The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) Harare Chapter has given the government an ultimatum to pay off their bonuses by Friday the 9th of this month or face a crippling industrial action.
The ultimatum by nurses follows the further postponement of the payment of the rest of government workers’ bonuses to end of the month after paying off workers in the education sector who had vowed to stop reporting for duty in the event the government had failed to pay their outstanding 13th cheque.
ZINA Harare Provincial Chairman, Mr Enock Dongo told the state broadcaster that the health practitioners in his province will be withdrawing their services come Monday next week in the event that their grievances had not been addressed.
Harare province covers the country’s biggest referral hospitals which include Parirenyatwa, Harare Central and Chitungwiza hospitals.
Mr Dongo said the nurses are fed up with the unfair treatment they get from government, saying they also have families to look after just like the rest of the civil servants.
ZINA President, Mrs Regina Smith expressed concern with the flow of information from the employer but however urged nurses to continue with the good work of serving the nation.
The government last year sent circulars to health institutions highlighting that health workers were to get their bonuses on Friday last week but has since shifted goalposts.

There was drama at Gokwe’s Dzvoritsvo village when a Tsikamutanda ran for his dear life after two warring witches exchanged what has been alleged as “lightning bolts” in front of a gathering that was waiting for an exorcising session by the witch hunter.
The traditional healer who was hired by villagers to help them sniff out witches from the troubled village of Dzvoritsvo which is about seven kilometres from the newly conferred Gokwe town, had carried the initial stages of identifying the culprits, which was done successfully.

According to Danmore Kunguva, who was standing in for the village head at the ceremony, trouble started when the two accused witches, began pointing fingers at each other, for having caused the death of three people, who are said to be seen roaming at night several months after their burials.
“We started having strange situations here, of seeing people we buried long time ago, and sometimes running away from them when they try to talk to us. That is when we asked for the help from a traditional healer popularly known as Tsikamutanda,” said Kunguva.
ZimEye.com tried in vain to locate the traditional healer for comment, as he was said to be in a state of shock from what he experienced, and had fled into hiding.
The two old men who had agreed to surrender their tools of evil trade, started quarrelling before the official ceremony started, and their dispute spilled into the exorcising time, thereby causing an exchange of what witnesses claim were “lightning bolts” in a bid to expose their strength to one another.
According to village head Kunguva, the spark from the two lightning bolts that collided in front of the gathering villagers left everyone speechless, and scampering for cover, causing the Tsikamutanda to run for dear life.
“The spark from the bumping lightning bolts scared away the traditional healer, who fled from the scene, and has not returned since the weekend. We are now in a very difficult situation that needs to be solved without delay. We are now waiting for another consultation process with Chief Njelele so that we can chat the way forward, on the fate of the two warring families, and their future in our village, since villagers are now unsettled,” said Kunguva.
According to several villagers who refused to be named, Chief Njelele was last heard planning the expulsion of the two from the communal area, as their actions have caused alarm and fear in the area. Some witnesses say the Chief himself is in intense fear following the incident.
Efforts to get comment from Chief Njelele were fruitless at the time of going to press, as his mobile was continuously not reachable.

A 34 year old Pumula South man in Bulawayo who has been embroiled in a bitter wrangle with his in-laws for using runyoka and kurivanza traditional systems of protecting his wife from indulging into extra marital sexual expedites, has been forced to eat the humble pie.
The man who is a truck driver, for an international trucking company with its depots in Bulawayo and Harare, was forced to unlock his wife after he was refunded his lobola (bride price) during the festive holiday.
The in-laws sited sudden death as one of the highest risk that may lead their daughter into sexual starvation. They told ZimEye.com off camera that if their son in law dies suddenly, their daughter will be sexually starved following the husband’s idea of locking the forbidden fruit.
The husband had to seek the services of traditional healers, he refused to reveal, to fence his wife inside the traditional Dura wall to avoid intruders.
Tumirai Mugoni, who was involved in a bitter fight with his in-laws, secretly hatched the plan to defend his 10 year old marriage to the wife (name withheld) who was rumoured to be seeing someone when the husband is away on business.
According to Mugoni, he overheard a conversation from the community around that his wife was seeing someone, and he secretly applied the traditional fence and waited to see the next step.
“I discovered messages in my wife’s inbox and kept cool, knowing that the man who is seeing my wife will never find or enjoy the forbidden fruit, because the traditional healer used the so called kurivanza medicine, which it is claimed “hides the vagina when someone wants to have sex”. I did that deliberately and my father in law and his aunties were after my head for that. Can you believe that they wanted my wife to be in love with other guys during my absence?” said Mugoni.
Asked what he was going to do with his in-laws, after the reimbursement of the bride price, Mugoni said, “I am now going my own way, but I know one day she will look for me. I have accepted their offer and took the money and beasts back because the aunties and their friends found it necessary to do so,” said Mugoni before receiving a phone call from a relative who wanted to get clarity if it was true that his in-laws had refunded the lobola.
ZimEye.com managed to track the in-laws, who threatened to take action against this journalist if the story was published, before telling him to go away. The in-laws are members of a Pumula sect which uses bottles to crush anyone they hate or for any invention. “We warned you last time not to be involved in people’s private affairs, but you are here again!” shouted some of the relatives as they swore to this journalist.
ZimEye.com managed to trail the aunt, who identified herself as Ratidzai Madzimure. She told ZimEye that her brother’s daughter’s abuse has come to an end, as the refund has been done. Asked why she decided to end their daughter’s marriage, she spontaneously said “Anoitireyi zvekushandisa mushonga kuviga hukadzi hwe mumwe munhu, anotofanira kumusunungura chete, meaning that Mugoni has no right to hide his wife’s vagina from other men who want to have sex with her. She is now free for another man ane better manhood and more love,” she said before ordering this journalist to go away.
The wife, who was still at her aunt’s residence during these interviews, refused to comment and preferred  to just gesture by smiling, before waving her hand to bid us good-bye .
According to neighbours, the family tried unsuccessfully to convince their son in law to remove the traditional lock on his wife, hence they decided to end the relationship by refunding their son in law what he paid to them.
They also tried one of the well-known prophets in the township, but their efforts hit a brick wall, hence they opted to reimburse all his lobola and part ways with him.

Top ZANU PF musician-cum-politician, Energy Mutodi — a self-confessed follower of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has said the latter is replacing his boss Robert Mugabe in March.
The report as said could put the acting president under further pressure from Zanu PF hardliners.
Writing on his Facebook page at the weekend, the businessman and prominent Zanu PF member, sensationally claimed that the under-fire Mnangagwa would succeed President Robert Mugabe in March this year — without explaining how this was supposed to happen.
He also claimed that quarrelsome First Lady Grace Mugabe would become VP when Mnangagwa succeeds Mugabe.
In addition, Mutodi alleged that ex-VP Joice Mujuru’s allies were behind a plan to poison the 90-year-old leader, in a bid to force a Zanu PF extra-ordinary congress that would see the former Zanu PF number two bouncing back from the political wilderness.
The post, which had already raised a lot of social media chatter yesterday, could escalate the brutal and ongoing factional as well as succession wars within Zanu PF.
The Daily News reported last week that among Mnangagwa’s new rabid critics were erstwhile colleagues who played a critical role in decimating Mujuru and her perceived sympathisers, a development that paved the way for his Phoenix-like rise from the political ashes to the presidium.
The sources said Mnangagwa’s former supporters were not just “peeved by his meteoric rise to the VP position” while they had to “make-do with scraps”, they were also upset that he had seemingly forgotten them and was allegedly acting as if he was now “the substantive head of State” while Mugabe was on holiday in the Far East.
As a result, some within the former anti-Mujuru grouping — particularly the so-called “Gang of Four” — now wanted the tail of the party strongman cut forthwith.
The sources also claimed that it had not helped that the much-feared vice president had recently hosted parties and business persons in his home province, the Midlands, where some of the disaffected hardliners had not been invited to.
Worse still, some of Mnangagwa’s most fervent followers, such as Psychomotor minister Josiah Hungwe, had made the fatal mistake of praising him overzealously at these gatherings — at worst a silly faux pas that the hardliners had expediently latched on to, in their quest to cut the vice president down to size.
“There are some within the victorious camp who feel that Mnangagwa in the first place did not deserve to be vice president after doing virtually nothing during the Mujuru demolition job where First Lady Grace Mugabe was used to turn President Mugabe against Amai Mujuru,” a well-placed source told the Daily News.
He said in particular the so-called “Gang of Four”— comprising senior party bigwigs Oppah Muchinguri, Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Savior Kasukuwere — was allegedly working to undermine the VP and to “expose him as a power-hungry individual who is not fit to take over from Mugabe”.
This, the source added, supposedly explained why Mnangagwa, just like what had happened to Mujuru, was coming under vicious attack in the lickspittle State media — “to discredit him as much as possible”.
Former Zanu PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo has also warned that the faction that helped push out Mujuru was allegedly in the process of staging a coup against Mugabe himself.
In his weekend Facebook post, Mutodi also continued with his attacks on Mujuru and her perceived allies, notably Ray Kaukonde, whom he apparently wants to replace as substantive Mashonaland East provincial chairman.
Although he, on one hand, alleged that the former provincial governor was firmly behind the vile plan to eliminate Mugabe, he also claimed that the motoring tycoon would be outmanoeuvred by Mnangagwa as the VP was set to take over from Mugabe before his plan matured.
“According to their plans, Kaukonde wants to first save his MPs from expulsion and then secure peace talks between First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe and Dr Joice Mujuru.
“His aim is to achieve an extra-ordinary congress that will install former Vice President Mujuru as the people’s choice in the 2018 elections.
“Kaukonde also knows that he is running out of time as reports indicate that Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa may be installed President of the Republic by March this year with First Lady Grace Mugabe taking over his seat as Vice President, a development that will finally seal the Mujuru faction demise,” Mutodi wrote on his page.
When the Daily News contacted him yesterday, Mutodi said there was no need for him to amplify what he had put on his Facebook page.
“Ukaona chinhu, handiti unongotora sezvachiri (When you see something, you take it as it is),”Mutodi said.
He went on to ask why the Daily News had sought his further comment when what he had said was “in black and white”.
While refusing to comment specifically on Mutodi’s controversial utterances, Mugabe’s nephew Zhuwao was however quick to point out yesterday that discussions around the succession issue were “misguided and misdirected”.
“They (issues to do with the presidency and succession) are narratives that derail our focus which the majority of Zimbabweans voted for,” Zhuwao told the Daily News.
He said Mugabe was only voted into office in July 2013, and had been given another mandate to stand as Zanu PF presidential candidate for 2018 — making the succession debate “mischievous”.
Zhuwao also said that the articles that he had written in State media related to constitutional provisions and not the succession issue.
In one of his articles, Zhuwao described the mentioning of Mnangagwa as the first vice president’ and Crown Prince, as “mischievous”.
And during the same week that Zhuwao wrote that opinion, Moyo weighed in the debate and said that there were people who were bent on confusing Mnangagwa’s appointment with an anointment as Mugabe’s successor — adding that both the constitutions of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe did not provide for the anointment of a successor.
These views ventilated the growing speculation that both men were not in favour of Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe.
But political analyst and respected University of Zimbabwe lecturer Eldred Masunungure described Mutodi’s sentiments yesterday as mere “wishful thinking”.
He said there were no signs that Mugabe would retire or resign from his position anytime soon.
“All things being equal, I don’t see that (Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe in March) happening because the president said he would only leave office only if he loses his sanity.
“I don’t think we are anywhere near that scenario,” Masunungure said.
He said this was also moreso given that Mugabe was set to take-over as the leader of the African Union at the end of this month, adding that he would not want to resign from his position after only serving two months as a continental leader. – DailyNews/Additional Reporting

A pastor who picked up two prostitutes on separate occasions before raping and robbing them has been hauled before court in Bulawayo.
Vuyisile Lionel Madzingwe, 28, would pay the women for sex favours before demanding back his money. Madzingwe, whose church could not be established, appeared before the Bulawayo courts on Saturday facing two counts of robbery and rape.
Bulawayo magistrate Singandu Jele remanded him in custody to January 16. Prosecuting Charles Danda alleges that on December 8 at around 10PM, the first victim was soliciting for clients at corner Simon Parirenyatwa Street and 11th Avenue.
She was approached by Madzingwe who was driving a Navy Blue Nissan, the court heard.
Danda said on arrival, the “man of the cloth” asked one of the prostitutes for a short time and was charged $7.
The woman got into Madzingwe’s car and they drove off. After they had gone past United Bulawayo Hospitals, the accused stopped the car near a bushy area. He then gave the woman $5 saying he could no longer afford the agreed $7 and the two had sex.
Danda said after the act, Madzingwe demanded his money back and the woman complied.
Madzingwe later demanded all the money the woman had and she refused, the court heard.
He allegedly produced a pistol-like tool and pointed it at the woman forcing her to surrender the $26 she had remained with.
Madzingwe is alleged to have conducted a body search on the woman and even inserted his fingers into her privates, threatening to kill her. He then drove the woman back into town and on their way the woman opened the door and fled.
For the second attack, Danda told the court that the incident occurred on December 30 at around 11PM. He said another sex worker was soliciting for clients along George Silundika and 11th Avenue when she was approached by Madzingwe.
The accused requested for short time and was charged $10. They drove off heading towards Suburbs area. After driving past the Bulawayo Polytechnic College, the accused stopped the car and demanded that they have sex in the car, the court heard.
The woman allegedly asked to be paid first and was given $20. Madzingwe demanded his change and the woman gave him a $10 note. After sex, Madzingwe made a U-turn and drove towards town. He suddenly made another U-turn and drove straight to the bushy area near UBH, the court heard.
When they got there, the accused allegedly slapped the woman and demanded his money back. He also ordered the woman to give him all the money that she had and was given $60, the court heard.
Madzingwe is alleged to have also robbed the woman of her Nokia X2 cellphone.
After that he allegedly searched the woman’s bag and stole a bangle, sweets and a necklace. He then drove off and dropped the woman in Matsheumhlope, the court heard.
Madzingwe was arrested on the following day in his car and a cellphone was recovered. chronicle

Incarcerated Johanne Masowe eChishanu apostolic sect leader Madzibaba Ishmael Chokurongerwa who yesterday appeared in court facing public violence charges, did not attack any cops and was not even in Zimbabwe, MDC-T party Secretary General and practising lawyer Douglas Mwonzora, has said.
These facts came as Chokurongerwa (44), who had been on the run for the past seven months, appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Milton Serima.
Mr Serima remanded Chokurongerwa in custody and will make his ruling today(Tuesday).
Prosecutor Mr Sebastian Mutizirwa urged the court to deny Chokurongerwa bail citing that he is a flight risk.
The State claims that Madzibaba allegedly led his followers in attacking policemen and journalsists at his sect’s shrine in Harare’s Budiriro suburb in May last year.
But the MDC-T Secretary General who is a trained lawyer, Douglas Mwonzora has defended Ishmael saying the latter was not even in Zimbabwe at the time of the attack.
“What we are certainly sure of is that he was not there when the alleged offence took place. We hope that the law will take its own course and we hope his safety will be guaranteed,” said Mwonzora.
The verdict is due by end of day Tuesday.

THE Zimbabwe Community in South Africa chairperson, Ngqabutho Mabhena, yesterday said Zimbabweans, who applied for permits in South Africa, will not be charged for overstaying in that country, despite some of them only being granted a five-day stay when they returned to their bases.
In the past days, there was reportedly commotion and crisis at the Beitbridge border post, as Zimbabweans returning to South Africa after the festive holiday are said only to be given five days to be in that country, including those with pending permit applications.
The national administrator for the Migrant Workers’ Association South Africa, Ezra Maplanka, told Southern Eye on Sunday that they had received a number of reports of people being given a limited stay in South Africa.
In clarifying the matter, Mabhena said the South Africa Home affairs department has rectified the issue with the immigration department.
“The former DZP (dispensation Zimbabwean permit) holders who were given less than 90 days should not panic,” he said. “No one will be charged for overstaying in the country (South Africa). This has been communicated to the management at the port of entry. There is no need to rush to any Home Affairs office or to the border to get the passport stamped.”
South Africa’s Home Affairs Department last year introduced new permits for Zimbabweans living in that country.
Zimbabweans had up to last December 31 to renew their permits.
Mabhena said there was no need to panic and appealed for calm, as an announcement would be made once senior managers at Home Affairs were back from the holidays.
“Home Affairs has contacted the South African Banking Association with regards frozen accounts over the expiry of DZP permits,” he said.
“The leadership of the banking association is now in talks with banks to ensure that accounts are not frozen and those frozen are reactivated.”
Last week, Mabhena said 206 170 Zimbabweans had applied for the Zimbabwe special permits, with 196 816 booking their appointments.

