hospital a public hospital in Harare.
“The tragedy is that President Mugabe’s late wife, Sally Heyfron, was ‘allowed to die’ at Parirenyatwa while Grace Mugabe flies to Singapore, China or Dubai at the shortest possible opportunity and at the slightest ailment. Former ZANU PF top dog Cephas Msipa once commented that his colleagues do not even bother to experience the professionalism of local medical treatment.”
In one of his most hard hitting publications of his weekly writings, Ncube condemns the government’s poor prioritisation for the fall in the health system which sees many Zimbabweans particularly women come to realities of unheard of experience in pursuit of health services.
“Millions of dollars are spent on large government delegations overseas to sign invisible ‘mega deals’ as women deliver still born children on floors in dark, cold rural clinics. It is a tragedy of mammoth proportions.”
“Many Zimbabweans have turned to traditional healers and ‘Pentecostal prophets’ for health relief, some women and teenage girls exposed to rape by bearded false prophets dressed in white and carrying some fake sticks.
Professor Ncube promises Zimbabweans that his MDC party holds the solution to the country’s health delivery system.
“My party, the MDC believes that a devolved service delivery framework will guarantee health care sustainability and respond effectively to the conditions of virtual collapse and widespread dysfunction in health care infrastructure. Our National Health Care Strategy will be founded on new, innovative ways and approaches to sustainable long-term funding and resource mobilisation for the health sector. The MDC will fulfill, protect and promote the constitutional right of all Zimbabwean citizens to have access to affordable basic health care services as we are of the firm belief that the right to access health care must be realized across society so that those who need care are able to access it regardless of who or where they are or their ability to pay.”
“We will promote the increased role and contributions of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), traditional medical interventions and the value of herbal medicines to increase choice and health care diversity.”

A Victoria Falls man was on Wednesday trampled to death by an elephant at a bushy area near the Fuller Forest, in yet another incident of human – animal conflict in the resort town.
The deceased was identified as Alphas Masuku (65) of Lupinyu BH28 Matabeleland North Province police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Mandlenkosi Ndlovu confirmed the incident.
“I can confirm we received a message about an ex-Fuller Forest employee who died after being trampled by an elephant on Wednesday night,” he said.
Ndlovu said Masuku (65) was walking from Lupinyu to Fuller Forest compound to collect his property following his recent retirement. He was accompanied by Maxwell Makwinya (27).
Ndlovu said at around 6:30pm the two met three elephants going the opposite direction and one of them immediately charged at Masuku and killed him.
Makwinya escaped unharmed.
“The man’s intestines, the liver and other body parts were strewn all over and his body was covered with tree branches.” he said.
Masuku’s body was taken to the Victoria Falls Hospital mortuary after a police report.
Cases of dangerous animals killing or seriously injuring residents have become common in the resort town.
In April, last year, a 32-year-old man was trampled by elephants while walking home from a beer drink at about 8PM in Chinotimba.
In 2012, Tendekai Madzivanzira, a Victoria Falls Safari lodge head guide was killed by an elephant at a waterhole within the lodge.
During the same year, Margret Mudenda a mother of three was also trampled to death by an elephant in a bushy area between Mkhosana and Chinotimba townships.
Last month, the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority shot down an elephant that had been terrorising residents in the resort town.
The town is within the Zambezi National Park and the Victoria Falls National Park.-SouthernEye

Zimbabwe’s Prosecutor General, Johannes Tomana was today attacked by primary school girls for his statements of decriminalising sexual abuse of 12 year olds and qualifying them for marriage.
The girls from Matabeleland’s Lwendulo primary school openly recited to him a poem during the regional merit awards held at Landa J Nkomo High school in Tsholotsho, denouncing the newly passed law which adjusted the girls’ early sexual age of consent. – See more at: …../


 

PREMIER SERVICE Medical Aid Society (Psmas)’s new Managing Director Henry Mandishona who took over from expelled Cuthbert Dube in May, is taking home a staggering US$40 000 per month, being 480,000 per year, more than two times what British Prime Minister David Cameron earns.
Report By The Independent.

