Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has strongly denounced the harassment of citizens by overzealous cops.
According to President Chamisa police officers are not allowed to assault citizens.
Overzealous police details are terrorising residents of the city of Masvingo under the pretext of enforcing lockdown restrictions.
Addressing mourners at the burial of Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda in Gutu on Thursday, President Chamisa called for tolerance of diverse views.
“We are receiving disturbing information about the harassment of citizens by overzealous police officers.
Police officers are not allowed to assault ordinary citizens.
Human rights must be respected.
The late Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda was a dedicated police officer during his time of service.
He refused to be pushed out of his line of duty by politicians,” said President Chamisa.
He added :
“Let’s shun political intolerance because we are all Zimbabweans.Political parties come and go -why do we have to harm each other because of intolerance?”
One thing that Zimbabweans without doubt know very well is that President Advocate Nelson Chamisa resoundingly defeated Mnangagwa in the 31 July 2018 elections. The sting of that defeat continues to haunt and traumatize Mnangagwa and his ZANU-PF party to this day, and it explains why they don’t want to hear anything of President Chamisa and the MDC ALLIANCE (MDCA). They have resorted to a number of failed tactics and tricks to try and destroy the people’s President and the MDCA including withholding political party finances.
Immediately after elections ,on 1 August 2018, elements in the state security forces shot and killed people in the streets of Harare.This was confirmed by the Commission which was headed by President Kgalema Motlanthe which recommended action against perpetrators but up to now no one has been brought to book despite the government spending millions of dollars on the Commission. It is not in doubt that the enemy of the people wanted to use the hearings of the Commission to frame President Chamisa but they failed dismally.
After the grand election theft in 2018, ZANU-PF tried to lure President Chamisa into the so-called Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), a shame grouping of all losing presidential election candidates including Thokozani Khupe and Mnangagwa. They failed. ZANU-PF wanted to create a position of the Leader of Opposition in Parliament with ministerial pecks, but they failed to lure President Chamisa because he is for the people not positions.
At the dawn of the first COVID-19 induced national lockdown last year, which turned to be more of a political lockdown than a public health one, the Supreme Court was opened just to deliver a ruling meant to adversely affect the operations of a voluntary organization and give directions to a political party with its own constitutional remedies. The ruling which purportedly gave the MDCT party to Khupe triggered a series of events that are well documented, including the grabbing of the Morgan Tsvangirai house at the middle of the night with Soldiers and riot police present. The MDCT then illegally and irregularly recalled MDCA MPs and Councillors and replaced Proportional Representation MPs with individuals who were rejected by the people in elections including Khupe. They banned by-elections but allowed a sham MDCT congress that took place last month at the Harare International Conference Center during the corona virus pandemic. They fear the people because they know that their stooges are not wanted by the electorate. They are still hiding behind the COVID-19 lockdown to suppress the people’s voices and democratic actions; it will not work.
Abductions, torture, arbitrary arrests and illegal detentions of political leaders and activists including professionals to try to instill fear will not work. Khupe failed to destroy President Chamisa and the new old boy given the same assignment will also fail spectacularly. A hired Mwonzora Douglas who was defeated by Secretary General Hon Chalton Hwende during the 2019 MDCA Gweru Congress is well known for destroying political organizations including Forum Party, ZUM ,NCA and now the Supreme Court revived MDC T. Their mission is doomed. They cannot destroy the person of President Chamisa, neither can they destabilize the people’s movement. President Chamisa is the product of the people, he defeated Khupe and Mnangagwa combined in the last election.
Our struggle is not about money or positions, but about delivering the real promises of democracy, total transformation, and prosperity to every citizen. Our fight is a just fight to win Zimbabwe for change.
ChangeThatDelivers
Minister Clifford Hlatywayo MDCA Deputy Secretary for Communications
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Secretary General Hon Charlton Hwende has ruled out dialogue with Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T.
Hon Hwende also described the withdrawal of former Zanu PF MP, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti from the MDC Alliance as a non-event.
On Thursday Bhasikiti announced his decision to pull out of the MDC Alliance.
Hon Hwende responded:
We have had many MDC’s in the past and that has never confused our people.
Since 1999 we have managed to sustain this struggle and give hope to our people because we have successfully managed to outwit the regime by always electing and following a genuine political leader who can’t be bought by the regime to sell out the struggle. We succeeded with President Morgan Tsvangirai and we will succeed with President Nelson Chamisa.
Our Number one asset is our Leader. Even all other leaders are bought and we remain with him alone and the People Tinosvika Chete. Don’t be disturbed by those who are pushing us to abandon our name MDC Alliance it’s a trap the masses know their Party and they Know that their Leader is Nelson Chamisa. Some are now day dreaming and talking about Unity.
Unity with Progressive Political Parties yes but not with ED and ZanuPF created opposition. “Impoitai zveku Polad…
Donald Trump has accused Twitter of “banning free speech” in a tweet from the POTUS account, hours after he was banned from the platform.
Earlier on Friday, the social media company permanently suspended the president’s @realDonaldTrump account and wiped all his old tweets.
The Twitter Safety account posted shortly afterwards, saying: “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
It comes after Mr Trump was similarly banned from Facebook and Instagram following riots at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
In response, Mr Trump posted a series of tweets from the @POTUS account accusing the company of going “further and further in banning free speech”.
The rambling tweets were swiftly deleted but not before screengrabs were taken and circulated online.
The message continued: “Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me – and YOU, the 75,000,000 great…patriots who voted for me.”He said he is considering building his own social media platform in the near future and finished the post saying “we will not be SILENCED!”Twitter said the ban was the result of two of the president’s tweets, posted on Friday, which had violated its glorification of violence policy.
The first was: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
The second offending tweet was: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th”.
Twitter said the two messages “were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol”.
The social media giant said its assessment of the tweets found they were being “received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate” and seen as “disavowing” his previous claim that there would be an “orderly transition” on 20 January when President-elect Joe Biden takes over.
Additionally, Twitter said his second tweet on Friday “may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target”.
Mr Trump has no plans to attend Mr Biden’s inauguration, making him the first president in more than 150 years – and just the fourth in US history – to miss the occasion.
A former military commander, Brigadier-General Collin Moyo (Retired), has died.
Brig-Gen Moyo, whose Chimurenga name was Rodwell Nyika, died at the age of 66 on Friday morning at Haematology Centre, Harare after a short illness.
He had retired from the army in 1997 and at the time of his death, he was a director in the Ministry of Defence and Welfare of War Veterans responsible for Investigations, Vetting and Inspectorate.
In a statement on Friday night, the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) confirmed Brig-Gen Moyo’s death describing him as a true revolutionary who steadfastly defended the country’s sovereignty. The statement read in part:
He committed his whole life to serve Zimbabwe and fought to defend her interests.
He made valuable contributions to regional peace and security.
Above all, he remained focused and steadfast in the face of neo-colonial machinations by Britain and her allies.
Brig-Gen Moyo is said to have trained the likes of Commander Defence Forces General Philip Valerio Sibanda, Major General Diye, Major General N. Dube, Lieutenant General S.B Moyo (Rtd), Major General Chiramba among others.
Live recordings of music concerts, lockdown parties and like gatherings are illegal under the latest lockdown measures and those found on the wrong side of the law, will be arrested and prosecuted, Bulawayo law enforcers have said.
Funerals are the only gatherings that are allowed under the latest lockdown that came into effect on Tuesday. A maximum of 30 people are allowed to gather for a funeral.
Last year, during the lockdown, artistes were recording their video content at various studios and holding lockdown parties that they broadcasted online.
During these recordings, there was normally a technical team and a bunch of artistes.
However, according to Bulawayo province police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube, such gatherings according to law are illegal.
“A gathering according to the law is more than three people. Even if they are people who are congregated outside, if they are more than three, they are a gathering and they can be arrested. Only a funeral is the one that’s exempted and according to the regulations, it should have a maximum of 30 people, the rest are gatherings,” said Insp Ncube.
He warned people not to be caught on the wrong side of the law.
“Some people hold these recordings in places that they think are secluded, but as long as it is a gathering, this is illegal and those risk to be arrested and prosecuted,” said Insp Ncube.
Following the arrest and subsequent conviction of Chillspot Records duo, DJ Fantan (Arnold Kamudyariwa) and DJ Levelz (Tafadzwa Kadzimwe) who were both jailed six months for holding a show in Mbare, Harare, when the country was under lockdown, artistes are now afraid of being found on the wrong side of the law.-Chronicle
A circulating picture of an ox drawn car being used as a community ambulance in Mberengwa has caused social media stir with Zimbabweans expressing anger over the lack of prioritization by the government especially with millions of dollars pumped into a Mbuya Nehanda statue in Harare.
Below is the picture of the community ambulance. What do you think about Zimbabwe’s development priorities?
ONLY bars and restaurants serving hotel residents are allowed to sell alcohol and any other outlets including supermarkets are banned from doing so, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday.
Following a spike in coronavirus cases, Zimbabwe was put under level four lockdown which reintroduced a 6PM to 6AM curfew.
Under the lockdown regulations announced last Saturday by Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the Minister of Health and Child Care only essential businesses such as supermarkets, pharmacies and banks, can remain open and all gatherings such as wedding ceremonies or religious services are banned, with the exception of funerals, which are limited to 30 people.
Yesterday, there was panic on the liquor streets of Bulawayo as imbibers shared pictures of leading supermarkets putting up notices that they were no longer selling alcohol.
Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp were awash with pictures of alcohol sections of different supermarkets shutting down.
Bottle stores, bars and other leisure centres were banned from operating leaving, before yesterday, only supermarkets to sell alcohol during the lockdown.
The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ziyambi Ziyambi said Statutory Instrument (SI) 10 of 2021 means that even supermarkets are not supposed to sell alcohol and those who have stopped are doing so correctly under the lockdown regulations.
“The only places that were allowed to sell alcohol are hotels for their residents. If there’s a bottle store in a supermarket it’s supposed to be closed. The SI banned the sale of alcohol in bottle stores, supermarkets, except hotels. Those chain supermarkets have segments, if they have a bottle store in the supermarkets they should be closed. I think they are correct if they are stopping the sale of alcohol,” said Minister Ziyambi.
“Bottle stores and bars are potential hazardous places for the spread of Covid-19. Generally, alcohol leads to non-compliance. Our aim is to ensure that people comply and stay at home and we arrest new infections.”
Workers at various supermarkets yesterday said they were told not to sell alcohol on Thursday at the end of the day.
At a TM Pick n Pay outlet in Bulawayo, the section where alcohol is normally housed was emptied with the social lubricants replaced by rows and rows of, most curiously, fruit juices.
Fridges that chill lagers and beer were sealed off and notices that they were out of order were placed in front of them.
Spirits and wines have a longer shelf life, but beverages such as opaque beer (amasese), go bad after a week and carbonated sorghum beer (Super) goes bad after two weeks, while lagers and beers have a six-to-nine-month shelf life, according to a source at an alcohol manufacturing plant.
Announcing the lockdown measures, VP Chiwenga said: “Just to be clear, restaurants, bottle stores and bars are closed for 30 days except for bars and restaurants serving hotel residents. Also, tourist facilities and national parks will operate as before subject to the usual health precautions.”
When South Africa introduced an alcohol ban last year a move authorities said was meant to prevent drunken fighting, cut domestic violence and eliminate weekend binge-drinking prevalent across that country, doctors and police said the previous ban contributed to a sharp drop in emergency admissions to hospitals. But the country’s brewers and wine makers complained that they were being driven out of business.
In a statement on Thursday, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe expressed concern over the hosting of wild parties which have become super spreaders of the deadly virus. He said police will be deployed to all areas and anyone found on the wrong side of the law will pay the price. The Minister said his Ministry was concerned with bars, night clubs, restaurants, and other business entities who are operating yet according to Statutory Instrument 10 of 2021, are banned.
“I am equally disturbed by some shopping centres in some areas in the country which are now known for wild parties, beer drinking binges and all sorts of illegalities. This should stop forthwith. Police officers will move around all suburbs, shopping centres and even check houses to account for transgressions against Covid regulations and other criminal activities,” he said.
“I urge the public to report to any nearest police station, individuals or groups holding parties or musical events or any other gatherings not sanctioned under Covid-19 regulations. Organisers of such events will face the wrath of the law and risk losing their licences.”