A 20-YEAR-OLD South Africa-based Zimbabwean was last week shot dead by his friend following a quarrel over R100.
Wayne Tagarira, originally from Bulawayo’s Magwegwe North suburb, was shot in the chest, a few hours before New Year’s Day, when he was out with his friends.
Tagarira’s aunt, who was visibly distraught, told Southern Eye that on the fateful night, they received a message from South Africa informing them of their nephew’s death.
“A few hours before New Year’s Day, we received a message from South Africa notifying us that Wayne was dead,” the aunt, Rudo Tagarira, said.
“I could not believe it because we last spoke to him on Sunday.
“The message said he had been shot in the chest by a friend and he had died on the spot.”
Rudo said Wayne had lent his friend R100, but when he went to ask that he pay it back, the friend ran away and returned with a gun, which he used to shoot him in the chest.
Wayne’s grandmother, Moddy Tagarira, who could barely talk, said she was still in disbelief and failing to come to terms with the loss of her grandson.
“To me this feels like a nightmare, because I last spoke to Wayne on Sunday,” she said.
“He was apologising for not coming to Zimbabwe for the Christmas holiday due to work commitments. When he called me, we were laughing so much and he even promised to send me money to extend our house.”
Moddy described Wayne as a quiet man, who was fond of playing soccer.
She said she never expected that one day he would pick a fight with anyone to the extent of losing his own life.
Moddy said the family is expecting the deceased’s body on Thursday and it is then that funeral arrangements would be made.
It is believed that Wayne’s killer has since been apprehended by the police in South Africa and he is helping them with investigations. – SouthernEye

The State Media claims that’s the rains have contaminated water wells countrywide. Publishing on their claim seen as an attempt to ward off public anger over bad service delivery, the State owned radio said Harare is mostly affected.
FULL REPORT:
An outbreak of water borne diseases is looming in some parts of Harare if action is not taken to address the issue of water supplies that have been contaminated following incessant rains.
The heavy rains that have been pounding the country over the past few days have resulted in some water sources being filled up by dirty water posing a health risk for residents who depend on wells.
A medical practitioner says people should be on high alert as the heavy rains expose them to a number of water borne diseases.
“The heavy rains that have fallen expose Zimbabweans to bilharzias, cholera, dysentery and malaria as a result of the long grass that is growing which provides ample breeding ground for the parasites,” said Dr Shephered Machekera.
With many urban authorities such as the City of Harare failing to provide adequate water supplies, some residents have resorted to digging wells.
Some of the wells however do not conform to the required safety standards, resulting in the water being contaminated

THE government has made a major climbdown and now allows farming joint ventures between new black farmers and white former commercial farmers.
It now also allows contract farming.
Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora said farmers were now free to choose who they wanted to engage in joint ventures and contract farming.
“Joint ventures can be black to black, black to white, black to yellow or red . . . as long people agree on terms of the contract, but we need to see the contract before it is signed because we want to protect both parties and we encourage fair play not manipulation of one party by the other,” he said.
Mombeshora said some people came to the government complaining that they had been chased away by resettled farmers after pouring resources on the farms.
Asked if this was a major U-turn on government policy on land, Mombeshora claimed they had always allowed this to happen.
“It is not true to say that the government ever disapproved contract farming and joint ventures, what the government didn’t approve of (and doesn’t allow) even now is sub-leasing of land,” he said.
But speaking at the installation of Chiefs Alfred Tome Beperere and Johannes Kanyoka Chidziva of Zvimba at Murombedzi growth point last year, President Robert Mugabe took a swipe at politicians harbouring whites.
“Don’t enter contract farming with whites, it’s a dangerous, dangerous arrangement that we don’t want,” he said then.
At Chipfundi in Mhangura last year, Mugabe again accused his lieutenants of “supping with whites” and promised to deal decisively with them.
“Some of my ministers are being mentioned here,” he said.
“They are refusing to remove white farmers from their constituencies.”
Mugabe seems to have lost the plot, as most Zanu PF bigwigs were denouncing contract farming and joint ventures publicly, while secretly engaging former white commercial farmers as partners.
A Mhangura farmer, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, confirmed that contract farming and joint ventures between whites and most top politicians were prevalent.
“They were already engaging white partners yet refusing us permission to go into partnership with whites,” the A2 farmer said.
“The big politicians are hypocrites; they now want to officially accept contract farming and joint ventures because they can no longer hide it, but they have been partnering white farmers for a very long time yet they would deny it to the president.” – SouthernEye

Minister of State Faber Chidarikire, who was once found with a fresh bloodied human skull in the boot of his car and claimed it belonged to a pedestrian he had knocked down, has been sucked into the shocking fraudulent inputs scheme that cost farmers $39k. (READ MORE- Human Skull In Minister’s Car.)
The resident minister for Mashonaland West and Hurungwe East who was voted the most Satanic Minister 2014, and  MP Sarah Mahoka have been named in court as being part of the con.
Zakeyo Chirumezani, 38, who is the founder of a non-governmental organisation, Community Development Trust, based in Mvurwi, appeared before Harare magistrate Milton Serima on Friday, but will be back in court today for his bail application.
State counsel Sharon Mashavira alleged that Chirumezani defrauded communal farmers from Hurungwe, Chundu and Nyamukate areas under Chief Chundu between January 2013 and February 2014 under the guise that his NGO would assist them with agricultural inputs and transport.
The court heard that in pursuit of his plan, Chirumezani approached Chidarikire seeking authority to distribute agricultural inputs in the province.
Chidarikire authorised the accused person to distribute the inputs. Armed with a letter of authority written by Chidarikire, the accused person allegedly approached the substantive Chief Chundu, Abel Mbasera, purporting to be representing a bona fide NGO and convinced chief Chundu to rally his subjects behind the programme.
During the period, several farmers under Chief Chundu are said to have contributed $192 each for 16 days which totalled $17 413 and they were promised 50kg bags of fertiliser each. The money was paid by the chief’s aide, identified in court papers as Chigumbura, through ecocash transfer to mobile number 0778 213885.
Chirumezani allegedly approached Mahoka whom he convinced to give him $1 000 purporting that the money was for the transportation of fertilisers from Mvurwi depot to Hurungwe. The court heard that the money was paid by a councillor only identified as Ndlovu through ecocash into the accused person’s number.
The accused person then approached a cleric identified as Pastor Rudgeson Makonye and misrepresented to him that he was the training co-ordinator for CDT and was in need of 1 500 literature books to train 1 500 farmers, it is alleged.
He was allegedly given 200 books valued at $1 000 on credit on the understanding that Makonye would collect his payment after two days at Chirumezani’s offices in Mvurwi. When Makonye went to the said offices after two days, he discovered the offices were non-existent.
The accused person is alleged to have proceeded to Kariba where he met one Nicholas Matomba and introduced himself and his organisation. He allegedly ordered 70 tonnes of kapenta fish misrepresenting that he wanted to distribute them to less privileged families in Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland West provinces.
The court heard that Matomba supplied Chirumezani with 2 400kg of kapenta fish valued at $17 500 after agreeing that the latter would deposit the money into the complainant’s bank account.
He then approached Advance Pasca whom he told he was in need of three sets of sofas for use during his meetings with donors, it is alleged. He was supplied with the sofas valued at $2 810, but did not pay for them as he had promised.
Chirumezani caused the complainants actual prejudice of $39 723 and nothing was recovered. Newsday/ZimEye

A 23-YEAR-OLD ZIMBABWEAN woman was arrested on New Year’s day after she allegedly stabbed her partner who is a soldier in the British army.
Alyanda Ndiweni appeared in court at Bradford where charges were laid on her for repeatedly stabbing her partner during an altercation on New Year’s Day.
Appearing at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court on Friday she sobbed profulsely before the court.
She is accused of wounding Vincent Ngwenya at her home in Kingsdale Avenue, Undercliffe, Bradford, with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.
Prosecutor Paul Ramsay said the case would have to go to Bradford Crown Court.
He said Miss Ndiweni is accused of stabbing Mr Ngwenya at least twice with a four and a half inch bladed kitchen knife after they had returned to Bradford from a night out in Manchester.
Mr Ramsay said Mr Ngwenya, who is in the Army, was allegedly stabbed through his shoulder bone and had wounds near the top of his head and the back of his neck.
Ndiweni, the mother of a young child, was granted bail and ordered to appear at the Crown Court on January 21 for a preliminary hearing. – Telegraph & Argus

A Harare-bound National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) passenger train power coach was gutted by a mysterious fire at Somerby Siding Station near Snake World just outside Harare yesterday.
The incident, which occurred around ten o’clock in the morning left residents of Snake World farming community shell shocked as the locomotive travelled from as far as Kintyre Estates before the driver of the train realised it.
“We noticed that the train was burning and almost everyone who was in the township signalled the driver who seemed not to notice to stop,” said Nelson Ndarasika an eyewitness.
Ndarasika added that the fire could have been fatal if it had occurred far from human settlements as passengers did not realise their train had caught fire as it was raining heavily.
He said the fire did not go as far as the passenger coach hence there were no injuries with only one woman who appeared to have been in shock being taken away in a municipal ambulance.
“People from Kintyre Estates called us to say that they had also noticed that the train was smoking from inside but could not inform the driver.
“Even when we called to him, he did not seem to hear us at first and when he eventually stopped, that is when the passengers began to panic with some trying to jump through the windows before they were calmed down”.
When the Daily News crew arrived at the scene, the Harare Municipality Fire Brigade was struggling to put out the fire that burnt the coach beyond repair.
As the firemen made frantic efforts, reinforcements were being sent in to help put the fire out, taking them close to an hour to extinguish.
The train was travelling from Bulawayo.
Fanwell Masikati, the NRZ public relations manager said they suspected an electrical fault in the coach which houses the electricity generator for the whole train adding that investigations to establish the exact cause of the fire were already underway.
“Normally, when accidents of that nature happen, we carry out thorough investigations to establish what exactly caused the fire and that process is already underway.
“We are happy that no one was injured and that the passenger coach arrived safely,” said Masikati.
This comes as the NRZ is cash-strapped and failing to service the 50-plus-year-old fleet that is now obsolete and no longer offers competitive service.
The average life of a railway asset is 25 years whether it is utilised or not.
Last year, Lewis Mukwada, the NRZ acting general manager, told the Amos Midzi-chaired parliamentary portfolio committee that they urgently needed $10 billion for re-capitalisation as well as offsetting a $144 million debt owed to service providers and employees.-DailyNews

A 17-YEAR-OLD former Cowdray Park Secondary School student is suspected to have been initiated into Satanism after she went out with her South Africa-based friends to a New Year’s Eve party and returned claiming she wanted to eat her mother’s brains and suck blood from of her sibling’s private parts.
The juvenile returned from the party with an unusual behaviour, telling her parents how the Biblical number of the beast 666 worked in the spiritual realm and claiming she had her own code that she used to get into her mother’s brain.
This raised alarm among the neighbours, who told her parents that her actions were synonymous with Satanism and that they should call for spiritualists’ intervention to solve the matter before she got worse.
Talking to Southern Eye, the girl’s mother said her daughter had been expelled from Emakhandeni Secondary School after she made death threats to other students.
“I thought she was delivered long ago because this is not the first time it is happening,” the mother explained.
“She once did it at her former school and she was expelled.
“This time around it became worse because she was threatening to suck blood from her sibling’s private parts and eat my brains.”
The mother said her daughter had been normal until her friends asked to go with her to a New Year’s Eve party.
“She returned home early in the morning and started cleaning. After a while she locked herself in her room and we heard her scream. That is when she claimed she saw a snake under her bed and she immediately started saying she wanted to taste my brains and suck blood,” she added.
The mother called for the neighbours, who witnessed the girl moving like a snake and called the nearby pastors who prayed for the girl.
Pastor Elias Mwizha of the Apostolic Assembly church said the child was initiated into Satanism through sex, because they had noticed sexual demons as they prayed for her.
“I personally hope that she has been fully delivered. It is only a matter of time that she recovers,” Mwizha said.
One of the neighbours blamed her South Africa-based friends, saying they were responsible for her actions and they were never seen after that night.
– SouthernEye