The figure almost four times the US$11 000 he should be getting under the new remuneration structure, while the company is struggling, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt.
Mandishona effectively took over from former Psmas CEO Cuthbert Dube who was reportedly earning about US$500 000 dollars in salary and perks from the group.
Information obtained this week shows Psmas has now reduced its wage bill by 96% or US$6 million after a restructuring exercise. The company had hired a consultant to restructure the business and cut costs.
Details seen by the Zimbabwe Independent also indicate Mandishona is getting far more than what he is entitled to. Efforts to get comment from him last night failed. Besides, that Mandishona reportedly also splurged US$53 000 on office furniture since his appointment.
After hiring a consultant, Psmas has streamlined operations, including remuneration, benefits, and vehicle policies. The average monthly salary for top executives before the current rationalisation was US$65 000, with a few top executives earning between US$100 000 and US$400 000 then.
However, Psmas executives are now supposed to earn between US$9 000 and US$11 000 as monthly salaries despite that Mandishona is getting US$40 000.
Insiders say the average benefits for executives which were US$ 10 000 have now been slashed to about US$1 000. This has left top company executives fuming, while others were resisting changes even though the firm is struggling.
Some other new changes include a new vehicle policy which states that heads of departments will now be driving twin cabs 4×4 vehicles, not luxury cars such as the Mercedes Benz and Jeep Cherokee. All top executives will be entitled to a single SUV Land Cruiser and a sedan such as a Mercedes Benz.
Insiders say Mandishona has two cars, an SUV and Mercedes Benz.
The new MD took over the running of Psmas at a time the health insurer was facing serious financial challenges that have seen it failing to pay service providers and its members being turned away by medical practitioners.
Psmas blames part of its problems on government’s failure to remit civil servants’ contributions. Government owed Psmas US$71 million, although it recently paid US$61 million.
All things considered, it however still owes Psmas US$25 million in outstanding contributions. Civil servants constitute the majority of over 800 000 members of the health insurer, which has branches across the country and the region.
Last week, the Independent reported a looting frenzy at Premier Services Medical Investments (PSMI), a subsidiary of Psmas, where large sums of money had reportedly been squandered or siphoned off by its top directors through overpriced car acquisitions, insurance fraud and huge salary perks.
PSMI is a group of medically related, strategic business units wholly-owned by Psmas.
Insiders say attempts to change the situation at Psmas followed the hiring of Ethel Kuuya (EK) Consultancy Services (EK is owned by turnaround strategist Ethel Kuuya) which has been trying to reorganise the company.
“The new consultants at Psmas introduced a new market-based remuneration structure which was accepted by the interim board and signed off by interim committee chairperson Dr Gibson Mhlanga,” a senior Psmas executive said this week.
When EK came on board, they proposed a structure that would enhance service delivery for both members and service providers which was accepted and endorsed by the board in December 2014. “They ensured project preserved jobs and avoided retrenchment of general staff as well as introduced an equitable grading system which previously did not exist,” the executive said.
Kuuya was awarded the contract to carry out Psmas restructuring after she left PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) which had initially been hired to do an organisational transformation exercise.
The Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) between Psmas, PwC and EK, seen by this paper, states that PwC was awarded the contract in April 2014, the same month Kuuya resigned from PwC.
Kuuya served out her three months’ notice from April to June, during which time she was project manager for PwC at Psmas.
“On the first day of April 2014 Psmas engaged Pricewaterhouse Coopers to do an organisational transformation exercise. Whereas the consultant was the PwC project manager and in that capacity was an instrumental member of the project. The consultant left the employ of PwC for personal reasons,” reads the MOU.
“As the notice period drew to a close, Psmas and PwC both acknowledged that Kuuya was instrumental to the success and conclusion of the project, and all three of the parties (Kuuya, Psmas, and PwC) agreed to a constructive way forward.
“PwC signed an addendum to their contract acknowledging and agreeing to Psmas intention to contract EK directly. EK signed a contract with Psmas to carry out the work that PwC could not conclude. EK signed a contract with Psmas as an independent consultant on the 1st of August 2014.
“PwC, Psmas and EK are all in agreement that for the project to be successfully implemented, the consultant (EK) should continue working on the strategy organisational review and design service while PwC does the rest of the work as contained in the agreement signed between it and Psmas on the 1st of April.”
Kuuya specialises in turnaround strategies, organisational development, culture realignment and performance measurement. She has done consultancy in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Nigeria for both private and public entities. Efforts to speak to Kuuya were unsuccessful as she was said to be out of the country.