Minister Kazembe said security agents are there to enforce regulations while it is the responsibility of citizens to stop the spread of the pandemic.
One of the 82 Headmasters who tested positive to COVID-19, has died, the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Association reports. FULL PRINT
One of the 82 Heads who tested positive lost the battle to COVID19 at Mahusekwa hospital at 0400hrs today. MHSRP. We blame @MoPSEZim for his death and the deaths of all Trs, learners & parents who contracted the virus from schools. The judiciary also failed to save lives. pic.twitter.com/Zb3LCOu1JU
— Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe,ARTUZ (@ARTUZ_teachers) January 9, 2021
HUNDREDS of Harare and Bulawayo nurses, who went on strike on Thursday, resumed their duties yesterday after government provided the personal protective equipment (PPE) they were demanding.
On Thursday, nurses at major public hospitals demonstrated against being forced to go to work without PPE, arguing that they were being exposed to highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina) president Enoch Dongo yesterday told NewsDay Weekender that government had taken heed of their concerns and vowed to provide PPE.
Nurses at Sally Mugabe Hospital (formerly Harare Central) in Harare withdrew their services after some of their colleagues and other patients tested positive for COVID-19.
Government also gave in to the nurses’ demand for flexible working hours which will see a limited number of staff reporting for duty at any given time.
“Authorities agreed to draft another duty roster with fewer health workers at any given time which will be effective starting Monday next week,” Dongo said. “This will result in nurses decongesting the health institutions. Also, it helps the number of nurses that will be exposed to the deadly virus at any given time.
“Most importantly, government is not in a capacity to provide enough PPE if all nurses report for duty at once, but if we revert back to the flexible working hours, government will be able to provide the required PPE to all the fewer nurses who will be on duty,” said.
Dongo added that government should address the plight of health workers with urgency as nurses were turning out to be carriers of the virus which was detrimental to all other government efforts in containing the virus.
“There is a situation where patients come to hospital for treatment on other diseases, but they go back to their homes with the virus after contracting it from the health workers attending to them,” he said.
Government last year cancelled the flexible working conditions where nurses work for 40 hours in three days and directed that all nurses work the same 40 hours over seven days.
An application by Zina which seeks to stop government from enacting that directive is still pending at the High Court.
Chiefs are set to abandon their colonial regalia as it does not reflect Zimbabwe’s traditional heritage and cultural values but cements colonial dominancy.
The red and purple gown and round shaped hat has been part of the chiefs’ identity pre and post independence, but the traditional leaders no longer want to have anything to do with it.
They said the regalia reflects a ‘bastardised’ traditional leaders’ identity which in essence is a symbol of dominance by colonialists.
They said after 40 years of independence, they can no longer be portrayed in the way the settler government wanted them to be seen.
Some of the institutions that remain stuck with colonial regalia include the judiciary as judges are expected to wear wigs before presiding over court cases.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has previously been criticised for spending limited foreign currency importing wigs for judges.
For instance in 2019, it is said more than US$170 000 was spent importing wigs for 64 local judges from the United Kingdom.
In local authorities, town clerks also wear wigs in some of the council official business while mayors also wear robes which reflect coloniality.
Before the country was colonised, chiefs used to put on animal skin regalia associated with royalty which colonialists changed when they enforced their dominance on Africans.
The chiefs said a new traditional leaders’ dress should not take them to the Stone Age but reflect Zimbabwe’s diverse cultures.
National Council of Chiefs president Chief Fortune Charumbira said funds permitting they will be inviting a national competition for designers to come up with chiefs’ regalia which reflects Zimbabwean culture.
He said chiefs were slowly abandoning the regalia as they no longer wear it at most official gatherings.
Some of the traditional leaders opt only to pin shields onto their shirts that identify them as chiefs as opposed to wearing the whole regalia.
“The whole chiefs’ regalia from the head and all the other pins that we put on as chiefs were designed during colonial times for a purpose. The messages in that regalia can never be the same messages of an independent Zimbabwe.
They do not reflect in any way our core values and cultures. For example we want to celebrate as a people where we come from. We want to celebrate that we have artifacts like Great Zimbabwe,” said Chief Charumbira.
“We want to celebrate that we are people that have liberated ourselves, that we’re agricultural people, that we are hardworking people, that we have ubuntu and other values. All these are not reflected in the regalia. It has all to do with what whites thought of us, it was meant to please whites.”
He said for instance the round shaped hat is the core of colonial supremacy as it is a product of the British South Africa Company and its officials gave it to those who directly reported to it like messengers and police who would spy on Africans.
Chief Charumbira said they want a chiefs’ regalia they can relate to and be proud of.
“So we are in the process of inviting competition to design the regalia for chiefs. This will reflect our own values, histories, symbols, artifacts as Africans, not regalia which depicts the ethos and the philosophies of the past colonial government,” said Chief Charumbira.
“There is a budgetary issue, we will see what we are given this time around by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in the 2021 budget. We will see if we have enough resources to do that (set up the competition). The themes in that national regalia should project the diversity of our people. A good designer should ensure all these key elements come out and should tell a story of who we are.”
He said other institutions that are stuck with colonial regalia should also be moving towards changing them.
Chief Charumbira said mental enslavement remains an issue even in independent Zimbabwe, something that should change.
“Go to the Judiciary, Parliament, the dressing is still much of the colonial past. The restraining factor in behaviour has also to do with the culture and values. Culture and values is in symbols, is in what we eat what we wear. How we appear is still more British than African and that’s why we are talking about a disintegrating social fabric, because we don’t have our own fabric. Ours is still very much weakened, diluted, bastardised by the colonial past. We don’t have a standard to follow or a compass because those symbols at the end of the day are the compass that should guide us to the true north,” said Chief Charumbira.
He said it was important for chiefs to be deliberating on their new regalia at a time when a national dress is in the national discourse as well.
“You want to do these things simultaneously. They cannot be separate from each other. They both are carrying the message of national appearance, national posture and national projection.
“You would want to do them concurrently and you would want to say which one should be for Parliament, Judiciary or Chiefs. You want them in some areas to look distinct for example the one for chiefs we want it to be distinct from others,” said Chief Charumbira.
Tsholotsho traditional leader and Senator Chief Mathuphula said traditional leaders have reached a consensus that the chiefs’ regalia should be changed.
“On the issue of the traditional dress, chiefs regalia to be precise, I feel and we feel that the current regalia does not really reflect our traditions and heritage. Our culture or the cultures that we have in our areas and I think there is a need for the people to look at it from the village perspective to ask the local leadership on the ground to come up with a dress that reflects our cultures.
“We need to revisit what we used to put on and design something that we can be proud of and children be proud of. So that we start to have a national consciousness with regards to tradition and culture,” said Chief Mathuphula.
22 more people succumbed to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe on Friday while 985 tested positive according to the ministry of health and child care update.
Yesterday’s numbers takes the cumulative total to 19660 cases and 468 deaths of which 12184 have recovered from the disease.
While previous were balanced between returnees and local cases, yesterday 984 were local confirming that the virus is now in the country.
People are encouraged to stay at home and if you chose to go out, mask up and always maintain social distancing.
31 July 2020 anti-corruption protest convenor Jacob Ngarivhume has raised alarm over an alleged plan by the police to arrest him for yet to be known charges.
Posting on Twitter, Ngarivhume said;
“So I’m getting reports that they want to arrest me too. If I am arrested please continue to follow updates on the @31julyofficial handle.”
Ngarivhume’s alert follows another by MDC Alliance vice chairperson Job Sikhala who tweeted that he had been made aware of a plan to arrest him on charges of communicating falsehoods or undermining the police over an incident that happened along Second Street in Harare where a police officer was manhandled by the public who accused him of hitting a child while attacking a kombi loading at an undersignated point.
Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono was also arrested yesterday over the same incident with the police accusing him of communicating falsehoods after he claimed that the police had killed a child who was strapped on the mother’s back.
Chin’ono was taken to Harare Central police station and will appear in court soon.
The ZANU PF party spokesperson, Mr Patrick Chinamasa’s medical record has been released in the UTMOST PUBLIC INTEREST pursuent to current emergency legislation and to protect members of the public from harm because – this person:
(for nearly a year to date) Misled the public promoting lies that COVID is not real
Is a Public Official/politician whose conduct around COVID has led to the death of hundreds…
The motivation for this expose’ has no malice in it, it is purely to inform and protect millions of people from harm.
The politician who runs govt policy, and statements thereof, is not entitled to use privacy laws to abuse the public.
Chinamasa has been holding several dangerous crowd meetings for nearly a year to date without any restraint.
He clearly knowing he is COVID positive, has not been wearing a mask while sitting closely to others, failing to observe social distancing.
Millions are dying from COVID and Zimbabwe is now at the epicentre of the pandemic’s latest new strain, raising the legal bar on disclose especially that of a powerful person who is living in self-denial for several months.
His phone number is already in the PUBLIC DOMAIN, and has been for more than 10 years. It has been parly public data. His date of birth has been in the public domain for more than 41 years. All has been left bare as a witness for the purpose of validating identity. If you are still in dispute do free to phone us. We run on a 24 hr news service.
Three victims-turned suspects in the 2.5 million United States dollar money heist which occurred along the Harare – Chinhoyi Highway this Wednesday have come up with different versions of what transpired giving credence to the suspicion that it could have been an inside job.
Nomatter Jonga, Matthew Simango and Fanuel Musakwa are being charged with theft after the close to 3 million United States dollars cash-in-transit which was in their custody vanished dramatically this Wednesday.
Circumstances are that on the 6th of this month around half past 11 in the morning, the trio who are employed as security cash in transit crew members were given a task to transport seven boxes containing 2 million seven hundred and seventy-five thousand United States dollars in cash.
According to state papers, the money was supposed to be distributed to several ZB Branches including Chinhoyi, Kadoma, Kwekwe, Gweru, Bulawayo, Gwanda and Zvishavane.
It is alleged that on the way, the trio picked up 3 passengers at Westgate roundabout and proceeded with the journey before collecting 43 thousand Zimbabwe dollars at Inkomo tollgate which was supposed to be deposited at their bank.
After collecting the money the accused went on to pick up another 3 unknown male adults at Inkomo turn off and drove towards Chinhoyi.
It is alleged that on approaching Gwebi Bridge lay bye, Jonga stopped the vehicle and the unknown accomplices who are still at large disembarked and allegedly manhandled the trio before tying them up.
The court further heard that another vehicle arrived within a few minutes with the occupants who were armed with pistols driving off with the cash in transit vehicle to a secluded place where they offloaded cash boxes.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, currently on annual leave at a time Zimbabwe is battling the intensifying Covid-19 pandemic, including attendant deaths, was last week forced to abandon a trip to his Sherwood farm in Kwekwe after several security personnel and his farm manager tested positive, The NewsHawks can reveal.
This comes just a few months after Mnangagwa made drastic changes to his security team after nearly 20 soldiers from the Presidential Guard Brigade, including some that were deployed to his motorcade, tested Covid-19 positive a few days before the arrival of his visiting Malawian counterpart Lazarus Chakwera last October.
Zimbabwe this week recorded its highest daily death toll when 34 people succumbed to the infection on Tuesday. At least 13 more died the following day – Wednesday – bringing the total death toll to 431. At least 15 more people died yesterday, meaning 446 fatalities.
While Mnangagwa was going away on leave, the rising Covid-19 cases and fatalities prompted co-Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, who also doubles as Health minister, to announce a 30-day lockdown last week which began on Tuesday.
Sources told The NewsHawks that four soldiers from 2 Presidential Guard, located in Harare’s Dzivaresekwa suburb, 10 Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) personnel and seven police officers from the Police Protection Unit underwent Covid-19 tests ahead of Mnangagwa’s Kwekwe trip. The tests were conducted last week on Wednesday at State House, sources said.
Mnangagwa’s security includes the CIO, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (VVIP Police Protection Unit) and the military which entails the Presidential Guard and the Special Air Services.
The yellow-beret military personnel from Dzivaresekwa provide security to the head of state when he travels outside the capital to places such as his Pricabe farm in Sherwood just outside Kwekwe.
“The President’s security team underwent Covid-19 tests at State House which involved inserting a six-inch-long swab into the nose (nasopharyngeal swab) for 15 seconds and rotating it several times,” a source in the Health ministry told The NewsHawks.