Southern Zim: Taking the debate forward
Opinion by Nathaniel Manheru
Happy New Year, dear reader, and a hopeful 2015. My instalment last week drew a vigorous response from individuals largely drawn from one or two political parties, both of them founded on narrow politics, both of them seeking dignity and decency in names from a hallowed past. Of course, I am using vigorous as a euphemism for raw, untamed anger. There was anger, lots of it. Even attempts at intimidation in some cases. Of course I expected expletives, so no surprises at all. And as we say in Shona, panotushuka ronda, urwa harwuperi.
Or in English, where a wound ripens and cracks, expect lots of puss. The matter at hand touches deep emotions, affects careers and prospects and suturing such a wound is bound to be a messy, splattering affair.
Anger is part of the much-needed catharsis, a way of sobering and steadying the national mind for dispassionate engagement, indeed for looking into a common future. The key is not to get intimidated, not to shirk from tackling real issues.
Or to join in the yelling competition to the point of losing the argument and focus.
Without fear or favour
A few more writers threatened to desert the column. Only the previous week they yodelled, yodelled because my pen’s scald fell on some tender skin so far away from their own. They do not mind for as long as the column bites away from them.
The column gets saluted when it tackles a deviance afar, not a foible closer to the bone. Well, today I answer them. I don’t think I run this column to please any quarter, to ingratiate myself with any person or interest, from whichever corner of the country.
Freeing myself from such arresting impulses is how I have been able to tackle any issue, all issues, all the time seeking to bring in a different, hopefully fresh, perspective to national debate. That cannot happen when I write under strictures, whether by way of fears, doubts or debts.
Above all, I try to write from a national perspective in the sense of regarding Zimbabwe as one indissoluble polity with a given history, a united nation which is free and sovereign, yes, a polity which must forever remain free, democratic and African.
I write from a Zanu-PF pedestal. Not simply out of gratuitous loyalty to that Party. But because it remains the Party of national liberation and national unity, a status it can never lose or compete for, but one it could so easily spoil by what it does or does not do, both in the present and into the future.
But because presently it is the only Party whose policies do coincide with the national interest as I see and interpret it, something I hold sacred.
Easier than morality play
At the risk of revealing who I am, let it be known and recorded that the conflict which affected the southern part of Zimbabwe happened when I was at the University of Zimbabwe, then the only university in the country. The impact of that conflict reverberated right through to the portals of that coveted campus, then the only one. There was tension, much of it simplistically drawn along tribal lines: you were Ndebele and therefore Zapu and therefore a dissident; you were Shona and therefore ZANU and therefore a Fifth Brigader.
You were a rebel, you were a killer. An easy world, more cleanly delineated than in a morality play, yet so fatal, so foreboding for the futures of this Nation. I remember one turbulent evening when word spread on campus that Zapu supporters had held a secret meeting with Joshua Nkomo in the lower common room of Manfred Hodson Hall.
For the “Shonas” it was an embarrassing lapse in vigilance. The “enemy” had infiltrated. Someone had to pay. For the Ndebeles, it was a triumph. The Shonas had been beaten and someone had been suitably humiliated. It was terrible, with a senior student official of Zapu, now a prominent publisher, having to flee the campus to avert lynching, indeed to keep his dear life.
Such were those terrible days of conflict. Maybe we have done this nation a disservice by not speaking about them, so the young generation is able to fathom the high price paid by all in times of violent disunity.
Into the Blue Room
I joined the work-a-day world in 1986, just a year before cessation of hostilities associated with that conflict. I was interviewed by two bosses for my maiden job in Government, both of them Ndebele-speaking. Not quite the same as being redeemed by letter “r” in place of letter “l”, as Hlosukwakha, one of my readers alleged, obviously insinuating I was hired on tribal grounds.
And I am interviewed and passed for work in a political office, constitutionally the highest in the land at the time. By the time I get employed, unity talks are just hitting their peak, and my two bosses are in the thick of things.
Then one day — I think it might have been a Thursday — I am asked to prepare a set for a signing ceremony in the functions room at State House. Then at about eleven on that great day, I saw many vehicles pulling in, and very important people alighting, all to be received and led to a VIP lounge, itself a room rich in history. The nationalists had met the British premier of the day in the October preceding November 11, 1965, the day Ian Smith declared UDI. The 1991 Commonwealth Summit had also seen the British Monarch living in that same room.
The late Cde John Nkomo
The day Nkomo sloughed off a bad name
In between arrivals were officials who included my immediate boss, frenetically dashing between points and venues, always armed with sheaves of papers they would not want to show or drop. Soon, the media would also come, partly at my behest.
Everything pointed to some important occurrence. Then my biggest boss moved out of his office, to the receiving point in front of State House. He stood still, half wistful. In pulled a motorcade, adding to the importance of the whole event. A trim man emerged from a Mercedes Benz.
As he stepped out, he buttoned his navy blue suit and adjusted his glasses. Immediately I knew whose characteristic that was and the whole media surged forward for a close-up. Mugabe, then Prime Minister, was received, warmly but not without a clear tinge of nervousness.
The two men retired into a secluded office and a little while later, I saw the late Vice President, Cde Simon Muzenda leading a whole team of persons I knew as Government ministers, leading them out of the Blue Room, as we called the guest lounge.
That team included one Emmerson Mnangagwa, now Vice President of the country. Then in trooped another team, led by none other than Joshua Nkomo, now late, a man we celebrate today and forever as Father of our Nation. On the day, he dragged a more modest, nay suspicious identity, one heavily coloured by the ongoing conflict affecting the Southern part of the country.
Cde Joseph Wilfred Msika (1923-2009)
You had to be suitably standoffish with him for official propaganda framed him as the “father of dissidents”. If I remember well, Nkala had coined it. I didn’t quite know everyone in his team but I certainly recognised Joseph Msika, a man who would rise the national ladder almost soon after. I also recognised a smart, suave and bespectacled gentleman who would later turn out to be John Nkomo, yet another figure to go up soon after.
I was struck by a bonhomie spirit of that day, one contradicted by the brooding animosities I knew to colour the outward world.
The men behind the scenes
The whole drama drifted into the functions room. I will spare the reader details of what followed. Suffice it to say the text of the Unity Accord was read, to be followed by signatures of two men: Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, with Canaan Banana — my boss — behind.
Next to Canaan Banana stood my immediate boss, Clifford Sileya, now with CZI. I stood together with the press, on the northern side of the room. The venue was State House; the day was 22nd December, the year 1987, exactly two years after I had joined Government as an Information Liaison Officer to the then State President.
On the officials side was Dr Utete, then Secretary to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. There was Cde Willard Chiwewe, then a key Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, but on the day a key minute-taker to the unity negotiations.
He showed clear signs of elation, but one shooting above the strain of a drawn out process which seemed hopeless. Many meetings had been held in Munhumutapa Building and Parliament in an indefatigable search for an end to hostilities and for peace and unity.
Cde Chiwewe is alive, now a key advisor to the Zimbabwe Government. Then came the famous embrace, which gave us the picture by which the Unity Accord is now recognised, if not typified. In the background of that embrace is the late Reverend Banana, grinning.
There is a happy Clifford Sileya, then as Secretary to the President, and as my immediate boss. He had played a crucial role in reaching the Zapu side, acting on instructions from Reverend Banana. Today he will tell you how poisoned the environment of those days was, making his efforts and errands seem thankless and even dangerous.
JOSHUA NKOMO
The hard work that followed
Speeches followed, with the first one coming from the late Joshua Nkomo. I still remember what for me passed for the bite of the whole event: Unity is not the signing of documents; unity is what follows, he said. It was put in that cryptic fashion, but to summarise the voluminous work that lay ahead.
Immediately, I saw a formidable symbol behind that huge frame, such that declaring him Father of the Nation was merely a modest completion of a natural right. Amazing how conflicts belittle men of real worth. And huge work indeed lay ahead, get it from me.
The next two years saw two leaders traversing the country, making joint rallies at which the whole agreement was sold to all the corners of the country. Both leaders regretted the conflict. Both leaders vowed this sad chapter had to be closed, never to be re-opened again in this land.
And at those meetings, they spoke to the ordinary villagers, in the case of the Southern Region, spoke to the actual communities which had borne the brunt of the conflict. The two leaders knew their real interlocutors. Not the elites I hear carping nowadays, mumbling about a conflict they know little about, beyond hearsay and poisoned narratives. I attended practically every rally. Thankfully I was still single, thus risked alienating no tender heart.
The conflict that was not one-sided
I got to know Joshua Nkomo better, including that he could speak Shona! I got to know Robert Mugabe better, including that he could speak Ndebele. At all these rallies, I took minutes. And for the first time, the scale of this conflict whose echoes had reached me from the comfort of campus life, became apparent.
Lives had been lost on both sides Southern Zim:
Taking the debate forward in the conflict. Not this one sided, self-serving elitist narrative that locates deaths only on one side of the bloody divide. They were ugly scenes very close to Harare, in the Zvimba area, involving Shona families.
They were ugly scenes in the Mberengwa area, again involving families perceived to be Shonas. One victim, a lady bayoneted by insurgents is still alive, and monthly comes to Harare, wheelchair bound, for routine reviews.
She belongs to the Musoni clan, the clan of my late mother. She is related to a key Government official. One day her story shall be told from that wheelchair. They were ugly scenes involving families and individuals in different parts of Matabeleland, families perceived to be supporters of dissidents, then conflatable to being Ndebele, and so got persecuted for that reason.
Yes, there were white families and individuals who perished in that conflict, including tourists and farmers, most memorably those who perished closer to the Gwaai River, only to be found months later, as bare ashen bones buried in the riverbed of the mighty Gwaai. It was a bad international story for the country.
There was Government equipment burnt to ashes, drawing back infrastructural work that would have changed places, lives. That was the scope and nature of the conflict.
The little men who jump shorter
When I talk about Gukurahundi I do so from a lived experience, not from a synthetic report founded on hearsay or some narrative by some Rhodesian-turned Catholic. I don’t do so from calculated political advantage located some time in the future. I have no such ambitions. I do so from a deep fear. A deep fear arising from knowing the divisive potential of any politics kneaded around this and any such occurrences. Any nation is bound to handle with utmost care any conflict which follows a natural faultline, more so when the faultline has failed to hold together in the past. It is very easy to cause a second failure, to burn a country, generating even greater suffering. I do so knowing how reckless politicians, especially those embittered by the loss of what they view as posts natural to them, can very easily rake fresh these ominous faultlines. They hope to gain from the ensuing conflict, indeed hope to use these natural faultlines to mobilise people for what in reality amounts to a narrow personal quest for power and office.
Often they never make it, usually getting eaten by those conflicts. By they will have burnt a nation. Above all, I do so from deep anger at what I see as an attempt to wreck an accord designed to foster peace in the land, designed by leaders of far greater vision than the little men who prance about getting shorter with each jump at ambition, presently seeking high office they clearly don’t deserve, judging by their little outlooks and warped visions. It is not sheer coincidence that the reissuing of the whole debate on Gukurahundi coincides with new appointments done recently. It is also quite telling that the debate happens on the Internet, in papers and by way of opinion pieces, themselves platforms and instruments which have absolutely nothing to do with the interlocutors of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe when they sought to present the Unity Accord as a proposal and mechanism for national peace, national healing and national reconciliation.
Whose truth, whose reconciliation?
I referred to a natural faultline. One respondent to my challenge gives his name as Bekezela Maduna Fuzwayo. He denies that the Unity Accord healed the conflict. The “people of Matabeleland” are still pained and bitter, he says. He adds: “these people are still seeking answers to this very sad part of their history . . .” His third reference to the same starts thus: “If WE the people of Matabeleland who are victims do not claim “ownership” to OUR history . . .” He goes further: “You say you have invited people to come out and debate the issue with you in public in a national forum and no one has come forward. In the first place where are you and who are you Nathaniel to call for such a dialogue? Who after all gave you the mandate to make such a call?” He rounds up by making a militant demand: “We are demanding a formal Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring healing to the country not a lone distorted voice in the wilderness using Kangaroo platforms to score unworthy points.”
You cannot miss the clear attempt to own and privatise that conflict. You cannot miss the attempt to put the same conflict beyond national public discourse, yes, to keep it freshly and inexhaustibly exploitable each time the urge or ambition for some goal arises. The victim starts in the third person impersonal, until all pretenses are cast aside and the conscriptive second person plural “we” kicks in. And the matter gets framed as one between Ndebeles or “people of (not from!) Matabeleland”, and the rest. Who are these “people of Matabeleland”? Villagers from Bhalagwe in Maphisa? Villagers from Dinyane in Tsholotsho? And these villagers demand “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”? That bourgeois gathering which allowed greater amity between African elites and white Afrikaners while bringing no respite to the actual victims of apartheid? Who doesn’t know TRC created a Tutu, while burying for good Steve Biko? Who? Or are we talking about a demand from the half-caste, ambitious middle-class politicians and political activists seeking another enabling conflict or conflict-resolution process as would give them a second chance to their failed politics, failed ambitions?
When Kalangas are Nguni, when Ndaus are Shona!
And the writer gets despicably narrow: “Tactfully you (Manheru) divert from addressing the Ndebele concern and bring in the Kalanga people and try to circumvent them (sic) to believe that they are not part of the Ndebele people. We know the divide and rule tactics that are being thrown into the people of Matabeleland. All the tribes and languages of the South are one under Mthwakazi banner no matter how much effort is put to try and divide us, our cultural practises and history shall always bind us together. Why don’t you start by trying to remove the Ndau from Shona or the Karanga of Manyika from Shona before you tell the Kalanga that they are not part of Mthwakazi or Ndebele? This is very divisive and uncalled for.”
Several issues are provoked and exposed. Fundamentally, here is a tribal bigot with a zero sense of history of this country. He does not know the history of various groups found in the country, and thus cannot know himself or what he claims from history. Historically, the Kalangas do not come from what he calls “the South”. Their origins are not of Nguni, Sir! Historically too, the Ndaus are, to the last hair, of Nguni origin. Much worse, this is one group to which Lobengula was linked by marriage, Sir, under chief Ngungunyana. But that is the nature of the whole debate on Gukurahundi: it is driven by tribal bigots who have no sense of history at all. Who do not hesitate to twist it to suit their refractory conclusions.
Much worse, they seek to conflate everything and everyone into this imaginary superordinate called “Ndebele” or Mthwakazi, blissfully without realising they are trembling on and injuring, thereby reawakening other identities. As it turns out, the writer got a swift and sharp response from one “m2gombo” whose response deserves to be reproduced: “Mr Fuzwayo, I come from Plumtree and I am a Kalanga. First of all, I have never heard of this place called Matabeleland Region. Please help me and tell me where it is located. Tha BaKalanga are themselves. They have nothing to do with the Ndebele except that the Ndebele stole Kalanga territory, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, sandals, hoes, axes, hats, women, boys, etc. We want our property back.”
One gentleman called Nhuku
Or the response given to one Ndaba Nhuku, another respondent to my article. Calling me a genocidare, Nhuku will not have any discussion on Gukurahundi. It is a property of the “victim”, who is himself and those like him. My article is viewed as “in insult to the people of Matabeleland who bore the bulk of suffering for supporting Zapu, despite their being Kalanga, Ndebele, Sotho, Venda, Nambya, Tonga, Shona speaking, or anything for that matter”. Disagreeing with Nhuku or suggesting discussion around a conflict situation amounts to insulting “the people of Matabeleland”? And who are these people? So where are Zimbabweans found? And Nhuku works himself into a propaganda frenzy: “The man (Manheru) is crudely opening the wounds and reviving the raw pains still being felt by kids who watched their fathers and mothers bayoneted alive, the pain we feel for our relatives and friends and classmates we lost because his master (Manheru’s master, President Mugabe) had momentarily lost his mental capacities during what he called “a moment of madness”! How so arrogant, base and utterly stupid and insensitive to posture over a national shame and blame the wronged for feeling victimised?
How so arrogant to ask the people of Matabeleland and Midlands not to “own” their pain from the Gukurahundi era? When it comes to Gukurahundi, Manheru has no right to tell Matabeleland when to cry, mourn or shut up!” Apart from being shut up from discussing what Nhuku calls “a national shame”, apparently one which does not require national discussants, I am accused of participating in the conflict by virtue of where he thinks I work! And the victims are never traceable personages, no, only cousins, kids, mothers, classmates, etc, etc! We are given synthetic victims not because real victims do not exist, but because those pretending to push for their cause have no knowledge of, or contact with them! And they do not need that contact, lest they are exposed and contradicted. What they only need is Coltart’s narrative, and of course bitterness against the leadership in Government. That was my point last week, my illustrated point this week, thanks to these respondents.
Back to the pull of office
Nhuku puts it plainly: “Manheru, Gukurahundi can never be shelved! The Gukurahundi victims will never shut up!! Anyone appointed as Zanu-PF leader from Matabeleland will be examined, measured and judged according to his role at that “moment of madness. Pain comes at anytime, and more so when some appointments or promotions take place to revive that pain.” You can’t miss the import of it all. Surely a Dabengwa who gets appointed as a Zanu-PF leader before that pain goes away is eating on that pain, and thus should be “examined, measured and judged” according this moment of madness? Or is it about anyone else except Dabengwa? And if Gukurahundi “affected everyone” to the point of “indeed (becoming) a national issue . . . that affects our national collective conscience and national cohesion”, to the point of being “the genesis of our post-colonial struggle”, why fear a discussion around it? Why make it a selective preserve of chosen discussants who enjoy the prerogative of deciding when and where to make it an issue and when and where not to make it one?
One bigot courts another
My real point was the reaction which Nhuku got for himself. A lengthy one came from one “Les” who accuses him of being a conspiracist who raves himself to “idiocy of the highest order”. Then Les urges Nhuku to “accept the simple truth that Zimbabwe population ratio stands as follows: Shona is 82 percent of Zimbabwe’s population and Ndebeles about 15 percent. On that score alone, common sense would dictate that whether you like it or not, Shona people. Will outnumber Ndebele in all spheres where random selection applies . . . I really hope the writer and those like him, would educate themselves, that Ndebele language is not large as they were brought up to believe. That is why in 1987 Joshua Nkomo was heard admitting “sibalutswane” meaning “we are few”. In other words, it took him a good seven years to realise that Ndebeles are a minority in Zimbabwe.
In the 1980 elections, Nkomo really believed he would win the elections? That was political immaturity so glaring. Other responds recalled the precolonial conflict between the so-called Ndebeles and the so-called Shonas, implying the so-called Ndebeles lost their right to be aggrieved from the conflict of those years!
When the genie escapes from the bottle
This Les guy makes an appalling response, one which he seeks to give scientific and historical plausibility through inaccurate statistics and false citations. For him opportunities must be based on numerical value of constitutive tribes, not on deservedness for appointments or placements. And his argument is buoyed by others who think conflicts from history must be exhumed to even arguments, to distribute guilt. And like their Gukurahundi-owning counterparts cited above, the whole matter gets framed in terms of tribal affiliations, a nomenclature that pales the notion and nation-state called Zimbabwe into insignificance. These are perfect equals, only on opposite poles, both of them injurious to national consciousness, good and even peace. And that is my point: check what genie escapes from the bottle unscrewed by this reckless discourse on Gukurahundi! Check what fertile ground there is to grow it, indeed the predisposition to its receptivity, thanks to faultlines of history, region and ethnicity. What reflexes or responses it provokes! Is this the gorgon we want to unleash on our futures, the ruin we court at a time when the last signatory of the Unity Accord is beginning to wave a foreboding goodbye? And all because of bigots and egotists who do not hesitate to revive and stoke fires of conflict for personal ambitions?
Great lessons from history
Munhumutapa saw the limitations of a narrow Zimbabwe, both geographically and by politics and culture. He created a far-flung polity that covered the whole land right up to the sea. The successor dynasty of the Varozvi, did pretty much the same, locating their spiritual centre down there in Matabeleland. The Kalangas were the guardians of those shrines, but guardians who knew where the capital was. The politics and the spirits jellied to national cohesion. Fast forwarding to the early 1840s, Mzilikazi knew he had left the South and was now of this new land called Zimbabwe: with its diverse ethnic groups, different spiritual practices and spanning swathes of land between the Limpopo and the Zambezi. He conquered, he incorporated, and above all, he embraced the spirituality of the land, with all its pantheon of gods. That way, the land became peaceable, governable. After him, Lobengula ruled by the same philosophy steeped in the actual land, this land. He did not hanker after the South he could never return to; he accepted he had been settled in the North by his forbears, by his history. He pushed frontiers for a wider Zimbabwe. Today, we embrace that as our national history, whatever our ethnic identities. There is no history of narrowness to fall back on, only narrow politicians from no history to shun. Gukurahundi was not the first conflict to afflict this land. And let that be known. I hope it is the last, but cannot be with the small-mindedness I have met above.
The last challenge before total dawn
But out of all conflicts of our restless history, including the colonial one, has always emerged a bigger Zimbabwe that proves a melting post for new, larger identities. Last December, Zanu-PF tackled a tricky situation of leadership and integrity, tackled it with pluck and candour. That dealt and hopefully settled the leadership issue. Today Zanu-PF needs the same pluck and candour to deal with a potentially fatally divisive factor of ethnicity, expressing itself as synthetic bitterness raised and nurtured in the name of victims of Gukurahundi, yet unknown and offering nothing to them. That bitterness is about improving the appeal of Mthwakazi party, about providing Dabengwa and his anaemic Zapu with some credible platform from which to claim Vice Presidency he so recklessly threw away through mindless, breakaway dissent. It would be sad if Robert Mugabe, now the only surviving signatory to the Unity Accord, bows out, leaving this nation at the peril of centrifugal politics of disunity and recidivism. I shudder the thought. Icho!
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THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) has embarked on a major staff shake-up which workers allege is a purge of staff to cover-up for years of financial impropriety.
Zinara allegedly owes its creditors a cumulative debt of $40 million as at November last year.
The parastatal, which collects in excess of $5,5 million per month from 26 tollgates, owes among its debtors the Development Bank of South Africa ($12,8 million), NMB ($8,5 million), the Department of Roads ($5 million) and Cimas for employees’ medical aid cover.
It also collects around $130 million annually from road access fees, vehicle licensing, transit fees, and fuel levy, among other revenue streams.
The staff shake-up, which has raised a stink amongst senior management, has already claimed the scalp of Thomas Mutizhe, who was the financial director, with more dismissals expected in the coming weeks.
Although Mutizhe was handed a letter of suspension on November 27 last year with promises of a disciplinary hearing coming “in due course”, no hearing has been conducted.
Instead, the authority has offered him an exit package, further raising questions about the grounds for his suspension.
Zinara has offered to pay off the balance on the mortgage for his house, and given him a Land Rover Discovery 4 vehicle among other benefits totalling about $400,000.
Senior management sources within the road authority allege that the purge is part of a cover-up of corrupt activities that have been rampant at Zinara.
Documents in possession of our Harare Bureau show that Zinara entered into a contract with Univern Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd in November 2012 for the supply of 40 graders at a cost of $8 million. The director of administration, Precious Murove, signed the contract on behalf of Univern.
Currently, Murove is the acting chief executive, acting finance director and director of administration.
In the contract with Univern, former chief executive Frank Chitukutuku signed on behalf of Zinara with former board members Abdul Kassim and Ben Kaschula appending their signatures as witnesses.
Murove’s signature on the contract has raised ethical and procedural questions, further casting doubts on the authority’s corporate governance.
Questions were later raised by recipient district councils on the suitability of the graders which were said to be designed for very cold climates as they had snow ploughs.
A legal expert who spoke on condition of anonymity said under the Companies Act it was wrong for a receiver of a service to sign on behalf of the service provider.
“Not only is it illegal, it does raise a stink…the most crucial question being, whose interests was he serving? If someone was to raise questions of underhand dealings, sure there’re reasonable grounds to suspect so,” said the legal expert.
Murove said he couldn’t comment on the issue over the phone as he needed clearance from the acting chief executive, the board and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development before he could talk to the media.
He requested written questions, but had not responded to the e-mailed questions by the time of going to press. Besides Murove signing on behalf of Univern, sources at Zinara also alleged the authority had gone into the multi-million dollar contract without seeking technical advice from relevant stakeholders like engineers and the finance department.
The Association of Rural District Councils of Zimbabwe said they had not been consulted during the tender process and that most of the graders were lying idle because they were too expensive to service and consumed twice as much fuel as the old ones they were using.
Guruve council said it had parked its grader insisting it was too expensive to run and was not suitable for the local terrain.
Zinara’s acting chief excutive Engineer Moses Juma recently admitted to Parliament that the graders were fitted with snow clearing ploughs.
A list of Zinara creditors seen by our Harare Bureau shows that service providers from as far back as 2012 have not been paid their dues, while others who provided services much later have been paid.
For instance, service providers who repaired the Bindura-Shamva road in 2012 are yet to be paid.
The indiscriminate manner in which the service providers have been paid has seen some withdrawing their services, a reason given for delays in the completion of the Airport Road in Harare.
In a recent Press statement, the road authority blamed the onset of the rains for abandoning the project, saying roadworks would resume after the rains.
But civil engineers, who cannot be named for professional reasons, argued that if Europe which experiences almost year-round rainfall has its roads constructed, serviced and maintained, why can’t the same be done in Zimbabwe.
Sources in Zinara allege that corruption is at the centre of why most road construction projects are not being completed on time.
“This must be one of the reasons why the acting chief executive officer (Juma), in connivance with some board members, wanted to have the financial director fired as quickly as possible, because there’s a lot of financial impropriety that’s going on,” said a source.
“For instance, Zinara’s creditors are aged according to how long the service provider has not been paid, and they must be paid according to the age of their credit but in most instances there’s always interference on who gets paid.”
– Chronicle