Today marks exactly two years since Robert Mugabe and his beleaguered and faction – ridden political party, Zanu PF, staged the mother of all electoral theft and rigged themselves into power on July 31,2013.
Two years down the line, the illegitimate Zanu PF regime has totally failed to rescue the national economy from an endless tailspin that has led to an unprecedented number of workers losing their jobs in the formal sector as several companies and industries continue to close down. Thousands of people have been unleashed onto the streets as desperate vendors struggling to eke out a living. More than 60 000 people have since lost their jobs in just a short period of two years.
Following upon the disappointing Supreme Court judgment that was handed down on July 17, 2015, at least 16 000 more workers have since lost their jobs as broke and struggling companies are jostling to downsize their business operations.Zimbabwe is facing a national socio – economic crisis of unprecedented proportions.
Oblivious of the collapsing economy around him, Robert Mugabe has embarked on endless foreign jamborees that have cost the national treasury no less than US$100 million in only two years. The bloated civil service is struggling to be paid on a regular basis and in his mid – term fiscal policy review statement that was presented in Parliament on Thursday, July 30, 2015 a thoroughly exasperated and out – of – sorts Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa announced that the government intends to cut the size of the civil service by at least 40%.
This effectively means that at least 200 000 civil servants will soon be laid off and dumped on the job market. Things have gone horribly wrong in Zimbabwe. The national economy has virtually imploded and central government is now totally bankrupt.Robert Mugabe might have successfully managed to rig the elections on July 31,2015 but he has certainly dismally failed to rig the economy.The end game is beckoning.
The MDC calls upon all patriotic Zimbabweans to come together and help save their country from total collapse. The ruinous economic policies that that have been pursued by the bankrupt Zanu PF regime in the past two years have led to massive capital flight. The ill – conceived and unco–ordinated so – called indigenisation program has scared off potential investors and led to the severe downsizing and closure of the few remaining businesses that are still operating in the formal sector.
We are now faced with the horrifying spectre of a national economy that has been virtually informalised in a very short two years. The revenue base for the tax authority continues to shrink and there is a real likelihood that the Zanu PF regime will very soon be totally unable to pay civil servants their salaries and other benefits. Zimbabwe is presently in an economic and financial hell hole.
The prevailing economic condition is clearly unsustainable. Something has got to give. Robert Mugabe and his broke Zanu PF regime should immediately swallow their pride; bite the bullet and admit that the economic situation needs emergency surgery.
As the MDC, we have always advocated for a social democratic socio – economic trajectory that would stimulate job creation and also trigger the sustainable growth of the country’s agricultural, manufacturing and industrial base.
Zimbabwe is an agro – based economy that can only remain vibrant provided that the agricultural sector is provided with adequate infrastructural and financial support.With the prevailing massive power load shedding and shortage of dams and irrigation infrastructure, our otherwise very hard – working and committed commercial and communal farmers will never be able to provide enough food for the nation.
Put simply, Zimbabwe will remain a net importer of food.This is a very embarrassing and humiliating state of affairs for a country that, only a few years ago, was the bread basket of Southern Africa.The country needs to have a grain reserve of about 1,2 million metric tonnes of maize but right now, only 40 000 metric tonnes of maize have been delivered to the Grain Marketing Board.
The Zanu PF regime is totally bankrupt and they don’t have the money to import the required maize in order to feed the nation. The MDC calls for the holding of an emergency national convergence indaba aimed at rescuing the country from the impending disaster.
At least 3 million Zimbabweans will be facing starvation by year end if no emergency remedial action is taken by the Zanu PF and other concerned stakeholders.A government that cannot feed its own people is not fit for purpose.Robert Mugabe should take a long,hard look at himself and proceed to do the honourable thing of resigning in order to save the nation.We trust that good sense and patriotism will prevail and that the clueless Zanu PF regime will see the light and throw in the towel. That is the only decent thing to do in the prevailing circumstances.
MDC: EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
Obert Chaurura Gutu
National Spokesperson