“It came as a shock when results came out. The President’s security team had been struck by the virus and thankfully most of them are asymptomatic at this stage. A farm manager who is also related to the President also tested positive. His trip had to be abandoned.”
Contacted for comment, presidential spokesperson George Charamba said he was not in the office, but referred this reporter to the principal director in Chiwenga’s office, whose phone was unreachable. Last year, Mnangagwa changed his security team when soldiers tested positive for Covid-19.
The drastic security changes came less than three years after he rotated the security personnel in the Presidential Guard Brigade subsequent to the 2017 coup that brought him to power before the elections.
Soon after the coup, Mnangagwa appointed former Presidential Guard commander Nhamo Anselem Sanyatwe to serve in the diplomatic service in Tanzania.
Sanyatwe, a key military officer who played a critical role in the ouster of the late long-time leader Robert Mugabe, was replaced by Fidelis Mhonda, who was first deputised by David Nyasha, recently promoted to Brigadier-General. Mnangagwa’s former aide-de-camp Never Jones Makuyana took over from Nyasha.
Following Mhonda’s appointment, commissioned and non-commissioned officers from 1 Presidential Guard Barracks were moved to the Dzivaresekwa Barracks in what key security sources said was an unprecedented move.
The then commander of 2PG, Samson Murombo, was deployed to 1PG before being briefly appointed Mnangagwa’s aide-de-camp. Murombo was later deployed to the All Arms Battle School after clashes with First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa.
Sources further said cases of Covid-19 have in the past few months been detected at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe School of Intelligence in Msasa Park, Harare, where more than 50 security service personnel tested positive.
A few months ago workers at Zanu PF headquarters, including high-ranking officials, were forced into self-quarantine after many people tested positive to the virus which poses a renewed threat to Zimbabwe.
The ZANU PF party spokesperson, Mr Patrick Chinamasa’s medical record has been released in the UTMOST PUBLIC INTEREST pursuent to current emergency legislation and to protect members of the public from harm because – this person:
(for nearly a year to date) Misled the public promoting lies that COVID is not real
Is a Public Official/politician whose conduct around COVID has led to the death of hundreds…
The motivation for this expose’ has no malice in it, it is purely to inform and protect millions of people from harm.
The politician who runs govt policy, and statements thereof, is not entitled to use privacy laws to abuse the public.
Chinamasa has been holding several dangerous crowd meetings for nearly a year to date without any restraint.
He clearly knowing he is COVID positive, has not been wearing a mask while sitting closely to others, failing to observe social distancing.
Millions are dying from COVID and Zimbabwe is now at the epicentre of the pandemic’s latest new strain, raising the legal bar on disclose especially that of a powerful person who is living in self-denial for several months.
His phone number is already in the PUBLIC DOMAIN, and has been for more than 10 years. It has been parly public data. His date of birth has been in the public domain for more than 41 years. All has been left bare as a witness for the purpose of validating identity. If you are still in dispute do free to phone us. We run on a 24 hr news service.
By Dr Takavafira Zhou| 2020 was a wasted year in terms of welfare, health and safety of teachers. High on the Agenda of the United Front of teachers in 2021 is urgent social dialogue to guarantee better salaries for teachers, industrial harmony and productivity in 2021.
We therefore urge gvt to urgently engage teacher unions as opposed to moribund, archaic and obsolete Apex Council for social dialogue. Teachers cannot wait longer to get starvation wages, and the earlier gvt takes the initiative to kick start robust collective bargaining as opposed to collective begging, the better.
We also appeal to gvt to avail relevant paper work to schools so that several teachers that so far have tested positive to covid 19 can complete and get assistance. It’s sad that several teachers have approached district and provincial offices without getting any assistance in terms of gvt assistance to covid 19 positive teachers. Our members are becoming more and more agitated as they fail to get assistance.
Teachers cannot continue to be treated as if they are of no account. Teachers are in essence arbiters of a nation’s destiny and must be treated well.
Live recordings of music concerts, lockdown parties and like gatherings are illegal under the latest lockdown measures and those found on the wrong side of the law, will be arrested and prosecuted, Bulawayo law enforcers have said.
Funerals are the only gatherings that are allowed under the latest lockdown that came into effect on Tuesday. A maximum of 30 people are allowed to gather for a funeral.
Last year, during the lockdown, artistes were recording their video content at various studios and holding lockdown parties that they broadcasted online.
During these recordings, there was normally a technical team and a bunch of artistes.
However, according to Bulawayo province police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube, such gatherings according to law are illegal.
“A gathering according to the law is more than three people. Even if they are people who are congregated outside, if they are more than three, they are a gathering and they can be arrested. Only a funeral is the one that’s exempted and according to the regulations, it should have a maximum of 30 people, the rest are gatherings,” said Insp Ncube.
He warned people not to be caught on the wrong side of the law.
“Some people hold these recordings in places that they think are secluded, but as long as it is a gathering, this is illegal and those risk to be arrested and prosecuted,” said Insp Ncube.
Following the arrest and subsequent conviction of Chillspot Records duo, DJ Fantan (Arnold Kamudyariwa) and DJ Levelz (Tafadzwa Kadzimwe) who were both jailed six months for holding a show in Mbare, Harare, when the country was under lockdown, artistes are now afraid of being found on the wrong side of the law.-Chronicle
Zimbabwe entered a hard lockdown this week and it’s second wave of infections is beginning to peak.
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr John Mangwiro, has declared the entire Zimbabwe a coronavirus hotspot.
He says infection rates are rising drastically in all the country’s regions.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health in Zimbabwe recorded its highest number of new daily infections at over 1 300 cases.
In the video below, Zimbabwe residents react to life under full lockdown:
Zimbabwe entered a hard lockdown this week and it’s second wave of infections is beginning to peak.
The country has more than 17 000 cumulative cases and the death toll is standing above 480.
Magwiro says the coronavirus caseload keeps on increasing rapidly.
“There’s no area that’s called the hotspot its now the whole country. That is why we are at level four of transmission. If [it was a] cluster of just hundred people, we would [be] on level one. Most of our COVID-19 centres have enough beds people should not rely on social media or hearsay,” explains Mangwiro.
DEPRIVING her family of a chicken meal on Unity Day holiday cost a Chipinge girl (13) her life after she was beaten to death by her father who accused her of negligently losing a US$5 note she had been given to buy the cutlets.
Shadreck Mufuka (44) of Nyamanga Compound, Southdown Estate, sought to conceal the murder by telling the girl’s mother that she died after being attacked by unseen things.
Mufuka has since appeared in court charged with the alleged murder of his daughter, Choice, on December 22.
He was not asked to plead when he appeared before Chipinge magistrate, Mrs Elizabeth Hanzi and was advised to apply for bail at the High Court.
Mufuka was remanded to January 12 for routine remand.
Choice was given the money by her stepmother, Sharon Mungofa, to buy chicken cutlets at the nearby shops, but later returned home empty-handed claiming that she had lost the money.
Appearing for the State, Mr Timothy Katsande, said: “On December 22, Choice was sent by her stepmother with a US$5 note to buy chicken cutlets. She later came back home around 7pm without the chicken cutlets and informed Mungofa that she had lost the money.
“Mungofa informed her husband that Choice had lost the money. An enraged Mufuka locked Choice in the dining room and went outside to get a switch from a peach tree in their backyard. When he came back, he assaulted Choice all over the body with the switch until she became unconscious .”
Mr Katsande said after assaulting the teenager, Mufuka shared the same room with her for the night, while his wife and other child slept in the bedroom.
“When Mufuka woke up the following morning, he noticed that his daughter had died. He informed Mungofa what had happened and the two agreed to inform Choice’s mother, Loveness Matengana,’’ he said.
Matengana was Mufuka’s first wife before they separated.
“Matengana, who remarried, came to Mufuka’s homestead to find out what had happened. She saw Mufuka preparing a coffin in preparation for Choice’s burial.
“Mufuka told Matengana that Choice was beaten to death by unseen forces. Upon viewing her daughter’s body, Mufuka discovered that it was swollen and had bruises all over. Mufuka was evasive on the cause of Choice’s death. Choice’s head was also deformed. The wall in the room where Choice’s body was in was covered with fresh blood. This left Matengana with suspicions that Choice’s head could have been bashed against the wall culminating in her death,” said Mr Katsande.
Matengana made a police report at Chipinge Rural Junction Gate Base leading to Mufuka’s arrest.-Manica Post
Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Sherwood Farm manager and some of his security details reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
This comes after Mnangagwa reportedly changed his security detail after 20 soldiers from the Presidential Guard Brigade, reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 in October.
Mnangagwa was reportedly forced to abandon his trip to Kwekwe after the diagnostics.
A source said:
4 Soldiers from 2 Presidential Guard 10 Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) 7 police officers from the Police Protection Unit all went for COVID-19 tests ahead of COVID-19 tests:
The President’s security team underwent Covid-19 tests at State House which involved inserting a six-inch-long swab into the nose (nasopharyngeal swab) for 15 seconds and rotating it several times.
It came as a shock when results came out. The President’s security team had been struck by the virus and thankfully most of them are asymptomatic at this stage. A farm manager who is also related to the President also tested positive. His trip had to be abandoned.
Zimbabwe has gone through the pandemic’s worst week as over 3000 new cases were recorded in the last 7 days alone.
Chido Mbewu/ The decision by political flip flopper Kudakwashe Bhasikiti to dump the MDC-Alliance led by Nelson Chamisa has made him a subject of ridicule.
Bhasikiti claimed on social media that he is dumping the Alliance because it is now owned by Douglas Mwonzora, saying hypocrisy must end now MDC-T and MDC-Alliance are now one thing.
Among those to react to Bhasikiti’s decision to dump the MDC-Alliance was exiled and former Zanu-PF politician Jonathan Moyo, “Freedom of association is a natural & constitutional human right. Enjoy it. Meanwhile, do yourself some good by realising that you’re not the only human being. Other human beings have the same right. Respect that. Otherwise, your propensity to be in the wrong basket is legendary!”
With activist Setfree Mafukidze warning, “I have always maintained that all former ZANU PF members who crossed the floor to the MDC Alliance did so not out of principle or the desire for change in Zimbabwe all this was just done to keep up with the divisive work that they have always been known for.Principle is inborn”.
I have always maintained that all former ZANU PF members who crossed the floor to the MDC Alliance did so not out of principle or the desire for change in Zimbabwe all this was just done to keep up with the divisive work that they have always been known for.Principle is inborn.
— Setfree Nherera Mafukidze ?? (@cdesetfree) January 7, 2021
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has strongly denounced the harassment of citizens by overzealous cops.
According to President Chamisa police officers are not allowed to assault citizens.
Overzealous police details are terrorising residents of the city of Masvingo under the pretext of enforcing lockdown restrictions.
Addressing mourners at the burial of Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda in Gutu on Thursday, President Chamisa called for tolerance of diverse views.
“We are receiving disturbing information about the harassment of citizens by overzealous police officers.
Police officers are not allowed to assault ordinary citizens.
Human rights must be respected.
The late Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda was a dedicated police officer during his time of service.
He refused to be pushed out of his line of duty by politicians,” said President Chamisa.
He added :
“Let’s shun political intolerance because we are all Zimbabweans.Political parties come and go -why do we have to harm each other because of intolerance?”
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has strongly denounced the harassment of citizens by overzealous cops.
According to President Chamisa police officers are not allowed to assault citizens.
Overzealous police details are terrorising residents of the city of Masvingo under the pretext of enforcing lockdown restrictions.
Addressing mourners at the burial of Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda in Gutu on Thursday, President Chamisa called for tolerance of diverse views.
“We are receiving disturbing information about the harassment of citizens by overzealous police officers.
Police officers are not allowed to assault ordinary citizens.
Human rights must be respected.
The late Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda was a dedicated police officer during his time of service.
He refused to be pushed out of his line of duty by politicians,” said President Chamisa.
He added :
“Let’s shun political intolerance because we are all Zimbabweans.Political parties come and go -why do we have to harm each other because of intolerance?”
Under the new lockdown regulations announced last Saturday by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga only bars and restaurants serving hotel residents will be allowed to sell alcohol and any other outlets including supermarkets are banned from doing so, state media reports.