Legendary Professor and Historian, Terrence Ranger who died on the 2nd January in Oxford, UK, deserves national honours.
Zimbabweans have voiced that despite Prof Ranger being of British origin, he encountered the ill-treatment of a freedom fighter during the Chimurenga war when he was deported from Rhodesia. This should be so even though Ranger’s latter years were critical of Robert Mugabe’s torture and abuse of civilians, people commented.

Wrote Bvumavaranda Moyo, “The death of Professor Ranger is very, very sad. This man was one of God’s greatest gifts to the country and people of Zimbabwe. The quest for justice was at the core of his activities. He never wavered even at the worst of times. Given his passionate attachment to Zimbabwe, I consider him a national hero. He was already one even before death robbed him away from us.
“His deeds have rendered him immortal, at least in the hearts of those of us who know his role in the quest for universal suffrage in Zimbabwe as well as his tireless effort to keep our heritage from crumbling to dust.
Professor Terence Ranger was a great man,” he said.
 
Journalist and author Sarudzayi Chifamba added voice speaking highly of Ranger, “He was my external examiner when I studied History at the University of Zimbabwe in 1994. I then met him more often between 1995 and 1999 when I worked at the National Archives of Zimbabwe. when I wrote an anthology of Zimbabwean folktales i sent him a copy, which he so much loved. Rest in peace the learned Professor. Zimbabwean history would not be adequate without your name being mentioned. In addition, you played a crucial role in documenting our political and social history.”
According to an announcement on the British Zimbabwe Society Facebook, Prof Ranger passed away on Friday. It read, “an email from Marieke Clarke has just shared the news that Terry Ranger passed away in his sleep last night in his home at Oxford. Marieke was asked by Shelagh to send the news around. Marieke also asks that you email her, not phone her, for follow up information. May he rest in Light and peace. There is so much to say but let this simple information suffice for now.”
Ranger was deported from Rhodesia in 1963 and thereafter held Chairs at the Universities of Dar es Salaam, UCLA, Manchester and Oxford.
On retiring from Oxford where he held the Rhodes Chair of Race Relations until 1997, he went to the University of Zimbabwe as Visiting Professor and taught there for four academic years.
Terence Ranger has published and edited dozens of books, and published some 150 articles and book chapters.
In his work, Ranger contributed substantially to the historiography of East Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular.
He is equally renowned for the continuous methodological renewal of African historiography over the last decades.
In 1980, Ranger founded the Britain Zimbabwe Society with Guy Clutton-Brock, of which he was president (2006-2014).
During 1980-82, he was President of the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK).
He also was a trustee of the Asylum Welcome organisation, and much of his academic work was concerned with human rights in Zimbabwe.
He spoke out against forced removals from the UK of Zimbabwean asylum seekers during the crisis in Zimbabwe.
In retirement, Prof Ranger was made a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
Ranger was born in 1929 and took his first degree and doctorate at the University of Oxford. He went to the University College of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (later Malawi) in 1957 as Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History.
Very soon, he became involved in the human rights struggle and turned himself into a historian of Africa.
 

Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa is laying all the blame of the Lashch farming inputs scandal on expelled Secretary for Administration, Didymus Mutasa who is currently in India, a report states.
Didymus Mutasa is currently on a long ‘medical’ sabbatical in India and Mnangagwa’s close aides say Mnangagwa has strategically pulled away from charges which are as claimed “clearly” centred on Mutasa.
According to the report published in the local weekly, Standard, Mnangagwa has deliberately distanced himself from the scandal to save face. He does not want to involve himself in controversial projects that are characterised by corruption such as the Lasch Investment saga where hundreds of farmers were duped of millions of dollars as revealed by his close associates.
FULL REPORT by The Standard.
On Wednesday Mnangagwa refused to address hundreds of farmers who were duped by Lasch, a Zanu PF linked company in a botched farm inputs scheme.
The farmers had demanded Mnangagwa’s audience but the Acting President asked them to present their demands in writing.
However sources close to Mnangagwa yesterday said the VP did not want to get involved in controversial projects which involved ousted senior party officials such as the former secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa.
“Mnangagwa is not snubbing the farmers as reported in the media,” said a close associate. “These projects were being spear-beheaded by Mutasa and other ousted officials who were accused of corruption. No sane person would want to be involved in such a matter unless President Robert Mugabe gives the green light,” said the official.
Former Zanu PF national chairman Simon Khaya-Moyo, deposed secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made presided over the launch of the Lasch deal.
Mutasa, Khaya-Moyo and Made could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Another Mnangagwa associate insisted the VP wanted to get to the gist of the matter so as to appreciate who was wrong in the first place and how the perpetrators could be brought to book.
“The story indicated correctly that the acting president advised the farmers to compile their grievances in writing and send them to his office. So where is the snubbing coming from?” asked the source.
About 500 farmers are angry with the Zanu PF leadership which led them to join the input scheme which has failed to deliver as promised.
Lasch entered into an agreement with farmers and urged them to contribute money to access farm inputs for the 2014-15 farming season, but failed to deliver the inputs. Angry farmers then camped for weeks at the company’s Willowvale offices in Harare and also at the Zanu PF headquarters demanding their inputs.
Five Lasch executives, among them Zanu PF national youth director Tapiwa Zengeya and Patience Chipere have already been arrested on charges of defrauding the farmers.
Mugabe on Friday reportedly dispatched Zanu PF Youth League secretary, Pupurai Togarepi and party chief administrator, Dickson Dzora to negotiate with the farmers and promised to secure a loan on their behalf through a local bank.

FULL STORY- CLICK HERE

Top ZANU PF Councillor for Murewa South Constituency, Josephat Kamwendo, was allegedly caught three times in bed with different women, one of them who is married and the husband nearly fired bullets on him, allegations which have seen Kamwendo being shown the exit door by his constituency.
 
Kamwendo who has responded refuting the reports as he blamed everything on muddy politics and ZANU PF infighting, has since been given the boot. In an exclusive brief interview which he abruptly cut off, Kamwendo told ZimEye.com the allegations are not true despite the presence of recorded videos of women charging at him and others vocalising that the suspended Councillor did of a truth engage in illicit affairs.
 
One source told ZimEye.com “On adultery charges Kamwendo was caught three times with married women in Macheke of whom I can only name Mrs NAME WITHHELD because I was there when he was caught and he was nearly shot by the husband. “Mr NAME WITHHELD” who is a very prominent Macheke business man. And about the fraud issues, the complainants produced text messages from Kamwendo demanding bribes in order to release stands to them and also he called one of his victims “Mrs Chitanda” promising her a stand if she withdrew her case from the police, not knowing that she was already at the police station the time she got his phone call.”
 
The source continued, saying, “ Kamwendo was given time to defend himself at the Zanu PF meetings but he never turned up for the meetings until his conviction and he was taken to court yesterday where the case was stepped down to another day and he was given a bail out of US $1 800.00. He was convicted together with his partner Dennis Nyambudu a former police officer whom Kamwendo used, to receive the money from his clients. The crimes were brought to the awareness of the Minister of State and Local Governance “Cde Joel Biggie Matiza” who is also the representative of that constituency in the house of assembly by “Vernon Chidongo and Miffion Handrek” who are well recognized for their business and academic achievements in the area.
 
When contacted on Saturday Kamwendo dismissed the allegations saying they are false and malicious, “Those are political elements who are just trying to pull me down, there is nothing of that sort that happened, that’s all,” said Kamwendo just before hanging up the call after being grilled on the Friday court case.

ZANU-PF Manicaland Province has formally written to the party’s leadership recommending that the Senate post left by the late Kumbirai Kangai be taken up by Shadreck Chipanga, effectively sealing the fate of former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono who had been endorsed for the post by the previous Politburo.
Official processes are understood to be underway for former Home Affairs Deputy Minister and ex-Makoni East Member of Parliament Chipanga to take up the seat.
Manicaland Province’s acting chairperson Samuel Undenge told The Sunday Mail last week that correspondence had been made to the party’s leadership at the party’s headquarters in Harare for endorsement.
Undenge said the province had unanimously chosen Chipanga at a recent provincial co-ordinating committee meeting.
“The province unanimously agreed that Shadreck Chipanga should be the Senator for Manicaland. We made this decision at our last PCC (provincial co-ordinating committee) meeting that was held two weeks ago.
“We have written to the party HQ (headquarters) to inform them about the decision that we have taken.We expect that they will accept our decision and forge ahead with the necessary processes,” he said.
He said the province had chosen Chipanga because of his political experience and loyal service to the party.
“Chipanga is a central committee member and a very senior member in the party. He is a war veteran who was a commander during the war. So he was chosen because of his seniority and long service in the party,” he said.
‘‘He is a much respected member and we feel that he will add value to the new office that we have nominated him to take up.”
The acting chairman also clarified that Chipanga’s nomination is to be Senator for Manicaland Province contrary to some reports which have referred to the position as Senator for Buhera.
He said just because Kangai came from Buhera this did not mean that his replacement should also come from the same area.
“I also want to make it clear that the senate seat that we are talking about is not the senate seat for Buhera, but it is referred to as senate seat for Manicaland Province. The Constitution is very clear that senators are elected to be provincial representatives and that is why they are also selected at provincial level,” he said.
“As the provincial chairperson, I am only carrying forward what was decided by the province because the decision was by consensus and it was unanimous.
“It doesn’t necessarily follow that because Kangai came from Buhera, his replacement should also come from the same area,” he said. Undenge said besides Chipanga, there had not been any other candidate who had submitted his name to take up the seat at the PCC.
Dr Gono lost his bid to become Buhera senator in September last year when it almost looked certain that he would take the parliamentary seat after he was chosen by the Manicaland party provincial executive then chaired by Ambassador John Mvundura.
The then Zanu-PF national chairman Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo wrote to ZEC to inform the electoral body to allow the former RBZ governor to take up the senate seat.
However Justice Rita Makarau wrote to Ambassador Moyo to inform the party that Dr Gono was not eligible for the post because he was not registered as a voter in any ward in Manicaland ahead of the 2013 elections.
It then appeared that Dr Gono still had some chance to become senator when the then Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affair Minister who is now Vice President Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa was quoted in some sections of the media saying Dr Gono still had chances to land the post.
Dr Gono also issued a statement stating that all proper procedures must be followed as he did not want to be a “law maker who breaks the law.”
He said he had “all the patience in the world for whoever needs to do their job to do it even if it means waiting till 2016 or beyond.” Dr Gono has spoken openly against factionalism in Zanu-PF and has accused some party members of playing factional politics to block his ascendancy to the Senate.
Senators in the current parliament are elected by proportional representation as measured by the number of votes won by the party. The senate comprises 80 members who include 16 traditional chiefs.
-Sundaymail Zimbabwe

At least  23 people were left trapped by floods in Mashonaland West on Saturday.
The floods swept through several areas around the Mupfure river areas in incidents that have left at least 10 dead in a matter of minutes.
Meanwhile police have released the names of people who died when a vehicle they were travelling in was swept away by heavy floods at Ngwazani River bridge near Kadoma.
Bodies were recovered today inside the vehicle about 150 metres from the bridge.
The dead are: the driver of the vehicle, Nomatter Ndodo,  his wife Magneta Musariri, their 2-year-old son Tawananyasha Ndodo, Edes Musariri (31), her 9-year old son, Benedict Mhande, her 4-year old daughter Catherine Mhande, her 20 month old son Chris Mhande and an adult man from Ngezi, Ngonidzashe Gavi.

Seven people died when the vehicle they were travelling in was swept away by the flooded Ngwazani River between Battlefields and ZIMPLATS in Mashonaland West Province.
Police spokesperson Charity Charamba confirmed to the state media on the incident and warned people not to cross rivers that have been flooded by the incessant rains nationwide.
 
The accident was reported at around 8:31 p.m. last night.
Witness reported seeing a vehicle veer off the road and plunge down the embankment and into the river.
Meanwhile an autopsy will be performed to see if the driver had a medical problem.

Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede’s office has been known for years for long queues and for failing to issue birth certificates to local citizens among other things, but three of his highly trusted officials have been caught having almost instantaneously issued birth certificates to fake citizens, Ugandan Tikamutandas baying for business in the country.
The three officials and an ex-employee have been arrested on allegations of fraudulently facilitating the issuance of identity documents to Ugandan nationals. The four (names withheld) were arrested this week in Harare and Bindura.
This followed the arrest of three Ugandans who were operating as traditional healers in the city.
The Ugandans were found with genuine Zimbabwean birth certificates, national identification documents and passports.
They implicated the four.
They are assisting police with investigations while the three Ugandans are in remand prison awaiting deportation.
The three were arrested by officers from the Immigration Department following a tip off.
Assistant Regional Immigration Officer Mr Francis Mabika confirmed the development on Wednesday.
“We arrested the three Ugandans and their cases are still under investigation. At the moment we are not at liberty to divulge any other information concerning the case,” he said.
The Herald understands that the three, Richard JJuuko, Nuludini Katende Serunjogi and Kikambi Hassan Mayanga were arrested on December 20 in separate incidents in Sunningdale, city centre and Warren Park where they were practising as traditional healers.
JJuuko was now using the name Richard Junior Mutasha while Serunjogi was Aslum Chiridza.
Investigations revealed that the three officials and an ex-employee helped the foreigners obtain the identity documents after charging them undisclosed amounts of money.
This is not the first time that officials from the RG’s office have been arrested after being implicated in criminal activities.
In September 2011, four senior officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Gweru passport office were slapped with a 15-year-jail term after they stole over 12 000 Emergency Travel Documents.