Following a spike in coronavirus cases, Zimbabwe was put under level four lockdown which reintroduced a 6PM to 6AM curfew.
Under the lockdown regulations announced last Saturday by Chiwenga, who is also the Minister of Health and Child Care only essential businesses such as supermarkets, pharmacies and banks, can remain open and all gatherings such as wedding ceremonies or religious services are banned, with the exception of funerals, which are limited to 30 people.
Yesterday, there was panic on the liquor streets of Bulawayo as imbibers shared pictures of leading supermarkets putting up notices that they were no longer selling alcohol.
Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp were awash with pictures of alcohol sections of different supermarkets shutting down.
Bottle stores, bars and other leisure centres were banned from operating leaving, before yesterday, only supermarkets to sell alcohol during the lockdown.
The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ziyambi Ziyambi said Statutory Instrument (SI) 10 of 2021 means that even supermarkets are not supposed to sell alcohol and those who have stopped are doing so correctly under the lockdown regulations.
“The only places that were allowed to sell alcohol are hotels for their residents. If there’s a bottle store in a supermarket it’s supposed to be closed. The SI banned the sale of alcohol in bottle stores, supermarkets, except hotels. Those chain supermarkets have segments, if they have a bottle store in the supermarkets they should be closed. I think they are correct if they are stopping the sale of alcohol,” said Minister Ziyambi. / State Media
Full Twitter statement: “After assessing the language” in two Jan. 8 tweets “we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.”
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Secretary General Hon Charlton Hwende has ruled out dialogue with Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T.
Hon Hwende also described the withdrawal of former Zanu PF MP, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti from the MDC Alliance as a non-event.
On Thursday Bhasikiti announced his decision to pull out of the MDC Alliance.
Hon Hwende responded:
We have had many MDC’s in the past and that has never confused our people.
Since 1999 we have managed to sustain this struggle and give hope to our people because we have successfully managed to outwit the regime by always electing and following a genuine political leader who can’t be bought by the regime to sell out the struggle. We succeeded with President Morgan Tsvangirai and we will succeed with President Nelson Chamisa.
Our Number one asset is our Leader. Even all other leaders are bought and we remain with him alone and the People Tinosvika Chete. Don’t be disturbed by those who are pushing us to abandon our name MDC Alliance it’s a trap the masses know their Party and they Know that their Leader is Nelson Chamisa. Some are now day dreaming and talking about Unity.
Unity with Progressive Political Parties yes but not with ED and ZanuPF created opposition. “Impoitai zveku Polad…
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Secretary General Hon Charlton Hwende has ruled out dialogue with Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T.
Hon Hwende also described the withdrawal of former Zanu PF MP, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti from the MDC Alliance as a non-event.
On Thursday Bhasikiti announced his decision to pull out of the MDC Alliance.
Hon Hwende responded:
We have had many MDC’s in the past and that has never confused our people.
Since 1999 we have managed to sustain this struggle and give hope to our people because we have successfully managed to outwit the regime by always electing and following a genuine political leader who can’t be bought by the regime to sell out the struggle. We succeeded with President Morgan Tsvangirai and we will succeed with President Nelson Chamisa.
Our Number one asset is our Leader. Even all other leaders are bought and we remain with him alone and the People Tinosvika Chete. Don’t be disturbed by those who are pushing us to abandon our name MDC Alliance it’s a trap the masses know their Party and they Know that their Leader is Nelson Chamisa. Some are now day dreaming and talking about Unity.
Unity with Progressive Political Parties yes but not with ED and ZanuPF created opposition. “Impoitai zveku Polad…
Tinashe Sambiri|The MDC Alliance Youth Assembly has denounced the harassment of its members by overzealous police details in Gweru.
Members of the MDC Alliance Youth Assembly have been summoned to the police for “dubious questioning” at Gweru CID Law and Order Section.
See statement below:
The Zanu PF regime has through the police continued to torment MDC Alliance Youths.
The so called new dispensation has refused to leave behind human rights abuses and all the dirty deeds which were done by those they call old dispensation and claim to be different from.
Youths from Mkoba suburb are being called to Gweru CID Law and Order for questioning which we see as a ploy to intimidate and silence all those who do not support Zanu PF.
This random picking of known Mdc Alliance Members started with our Mkoba district youth chairperson John Kuka who was the first to be called on the 18th of December and then followed by Tonderai Chadoka who was called for questioning on the 4th of January.
The percecution seems not to be ending anytime soon as six more youths were called in also for the so called questioning today. Those who went to law and order today are Mthulisi Noko, Portia Tambalika, Edwin Chakanyuka, Tawedzerwa zvirawi, Precious Mtengwa and Tendai Gama
We strongly condemn the continued unfair treatment of citizens. zanu pf must use all this energy in the fight against this covid 19 pandemic which the nation and the whole world is facing. This behaviour of trying to crush opposing voices through arrests and trumped up charges which has rocked the nation must not have any space in our community. This must be a time where all citizens unite and stop the spread of covid 19.
As Mdc Alliance Mkoba youths we say we will not be intimidated or diverted from our goals and fight for a new zimbabwe where everyone is equal, a new corruption free zimbabwe, fight for constitutionalism and return of rule of law, fight for good governance
Vice President Constantino Chiwenga yesterday toured the site of the Mbuya Nehanda statue and was satisfied with the work done so far which is 80 percent complete.
He was accompanied by Local Government and Public Works Acting Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere and Deputy Minister Marian Chombo.
The tour was to allow the Vice President to assess progress made to date.
During the tour, the contractor said progress now stands at 80 percent with 20 percent still remaining on site with all concrete works, that is staircases, ramps and foundations, and fabrication of the steel bridge now complete.
Chiwenga thanked all involved for their commitment and dedication.
Government is erecting a memorial statue for Zimbabwe’s First Chimurenga war heroine — Mbuya Nehanda — in Harare to honour her for her heroic rebellion against colonialism, resulting in her paying the ultimate price by being hanged in 1898.
The memorial statue is being erected at the intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way.
Construction started on June 25 last year.
The Mbuya Nehanda statue project is about remembering and paying tribute as a nation, as a people, to an ancestor whose contribution to history deserves recognition.
Mnangagwa recently said Mbuya Nehanda’s statue must be redone to capture the image that all recognise, backed by contemporary photographs.
This followed the President’s visit to Nyati Gallery near Snake Park late last year, where he was presented with a youthful version of Mbuya Nehanda by sculptor David Mutasa, who has been tasked with making a statue of the iconic spirit medium.-State media
Writers Unlimited /On 13 January 2021 during online Winternachten festival’s Opening Night programme, the PEN Award for Freedom of Expression will honour Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, for her remarkable work in fighting for freedom of expression. Dangarembga is a novelist, poet, filmmaker and playwright. Her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. She is also a dedicated activist, and the founding member of PEN Zimbabwe.
The award ceremony, held as part of the opening night of the online Winternachten International Literature Festival The Hague, will be introduced PEN International President and writer, Jennifer Clement.
“For the past sixteen years, PEN International has given the PEN Award for Freedom of Expression at the opening ceremony of the Winternachten Festival. With the active participation of Netherlands PEN and the PEN Emergency Fund, the award honours writers who have been persecuted for their work and continue to work despite the consequences. Over the years we have recognized courageous writers such as Anna Politkovskaya and Hrant Dink and Stella Nyanzi”. PEN International President, Jennifer Clement.
Literary guests to Winternachten Festival’s Opening Night include authors Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), Salena Godden (UK), Samanta Schweblin (Germany), and Dutch authors Arnon Grunberg, Eva Meijer, Jaap Tielbeke, Raoul de Jong and Simon(e) van Saarloos. The Winternachten Festival’s Opening Night, including the PEN Award ceremony, will be live streamed on 13 January 2021, 20:30-22:00 hours CET. The programme will be English spoken. Programme information and tickets are available here.
The date of the PEN Award is of symbolic importance as it coincides with the PEN Emergency Fund’s 50th anniversary. Since its founding in 1971, PEN Emergency Fund has provided vital support to writers who have been persecuted for their work and are in acute financial need, as well as to their families.
Last year the PEN Award for Freedom of Expression was given to prominent Ugandan academic, writer and feminist activist Dr. Stella Nyanzi. Dr. Nyanzi was sentenced to 18-months in prison for ‘cyber harassment’ in November 2018. This was in relation to a poem she wrote on Facebook criticising President Museveni and his mother. Her conviction and sentence were overturned in February 2020, four weeks after receiving the award in the Hague. PEN International and its Centres around the world campaigned for the release of Dr Nyanzi since her arrest, and featured her case in PEN International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer 2019.
Previous winners include Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, Eritrean poet and writer Amanuel Asrat, Honduran activist Dina Meza and Cameroonian journalist and academic Enoh Meyomesse.
Formerly known as the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression, the award was originally given as a collaboration of PEN International, the PEN Emergency Fund and Oxfam Novib. It has been given to writers who continue to work for freedom of expression in the face of persecution since 2005. This year, PIP Den Haag (People in Print) will support the Award.
The PEN Award for Freedom of Expression is the first of a series of events in 2021 marking the PEN International Centenary. 100 years after it was established, PEN International continues to embody the spirit of its remarkable founder, the English writer Catherine Amy Dawson Scott. Today, PEN International is recognized as the world’s foremost association of writers and as a leading expert on freedom of expression.
By A Correspondent | When he was spitting salivafluids before party crowds and also into oily microphones, the ZANU PF National Spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa was likely infected, the former Rhodesian Prosecutor has tested positive to COVID-19.
Chinamasa, who has been leading the party information department as it claims that COVID does not affect black people, got his PcR test performed 3 days ago which printed out a positive result.
He has now been ordered to isolate. More to follow….
Chido Mbewu/ Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume has sent out a distress call that the police plan to arrest him.
The politician took to his microblogging platform Twitter, alerting his followers that he is getting reports, “they want to arrest me too.”
This was after MDC-Alliance vice-national chairman, Job Sikhala earlier made similar reports of an imminent arrest, sensationally claiming that the plan was to “expose him to Covid-19”
Wrote Sikhala, “I am gathering that after my arrest they want to expose me to Covid 19. If anything happens to me let it be known to Zimbabweans that I am Covid free as I speak. Few days ago I warned about the plot by the regime & they really want to arrest me for no apparent reason. Oppression”
A year ago, Kuvimba Mining House did not exist. Now it could be the country’s biggest gold producer.
How? The answer shows how transparency is still not a thing for Zimbabwean authorities.
In December, President Emmerson Mnangagwa toured Shamva Mine, a gold mine recently sold by Mzi Khumalo’s Metallon Corporation. Amid all the ribbon cutting and chest-thumping, it was revealed that the mine was now owned by Kuvimba.
David Brown, CEO of Kuvimba, handed over share certificates to Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, and it was announced that the government owned 65% of Kuvimba.
For anyone who had followed recent acquisitions in mining, all this made one raise an eyebrow.
Here is why:
Puzzle one: Shamva, BNC
When Shamva was sold, the buyer was announced as Sotic International, a Mauritius-based company backed by Almas Global Opportunity Fund, a firm registered in the Cayman Islands. Brown, who is Sotic CEO, said Shamva was just one of other gold mines that the company was targeting for acquisition.
“We want to become a significant player in the gold industry in Zimbabwe,” Brown said in July last year. It was reported that Sotic’s local arm, Landela, would run Shamva.
In 2019, the same company, Sotic, bought 74.73% of Bindura Nickel Corporation (BNC), the country’s sole nickel miner, as well as Freda Rebecca gold mine, from Asa Resources.
That transaction, worth Z$3.5 billion, was completed in September last year. Soon after, BNC announced in a ZSE filing that Sotic would place the 74.74% BNC shares in the hands of a local company, Kuvimba.
“On 22 September 2020 the shares were, in terms of the Agreement, transferred to Kuvimba Mining House (Private) Limited, a limited liability company duly incorporated in accordance with the laws of Zimbabwe.”
Trojan nickel mine: One of Kuvimba Mining’s assets
So, who owns Kuvimba? Government says it owns the majority 65%. The stake is held through the sovereign wealth fund, the National Venture Capital Fund, and the Insurance and Pensions Commission. There is also the War Veterans Fund and the National Youth Fund. Little is known about these two funds.
The other 35%, it turns out, is owned by another locally-registered company, Ziwa Investments, which is in turn owned by a Mauritius-registered investment fund called Quorus. There is no disclosure on the beneficial owner of these two firms.
Brown says Sotic is not involved with Kuvimba, having ceded BNC stock to local ownership.
So, Sotic, a foreign-registered company, bought and paid for Shamva and BNC, only to hand over those shares to a separate entity, now majority-owned by the government?
Puzzle two: ZMDC
In June, the Ministry of Finance announced that Landela Mining was the winning bidder for “ZMDC gold assets and Sandawana Mine”.
These ZMDC mines include Jena, Golden Kopje, Elvington and Sandawana. Now, these companies are being listed as part of Kuvimba’s portfolio in government pronouncements. In total, currently, these gold mines are yielding around 300kg of gold per month.
So, on one hand, government claims to have disposed of its mines, while, on the other hand, claims to now hold 65% of the same company that we are told took over those same mines.
Puzzle three: GDI
In October 2019, Great Dyke Investments, which is developing what would be Zimbabwe’s largest platinum mine near Darwendale, announced Landela Mining as its local 50% partner. In December, GDI sold a 4.4% stake to Fossil Mining, led by GDI board member Owen Chimuka, in order to raise US$30 million to develop the mine.
Construction of the ‘box cut’ at the GDI site at Darwendale. The box cut is the first step in excavation, providing a portal into the underground mine
That left Russian company Vi Holding, run by Vitaliy Machitski, and Landela, each with a 47.8% stake.
Just like all the other assets previously said to have been bought by either Landela or Sotic, the GDI stake is now being listed by government officials as part of Kuvimba’s portfolio of assets.
The Tagwirei axis
Everyone involved around Kuvimba has been keen to make one big point; businessman Kuda Tagwirei is not involved in the company.
“Tagwireyi is not involved at all; we did our due diligence,” Ncube says. “All the entities in the 65% are State-owned.”
Government claims that its contribution of assets accounts for the 65% in Kuvimba. However, this would suggest a valuation of all the assets has been done to give the split. There has been no such valuation.
Commodity baron…Kuda Tagwirei
It’s easy to see why officials want so desperately to distance Kuvimba from Tagwirei. He is on the US sanctions list, and any association with Kuvimba diminishes the company’s capital-raising opportunities. Tagwirei himself would be keen not to have his businesses traced back to him.
However, it’s hard to place Tagwirei too far away from these businesses. With no full disclosure, Kuvimba appears to be an elaborate structure meant to protect both the interests of the state and Tagwirei himself.
This would be a remarkable role reversal. For long, it’s been alleged Tagwirei has been used by the Zimbabwe government to circumvent financial sanctions.
Firstly, when Sotic bought BNC, it appointed Christopher Fourie and Jozef Behr to the board. Fourie is a director of Sotic, while Behr is the company’s head of trading.
Fourie, an investment banker, has served as head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Puma Energy, which is jointly owned by Trafigura and Sonangol, and was until 2020 the Zimbabwe partner of Tagwirei’s Sakunda Holdings. Trafigura cut off Sakunda as the US prepared sanctions against Tagwirei.
BNC also appointed Chimuka, a Tagwirei associate and Landela’s nominee to the GDI board. Another board appointment was Craig Meerholz, executive director of Sotic and former head of Africa for Trafigura.
ZimAlloys, a company already known to have been bought by Tagwirei, is also being listed under Kuvimba.
Also of note is how Brown, the former Implats boss, has variously been presented as CEO of Sotic, Landela, and now Kuvimba.
Kuvimba: The game plan
So, why does Zimbabwe need Kuvimba?
Ncube’s justification for the company, opaque structure and all, is remarkable.
Earnings from the company, he said Monday, will be used to raise money to compensate pensioners, and even to pay displaced white commercial farmers.
In his 2021 budget, Ncube said he was setting up a US$75 million fund to compensate some pensioners who lose value. Farmers who signed to the US$3.5 billion compensation deal would be paid partly by money raised offshore. There was no mention of using mineral resources for either debt.
ZMDC’s old mines are desperate for investors, but quality buyers stayed away
Kuvimba has a long list of acquisition targets on the table. To add to BNC, Shamva and the ZMDC mines, the company is also targeting Globe & Phoenix Mines, the idled Kwekwe gold mine that has been overrun by illegal miners for two decades.
Mazowe Mine, another Metallon Mine, could be acquired this year, according to Brown.
Kuvimba says its total assets are valued at US$1.5 billion. It is looking to raise another US$1 billion to fund exploration, new acquisitions and development, Brown says.
“We require about US$1 billion to build out mines and ensure that catch-up capital is made,” according to Brown. “This will be done over time.”
Kuvimba has an ambitious target of 500 000 ounces of gold per year. That would vault it to the top of the mining pecking order, at a time most miners are struggling for capital.
Hidden in plain sight
After failing to attract new, large scale mining investment, it was inevitable that Zimbabwe would have to look within. A tender for ZMDC assets in 2018 attracted 151 bidders, but the sale was abandoned, purportedly for lack of quality buyers.
Not only does Zimbabwe offer new, greenfield investment opportunity – exploration alone has been woefully inadequate – the country also has a range of idle mines that are crying for investors with an appetite for risk.
Recently, credible companies such as Padenga and Caledonia Mining have stepped up investment in mines and claims that have been idle for years.
If Kuvimba meets its production and acquisition targets, it would potentially become Zimbabwe’s largest gold producer. Shamva Mine alone has a resource of 2.5 million ounces of gold. Freda expects 2,800kg in the year to March, which would beat RioZim, which produced 1,658kg from its three mines in 2019, and Blanket Mine, which projects 1,600kg in 2020.
However, instead of full disclosure on the structuring of this potentially influential firm, government and all others involved have chosen to hide it among scattered puzzle pieces.
Everyone involved has chosen to be cagey about how Kuvimba came about, and how government came to hold 65% in a company with assets that were initially aquired by Tagwirei’s Sotic and Landela.
This is the question government needs to answer; how did this mix of state-owned mines and privately-held mines bought by a private company end up all in the hands of a new single company that government now claims to control?
Zimbabwe’s government is yet again failing a transparency test in its management of mining resources.
The answer to the puzzles, as is always the case, will inevitably show when it’s time to put in new capital, and to share the spoils.
By QUINT FORGEY / President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will not attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration later this month, shattering another norm of the American presidency on what will be his final day in office.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” Trump wrote on Twitter, 12 days before Inauguration Day.
With his decision, Trump is poised to become the first U.S. president in modern political history to not appear for his successor’s swearing-in ceremony — one of the nation’s most prominent public displays of its commitment to a peaceful transfer of power.
Only three other former presidents have declined to attend the inauguration of their White House successor: John Adams in 1801, John Quincy Adams in 1829 and Andrew Johnson in 1869. Former President Richard Nixon — who resigned in 1974 under threat of impeachment — was not present when President Gerald Ford was subsequently sworn-in at the White House.
Vice President Mike Pence is expected to attend the inauguration, POLITICO reported Thursday. Former President George W. Bush, the most recent Republican president, also plans to attend.
Former President Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president, is presumed to be attending, as is former President Bill Clinton. Former President Jimmy Carter, who is 96 and the only other living former president, announced Tuesday that he would not attend.
Biden has previously said that while he does not personally care whether Trump attends his inauguration, the outgoing president should show up for the sake of the nation and its image on the world stage.
Trump’s presence is “important in a sense that we are able to demonstrate, at the end of this chaos that he’s created, that there is a peaceful transfer of power — with competing parties standing there, shaking hands and moving on,” Biden told CNN in an interview last month.
“The protocol of the transfer of power, I think, is important,” Biden said. “But it is totally his decision, and it’s of no personal consequence to me. But I do think it is for the country.”- Politico
Chido Mbewu/ The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Ndavaningi Mangwana has made claims that a Covid-19 super spreader has succumbed to the virus, after coming into contact with an undisclosed number of people.
Without mentioning the identity of the person Mangwana says that after discovering his status, the person hired a car went to a Hurungwe hospital, does not disclose his status, after which his health deteriorates and he dies. The hospital has had to close.
DENIAL or SUPER SPREADER Someone gets sick in Harare and tests positive to Covid19. He hides the results, hires a car and goes to Mahwanda, Hurungwe, deteriorates there, goes to hospital there and hides history, resulting in closure of hospital. He passes away after 2nd test.
Chido Mbewu/ Lawyers representing journalist Hopewell Chin’ono say he has now been granted access to them, several hours after his arrest.
Hopewell Chinono being led back to prison after court.
Chin’ono was arrested earlier today, for a video he posted on social media alleging that they had beaten a baby to death.
The journalist sent out a distress call at the time of his arrest, explaining why he was being detained, “communicating falsehoods for tweeting that a child had been beaten up and died by a police officer! They are taking me to the Law and Order section at Harare Central Police Station”.
Lawyer Roselyn Hanzi said, ” @daddyhope has been granted access to his lawyer. The allegation is that he contravened section 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Code – Publishing of communicating statements prejudicial to the state – (undermining confidence in law enforcement agency)”.
Meanwhile the police car Chin’ono was taken in has been identified as a white Toyota Hilux registration number AES 6633.
Aston Villa forced to close training ground after COVID 19 outbreak Marvelous Nakamba’s Aston Villa have announced that they closed their training ground following a significant COVID 19 outbreak at the club.
The development is likely going to lead to the postponement of their FA Cup clash with Liverpool that was set to be played on Thursday.
A statement from the club read:
Aston Villa can confirm that the Club has closed its Bodymoor Heath training ground after a significant Coronavirus outbreak.
A large number of first team players and staff returned positive tests after being routinely tested on Monday and immediately went into isolation.
A second round of testing was carried out immediately and produced more positive results today.
First team training ahead of tomorrow’s FA Cup match with Liverpool was cancelled.
Discussions are ongoing between medical representatives of the Club, the Football Association and the Premier League.-Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
Musona injury blow for KAS Eupen Warriors captain Knowledge Musona was stretched off in KAS Eupen’s latest game in the Belgian Pro League.
Benat San Jose’s charges were thumped 1-4 by Genk on Wednesday, their second defeat on the trot but the elephant in the room is that Musona was stretched off in the first half of the game due to an undisclosed type of injury.
He was replaced by Belgian Jonathan Heris with just 28 minutes on the clock.
When Musona was stretched off, Eupen were leading 1-0, only for them to crumble, concede four goals and lose the match.
Interestingly, in the previous game, the Aces Youth Academy graduate was taken off late in the second half having scored a brace of free kicks and left the team leading 2-1, only for them to crumble and lose 3-2.
Musona is doubtful for tomorrow’s away trip to Cercle Brugge.- Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
The perception that players who play for local premiership teams do not invest is deep-rooted.
While the reasons are somewhat debatable and opinion-based, it is a fact that the plight of most local-based players is not an encouraging one and it portrays a crisis which was further exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
As such, football legends and those responsible for the welfare of players in Zimbabwe have, on countless occasions, encouraged them to invest and prepare for life after the game.
Young Warriors defender Emmanuel Jalai has chosen a different path.
The Dynamos right-back recently launched a clothing line and for him, preparing for life after football is the idea behind the initiative.
“I was motivated by the current situation (the Covid-19 crisis),” he said.
“You know economically in Zimbabwe things are not stable, so Collin Mujuru and I thought of doing something apart from football which could help us earn more income so we thought of having a clothing line,” revealed the talented right-back, who turned 22 yesterday.
The call for local footballers to look at their lives after retirement with extensive eyes has been on repeat and Jalai admits that was also a push-factor in the launching of the clothing line, which has in stock so far t-shirts, jackets and caps but with the intention of growing further to supply cargo pants and also staff for children.
“Yes of course that (the call for players to invest) was a major facilitating factor in us coming up with this entrepreneurial activity. Normally when you start something small, the major idea is investment so I’m trying by all means to prepare for a better life after football.”
He continued: “It’s not easy being a footballer in Zimbabwe, there is a lot of criticism but that shouldn’t be the case in my opinion. I think people should support and advice us while we are still active, than to then criticize our lives after retirement,” he added.- Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has strongly denounced the harassment of citizens by overzealous cops.
According to President Chamisa police officers are not allowed to assault citizens.