New Minerals Will Be Discovered -Magaya
Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) founder Walter Magaya has predicted that ‘new minerals’ will be discovered in Zimbabwe this year.
Addressing tens of thousands of congregants who thronged his 2015 Crossover All Night prayer at his church in Waterfalls on New Year’s Eve, Magaya said he on December 22 received a message from God that the country would soon ‘awaken’ with the discovery of new minerals.
“You will be shocked at your own rate of success. Whatever is around you no matter how small because of God you are going to be fruitful and you shall multiply,” said Magaya.
He continued:
“When God speaks the wise listen – be fruitful and multiply!
11 The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months. And the LORD blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.
Reference scripture: Gen.1:28
28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth,” Scripture: 2 Samuel.6:11[NKJV]
………………………………..
Uzzah touched the ark and he was struck dead and the ark was left at Obed-Edom’s house and it only took a short while for him to be fruitful and multiply. Those around him and those who knew him got shocked at the rate of progress in his life, there was divine acceleration. David got wind of the success of Obed-Edom and he got to know about the anointing of multiplication the ark bore.
The anointing of God is ready to mega-shift your life, you shall be fruitful and you shall multiply. This is your season whatsoever you shall lay your hands upon shall be fruitful and it shall multiply. The fact that you made it into 2015 makes you a candidate of fruitfulness and multiplication. You might not see it now but you shall see it by your testimony.
You will be shocked at your own rate of success. Whatever is around you no matter how small because of God you are going to be fruitful and you shall multiply.
Exodus 1:7
The Israelites were under Egyptian captivity and Pharaoh ordered that all Israelites be killed at birth because they were multiplying. Before the midwives would attend to them they would arrive late. God gave the Israelites women power to deliver hastily, they became strong. If they planned to kill the baby in the 9th month the child would be delivered in the 8th month simply because they bore the anointing of multiplication.
Your enemy might plan to pull you down for your destruction but because of the anointing of fruitfulness and multiplication you will escape all traps. God is going to confuse the enemy because you shall be fruitful and multiply. Before they shall expect it you shall have it.
2 Kings.7
There were 4 lepers at the gate of Samaria and there was hunger in their camp and they had gone down to eating cow dung. Women had even killed children for food that led the king to seeking solution from the Prophet Elisher. The Prophet told them food would be available in abundance the very next day. The king argued that it was not practical though he believed that heaven was there but doubt was what led him to miss out on the blessing. It didn’t make sense at the time he said it but when a Prophet speaks the wise listen.
The lepers were not allowed to meddle with others because of leprosy. They decided to move away from the outskirts of the camp as they felt they were going to die anyway. As they walked towards the Syrian camp God caused confusion in the Syrian camp to ensure the Prophet’s word was fulfilled. They heard a might army approaching them when in actual fact they were only four lepers. The Syrians fled their camp in panic leaving all their food and wealth to the lepers.
The lepers were shocked when they arrived to find the Syrian camp deserted. The first thing they did was to eat their fill and that is when they remembered their fellow men and went back. They were left as outcast but because of the news they bore it gave them access to where they were barred from.
News got to the king about the lepers and what had transpired. The king thought that it was all a lie and some form of a trap but he was assured it was not. There are blessings and breakthroughs that will come upon your life this year that will shock many including those around you.
Information on the Syrian camp breakthrough leaked and the army commander made a mistake by trying to control a hungry people and that was when Prophet’s word was fulfilled over his life he died and did not partake.
Your enemy will fight tooth and nail to block your testimony and breakthrough but you shall surpass it all. God is ready to lift you up high, raises you from rugs to riches and from grass to grace. Your breakthrough and testimony will happen at divine speed in ways you cannot comprehend. It doesn’t matter that you are deep in debt and have lost all hope in life God is ready to make you fruitful and multiply in everything you shall touch.
The fact that you have lost hope and you are in problems make you the perfect candidate to receive fruitfulness and multiplication. The anointing of God uses a system. The lepers noticed that staying and moving away was the same they would die anyway and that was how they walked their breakthrough.
You need to know how you can walk towards your breakthrough and destiny. The radar controls a moving ship and it is not the radar that moves the ship. If you move before time or after, you miss out on your breakthrough. You have to move as and when you have to and God is ready to bless those who are determined.
Let your actions reciprocate with what you want God to do in your life. What efforts are you making to bring your heart’s desires into fruition. You need to move to attract the power of God over your life. You need to have the right plans in place and in action in order for you to multiply.
The only way you can multiply is after you have created room. You need to think and act in the way you want to be. Whenever God places you anywhere there is a reason for it and you have to identify it and seize the opportunity that lies in that. You are not employed to die employed or for your salary but that job should be a stepping stone to a higher and next level.
You can never get a salary that is enough for you no matter how much more they give you and you will never be satisfied. Jacob only became rich after 14 years laboring for Laban despite the fact that he had brought multiplication over Laban’s household. It is when he decided to move away that he became rich. Ask yourself if you are doing anything that will attract multiplication over your life.
We give all glory to God.

The capital Harare City Council’s water supplies have sparked alarm with residents complaining that the city fathers are failing to address the problem and the water which not throws a pungent smell, has remained visibly filthy for several years.
Harare residents complain that “the quality of water does not need anyone to convince you. Water is its own master. Its taste, appearance, smell tells a real story. The City of Harare tries routinely to remind residents that Harare City Council is safe to drink, yet the citizens are not convinced because of the appearance of the water, its taste and the smell it produces.”
On typhoid fears, the Harare Residents’ Trust commented that the council should clear the air on the quality of its water.
“Typhoid fears rise in Mabvuku and Tafara. Two children identified have been tested and typhoid has been confirmed. Residents in the communities have been experiencing serious water problems, relying on water fetched from shallow wells and community boreholes sunk by humanitarian agencies. The City of Harare should clear the air on the quality of its water. Typhoid is dangerous and can kill,” their statement read.

The controversial leader of the Budiriro-based Apostolic sect that bashed police officers, Madzibaba Ishmael Chokurongerwa [once reported as Ishmael Mufani], who has been on the run for the past seven months, has been arrested.
Madzibaba Ishmael was arrested today in Murehwa following a successful raid by the Zimbabwe Republic Police officers.
Madzibaba Ishmael, who made headlines last year when his followers assaulted police officers and journalists, is facing public violence charges and violation of the Children’s Protection Act.
The fugitive Vapositori sect leader had earned himself the title Osama Bin Ladin after the ZRP failed to locate his whereabouts more than seven months since the attack.
Madzibaba Ishamel’s Apostolic sect bashed police officers, ZBC cameraperson Relax Mafuruti and Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) leaders, who had visited their Budiriro shrine trying to engage the church over alleged human rights abuses.
37 members of the sect were arrested in a police blitz but Madzibaba Ismael ‘went off the radar’ since May.
11 of the 37 were later convicted in November and jailed for four years each for violence.
Kudzanayi Kusekwa (31), Cabson Chandaona (43), Takavengwa Gwenzi (46), Tichafa Madyegora (41), Johanes Makumbe (39), Ndumiso Moyo (33), Alexio Kanhema (37), Clement Chimutso (47), Madzimure Madzimure (36), Charles Matanga (42) and Darlington Mambayo (46), are all behind bars.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Republic Police is conducting investigations in connection with the unlawful entry at the office of the Minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Development, Dr Obert Mpofu which occurred today.
The police say they have stepped up surveillance on all government buildings following recent cases of unlawful entry at some top government officials offices. – ZBC

ZIMBABWEAN ARCHBISHOP Walter Masocha appeared at Alloa Sheriff court on Tuesday to face charges of engaging in sexual activity with a number of girls, the youngest aged just 12.
Masocha is accused of making underage teenage girls massage his naked body.
The Tuesday hearing began with a preliminary session during which time it was determined that the whole trial requires  8 days all at once to finalise. This was after Mr Masocha’s solicitors protested against evidence submitted arguing they had not been part of the first charges for which they then requested more time to prepare evidence. The Sherrif’s office told ZimEye.com that the prosecution also requested more time to prepare evidence, upon which time it was conceded that the case requires 8 days to complete.
The trial has since been transferred to Falkirk Sheriff court which is 13 miles away from here.
Archbishop Dr Walter Masocha allegedly induced a 15-year-old and 12-year-old to perform the act on him on various occasions at an address in Sauchieburn and Crieff Hydro Hotel between 2012 and 2013.
The 50-year-old is also accused of sexual assault on a woman and engaging in sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl during the same period.
Masocha, founder of Agape For All Nations Ministries International, whose headquarters are in Stirling, appeared at Alloa Sheriff Court this week to face the five charges.
He pleaded not guilty to alleged incidents, on various occasions between May 17, 2013 and July 31, 2013, at Crieff Hydro Hotel and another location, engaging in sexual activity with a 14 year-old girl by inducing her to massage him using oils.
The church website had said Masocha, a former lecturer, was the leader of Agape For All Nations Ministries International, a “fast-growing church established in August 2007”.
Mention of Masocha has since been removed from the website.
A spokesman for the church confirmed last year that Masocha was on a “leave of absence” from his role as archbishop.
During an appearance in court on Tuesday, Masocha’s defence agent lodged a motion to adjourn the case for a further first diet before trial which was originally set for January 12.
He said the three charges relating to massaging were not on the original petition when Masocha appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court in January last year and asked for time to prepare.
He said: “It relates to the operation of the church and practices and relationship between the accused and the complainers.”
Asked by Sheriff John Rafferty to clarify what he meant, the defence added he needed to look into how the church operates and the “nature of the relationship” between the parties.
A new trial date has been set for April 13 at Falkirk Sheriff Court. (Daily Record/ZimEye)
 
VIDEO:

South Africa has made a move and is set to start deporting more than 40,000 Zimbabweans who failed to apply for their visa extensions under the special dispensation mitigated by that government under request from Harare.
The deadline for any and all Zimbabweans in South Africa wanting to apply for a permit to stay in the country legally is the 31st, the home affairs department revealed as reported on ZimEye on the 31st December.
A Home Affairs officer has said following the announcement illegal Zimbabweans are to be forcibly removed from that country.
“The closure of the Zimbabwean special permit application process [is] by end of business today, 31 December,” the department said in a statement as earlier reported.
As of Tuesday, 207 802 applications had been received, while 198 840 appointments had been booked through VFS, a private company to which home affairs had outsourced certain visa and permit processes.
A total of 245 000 Zimbabweans living in South Africa were eligible to apply for the new permit.
The department said that besides the close of applications for Zimbabwean special permits, permits issued under an older system, the Dispensation for Zimbabwean Project (ZSP) also expired today – no matter their original expiry date.
Last month, the department announced it would allow people with the expired older permits to still use these documents to travel in and out of South Africa during the festive season until December 31.
Zimbabweans in the country illegally were granted an opportunity from 2009 to legalise their stay via the permit, due to the political and socio-economic conditions in that country.
Previously, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said all the new permits should be issued by the end of April next year. They would be valid until the end of 2017.
A similar permit process for the Basotho, Mozambicans, and other Southern African Development Community nationals is expected to be implemented in future.
– Sapa

By ZimEye Citizen Reporter|A policeman based in Kwekwe crashed a borrowed car (pictured at parked at Sebakwe Hotel) on New Years eve in an accident that has had the story twisted and vital evidence suppressed. Because information was systematically twisted, it was not clear where and how exactly the accident occurred. The vehicle however could be seen parked outside the Sebakwe Hotel.

It never rains but pours for Chief Njelele’s villages, as the chief was caused to preside over a case involving a Chemumvuri albino woman who is seeking a peace order from the chief’s court, following her husband’s weird sexual behaviour.
Chengetayi Muwandi 36, of Chemumvuri village under chief Njelele in Gokwe, has since reported to the village court, complaining of her husband’s sexual appetite, that she described as weird and out of this world. The mother of two told ZimEye.com that she is regretting the day she fell in love with Chandipa Marongere 41 of the same village.
“I am regretting the day I said ‘I do’ to this man. He was a good husband during our first four years together, but now he has turned into a sexual animal. From the time he started drinking beer last year, he has become a nightmare in bed. The past three months have been horrific for me, because when he arrives home at midnight, he goes on top and will only go down until the morning at around 7am and I would then hardly walk to work. I am a vendor and have to walk 10km to Gokwe centre to sell my wares,” said Chengetayi with tears dripping from her eyes.
The village head Gwinyai Zendera, confirmed receiving the complaint, and he has since forwarded it to Chief Njelele, who was said to be in Harare for business. “I have forwarded the issue to the chief, and I am waiting for his response, so that we can preside over the case soon,” said Zendera.
Chengetayi has since relocated to her parents who are a few kilometres from their home they built with Chandipa four years ago. Efforts to get comment from the husband Chandipa, were fruitless as he was not cooperative and threatening to assault this journalist if the story was going to published.
ZimEye.com tried in vain to reach Chief Njelele, as his cellphone was not reachable by the time  the article was set to hit the press. Several villagers from Chemumvuri confirmed the incident but attacked the wife for reporting her husband to the village court on bedroom issues.
However, Chengetayi stood by her decision of leaving her husband, who she said ‘has turned into a ruthless sexual animal, and forgets that it’s a love making interaction, not a sexual battle.’

Zimbabwe’s most controversial and one publicly labeled a “bloody and satanic minister”, has been voted as Mashonaland West Provincial Minister Faber Chidadike whose files were opened and it was revealed he was found with a fresh bloodied human skull in his boot, claiming later that it belonged to a pedestrian he had knocked down.
Minister Chidarikire also has against his name a police report pulled showing how he at a different time in 1987 killed a teenage girl in 1987 and in cold blood mutilating her body allegedly for Satanic ritual purposes to enhance luck in business.
His reputation stank further when in a gaffe he equated Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife to the First Lady Grace Mugabe. Emotions boiled further when of Chidarike, a ZANU PF woman voiced back saying, “no woman can be equated to our only anointed Amai Grace Mugabe. She is an angel sent to this country to liberate all women and men.
“She is anointed by the spirit of Ambuya Nehanda.”
Chidarikire was seconded by former Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation icon Josiah Hungwe who equated Emmerson Mnangagwa to Jesus Christ.

Former Reserve Bank governor Giden Gono has spoken in the wake of allegations that he owns vast tracts of land in the second capital, Bulawayo. Dr Gono in the below response in full explained that he does not own anything beyond a residential stand whose house has truly not been developed since 1992 not of his fault but that off the council which has failed to provide water supplies to the property.
Below was Gono’s response in full:
1. Recent media reports emanating from Bulawayo City Council have suggested that “ Dr Gideon Gono is among a number of top politicians and business people being investigated for owning “vast “tracts of land in Bulawayo which they have neglected developing over the years.
2. The reports further state that my family risks losing the “vast tracts of land to Council for unpaid rates”.
3. A few people were also named in the report as falling in the same category of “ land barons” at risk of losing their properties.
4. While I cannot speak on behalf of any of the listed land owners, and do not dispute the fact that my family have not been able to move an inch to develop our “vast piece of land/stand due to reasons the City Council is aware of (water etc), I, however, find it strange that neither the Bulawayo City Council itself nor the media practitioners who carried the story failed to provide vital statistics that would have given the public a better appreciation of the “size of the land” each of the “listed land barons” own, and the amounts owed to the city council in respect thereof.
5. Appreciating though that not everyone is adequately trained to deal with and skilled in writing financial and economic reports apart from a universal ability to raise disproportionate alarm that borders on skullduggery in the absence of facts, my family wishes to set the record straight, in the interest of public disclosure of a now public matter to what the “ vast piece(s) of land”we own in Bulawayo entail and in the process, hopefully, give a template to future reports of the same nature:
6. Name and description of property owned: “a certain undeveloped piece of land situate…called Lot 81 Windsor Park…. Bulawayo.
7. SIZE of Land: 4 166 square metres (about 1 acre).
8. Title Deed no: 945/92
9. Name of registered owner: Gideon Gono.
10. Bought for $25 000 (Twenty five thousand Zimdollars)
11. Date of Purchase: 9 April, 1992.
12. Estimated current value: US$10-15 000.
13. Outstanding rates: less than US$1 500,00.
14. This “VAST” piece of undeveloped land will, after paying off the rates owing, be surrendered in exchange for fair value, to City of Bulawayo.
15. There is no need to waste resources “investigating” anything pertaining to this property when Council could better use the resources so earmarked to improve water supplies in and around Windsor Park area, the very reason why my family opted, way back, to purchase a completely built house in the City of Kings and Queens, than develop that “one acre vast piece of land into a house”.
16. Hopefully the media will in future try to place their facts in proper context so they do not mislead the public for reasons best known to the authors as a certain section of society outside Bulawayo was already excited about this “Gono corruption…of owning vast tracts of land when others do not have half an acre to build their houses…and dispatching people to my home area ( Buhera) with the report and to spread news of Gono’s corruption” KIKIKIKIKIK!
17. Where people have legitimate queries or concerns about my integrity and family property portfolio, including what, where, how acquired, they should seek answers in a proper manner, in a proper context, and answers will always be happily provided! Happy and prosperous 2015!
Dr G Gono

Farmers duped millions of dollars by a Zanu PF linked company, Lasch Investments, were yesterday shut out by Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The farmers who yesterday besieged the ruling party’s headquarters in Harare seeking audience with Mnangagwa on the fate of their flopped agricultural inputs scheme,
Despite their concerted efforts, Mnangagwa reportedly snubbed them demanding that they rather present their grievances in writing at his Munhumutapa offices.
At least 500 furious farmers, some of whom had been camped in Harare since the beginning of December, were angry with the Zanu PF leadership claiming they urged them to join the scheme, but were now avoiding them at their time of need.
The farmers claimed that they visited Mnangagwa on Saturday at his Sherwood farm and presented their demands and the Acting President promised to take the matter up with President Robert Mugabe, who is on his annual leave in the Far East.
They claimed that Mugabe through State House director Dzepasi Innocent Tizora had promised to give them fertilisers yesterday.
But they were dismayed when they came and found nothing. This forced them to call newly appointed Zanu PF youth league leader Pupurai Togarepi, whom they claimed was snubbing their calls since morning.
After failing to access fertiliser against “a promise from Mugabe” angry farmers dispatched a 10-member committee led by Manicaland farmer Agrippa Lewanji to Mnangagwa’s offices at Munhumutapa Building demanding to meet him.
“The VP has asked us to compile our grievances and present them to his office,” Lewanji said.
This, however, angered other farmers, who besieged Zanu PF headquarters claiming they had written several reports since last September, but received nothing while the farming season was advancing.
“What is new that he (Mnangagwa) wants us to write? We sent the committee to Kwekwe and he knows our problems. He should come to address us since Pupurai is not picking calls. We are not leaving this place until the VP comes to address us,” one farmer said angrily.
Absolom Sikhosana must provide answers