Overzealous police details are terrorising residents of the city of Masvingo under the pretext of enforcing lockdown restrictions.
Addressing mourners at the burial of Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda in Gutu on Thursday, President Chamisa called for tolerance of diverse views.
“We are receiving disturbing information about the harassment of citizens by overzealous police officers.
Police officers are not allowed to assault ordinary citizens.
Human rights must be respected.
The late Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda was a dedicated police officer during his time of service.
He refused to be pushed out of his line of duty by politicians,” said President Chamisa.
He added :
“Let’s shun political intolerance because we are all Zimbabweans.Political parties come and go -why do we have to harm each other because of intolerance?”
By A Correspondent| Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono says police have arrested him at his home in Harare on charges of communicating falsehoods, allegedly for tweeting that a police officer killed a baby strapped on the back of its mother with a truncheon.
Posting on Twitter, Chin’ono said;
“They say they are charging me with communicating falsehoods for tweeting that a child had been beaten up and died by a police officer! They are taking me to the Law and a order section at Harare Central Police Station,” said Chin’ono.
Warriors star Khama Billiat says it is their wish as Kaizer Chiefs players to end the club’s trophy drought and make the chairman Kaizer Motaung proud.
The Glamour Boys have not lifted a trophy since 2015 and despite leading for most of the 2019/20 league campaign, they were beaten to it in dramatic fashion on the last day by Mamelodi Sundowns, much to the frustration of their ever-demanding faithful.
Billiat through feels the barren period has to end soon.
“I personally believe that we have to go all the way, we need to be the generation that does what the best generations of this club have achieved in the past. “This club has a very good history and we don’t want to be the ones that are not pulling our weight. We want to do what they have done and make our chairman proud. It has been too long (without a trophy),” he told SuperSport TV after their CAF Champions League success over Angolan side Primeiro de Agosto.
“It gives us confidence going back to our domestic competition. We really want to go all the way, to make a difference, and push ourselves to the limit and to see how far we can compete in Africa.
“I must give credit to the guys, we worked so hard, we stuck to the game-plan. It wasn’t easy, and it is going to be very tough (in the group stages), but we only learn and grow as a team and make sure we gel together and fight for one another trophy,” he added.-Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. Many countries around the world have seen cases of COVID-19 and several have seen outbreaks.
The situation is unpredictable so check regularly for the latest news.
You can reduce your chances of being infected or spreading COVID-19 by taking some simple precautions:
Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
Why?Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands.
Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.
Why? When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease.
Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth
Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and can make you sick.
Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately.
Why? Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19.
Stay home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention and call in advance. Follow the directions of your local health authority.
Why? National and local authorities will have the most up to date information on the situation in your area. Calling in advance will allow your health care provider to quickly direct you to the right health facility. This will also protect you and help prevent spread of viruses and other infections.
Keep up to date on the latest COVID-19 hotspots (cities or local areas where COVID-19 is spreading widely). If possible, avoid traveling to places – especially if you are an older person or have diabetes, heart or lung disease.
Why? You have a higher chance of catching COVID-19 in one of these areas.
Credit:WHO
Inserted by Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
For more information follow /like our Facebook page :Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Secretary General Hon Charlton Hwende has ruled out dialogue with Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T.
Hon Hwende also described the withdrawal of former Zanu PF MP, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti from the MDC Alliance as a non-event.
On Thursday Bhasikiti announced his decision to pull out of the MDC Alliance.
Hon Hwende responded:
We have had many MDC’s in the past and that has never confused our people.
Since 1999 we have managed to sustain this struggle and give hope to our people because we have successfully managed to outwit the regime by always electing and following a genuine political leader who can’t be bought by the regime to sell out the struggle. We succeeded with President Morgan Tsvangirai and we will succeed with President Nelson Chamisa.
Our Number one asset is our Leader. Even all other leaders are bought and we remain with him alone and the People Tinosvika Chete. Don’t be disturbed by those who are pushing us to abandon our name MDC Alliance it’s a trap the masses know their Party and they Know that their Leader is Nelson Chamisa. Some are now day dreaming and talking about Unity.
Unity with Progressive Political Parties yes but not with ED and ZanuPF created opposition. “Impoitai zveku Polad…
Tinashe Sambiri|The MDC Alliance Youth Assembly has denounced the harassment of its members by overzealous police details in Gweru.
Members of the MDC Alliance Youth Assembly have been frequently summoned to the police for “dubious questioning” at Gweru CID Law and Order Section.
See statement below:
The Zanu PF regime has through the police continued to torment MDC Alliance Youths.
The so called new dispensation has refused to leave behind human rights abuses and all the dirty deeds which were done by those they call old dispensation and claim to be different from.
Youths from Mkoba suburb are being summoned to Gweru CID Law and Order for questioning which we see as a ploy to intimidate and silence all those who do not support Zanu pf.
This random picking of known Mdc Alliance Members started with our Mkoba district youth chairperson John Kuka who was the first to be called on the 18th of December and then followed by Tonderai Chadoka who was called for questioning on the 4th of January.
The percecution seems not to be ending anytime soon as six more youths were called in also for the so called questioning today. Those who went to law and order today are Mthulisi Noko, Portia Tambalika, Edwin Chakanyuka, Tawedzerwa zvirawi, Precious Mtengwa and Tendai Gama
We strongly condemn the continued unfair treatment of citizens. zanu pf must use all this energy in the fight against this covid 19 pandemic which the nation and the whole world is facing. This behaviour of trying to crush opposing voices through arrests and trumped up charges which has rocked the nation must not have any space in our community. This must be a time where all citizens unite and stop the spread of covid 19.
As Mdc Alliance Mkoba youths we say we will not be intimidated or diverted from our goals and fight for a new Zimbabwe where everyone is equal, a new corruption free Zimbabwe, fight for constitutionalism and return of rule of law, fight for good governance…
Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. Many countries around the world have seen cases of COVID-19 and several have seen outbreaks.
The situation is unpredictable so check regularly for the latest news.
You can reduce your chances of being infected or spreading COVID-19 by taking some simple precautions:
Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
Why?Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands.
Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.
Why? When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease.
Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth
Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and can make you sick.
Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately.
Why? Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19.
Stay home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention and call in advance. Follow the directions of your local health authority.
Why? National and local authorities will have the most up to date information on the situation in your area. Calling in advance will allow your health care provider to quickly direct you to the right health facility. This will also protect you and help prevent spread of viruses and other infections.
Keep up to date on the latest COVID-19 hotspots (cities or local areas where COVID-19 is spreading widely). If possible, avoid traveling to places – especially if you are an older person or have diabetes, heart or lung disease.
Why? You have a higher chance of catching COVID-19 in one of these areas.
Credit:WHO
Inserted by Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
For more information follow /like our Facebook page :Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
Tinashe Sambiri|Outspoken cleric, Bishop Ancelimo Magaya has reprimanded Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa over the incessant abuse of human rights in the country.
According to Bishop Magaya, the people of Zimbabwe are suffering due to COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis such that Mr Mnangagwa should not pile more misery on them.
See statement below:
THE EFFECTS OF COVID 19 ARE MORE THAN WHAT PEOPLE CAN BEAR, SO STATE ORGANS DO NOT ADD MORE PAIN.
While the second wave of this diabolic pandemic is more vicious than the first and therefore more needful for people to exercise much caution, we remain concerned that the recently announced ban on gatherings may be taken advantage of to violate people’s God give rights.
A spate of arbitrary arrests, selective application of the law and brutalization of activists among other vices we witnessed during the previous phase were aggregately a mockery of our justice system.
The smashing of a Kombi window screen resulting in the mother and baby passengers injured last Monday for instance was totally uncalled for.
President Mnangagwa’s government should clearly demonstrate that they do not intend this time around to match the effects of this diabolic pandemic which has been masterminded and instigated from hell, to wipe out people’s hope by arbitrarily arresting, abducting, torturing and brutalizing them.
By now, it has become abundantly clear that COVID 19 knows no political barriers and therefore there should never be any intention to bastardize any section of our society purely on the basis of their political opinion.
What unites us is much bigger than what divides us.
I wish you all a prosperous year even in the gravest of these circumstances.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Secretary General Hon Charlton Hwende has ruled out dialogue with Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T.
Hon Hwende also described the withdrawal of former Zanu PF MP, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti from the MDC Alliance as a non-event.
On Thursday Bhasikiti announced his decision to pull out of the MDC Alliance.
Hon Hwende responded:
We have had many MDC’s in the past and that has never confused our people.
Since 1999 we have managed to sustain this struggle and give hope to our people because we have successfully managed to outwit the regime by always electing and following a genuine political leader who can’t be bought by the regime to sell out the struggle. We succeeded with President Morgan Tsvangirai and we will succeed with President Nelson Chamisa.
Our Number one asset is our Leader. Even all other leaders are bought and we remain with him alone and the People Tinosvika Chete. Don’t be disturbed by those who are pushing us to abandon our name MDC Alliance it’s a trap the masses know their Party and they Know that their Leader is Nelson Chamisa. Some are now day dreaming and talking about Unity.
Unity with Progressive Political Parties yes but not with ED and ZanuPF created opposition. “Impoitai zveku Polad…
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has strongly denounced the harassment of citizens by overzealous cops.
According to President Chamisa police officers are not allowed to assault citizens.
Overzealous police details are terrorising residents of the city of Masvingo under the pretext of enforcing lockdown restrictions.
Addressing mourners at the burial of Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda in Gutu on Thursday, President Chamisa called for tolerance of diverse views.
“We are receiving disturbing information about the harassment of citizens by overzealous police officers.
Police officers are not allowed to assault ordinary citizens.
Human rights must be respected.
The late Assistant Commissioner Emmanuel Chimwanda was a dedicated police officer during his time of service.
He refused to be pushed out of his line of duty by politicians,” said President Chamisa.
He added :
“Let’s shun political intolerance because we are all Zimbabweans.Political parties come and go -why do we have to harm each other because of intolerance?”
The police and home affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe issued different statements refuting claims that a police officer killed a child who was strapped on the mother’s back while attempting to hit a kombi loading from a undesignated point.
I don’t know how to get this addressed I have two daughters who attend The Dominican Convent Harare
Our Fees for the last three terms were $800 USD equivalent. The girls practically went the year on line after March lockdown.
Early this week I received and Invoice indicating fees are now $1890 USD for each child.
We have had no communication from the school regarding such an increase they have just sent out a January News letter saying kids can pay half the fees amount and start online lessons on Tuesday the 12th and the balance parents should draw up payment plans.
What has our world come to in a pandemic we have Christian Schools associated with the Vatican increasing fees by more than double yet parents who are on lockdown have so much to deal with
By Jane Mlambo| MDC Alliance vice chairperson Job Sikhala has exposed a plan by the police to arrest him on charges of undermining the authority of the police after he tweeted about the incident that happened along Second Street in Harare where a police officer allegedly injured a child while attempting to hit a kombi.
Sikhala raised alarm on Twitter saying he received the information that he will be arrested today.
“Alert Zimbabwe : I have received information that the Mnangagwa regime wants to arrest me today for the offence which I don’t know. They are alleging that I undermined the authority of the police by Twitting about the kid allegedly assaulted by them. I have alerted everyone,” said Sikhala.
The vocal opposition politician spend nearly 40 days in detention following his arrested last year on charges of inciting public violence after he had encouraged people to protest against corruption.
Zimbabwe’s coronavirus cases are rising dramatically, with 871 new cases (all local transmissions) and 15 more deaths recorded today, Thursday, 7 January 2020.
This has brought the total of number of those who have died from the COVID-19 to 446 while cumulatively, Zimbabwe has 18 675 confirmed cases, including 12 083 recoveries.
Harare and Manicaland provinces are currently the epicentres of the pandemic, with the former recording 301 new cases while the latter is second with 133 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Masvingo recorded 105 new cases, Mat South, 82, Bulawayo, 81, Mash East, 54, Mat North and Mash West had 41 cases each, Mash Central, 28, and the Midlands Province had recorded 5 new cases.
Of the 15 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, Mash West had 4, Masvingo, 3, Bulawayo, Mash East and Midlands recorded 2 deaths each, Harare, Mat North and Mat South all recorded zero deaths. Manicaland and Mash Central recorded 1 death apiece.