Meanwhile ZANU PF’s 60 Year Old Youth Leader was nearly bashed as farmers countrywide went into a rage against the ruling party ZANU PF “for defrauding them of of their hard earned cash which they paid for the Government Inputs Loan Scheme, which the farmers are yet to receive.
The scheme, which was a joint venture between Lasch Enterprises and the ZANU PF Youth League, has manifested an outcry in for instance the Mudzi district. Details obtained from Chimukoko village reveals that $2 was paid to AREX, $36 administration fee and $30 insurance fee, which guarantees a 25kg of maize seed, 8x50kgs of Compound D and 6x50kgs of top dressing fertiliser, which accumulates to $68. Chimukoko alone, which has three wards, paid $6000 which was deposited into a CBZ Bank account.
There are over twenty wards in Mudzi district which culculates to about $40,000 that was swindled from ordinary people in Mudzi. “The rains have fallen in most parts of the country, and yet we are still hoping for the inputs to come. Right now I don’t have any grain to plant, and I wish I would have kept my money and buy the little inputs with that money. Rains have come, and I need to plant but the government is cross legged.” said an irate Chimukoko villager.
In Harare, Central Committee member Absolom Sikhosana was on the 12th December detained overnight by angry farmers, while national director for youth affairs Tapiwa Zengeya was force-marched from the Willowvale industrial area to the party’s headquarters as farmers demonstrated against a company jointly-owned by Zanu-PF youth wing and Lasch Investment for failing to deliver inputs.
Over 15 000 farmers might have been duped of varying amounts of money they contributed to the company with the promise that they would get farming inputs this season. Sikhosana confirmed spending the whole night on Thursday detained by farmers at Cold Storage Company, before Zengeya was detained after coming to rescue his colleague.
Said Sikhosana: “I was detained by farmers on Thursday night after I had gone to explain the situation. Farmers said I was supposed to spend the night under harsh conditions so that I could understand their plight. When I tried to drive away, the farmers mobbed my car and blocked me until 4am,” he said.
“We cannot pay back farmers their money. The project relies on membership subscriptions and have since been exhausted. All along the management was trying to get support but it has not materialised. The scheme is unable to provide inputs because it has run out of money,” he said.
Meanwhile Police Spokesperson Charity Charamba has confirmed that the farmers reported a fraud case, while Sikhosana reported a kidnapping case. – Newsday/ZimEye

My fellow Zimbabweans, with joy ad humility, please allow me to wish you a great and promising 2015. We had quite an eventful 2014 that at times shook our beautiful Zimbabwe. Politics, economics and social forces all played their part but they never set us apart. That is why we are still here.
Zimbabwean we are and Zimbabwean we shall ever be. Our main challenge now is to appeal to our leaders to realize the need to make Zimbabwe a better place. The beauty of those foreign nations they visit for conferences should be emulated, benchmarked and planted at home. The same applies to those foreign hospitals our leaders visit when not feeling well. We have great colleges and universities that can make that possible. We cherish for the long-gone good old days when we had plenty to eat and share, when many of us had jobs and were happy and settled at home. Now we are everywhere across the globe as we search for livelihood. (Kuyaura kweasina musha) With determination, unity and hard work, we shall all be home and resume our old legacy of peace, joy, abundance and comfort.
This 2015, I wish we could be as inventive as we can in terms of what we can do better as a nation. Our people need food, jobs and good health care. We need to put our heads together and see how we can align our skills and mindsets to serve our country. Mind you, none, but ourselves can restore the sweet yesteryear era of comfortable living.
Zimbabwe is a great country. We have vast resources. Our people have the skills and the education. We have a solid foundation through powerful human capital. To add to that, we are a conscious nation. Despite economic and political challenges, we have never lost hope. Those at home continue to defend the fort. Those in the Diaspora complement that home-triggered effort. Annual cash remittances going home speak volumes about how much love and care Zimbabweans still have for each other. That communal spirit and love for each other as families, neighbours or friends has kept Zimbabwe going.
My last challenge is for all skilled men and women to put their wits together to invent, explore and manufacture possibilities. Let us remain united for the national good. The duty is on us to keep our Zimbabwe one of the best African countries. In that effort, let us remain united and hard working not by word of mouth but by practical action.
Thank you too for the continued support for Chimurenga Music. This 2015, we have a few surprises for you our fans. You have supported us through Facebook and related internet music purchases for all these years. We appreciate that and will keep delivering because without you, we would be nowhere.  There would be no Chimurenga music.
Thank you Zimbabwe for remaining dedicated and focused despite some occasional hurdles. Happy 2015!
Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo
Chimurenga Music King

ZimEye.com brings you live updates from Alloa, Scotland where pentecostal preacher and founder of AGAPE For All Nations, pastor Walter Masocha is on trial on charges of sexual misconduct and sexual assault.
Child witness(es) are testifying on video away from the building, for their protection.
11:50Hrs – Court Clerk explains why case was transferred to Falkirk. “The case can only be heard for a period of eight days and the only centre that can hold that is Falkirk,” she says.
11:45Hrs – Case moved to 1st April. It will be heard in Falkirk.
11:30Hrs – The trial which was meant to resume this morning with witnesses and church members converging to the court house the day before, was moved to April after it was determined it needs 8 days in a row to finalise.
 
More to follow as the trial continues…

This accident which claimed one life and injured three people, occurred on the Gweru – Bulawayo highway on Sunday 28th Dec at about 15:00 hrs. The vehicles involved including a brand new BMW were damaged beyond recognition.

Bulawayo Pumula South based spiritual Pentecostal worshippers have said their Bishop and founder uses mermaid powers to heal congregants and would be church members.
According to a source privy to the goings on in the church hierarchy who refused to be named, ‘the church leader consults so called mermaids, and this is usually done close to water sources. The healing process is all done with bottled water as per instructions from the so called water- human like creatures.
Visiting Pumula South every evening, near where the Prophet does his healing sessions, one would mistake the place for a bottling company dumpsite, as the fortune teller uses bottles to (as claimed) break all evil chains and bondages that may be causing suffering to church members and would be members.

This reporter captured one of the members in action, and talking to a bottle which was half- full of something that looked like water. “Yimi yimi , Nkululeko… ngifuna imali yami le mota yami olayo masinyane… ngiyayifuna kusasa… kusasa… ilanga lingakatshoni!” shouted the man in a navy blue suit while shaking the bottle and breaking it against a big stone just opposite Bulawayo Heroes acre, along Khami road.
Asked what he was doing, the man replied, “None of your business ndoda. Uthunyiwe yini!” he shouted, before leaving the broken bottle on top of another heap of broken flagons.
The development has roped in beverages company, Delta. According to a Delta official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the company visited the area anticipating that their bottles were being broken, but only to find that they were all non-returnable and many were being imported.
The pint sized prophet Ngwenya, kept postponing appointments with ZimEye, for a comment on whether it is true that he uses mermaid powers. His close security also kept rescheduling appointments for this journalist, as they were said to be always busy with clients from SA and Botswana, who will have come to be served by the alleged mermaid powers.
Several people, who stay in Pumula South near the place where Prophet Ngwenya conducts his sessions, confirmed that the man of the cloth uses so called “powers” which are water sourced.
Another congregant, Ms Sibongile Nkiwane, told this journalist that she was helped by the powers to recover her passport and goods which were stolen at the Botswana boarder. “I was just told to buy one of our bottles, and I wrote what I wanted on a piece of paper before putting it inside the bottle and telling the bottle what I want and hit it against others. In three days, I was called to go and collect my disappeared goods at a place in Kelvin industrial area where I found all my belongings even though they were opened, but I recovered them all,” she boasted.

RadioDialogue|Zimbabweans working and studying in South Africa have until today (Wednesday) to apply for special Zimbabwe Dispensation  permits to remain in that country.

South African media reported that Zimbabweans living in that country have called on the South African government to put more application centres across the country to enable them to apply for the permits, that will allow them to stay in South Africa for another three years, before deadline day.

Some of the Zimbabweans who spoke to South African media houses suggested the Home Affairs Department should have deployed more personnel and placed them at certain places to help with their applications.

Others felt the South African government could have opted to put up internet cafes to allow them to easily access and carry out the application process online.

The online application process can be accessed here: http://www.vfsglobal.com/zsp/southafrica/

Already, some Zimbabweans who came back home to celebrate the Christmas holidays with their families have started trickling back to South Africa fearing the looming Wednesday deadline.

However, earlier the South African Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, said Zimbabweans who are holders of the permit should be able to go home, and return to South Africa next year without fear of being penalised or declared “undesirable.”

In August, the South African government announced a new permit regime for Zimbabweans resident in that country.

Over 250000 Zimbabweans were granted five year permits under the special dispensation exercise.

The permits were set to expire at the end of this year with South African authorities initially indicating that the permits will not be renewed.

The Department of Home Affairs is expecting more than 245 000 people to apply for the special permits.

Gigaba then said he was happy with the number of applications that have come in so far and advised people not to panic. – RadioDialogue

We just wanted to wish you our ZimEye readers a Happy and Prosperous 2015. We know it has been quite a journey as we went about giving you the latest news and stories through our “No guts, No Story” mantra. At times we reported under stringent conditions but we tried our best to keep you fed and informed.
As many of you will recall, 2015 was an interesting year. It started with the nabbing of suspects in the Baba Jukwa saga. We saw the Kudzai brothers being dragged before the Rotten Row courts and we heard about certain police officers who were investigating the case having been reportedly allowed to travel to Simi Valley in California USA to meet Google representatives as the case unfolded. We then heard that Kudzai challenged Inspector Makendenge to put his passport on the table as he doubted if the cops had ever even, been on a plane in their lives, let alone set feet in the USA.
Then we heard about the Grace Mugabe Doctorate award from the University of Zimbabwe. That raised a lot of eyebrows as many deemed it fake, stolen and undeserving since she was alleged to have “ordered” it by phone like pizza using her status as First Lady. Many students and academics the world over registered their concern as she became the fastest person to earn a Doctorate in a space of two months and without a proven researched thesis that was ever defended. Many politicians who were apologetic came to her defence and naively stated that there was no way she could not have earned the PhD since she lived with the President of Zimbabwe who was known to have so many academic degrees. Some college students sued on the matter to have the PhD invalidated but politics played its part and the case died a natural death. From that incident many other cases of fake degree awards started emerging especially from the UZ as politicians and their close friends and family members went in a “gold rush” to order or demand fake degrees and diplomas from the institution. That marked the collapse of a once trusted academic institution. Even Walter Kamba turned in his grave in 2014 as countless Grade 7 dropouts “earned” degrees that they hardly knew what they stood for or meant.
We also heard a top ZANU PF journalist analysing that Grace Mugabe’s buttocks Mugabe had become hot national talk, all due to epic failures at public speaking where in one occasion Grace had as it were, accidentally blurted the word ‘buttocks’ during her “Scare The People” campaigns.
In the same 2014 Grace Mugabe emerged as a contender for the head of the Women’s League. Oppah Muchinguri was allegedly taken by surprise and ordered to give way to Grace Mugabe. She kept her public face and drummed her support that was later rewarded with a position as Minister of Higher Education. Many students registered concern and even went on to make fun of her in that they saw no value in having a higher education minister who did not carry higher education credentials.
The rise of Grace Mugabe came with some fashionable words like Mazowe Crush as she launched her attacks from her Mazowe Farm. Other accompanying common words became “Gamatox” and “Weevils”. These words led to an expose of the in-house wranglings in ZANU PF. They then escalated to dizzying heights and no sooner than later some prominent cadres off the Central Committee or Politburo wagon. Notably VP Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Nicholas Goche, Webster Shamu and many others were abandoned in the peak of the Congress. Some developed high blood pressure complications as others simply suffered quietly as they tried to save face. The public responded by either cheers or groans as some saw the purging being vital for Zimbabwe. Others however viewed the purging as merely retrogressive.
It was a good year for the First family. Their daughter Bona got married to Simba Chikore and Grace earned a PhD. Later rumours would swirl about Bona not having a baby and Chikore seeing other women but the speculation quickly died a natural death.
Then the Renewal Party became an off shoot of the MDC as there were some internal power struggles. Biti became the leader but the public questioned the lack of creativity in any opposition force in Zimbabwe for it seemed as though without an MDC prefic there could not be any sign of survival. People had become tired of the MDC syndrome after MDC-T, MDC-N, MDC-99, MDC-M and the MDC Renewal. Many questioned such lack of intellectual inventiveness but as one concluded, “an apple would never fall far away from its tree”
Then Mwonzora batted it out with Chamisa and won the Secretary General position. By coincidence Mwonzora would suffer continued persecution on his case just after the Chamisa defeat making some try to suspect some foul play as there could be no smoke without fire. In the MDC, President Tsvangirai would be allegedly running low on funds for livelihood but that was dismissed as cheap propaganda since he was collecting a government pension as ex-PM.
Sikhala emerged from his MDC T and rejoined the MDC T with a thud. He continued making some bold statements on anything of personal interest and at some point he was allegedly picked by the Law and Order for questioning. He later reported some torture but the public demanded better proof.
Then Minister Kembo Mohadi became notorious for disobeying High Court orders in Beitbridge as he wrestled for control of some immovable assets in the area. He later just went quiet in the face of the looming purging where some notorious stalwarts were being thrown off the deck. Philip Chiyangwa bounced back allegedly via the back door and he reclaimed some prominence.
Themba Mliswa started making noise over the “Gay Gangster” allegations. That was after his name was drawn into some corruption and scandal issues. Later he was slapped by a lady in Chinhoyi. The ultimate end saw Mliswa losing his chairmanship.
Simon Khaya Moyo did not have a good 2014. As he hoped to strike the VP post, he actually was shocked to almost lose his ZANU PF seat in the politburo. Then from ZANU PF indoors, Obert Mpofu was attacked by Jona Moyo as he was labelled an “elephant body with a mouse brain” after allegedly trying to get a prominent Matabeleland ZANU PF stalwart thrown off the Politburo.
It was not a good year for Gideon Gono as well. He was denied entry into main stream politics and became a nonentity.
Four significant people in ZANU PF became Patrick Zhuwawo, Jona Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere and Oppah Muchinguri.
Overally the economy continued to face the downhill. No new jobs were created despite the colorful ZIMASSET promise. The year was dominated more by ZANU PF insider politics than anything else.
In showbiz Tocky Vibes stole the nation and replaced Jah Prayzah on fame.
Happy New Year Zimbabwe!!!!

STATE MEDIA:Four cases of typhoid have been reported in Glen View and Budiriro, an official has said.
Harare City Council health director Dr Prosper Chonzi yesterday said the city was concerned about the cases of typhoid.There are a number of cases that we are receiving in Glen View and Budiriro and four cases have been confirmed after testing their stool since there was an increase in the number of diarrhoea cases in the area” he said.
Dr Chonzi said people must be vigilant about hygiene and wash their hands frequently to slow the spread of the disease.
“The moment adequate water isn’t accessible it becomes difficult to maintain personal hygiene, to cook healthy food and everything else that has to do with water.

“At the end of day, water-borne diseases become rampant so people should boil water, wash food and hands consistently,” he said.
Typhoid fever is a bacterial disease caused by Salmonella typhi. It is transmitted through the ingestion of food or water contaminated with human waste from an infected person.
Dr Chonzi dismissed rumours of typhoid outbreak in Kuwadzana and Dzivaresekwa.
“We are yet to confirm the cases in these areas even though we are having cases of diarrhoea and abdominal pains in the area. The major drivers of the typhoid outbreak are due to uncollected refuse, illegal vending,” he  said.
Symptoms usually develop from about three weeks after exposure and may be mild or severe.
They include high fever, malaise, headache, constipation or diarrhoea, rose-coloured spots on the chest and enlarged spleen and liver.
The typhoid comes at a time Harare residents have had erratic water supplies and poor quality tap water.
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care week 43 report since January 2014, diarrhoea cases reported are 494 490 and 754 people have succumbed to diarrhoea,with 1 148 suspected cases of typhoid, 69 confirmed cases and 11 deaths across the country.