This means that Zimbabwe has recorded a staggering2 846 new coronavirus infections and 64 deaths in the past three days.
Rapper Desmond Chideme popularly known as Stunner has mourned his mother with a heartfelt message following her sudden passing on Sunday.
Taking to Instagram, Stunner said her death was not fair and people should not call him and tell him it’s going to be ok because it will not.
Devastated by her sudden death Stunner poured his heart out and penned a heartfelt message as he remembered his mother.
He posted:
Please don’t come to my phone and tell me it’s going to be okay, it’s never going to be okay.
Who is going to tell me “you are drinking too much bring some of those bottles to the nest?”
Who is going to pray for me when I travel and when I’m low?
Who is going to prepare and force me to take Zumbani and moringa powder?
Who will do the rosary for me coz I never learnt ?
Whose “good morning Tambawoga” text am I going to wake up to?
Who is going to tell me not to reply to all of you when you judge me like you know me?
Who am I going to send every new demo I record in the studio (she listened to every single song I made)
You were the reason I still visited the hood (Glen Norah) and when I was sick you asked to come and stay at home but you never gave me chance to invite you to my home, you never said bye but you asked me to get you mukaka wakakora and you had your last meal sadza nemukaka.
Your death wasn’t fair and I still have a lot that needs to be fixed by you mom, ndimi mudzimu wangu wandave kutanga kuchemera muchindisvitsira zvichemo zvangu Kuna Musika vanhu. Misodzi yangu haisi kuzopera kusvika tasangana zve.
REST IN PEACE ELIZABETH ROSE CHIDEME #TisuMashark #Mom #Mother #SuperGranny,” he penned on his Instagram page.
Stunner lost his mother on the same day United States-based Zimbabwean Prophet Passion Java lost his mother.
On Sunday night, three daring robbers armed to teeth with AK 47 assault rifles stole 650kgs of gold ore from a Penhalonga gold mine in Mutare.
According to The Manica Post, one of the robbers wore a Zimbabwe National Army uniform while the other two were in civilian attire.
The robbery took place at Tsanzaume Mining and Milling Company in Penhalonga, Manicaland provincial police spokesperson, Inspector Luxson Chananda confirmed.
According to Inspector Chananda the three armed robbers surprised eight Tsanzaume workers including 35-year-old Allen Nyabeze and told them that they were law enforcement agents investigating a gold heist.
The robbers then told the unsuspecting workers that they were all under arrest for gold theft and ordered them to switch off their mobile phones and sit down.
The workers were then instructed to load thirteen 50kgs of gold ore into an Izusu truck belonging to Allen Nyabeze.
Nyabeze was ordered to drive the Isuzu truck to Penalonga Police Station, a few kilometers from their destination they were intercepted by a group of other robbers in a Toyota Noah (Registration number ADP 6019).
The robbers then diverted Nyabeza to Lead Mine in Penhalonga.
An alert security guard at Lead Mine refused to open the gate for the armed assailants.
The robbers then changed their plan and offloaded the gold ore into the Toyota Noah, and told Nyabeza to return to Tsanzaume mine.
Inspector Chananda confirmed that a report was made at Penhalonga police station at around midnight.
During the course of investigations, detectives discovered that the Toyota Noah that was used in the heist belonged to Weston John Tizora of Kubatana Community Organization in Penhalonga.
Upon arrival at Kubatana Community Organisation, police detectives did not find Tizora, his son told them that he had gone out.
The United Kingdom on Thursday announced that travellers from Zimbabwe are now banned from entering that country as a way to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
This comes as Zimbabwe has recently recorded a surge in coronavirus cases pushing local health institutions to the brink.
The ban will be with effect from Saturday 9 January 2021 and remain in place for two weeks, the government said in a statement bit.ly/3pTvmsk.
Reads the statement:
Entry into England will be banned to those who have travelled from or through any southern African country in the last 10 days, including Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique and Angola – as well as Seychelles and Mauritius. This does not include British and Irish Nationals, longer-term visa holders and permanent residents, who will be able to enter but are required to self-isolate for 10 days on arrival along with their household.
The statement also indicated that the travel restrictions are extended to all southern African countries from 4 am Saturday 9 January (2021) to protect against the spread of a new COVID-19 variant initially detected in South Africa.
It is strongly believed that the aggressive coronavirus variant that was initially detected in South Africa is now in Zimbabwe after the two countries open borders to travellers early December last year.
Bell also said that if a new vaccine is required to fight the new fast-spreading strain, it could take just six weeks to do so.
The U.K. is already grappling with another new coronavirus strain that emerged recently in that country. A number of European countries have since banned flights and trains from the UK.
Human rights lawyers on Wednesday 6 January 2021 filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court seeking an order to compel government to urgently place them on the list of essential service personnel to allow them to offer legal assistance to those in need during the subsistence of the national lockdown period.
Health and Child Care Minister and Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga on Saturday 2 January 2021 announced the imposition of a national lockdown which took effect from Tuesday 5 January 2021 and will last for 30 days.
During this period, Chiwenga authorised some selected essential services and providers to remain open and operational and ordered all non-essential enterprises and service providers to shut down and stay at home. Government also announced a dusk to dawn curfew aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus, whose cases have been on an unprecedented surge in recent weeks.
In response to government’s order, human rights lawyer Obey Shava and Young Lawyers Association of Zimbabwe (YLAZ) represented by Tonderai Bhatasara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on Wednesday 6 January 2021 filed an urgent chamber application at High Court arguing that the decision by government to omit lawyers from a list of essential service workers considered essential service providers obstructed legal practitioners from practising and had serious ramifications for access to justice by people in need of such a service.
Shava and YLAZ filed the application after some law enforcement officers manning roadblocks and check points on Tuesday 5 January 2021 and purporting to be enforcing Statutory Instrument (SI) 10 of 2021 had turned back lawyers who were on their way to work after they allegedly failed to produce “authority to travel letters.”
Shava said he was delayed for 30 minutes at a roadblock on Tuesday 5 January 2021 when he allegedly failed to produce an exemption letter despite producing his Practicing Certificate issued by Law Society of Zimbabwe.
Shava and YLAZ, who listed Chiwenga, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe and Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi as respondents, protested that government’s conduct in not recognising lawyers as part of professionals considered essential service providers or workers is a violation of lawyers’ rights as well as litigants and arrested persons provided in section 50, 64, 66, 69 and 70 of the Constitution.
In their application, Shava and YLAZ argued that government is oblivious of the role that lawyers play in society.
Shava and YLAZ contented that lawyers are essential in completing the chain of the justice delivery system and the rights of accused persons to access lawyers of their choice as provided in the Constitution would be undermined by government’s decision to treat legal practitioners as non-essential service providers.
Shava and YLAZ said the implementation of SI 10/2021 and 11/2021 as read with SI200/2020 by enforcement officers is not a permissible limitation of rights in terms of the provisions of section 86(2) of the Constitution hence the limitation is not fair and reasonable and is not necessary and justifiable in a democratic society.
The lawyers stated that section 86(3) of the Constitution provides that no law may limit the right to a fair trial, the right to obtain an order of habeas corpus among other fundamental rights.
Shava and YLAZ argued that the government order had rendered legal services as non-essential services and that the administration of justice cannot be done without the involvement of lawyers and the services they provide.
Lawyers, Shava and YLAZ stated, are an integral part and an essential component in the economic production ecosystem, the justice delivery system including law and order and are critical in a democratic society.
The lawyers want the High Court to order government to treat all lawyers as people carrying out essential services and to declare that legal services are an essential service under S.I 10/2021 and SI 11/2021 during the period of the national lockdown.
Shava and YLAZ also want Chiwenga’s conduct or omission by not including legal services as essential services in SI 10/2021 and 11/2021 to be declared unconstitutional.
By A Correspondent- A crack team made up of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has seized luxury homes and top-end vehicles worth over $2 billion belonging to top and former government officials.
Some of the houses and residential stands belong to town clerks and other high-level council officials drawn from Harare, Mutare and Gweru local authorities. There have been several arrests of council bosses, including Harare town clerk Hosiah Chisango and former Mutare council boss Obert Muzawazi over a slew of allegations bordering on illegal parcelling out of stands.
The properties were taken by the state as the owners failed to account for the source of wealth and could have violated the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act.
Several houses forfeited are located in plush suburbs like Borrowdale, Greystone Park and Glen Lorne in the capital, while other homes are being forfeited in South Africa, Britain, Malaysia and Mauritius, among other countries.
Zacc head of legal affairs Jessie Majome said houses worth ZW$169 470 425 (US$2,09 million) were seized from former cabinet ministers and other high ranking government officials.
“We have seized 24 motor vehicles valued at ZW$121 500 000,00 (US$1,5 million) and have succeeded in asset forfeiture through criminal convictions six motor vehicles valued at ZW$8 185 000,00 (us$101 000),” she said.
Majome revealed that some of the houses and cars belong to former Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi, Gender Commission chairperson Margaret Sangarwe, former Labour and Public service minister Prisca Mupfumira, Douglas Tapfuma ex-Principal Director state residences, registrar-General Clement Masango, Defence ministry director Denson Muwandi and Finance ministry accountant Simbarashe Zvineyi.
The list of top government officials who lost houses and top-of-the-range vehicles is a clear indication of how public office bearers are using their muscle to amass wealth at the expense of the economy.
some properties that were seized together with others on the pending list are owned by Harare, Mutare and Gweru senior city council officials. The estimated value is ZW$129 685 000 (us$810 000).
By Nomusa Garikai- President Donald Trump is a conman and like all conman he promised one thing and delivered something else.
In the 2016 elections, the then Donald Trump promised the American votes two things:
To drain the Washington swamp (Many people felt as soon as the elections were over, the Washington ruling elite forgot about the voters)
To put America first. (True or not, it is nice to blame some one else for ones’ problems.)
Enough Americans believed him and voted him into office.
It did not take before the real reason why Trump had wanted to be President began to emerge; he was a megalomania. Forget about putting America first, that would be a bonus, his number one priority was putting Donald Trump first.
Trump promised to drain the Washington political swamp only to shamelessly muddy its waters even more for selfish again. When Richard Milhous Nixon cheated in the Watergate Scandal to further his political ambition he claimed, tongue in the check, “I am not a crook!”
When the truth emerged that President Trump had tried to arm twist Ukrainian leaders and many others to dig some dirty on his political challenger, Joe Biden; President Trump’s cheeky response was, “I am a crook! So what!”
President Trump should have been impeached or forced to resign. He was never impeached although the House of Representatives voted for him to be impeached but only because the Senate was controlled by Republicans, his party. A very partisan stance that has made the Washington swamp notoriously dysfunctional and which many Republicans would come to regret.
Nothing will ever encapsulate Trump’s “Trump first!” ethos more than his stubborn refusal to accept he had lost the November 2020 elections. He ordered the counting to stop for no good reason other than that he was losing.
Trump has maintained the elections were fraudulent and lounged 60 court challenges but they have all been thrown out for lack of evidence.
Even in a Republican controlled State like Georgia Trump claimed the election was rigged. Republicans cheating to benefit the Democrats, their opponents!
On 6 th January 2021 a group of President Trump die-hard supporters stormed, military style, Capitol Hill, the citadel of American Federal power, housing the Representatives and Senators, the highest ranking elected public officials in the land after the President. The mob had one purpose in mind – to stop the joint houses of Representatives and Senators from carrying out their constitutional duty of formally endorsing the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the winners of the November 2020 Presidential and Vice Presidential race.
The violent mob attacking Capitol Hill were a blatant attached on the people’s right to a free vote, the people’s free vote as the only mandate to govern and on the long established tradition of a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.
As a Zimbabwean, the 6 January 2021 events in Washington was a reminder of the events in Zimbabwe in March 2008. Zanu PF was losing the vote and the party ordered the vote counting to stop and the counting stopped.
It took the next six weeks for the party to cook up new results. MDC’s parliamentary majority was reduced and Tsvangirai’s 73% vote count, by Mugabe’s own Freudian slip, was reduced to 47% – enough to force a presidential run-off.
In the three months run-off election campaign, Zanu PF unleashed the worst election related wanton violence the country had ever seen. The party was punishing the voters for daring to reject the party’s presidential candidate, Robert Mugabe, in the earlier vote.