There was drama mixed in horror, an incident that left Tsholotsho residents in a flood of tears, when a brother and sister allegedly beat their father and set him on fire in a brutal movie style murder.
Onesimo Khumalo,19 and his sister Bethester 20 appeared before Tsholotsho magistrate Abednigo Ndebele for the brutal and horrifying killing of their father Kwabokwashe Khumalo.
The two are facing murder charges and were remanded in custody to January 12. They were also advised to apply to the High Court for bail.
For the State, Sikhumbuzo Sibanda said the siblings murdered their father on November 27 for unknown reasons.
“On that day, Onesmo and Bethester allegedly entered their father’s bedroom. Onesmo assaulted his father twice with a knobkerrie before dousing him with five litres of petrol. Bethester then set him and his bedroom ablaze,then the the two left their father to burn beyond recognition.” Sibanda said.
There was also another incident that happened on Boxing Day whereby a 16-year-old Tsholotsho boy was murdered in a suspected love wrangle.
Mncedisi Malaba was stabbed to death by Geofrey Ndlovu of Dombo area who is still on the run.
Police in Matabeleland North Province recently expressed concern over the escalation of violent crimes in Tsholotsho adding that rape of minors now tops the national satistics in the district.
Some time in September, High Court Judge Andrew Mutema sitting in Hwange on circuit, sentenced Makhula Ncube, Atlas Moyo and Liketso Moyo all from the Gotshani area in Tsholotsho to an effective eight years in prison for killing Shepherd Ndebele for not having a national identity card.
In his ruling, the judge lamented the fact that most of the murders in Matabeleland North were committed over trivial issues.

Harare- A syndicate of fake war veterans who raked more than 3 million dollars of public money have been arrested.
Two members of the Harare based Nehanda Housing Corporative were arrested last night in a major police breakthrough. Two others were on the run last night with cops vowing to track them down. Never Kowo and Keri Mhute, all senior managers spent the night in cells at Harare Remand and are assisting police in investigations.
“They were stealing millions from us all this while for the last fourteen years and giving all sorts of lame excuses”, a source told ZimEye.com Tuesday morning.
One of them recently bought a construction grader for $500,000 registered in his son’s name and they reportedly “built gigantic houses for themselves using our money,” the source, who is a client, said.
Kowo and secretary Mataruka, a bodyguard of President Mugabe with high rank created the estate agent for greed and to suck money from the masses who are desperate home-seekers, sources say. More to follow…

Zimbabwe’s prominent visually challenged lawyer Mehluli Ndlovu aged 37 tied the knot with his long-time lover Chipo Mbedzi 34, who is a pastor with a local Pentecostal church, amid pomp and funfair.
The two, who revealed to ZimEye.com that they fell in love two and a half years ago after helping each other cross a zebra crossing near Tredgold Courts building, exchanged vows last Monday at a colourful ceremony that was attended by prosecutors and pastors from all walks of Zimbabwean life.
Mehluli graduated with LLB Degree from the University of Zimbabwe, and first worked as a Lawyer for five years, before joining Ministry of Justice as a Prosecutor. Mehluli who is able to go to work and head back home without any guidance, has been advocating for the recognition of the disabled.
He applauded ZimEye.com for attending his wedding. “I am glad that you are here guys. Thank you very much for showing love and care to the disabled, this will go a long way in inspiring other disabled people, that there are people who care out there, like ZimEye,” said Ndlovu.
Chipo who is also an orphan and a pastor applauded ZimEye.com for their presence at their wedding with Mehluli. “We feel honoured by your presence, and we look forward to the publishing of this wedding, that we hope will be received by the world,” smiled Chipo.
Besides being a Lawyer, Mehluli is also a Matabeleland chairperson for Padare/Enkundleni Men’s Forum on gender. He has been spearheading programs on reducing domestic violence in homes and villages in Matabeleland.

Fresh elections are likely to be held in 2015 and parliament in its entirety could be dissolved and fresh harmonised elections held before 2018, the MDC-T’s spokesperson Obert Gutu says following looming recalls of ZANU PF MPs deemed to be aligned to expelled Vice President, Joice Mujuru.

The opposition MDC-T has rallied its supporters to brace for the dissolution of Parliament and proclamation of new general election dates in the next few months amid reports that the ruling Zanu PF party wanted to get rid of 100 of its legislators linked to ousted former Vice-President Joice Mujuru.
MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu said fresh general elections were now inevitable given that the opposition party has also initiated plans to recall its 19 legislators, who defected to MDC Renewal Team over the past few months.
“Let’s all brace ourselves for the dissolution of the Parliament of Zimbabwe in the next few months,” Gutu said in a weekend post on his micro blogging Facebookpage.
“A new era is beckoning. History is about to be made. We have to be extremely cautious. As Zanu PF inevitably crumbles like a deck of cards, there will be several twists and turns.
“The regime has got its back against the wall; it’s completely broke, but paranoid and hence, extremely dangerous,” Gutu said.
He however warned that the MDC-T would only agree to participate in the impending elections if its demands for electoral reforms were implemented.
Although Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo could not be reached for comment yesterday, analysts said the move was meant to pre-empt MDC-T threats to impeach President Robert Mugabe with the help of Mujuru’s backers.
The MDC-T, which has 91 legislators, needs the backing of Zanu PF MPs for their impeachment plans to succeed. Zanu PF has 234 legislators.
Mugabe is legally obliged to dissolve Parliament once the majority of seats have fallen vacant and proclaim fresh election dates within 90 days.
Both Zanu PF and the MDC-T camps have of late experienced internal turbulence following their respective elective congresses which claimed the scalps of several party bigwigs.
The MDC-T lost 19 legislators after forming theiroutfit MDC Renewal Team following their fallout with leader Morgan Tsvangirai accusing him of dictatorship.
The party has already advised Speaker of the House of Assembly Jacob Mudenda and Senate president Edna Madzongwe to declare the MPs’ seats vacant to pave way for by-elections.
Zanu PF, which on the other hand has purged 16 ministers linked to Mujuru, was reportedly contemplating recalling them from Parliament over allegations of plotting to topple President Robert Mugabe.
“We are happy that at last Zanu PF has reached a waterloo and remembered to respect provisions of the constitution which oblige the Speaker and the Senate president to declare seats as vacant once advised by parties in Parliament. We were getting worried over their reluctance to do so. Now that Zanu PF itself has made similar overtures, the process is expected to move faster,” Gutu said.
Sources in Zanu PF said the recall would be spearheaded by the party’s provincial executive councils.
“The recall is likely to be carried out in phases followed by a round of by-elections to avoid a scenario where President Mugabe would be legally obliged to dissolve Parliament and call for fresh polls if the recall is done en-masse,” a Zanu PF insider, who declined to be named said.
“Either way, President Mugabe has nothing to lose because even if he proclaims fresh election dates today, there is no way the purged Zanu PF legislators would contest against ruling party candidates as independents. Again, there is no way the opposition can mobilise its membership and overturn Zanu PF’s parliamentary majority given the divisions within most of the opposition parties.
“The renegade Zanu PF MPs know the consequences of fighting the ruling party from within and without, so they would rather hold back and let the party’s chosen candidates sail through.”
Zanu PF Mashonaland Central provincial chairperson Dickson Mafios last week, said they had identified 10 legislators for possible recall.
“These MPs are a shame to the party and as a province; we will not allow them to represent Zanu PF anymore,” Mafios said.
These includedNicholas Goche (Shamva North), Brigadier General Epmarcus Walter Kanhanga (Guruve North), David Butau (Mbire), Chriswell Mutematsaka (Guruve South), Edgar Chidavaenzi (Mazowe North), Kenneth Musanhu (Bindura North), Christopher Chitindi (Muzarabani South), Fortune Chasi (Mazowe South), Alice Chimbudzi (Mashonaland Central senator) and Shamva South legislator Joseph Mapiki.
Other provinces have also indicated that they will roll out similar purges in the next few weeks with Mashonaland West acting provincial chairperson Ziyambi Ziyambi indicating that they were targeting suspended chairman and Hurungwe West MP Temba Mliswa, Makonde MP Kindness Paradza, Mhondoro MP Syvester Nguni and Chegutu East MP Webster Shamu. – Newsday/ZimEye

WOMEN calling for life imprisonment and castration of rapists are justified, as man seem not to be deterred by heavy sentences since rape cases continue on the increase.
Gwanda regional magistrate Mark Dzira said this while sentencing a 25-year-old Filabusi man to 33 years behind bars for kidnapping and three counts of raping an 11-year-old girl.
Genius Moyo of Insiza Primary School had pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping and one of rape, but denied the other two rape counts, although he was still convicted on all four counts.
He blamed evil spirits for his cruel act.
“The complainant is aged 11 and we all saw when she came to testify that she is just a kid,” Dzira said.
“No doubt she was traumatised, as you made her spend the whole night in the mountains. You are cruel, heartless, and you did not care what would happen to her after you raped her.
“She could have been eaten by wild animals, got lost or died of hunger because of you.”
He said there was a movement countrywide to have rapists either sentenced to life sentences or castrated and people like Moyo justified such calls.
“There is an outcry from women across the country who want men like you to be sent to prison for life, others have even suggested you be castrated and no one can blame them for that,” Dzira said.
“People want to see criminals like you being punished. I will not be lenient, as people like you need to be uprooted from society. We will not be deterred.”
Moyo was sentenced to five years for kidnapping, 12 years for the first count of rape and 18 years for the third and fourth counts.
Ten years were wholly suspended for five years.
On November 19 this year at around 4pm Moyo, in a drunken stupor, met the young girl who had been sent to buy some tomatoes by a neighbour.
Moyo grabbed the girl, dragging her to Matjola Mountain.
While atop the mountain, Moyo raped her. In the process he assaulted her and threatened to kill the girl with an axe and a knife he was carrying.
After some time he raped her again and when he heard some voices he took theyoung girl’s T-shirt and used it to stuff her mouth before he hid in a cave.
When the voices diminished he raped her again before taking his opaque beer and a bottle of cane spirits, leaving the girl behind with her mouth still stuffed.
The fatigued girl then fell into a slumber. She woke up the next morning and tried to get up, but she could not walk properly because of pain.
Later in the day at around 6pm, 26 hours into her ordeal, a villager found her and alerted her mother before she was taken to a health centre.
Moyo’s green sun-hat, which he dropped during the act, was produced as part of the evidence in court, while the girl positively identified him as the person who raped her. – SouthernEye

Barely five months after major changes were made to the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, government has
announced a new development that will see the law altered again.
State Media: Amendments to the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act that will see line ministries approving indigenisation plans in sectors under their purview are set to be effected soon after Parliament approves some of them through the 2015 National Budget. Speaking in the Senate while steering the Finance Bill recently, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, said the Ministry of Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment would only issue compliance certificates on the recommendation of line ministries after their assessment.
He said the line ministries and that of Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment would monitor implementation after compliance with the law.
“Madam President, the Bill also seeks to amend the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, in order to devolve to line Ministries the responsibility for approving indigenisation plans, prescribing indigenisation and empowerment assessment rating schemes and certifying transactions as being compliant with the Act,” he said.
“These amendments are motivated by the fact that line ministries are generally more knowledgeable about the dynamics of the sectors which come under their responsibility.
“They will be in a better position than the minister responsible for the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act to know the real needs of each sector, the inadequacies, strengths and weaknesses. So, it is for this reason that we devolving this responsibility to line Ministries.”
Zanu-PF senator for Manicaland, Retired Lieutenant General Mike Nyambuya said while devolving indigenisation assessment to line ministries was a bold move, it would have been ideal to clarify the indigenisation law from a centralised authority.
“Because again, if you leave it to line ministries and officials; you might create some room for rent seeking behaviour. It would be good if could lay down one solid policy which is friendly to the investors.
“We need fresh money in this country and FDI is one clear source of attracting fresh money into the economy. What I am saying is that, I would have been happier if the clarity had been done from a ministry point of view, rather than delegating it to the line ministry,” said Cde Nyambuya.
Minister Chinamasa defended the proposed amendments saying line ministries were best suited to do the job but said what was important was for Government to guard against corruption by publicising ministries’ decisions in that regard.
Chief Fortune Charumbira weighed in saying foreign-owned firms were naturally against indigenisation.
“But I have one apprehension which is that, in the previous arrangement, there were some allegations and insinuations that the whole issue of indigenisation was characterised in some cases by corruption and I think it is in the way it was being done.
“When we do this, I doubt if this might take away the issue of possibilities of corruption. We have just moved from one ministry to another ministry but as I am saying, it is good that we move to the line ministry but within that ministry, we need checks and balances.
“That is the critical issue. So that they do not have to approach a particular director or officer and say, can we indigenise and then they say, no, not yet. The particular officer or director may end up being corrupted and end up saying, no, we cannot indigenise now but let us do that after 10 years or 20 years,” said Chief Charumbira.
He said it was critical that Government comes up with measures to guard against corruption if the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive was to succeed.

The 2014 festive season road accident death toll has now reached 86 following the death of five more people on Sunday the 28th of December. – State Media

Cecil John Rhodes’ grave in Matopos Hills 45 km south of Bulawayo, in the National park and Matabeleland south, province has been vandalized by suspected disgruntled war veterans.
The tomb’s cover is now variously scribbled, most probably by a sharp instrument. According to villagers who refused to be named, some disgruntled war vets, were heard planning to exhume the remains and take them to the Indian Ocean, where they want to dump them.
Rhodes who died in 1902 was buried at the Matopos National park together with one of his colleagues, Leander Jameson. The place which is a property of the National Monuments & Museums Department has been regarded as one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions.
As shown in pictures which ZimEye possesses, the grave has been tampered with, and some words have been inscribed most probably after failing to open the grave.
Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, England. He was the fifth son of the Reverend Francis William Rhodes and his wife Louisa Peacock Rhodes.
He wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was destined for greatness.
Rhodes who never married, pleading “I have too much work on my hands” and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband, has no descendants.
ZimEye visited the National Museum and Monuments Head Office in Harare and talked to Doctor Mahachi who blamed the vandalism on some sections of Zimbabwe’s Liberation War fighters who wanted Rhodes remains to be removed and relocated to England.
Dr Mahachi also ruled out placing security at the Matopos grave site, and appealed to the people of Zimbabwe to look after their tourist attraction. The grave is considered a revered attraction to foreign tourists from all over the world.
A snap survey by ZimEye revealed that a number of Zimbabweans are against the vandalism of this famous grave and that it is part of the country’s heritage. Several people in and around the Matobo district blamed the perpetrators, and openly expressed their opinions that this burial site should not be tampered with.
Norah Gwanzura an educationist added her voice in blaming the vandalism and the intention to destroy the grave. She told ZimEye that if anybody wanted the grave removed, they should also remove other historical places and see if that will make any sense.
Leonard Magorose, a Pastor with ZAOGA, also discouraged the relocation of the grave and pleaded with those offended by it to learn to forgive mistakes of the past.
A selective group of people in Zimbabwe wanted the grave removed because of colonial insinuations
“But would such a drastic move serve any logical purpose, given the financial difficulties being experienced by this embattled country, which is in dire need of whatever hard currency it may get,” said Simon Bhebhe of Kezi who is also a war vet.

Forced marriage has become rife in a small mining community of Mapombo, situated 60 kilometers north-east of Mutoko growth point.
The girls in this small remote community have been ascribed with a new role of ‘cash cows’ for their hand in marriage and families force them to get married as a way of eluding poverty. These girls also assume parental responsibilities of taking care of their siblings and they have to endure the struggles of motherhood at a very tender age.
Though the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly states that marriage should be entered only with the free and full consent of the intended partner(s); the girls in this community are being forced into marriage which is a defilement of their rights.
Those with the means (the illegal panners) exploit the poverty stricken families and take their young girls as wives in exchange for gold.
Florence*, barely 15 years of age and who is 6 months pregnant told us of her ordeal,and how she dropped out of school and had to engage in gold panning. She, later on, was forced to get married as a way to fend for her family.
“I left school when I was in grade 4 and joined the panning field; my parents are too old and so it’s my duty to look after them; panning was not doing so well and I had to get married to a local gold panner,” said Florence.
Florence’s story is one of many girls who as a result of poverty and pressure from family members have ended up giving into marriage to elderly men as a way to make ends meet for their families.
“The villagers main source of income is panning; with miners of this exquisite and prized mineral taking advantage of the prevailing economic hardships and take the young girls as wives; a girl can be forced into marriage at the age of 14 or 15 and the parents do not take into consideration the effects that this has on the child,” said Antony Nyamuda a University student who resides in Mapombo.
The majority of  girls in this remote community either engage in panning as they wait to become ‘ripe’ (as seen in the eyes of the parents) and forced into marriage at tender ages as a way to evade poverty.
Born in an era where an economy is crumbling, the girls are being exposed to a raft of dangers; which range from forced marriages and infection to HIV Aids.
Lack of cognizance amongst the community members in this area has seen society ascribing the girl child with a new role of bread winner and as a way of eluding poverty.
“It is very common for a girl to leave school before sitting for her O’level examinations and get married; the majority of these girls will be very young; aged between 14 and 17; in most cases they are forced by their parents,” said Chenai Makahamadze; a Guidance and Counselling teacher at Mapombo Secondary School.
Chenai explained how an enormous number of girls in this area had been forced to drop out of school and forced into marriage to elderly men who put them at risk of contracting HIV and Aids as a result of multiple sexual partners.
As indicated in a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) survey carried out early this year; 31% of girls in Zimbabwe under the age of 18 are forced into marriage and half of these girls are married off at the age of 15.
 