“Zanu PF has declared war on the people!” said Tsvangirai as he announced his forced withdrawal from the run-off. The wanton violence had been so intense it was impossible for him to campaign.
Mnangagwa, before him Mugabe, and his fellow Zanu PF thugs conned the people of Zimbabwe’s promises of freedom, liberty, “One man! One vote!” etc., etc. before independence. All the black nationalists wanted and cared about is absolute power for themselves and their greed for power and the spoils it brings have been insatiable.
Mnangagwa has succeed in gratifying his hunger for power because Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic in tyrants like him hold captive the state institutions and ride roughshod over the people freedoms and rights. President Donald Trump tried to do the same and has failed because America has a healthy and functioning democracy.
6th January 2021 will go down in history as the first occasion ever in 226 years America has failed to have peaceful and orderly transfer of power. But most important of all, the event will go down in history as an attempt to usurp the people’s power and right to free, fair and credible elections that completely failed.
Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs usurped the people’s freedoms and rights when the party denied the people a free vote in 1980. The 2008 elections are a watershed elections in that the party showed the sickening depths the regime would sink to retain power.
There is no denying that President Trump caused a lot of damage to America’s democracy after 4 years in White House. Imagine how much more damage he would have caused if he had enjoyed absolute power for 40 years, which is what Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies have enjoyed!
Mnangagwa and company are corrupt, ruthless thugs whose hunger for power and looted wealth is insatiable. After 40 years of enjoying absolute power, removing from office is not going to be easy. However, they are breathtakingly incompetent, their Achilles heel!
President Trump’s “Trump first!” ethos was doomed to fail because he was foolish enough to think himself, even as President of America, was above the law. In the Banana Republic of Zimbabwe, the thugs are the law unto themselves the challenge is to dismantle the lawless dictatorship!
By A Correspondent- Undertakers on Sunday damaged TelOne line in Warren Park Cemetery while digging graves leaving TelOne disconnected.
TelOne said they had to engage Harare City Council in an endeavour to repair the damaged line and were given the go-ahead. An anonymous official at the telecommunications company said:
On Sunday, in Warren Park Cemetry, a grave was allocated on top of our network line. Undertakers damaged our cables when they were digging.
They buried the deceased. We discovered on Monday that the fault was in the Cemetry and engaged authorities. We started laying new cables.
Unfortunately, since Monday till Wednesday, they were still burying COVID-19 victims near the area where our cables were damaged. Resultatnly, we were sometimes told to vacate the place to avoid contact with their projects.
On Wedneday, We engaged them again and asked for a window period to finish the refurbishment process and they agreed. We hope they won’t chase us again until we finish. We expect to have finished the process anytime soon.
Tel-One is Zimbabwe’s sole fixed telecommunication services provider providing Voice, Internet and Data services and its absence is a huge blow for its customers working from home.
The absence of TelOne services would force customers to look for alternatives including Zol Zimbabwe which is aggressively penetrating the market and or mobile network operators.
Warren Park D area has serious network issues especially when NetOne is not working since other network operators do not have towers which adequately cover the area.-statemedia
Sad to receive painful news of the passing on of my friend Linos Mushonga this morning through Covid 19. Linos Mushonga is the former MDC Cllr for Waterfalls and is one man who suffered severe torture accused of having killed the ZANU PF thug Ali Khan Manjengwa in 2002 in Mbare
ZIMRA has issued the following statement notifying transport stakeholders that heavy vehicles are now prohibited from entering or parking in residential areas and entering the CBD of any city or town. Read the full statement below:
PUBLIC NOTICE: TRANSPORTERS, IMPORTERS, DRIVERS AND CLEARING AGENTS-TRAFFIC ZONES RESTRICTION ON HEAVY VEHICLES
The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) wishes to advise the stakeholders specified above that following the publication of Statutory Instrument 7 of 2021 (Customs and Excise (Ports of Entry and Routes) (Amendment) Order, 2021 (No. 21)1 the provisions of which took effect on 1 January 2021, all heavy vehicles, whether loaded or not and whether electronically sealed or not, will be prohibited from:
Entering the Central Business Districts (CBD) of any city and town.
Entering or parking within residential areas.
All such heavy traffic shall be required to use the designated routes specified in Statutory Instrument 7 of 2021.
The use of any undesignated route or violation of any of the statutory requirements set out in the aforementioned legislation will attract heavy penalties.
Operators of the specified traffic are therefore, urged to ensure that their drivers and crew members are suitably guided to avoid inconveniences and heavy penalties set against any breach of these requirements.
Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) member Sheila Chisirimunhu who was recently released on bail pending appeal following her conviction for demanding US dollar salaries joins Munyaradzi Gwisai, Robson Chere and Obert Masaraure to launch the labour justice index.
GOVERNMENT has warned that it will revoke operating licences for bars, nightclubs, restaurants and other business entities caught violating COVID-19 lockdown protocols.
Addressing a Press conference in Harare yesterday, Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe said police were worried about businesses which were violating COVID-19 regulations and endangering the lives of many by throwing illegal parties.
“My ministry is concerned with bars, nightclubs, restaurants and other business entities who are operating, yet according to Statutory Instrument 10 of 2021 these are banned,” he said.
“I have directed the Commissioner-General of Police (Godwin Matanga) to ensure that the law takes its course on any individual, syndicate or business entity contravening COVID-19 regulations.”
On allegations that well-to-do individuals were throwing classy parties in upmarket places where COVID-19 regulations were disregarded, Kazembe said investigations were underway and action would soon be taken.
“We are well aware of the allegations and that action is yet to be taken does not mean nothing is happening, we are investigating these allegations and those caught on the wrong side of the law will face its full wrath. They also risk losing their licences forever,” he said.
The Home Affairs minister also called on police to observe the law while enforcing COVID-19 regulations, saying those caught on the wrong side would be dealt with without fear.
“My ministry condemns acts of misconduct by the police officers which tarnish the image of the government and the police in particular,” he said.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday called for order in the United States following the chaos unleashed on Washington by pro-Donald Trump supporters, who do not want to accept Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Mnangagwa joined several world leaders in condemning the chaos that took place on Wednesday, adding that the developments at Capitol Hill were not good for democracy.
International leaders have expressed shock and condemned the protests at Capitol Hill.
The developments came as the US Congress certified Biden’s election as the 46th president.
“Last year, President Trump extended painful economic sanctions placed on Zimbabwe, citing concerns about Zimbabwe’s democracy,” Mnangagwa said on Twitter.
“Yesterday’s events showed that the US has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy. These sanctions must end.”
He immediately congratulated Biden and pledged to work with the US for the good of the two countries that have not been the best of friends over Zimbabwe’s history of human rights violations.
“I would like to again congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on his confirmation as the 46th President of the United States. Zimbabwe is, as it has always has been, ready to work together as friends and partners with the US for the benefit of both our people,” Mnangagwa said.
World leaders, including the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, condemned the behaviour of Trump supporters.
He said: “Disgraceful scenes in US Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”
European Union officials indicated their support for Biden on Wednesday, as pro-Trump extremists forced Capitol Hill into lockdown, interrupting the certification of Biden’s presidential victory.
French Foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called Wednesday’s riots “a grave attack against democracy”.
Vice-President Mike Pence, who presided over the interrupted session, announced the official Electoral College tally of 306 for Biden and Trump’s 232.
Only Zanu PF and MDC-T will share the $100 million allocated in the 2021 National Budget under the Political Parties Finance Act as all other parties failed to get at least five percent of the constituency votes in the 2018 election.
The $25 million budget of last year was quadrupled to $100 million in this year’s budget to help compensate for inflation. T
he constituent parties that made up the MDC-Alliance are treated separately for the purposes of sharing the money, which is why only the largest, the MDC-T, exceeded the five percent threshold.
In an interview yesterday, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said he hoped that the money will be disbursed early by Treasury to allow political parties to carry out their activities.
“The money will be shared by political parties that are in Parliament that meet the legal requirements of the law. It is our hope that Treasury disburses the money early so that the political parties concerned will be able to carry out their duties. We will obviously engage Treasury with regard to that issue,” said Minister Ziyambi.
He said only Zanu PF and MDC-T were entitled to get the share of the money because they meet the legal threshold provided for under the Political Parties Finance Act.
The Act provides that only a political party that garnered at least five percent of total votes in a general election qualify for the money.
This leaves People’s Democratic Party led by Tendai Biti under the MDC-Alliance falling short of the threshold with its four legislators in the National Assembly.
The four legislators from PDP include, Mr Biti (Harare East), Willias Madzimure (Kambuzuma) Settlement Chikwinya (Mbizo) and Kucaca Phulu (Nkulumane.)
Zanu PF got 145 seats of the 210 in the National Assembly against MDC-Alliance’s 63.
The remaining two seats went to National Patriotic Front’s Masango “Blackman” Masango, who is now late as well as Norton MP Mr Temba Mliswa. The seats of the MDC-T were further whittled down after it recalled about 21 MPs holding geographical constituencies which will further diminish the money the opposition should proportionately get.
Government promulgated the Political Parties Finance Act after it emerged that some opposition parties were getting funding from hostile Western nations.
Under that law, it is criminal for political parties to receive foreign funding.
Political parties should get money from the Government if they meet the legal threshold of votes in a general election which is at least five percent of total votes cast.
They can also get funding from their members, selling party cards and fundraising activities.
During the year, MDC-T led by the then acting president Dr Thokozani Khupe recalled some of its legislators in terms of a constitutional provision that allowed a political party to do so should it feel that the legislator concerned no longer represents its interest in the august House.
At the heart of the dispute within the opposition is whether the MPs and senators elected under the MDC-Alliance umbrella belong to the party that nominated them on the MDC-Alliance list, or belong to the MDC-Alliance which regards itself as a political party in its own right.
So far decisions in the High Court have ruled that the MDC-A is an umbrella organisation.- Herald
By A Correspondent- More job losses are looming in the banking sector as the sector intensifies the digitisation process in 2021.
Digitisation is expected to result in more closure of bank branches in 2021.
Last year, more than 300 employees lost jobs across the sector, with at least 25 branches having permanently shut down since 2019 as banks streamlined operations with digitisation becoming a core part of banking systems.
Outlining prospects for the banking sector on 2021, Bankers Association of Zimbabwe president Ralph Watungwa told businessdigest that the sector was developing strategies to ensure that the affected people would be absorbed into other sectors of the economy.
The hope is that the economy would improve buoyed by improved agricultural activity which is also expected accommodate the redundant employees.
“We think that in terms of trends, something that was negative will continue to take place. That is digitisation of the banking sector.
We are looking at less branches and more digitisation which will lead to the realignment of the banking sector. That is an exciting journey and we continue to think about how we protect jobs because that will make people redundant. That is also the reason why the economy has to grow to absorb them,” he said.
“So in other markets where that is happening these people normally find their way into other sectors of the economy. But in Zimbabwe because of the general economy’s poor performance, these people do not have alternatives to go to,” he said.
Watungwa however added that by virtue of the employees being well trained it was not too difficult for them to be absorbed elsewhere adding that the sector was offering high retrenchment packages above the regulatory ones to ensure that the employees did not struggle.
Watungwa said prospects were bright for the banking sector in 2021 despite the impact of Covid-19 and general economic shocks. “I think banks are optimistic that the agriculture sector will support the economy and we believe we may actually have one of the highest harvests in the last 10 years due to the rainfall patterns.
“We then believe the economy from an agricultural point of view will be very strong. We’re also praying the commodity prices for goods that we produce particularly chrome, gold and platinum remain firm, because that will drive the economy going forward,” he said.
Watungwa said the focus would also be on meeting the capitalisation level by the end of the year against the backdrop of Covid-19 limitations and current economic challenges.
The grey listing of the Zimbabwe financial systems by FATF (The Financial Action Task Force) and the EU and stiff regulations for mobile operators now means that they no longer have the capacity to disintegrate banks as customer due diligence can now be done more formally.
“That activity should be seen to improve our requirements with FATF financial institutions which will continue to support the foreign currency auction system put in place by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in June last year to stabilise the exchange rate and improve foreign currency availability.
“So I think the banks will also support the auction system. If we continue to instill transparency that has been demonstrated so far at the auction, the rate will continue to be stable helping to stabilise the gains that have been recorded in Q4 2020,” he said.