Names of victims in the above article have been changed to protect identity

Daily News| A mere three weeks into his tenure as President Robert Mugabe’s senior lieutenant, the knives are now being sharpened against Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa as Zanu PF’s ugly infighting refuses to go away and the party faction that worked together to decimate former anti-Joice Mujuru falls apart.
The Daily News learnt yesterday that among Mnangagwa’s new rabid critics are erstwhile colleagues who played a critical role in annihilating Mujuru and her perceived sympathisers, a development that paved the way for his Phoenix-like rise from the political ashes to the presidium.
The sources said Mnangagwa’s former supporters were not just “peeved by his meteoric rise to the VP position” while they had to “make-do with scraps”, they were also upset that he had seemingly forgotten them and was allegedly acting as if he was now “the substantive head of State” while Mugabe was on holiday.
As a result, some within the former anti-Mujuru grouping — particularly the so-called “Gang of Four” — now expeditiously wanted the tail of the party strongman cut.
The sources also claimed that it had not helped that the much-feared vice president had recently hosted parties and business persons in his home province, the Midlands, where some of the disaffected hardliners had not been invited to.
Worse still, some of Mnangagwa’s most fervent followers, such as Psychomotor minister Josiah Hungwe, had made the fatal mistake of praising him overzealously at these gatherings — at worst silly faux pas that the hardliners had expediently latched on to, in their quest to cut Ngwena down to size.
“There are some within the victorious camp who feel that Mnangagwa in the first place did not deserve to be vice president after doing virtually nothing during the Mujuru demolition job where First Lady
Grace Mugabe was used to turn President Mugabe against Amai Mujuru,” a well-placed source told the Daily News.
He said in particular the so-called “Gang of Four”— comprising senior party bigwigs Oppah Muchinguri, Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Saviour Kasukuwere — was allegedly working to undermine the VP and to “expose him as a power-hungry individual who is not fit to take over from Mugabe”.
This, the source added, supposedly explained why Mnangagwa, just like what had happened to Mujuru, was coming under vicious attack in the State media — “to discredit him as much as possible”.
Writing in the lickspittle Sunday Mail yesterday, a columnist who uses the bizarre pseudonym of Bishop Lazarus, and widely believed to be a senior Zanu PF bigwig, accused Mnangagwa of jettisoning party resolutions emanating from the party’s congress, and behaving like the deceased party stalwart Solomon Mujuru, who was widely regarded as a kingmaker.
Lazarus also queried why Mnangagwa had told a business delegation at his farm on the outskirts of Kwekwe that Zimbabwe’s indigenisation laws would be reviewed.
“Dear reader, there are two very worrying things about the statement above. The first worrying point is where this statement was made and secondly if indeed the VP said government would announce new business policies aimed at relaxing the indigenisation laws, then the bishop is amazed that the VP is throwing resolutions from the just ended Zanu PF into the dustbin so fast and furious,” the columnist said.
The columnist went on to say that it was also inappropriate for the VP to hold meetings at his Sherwood Farm, just like the late Solomon Mujuru had done.
“You see it starts with these courtesy calls at the farm and before we know it things get out of hand. There are so many places where these business people could have met VP Mnangagwa without raising any suspicion.
“Once upon a time, the bishop vividly remembers a famous farm somewhere in Beatrice where business people flocked to pay homage to some presumably powerful political skimmer who went on to get entangled in very dirty political games that are today haunting those he left behind.
“We don’t want a repeat of that in Kwekwe because that would be tragic and very unfortunate. VP Mnangagwa is a veteran politician and we hope he will move the courtesy calls to either his offices or some other place that suits his important office,” the columnist added.
The same paper also laid into the minister of State for Mashonaland West, Faber Chidarikire, yesterday for jokingly referring to Mnangagwa’s wife, Auxilia, as the acting First Lady.
“In my entire life I have never heard of an acting First Lady, where did he get that nonsense from. He is not the only one who is getting over-excited but most of these guys now regard Mnangagwa as the President,” a top Zanu PF official allegedly told the paper.
In an interview with the State media last week, Moyo also said people should not confuse Mnangagwa’s appointment as VP as anointment as Mugabe’s successor.
And Mugabe’s nephew, Zhuwao, also warned last week that those close to Mnangagwa needed to guard against getting too excited.
Respected political commentator and University of Zimbabwe lecturer Eldred Masunungure recently told the Daily News that Mujuru’s ouster would not translate into Mnangagwa’s automatic ascendency to the highest seat in government.
He said there were now two main factions in Zanu PF — namely the Gushungo (Mugabe’s totem) and Mnangagwa factions.
“The other two factions coalesced against Mujuru and now that they have decimated that faction, the question is which one remains the most dominant?
“To me the Gushungo faction is now in control of the party because Mugabe knows that real power lies in the party, not in the government, so Mnangagwa may not be the winner after all,” Masunungure said.

A 67 year old man from Chivi District, Masvingo has gone missing.  He has been missing for two weeks.
Mr Rodgers Mazhambe was last seen on the 16th December at Dzviti Village near Chomuruvati Township, Chivi.
He was last seen by local villager Mr Edward Chikosha when the latter was told he was out looking for his cattle.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Mr Mazhambe’s son on (Zim number) 0776269805.

 

Accidents countrywide during the holiday period have injured 589 people and killed over 81.
The accidents were predominantly caused by bad roads while others were due to over speeding. 59% of all the accidents were blamed on poor road maintenance due to either potholes, or lack of appropriate signage at dangerous spots. 17% of them are linked to reckless driving, while the remaining 12% was reportedly caused by unknown (yet to be established) causes.
National police spokesperson Chief Supreintendent Paul Nyathi said that the number of road accidents had risen to 1 012, indicating a 23% rise from last year’s figures.
“Over the same period, 81 people died while 589 were injured. As we prepare to celebrate the New Year (holidays), motorists are urged to continue exercising caution on the road,” he said.
 
Tickets.
Mr Nyathi added saying that the cops despite challenges carried out a successful raid on all and any offending motorists. He said that on Saturday alone they ticketed 6 978 motorists for various offences, while the holiday death toll rose to 81.
He said they had in summary issued over 96 000 tickets and impounded about 2 000 defective vehicles over the last 12 days for various traffic offences as they sought to ‘tame the traffic jungle this festive season’.
Nyathi said between December 15 and December 27, a total of 96 634 tickets were issued for various traffic offences and 2 289 vehicles impounded after they were deemed unfit to use public roads.
 
Firearm offence
The police also revealed that during the holiday period they arrested a 35-year-old man identified as Sambulelo Ndlovu for unlawful possession of a firearm which he is believed to have acquired with the intention to commit robberies in Harare.
“Circumstances are that the accused hired a taxi from Machipisa to Southley Park, Harare on December 24 2014. The driver became suspicious and drove straight to ZRP Machipisa where the accused was searched by detectives,” Nyathi said.
Nyathi added: “Upon being interviewed, the accused implicated his three accomplices who had invited him from Bulawayo to Harare intending to commit robberies. Police are conducting investigations with a view of arresting the accused’s accomplices.” Police said they recovered a 6,35 mm Rhoner Sport Waffen pistol with one round, two by two-metre-long nylon ropes, a hunter’s knife, two pairs of latex gloves and a roll of adhesive tape.

BULAWAYO CITY COUNCIL has targeted Transport minister Obert Mpofu and Gideon Gono among a host of top politicians and prominent people accused of letting vast areas of land lie idle for years.
MDC leader, Welshman Ncube and property magnate, Ernest Marima have also been named in an unprecedented clampdown on high ranking officials accused of abandoning vast swathes of land.
Close to 400 properties, mostly in the eastern suburbs, have been targeted for reclaim. This is a sharp departure from the norm, where only stand numbers would be published and not names of owners. Council gave the affected owners 60 days to make necessary payments or risk repossessing.
Section 5 of the Titles Registration and Derelict Land Act Chapter 20:20 states, “persons having claim on derelict land may apply to High Court for relief”.
“Whenever there remains due and unpaid for the space of five years any rate or assessment payable to any municipality or other public body any immovable property in Zimbabwe and such property is abandoned, deserted and left and the owner, therefore, cannot be found, it shall be lawful for the person or body claiming such rate or assessment to apply to the High Court, stating the amounts claimed to be due and the grounds for applying for relief under this Act,” the law reads.
According to a list from the local authority eminent persons include Mpofu and his wife Sikhanyisiwe (Matsheumhlophe), Ncube and wife Thobekile (Burnside), Gideon Gono (Winsor Park) and Marima with a single stand at Queensdale.
On companies Gope Investments (Pvt) Ltd leads the pack with 28 stands all in Matsheumhlophe, Giga Properties (Pvt) Ltd has 16 at Waterlea, Anzac Investments, nine stands at Burnside and Bulawayo Golf Club has five stands at Riverside.
National Railways of Zimbabwe has a stand at Southworld, Forestry Commission (Riverside) and Zumpango Investments has four stands at Matsheumhlophe.
The council has in the past expressed concern about the high number of commercial stands that have remained underdeveloped for a number of years.
According to council regulations, if an owner fails to develop a stand for two years, the local authority can repossess it without paying any compensation.
The city’s housing waiting list presently stands at more than 100 000, as both the council and private land developers are failing to cope with the high demand in the face of economic challenges in the country. – SouthernEye

A Mnangagwa boot-licker, the Minister of State for Mashonaland West Faber Chidarikire, who last week called Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife ‘First Lady’, was once found with a fresh bloodied human skull in his boot, police have revealed.
Impeccable Police records show Chidarikire was driving his vehicle at the time of the find, and he admitted responsibility for it claiming that the head belonged to a pedestrian he had knocked over by the road side. The prosecutor said that at the time of the incident in 1994, police accepted Chidarikire’s explanation that the head belonged to a pedestrian he had knocked down.
No charges were laid against the then mayor, who is a powerful figure in the ruling ZANU-PF party, despite the suspicions of doctors who examined the head.
But after the then mayor was charged with the murder of a primary school girl in 1987, the head was exhumed and pathologists concluded that it had been deliberately sliced from the body, the prosecutor said.
On the first charge, Chidarikire is alleged to have snatched 12-year-old Esnath Rangles from the roadside, stabbed and strangled her in his car and sliced off a breast and her genitals.
Murders to obtain body parts for use in magic rituals believed to enhance success in business are not uncommon in Zimbabwe.
Two men who say they were hired by Chidarikire to assist in the 1987 murder and a string of others told police they are now being haunted by avenging spirits of the people they helped kill.
Chidarikire, who was granted bail despite public outrage after his first court appearance,  was remanded in custody and yet later released under unclear circumstances through ZANU PF, and this year he resurfaced as the government Minister of State for the entire Mashonaland West  – Sapa-AFP-ZimEye

A year after the 2013 elections, top Harare preacher Rev Andrew Wutaunashe has insisted that following last year’s polls, God Almighty has given Robert Mugabe another chance.
Addressing a delegation of thousands, some of whom came from African countries and overseas to attend the national prayer and dedication service for Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, Rev (also referred to as Prophet) Wutawunashe said President Mugabe’s leadership role was a special gift to the nation from God.
“President Mugabe is a God chosen leader. He was raised by God to lead this nation. He has worked diligently for this country and was given the strength to fight for the nation’s wealth to be owned by the black majority, which has been a success,” said Rev Wutawunashe.
Last year he told ZimEye.com way before the 2013 elections God had showed him a picture of how the post election Zimbabwe will be and told him ” I am going to give the old man an opportunity to complete his work.” He added that he himself then told President Mugabe: “the years of collegial government you had with these people (The MDC) were not a waste of time.” He said that contrary to what political apologists have said before, the government of national unity has actually brought respect among politicians from both warring groups.
While leading special prayer session attended by Zanu-PF Politburo and Central Committee members, lawmakers, senior party officials and delegates from Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, Wutaunashe repeated his comments that Mugabe is God’s special gift. He continued, “he has led the country through the struggles against hatred and negative reporting from other countries. I keep on mentioning that his leadership role comes from God and all we have to do is to pray to God to give him long life and wisdom to take this nation to a different level.”
Wutawunashe said it was important for the nation to respect and rally behind President Mugabe and the country’s entire leadership.
During the same meeting there were prayers for the President and the First Family; his two Vice Presidents, Cdes Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko; the Cabinet and all political leaders in the country. Wutawunashe also took time to pray for the successful implementation of the five-year Zim-Asset as well as a fruitful agricultural season.
He said he was confident that the country would experience tremendous blessings from God as promised in the Bible, adding that it was important to always bring the country’s leadership before the Lord.

The festive season has to date claimed 81 people after 3 more died in road accidents recorded on Saturday the 27th of December.
They were all road collisions.
The state media reports that the figure translates to an 8 percent increase as compared to the 75 who died in 2013.
Despite continued campaigns by all stakeholders to reduce road carnage, statistics indicate that the number of accidents continues to increase with the period between 15 and 27 December claiming 81 people on the country’s roads.

There was horror on Christmas day when a bloodied human skull still with flesh was found near President Robert Mugabe’s homestead in Kutama, Zvimba.
Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi in a statement said the human head was found on a dust road in Mabvure-Masiyarwa.
“Police are also appealing to the public to assist with information which may lead to the identification and establish leads in a case where a human head comprising right cheek, half chin, right eye, full nose, right upper, lower jaw and protruding tongue was found lying at the centre of Mabvure-Masiyarwa dust road in Kutama on December 25, 2014,” he said.
Nyati added saying investigations were underway as police continued in their public appeal for information.
Meanwhile commenting, a villager, only identified as vaChikava said Satanic rituals were rife in the community as there has in the last four years been a sharp rise in businessmen rushing to witch doctors for assistance on get rich fast methods. “They are told all sorts and we believe this murder could be one of those,” he said.
Those requesting to view the pictures of the skull can request via the ZimEye WhatsApp number: +447426863301

A senior pastor from a Harare based charismatic church has rejected the recently introduced RBZ coins.
Senior Pastor Emmanuel Sitima of Boerea Assemblies in Kuwadzana extension speaking aside two three other men of the cloth, said people should only give what they esteem to be of value. “Why do you want to give what you know is not acceptable?” he said in a Saturday afternoon prayer meeting. He added,
“Just like these coins you know very well that they are not accepted in kombis so giving out something you do not value can be an insult to the one you are giving,” he said.
But the Kuwadzana Pastor added that: “if you find the smallest bond coin you give as an offering to be of heartfelt value, then you will be blessed, even though they are devoid of further use.”
Pastor Sitima’s words came as it emerged that kombis are rejecting the coins as useless. The Commuter Omnibus Operators Association has pleaded with its members to accept the new coins.
Cosmas Mbonjani, the Chairman of Greater Harare Association of Commuter Operators (GHACO) said his organisation supported the use of the special coins.
“There is no reason why our members should not accept the coins because we had a meeting with the RBZ boss who assured us that it was genuine money and that we should accept them,” said Mbonjani.
He, however, said the challenge was that some of the service providers like service stations were not accepting the coins.
He said his organisation had 400 members who had registered their vehicles and was made to understand that a majority of their members accepted the coins.
RBZ unveiled a new set of bonded coins worth $10 million, which started circulating on December 18.
The special coins in denominations of 1c, 5c, 10c and 20c are part of a five-year $50 million bond that government has secured to give them value. Mangudya said the introduction of the bond coins on the local market was part of efforts to ease the shortage of change, but allayed fears that they were clandestinely bringing back the Zimbabwe dollar. “The economics of the bond coins is that they are being introduced to buttress the multiple currency system through the provision of change especially for the US dollar notes which have a smallest denomination in circulation in Zimbabwe of $1,” he said.
Mangudya added that the RBZ was, therefore, addressing the divisibility and store of value qualities of money through the initiative, which has already received significant support from the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, business organisations and financial institutions.
“The bond coins will be at par with the US cents, that is trading one for one with US cents,” he said.
He also stated that the new bond coins’ circulation will be limited to Zimbabwe.
The country ditched its local currency in favour of foreign currencies in 2009 after hyper-inflation reached 500 billion percent.
Zimbabwe mainly uses the United States dollar and South African rand for transactions but businesses usually round-off prices and give consumers vouchers or sweets as change because the country lacks coins.
The 50c bond coin will be introduced in March next year.
Mangudya ruled out the return of the local currency saying that it would be “careless” and economic “suicide” as there were inadequate reserves to anchor it and that the country had foreign currency reserves that could only last up to three months.
(Daily News/Additional Reporting)

Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa has slapped former Minister of State Didymus Mutasa with a blackout by removing police security previously assigned to the latter’s house.
The State Media says Mutasa arrived back to his house on Christmas eve to find his security protection removed(although really was still in India – ZimEye.com can confirm that Mutasa is still in India as at the time of reporting). A State Media source said Mutasa was met with shock upon his return from India.  “They went to see him at his house at No. 2 Mbuya Nehanda Drive around 3pm. What shocked Cde Mutasa was to find that his house was no longer guarded by the Police Protection Unit, a privilege he had enjoyed for a long time,” said the source.
Another source said Mutasa wanted to maintain a low profile fearing that he would face a backlash from Zanu-PF followers if they saw him in public places.
“He did not want most people to know that he is back. He just wanted it to be a secret but has no plans to be seen in public yet. I will not be surprised if he boycotts even Parliament when it resumes sitting,” said the source.
Efforts to get a comment from him were fruitless as his mobile phone went unanswered, the state media reported.
Mnangagwa has already fired warning that those who have sided with Joice Mujuru will be met with punitive action which includes expulsion from the party.
Meanwhile Manicaland provincial chairperson Samuel Undenge earlier announced that the province want him expelled for his continued denigration of the revolutionary party and its First Secretary and leader President Mugabe. The call came after Mutasa accused the party leadership of being undemocratic.