By A Correspondent| Former Zanu PF Youth Political Commissar Godfrey Tsenengamu has been denied bail by Harare magistrate Ngoni Nduna.

Tsenengamu, who handed himself to the police last week appeared before a Harare magistrate Tuesday morning.

Nduna says Tsenengamu needs protective custody because his life in danger if released.

He is accused of inciting public violence ahead of July 31 anti-corruption protests.

More to follow….

By A Correspondent- The MDC Alliance trio have been hauled to court again, ZimEye has learnt.

Harare West legislator Joana Mamombe, and the party’s youth assembly leaders Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova appeared in Court 14 at Harare Magistrates Court.

The trio are facing allegations of staging an unsanctioned demonstration during the Lockdown.

The matter was remanded to 17 November 2020.

More to follow. …..

The Children of Zimbabwe War Veterans Association has alleged that a vehicle belong to Vice President Constantino Chiwenga was intercepted by police officers carrying diamond gravel about a month ago.

Posting on Twitter, CZWVA said:

“There is a case at Anjin Diamond mine. A truck fully loaded w (mutaka) was intercepted by @PoliceZimbabwe roadblock at Odzi near Hotspring. The driver was said it belonged to Vp Chiwenga,yet for a month now the case is still hanging detectives in Mutare afraid to handle.”

The organisation further alleged that the truck was returned back to the Vice President under heavy police guard.

“The Truck was returned back but under police guard. Investigations were done but a Chinese foreigner who authorized its exit is no where to be found. Nyaya ikufira pamukuru. VP chiwenga is said to be denying the allegations. Way forward on disposal is now a problem.”-twitter

DR. JOSHUA M. NKOMO
2 Stevenage Road
East Ham
E6 2WLLondon
United Kingdom

7th June 1983

Dear Robert,

1. I write to you as a citizen of Zimbabwe and one of the leaders of our country, to you not just as one of the leaders of Zimbabwe, but above all, as Prime Minister of the Government of Zimbabwe as provided for by the Constitution, that you and me, as well as other leader

2. I write because I feel that our country is in danger of complete disintegration, to the detriment of all its citizens now living and of generations to come.

3. Not least, I write to you because I am convinced that you believe I am the main contributory factor to this dangerous situation.

4. You have stated publicly on several occasions that I have plotted, and continue to plot, to overthrow you and your government, that I have conspired, and continue to conspire, with South Africa to do that, that I have organized and continue to organize dissident groups for the purpose of destabilizing the country and finally to overthrow you.

5. You now say I have run to Britain, ostensibly because I thought my life was or is in danger, but that I have done so for the purpose of recruiting mercenaries and/or assassins to wrest power from you.

6.I also know that you and your party believe that because ZAPU lost in the last election we feel wounded, and therefore plan to wrest power from you by means, fair or foul.

7.You say we did all I have stated above despite the fact that we agreed to take part in your Government when you as Prime Minister, invited us to.

8. This whole series of accusations against me and ZAPU, which are false and without any foundation whatsoever started on the 6th February, 1982 when caches of arms were discovered at Escort Farm, and later at Hampton Farm, both of which were owned by Nitram, a private company, I assisted former ZIPRA combatants to form for occupation and use by those of them who were not incorporated into the (ZNA) Zimbabwe National Army and the (ZRP) Zimbabwe Republic Police.

9. The discovery of arms on the 6th February was followed by a number of categoric and definitive statements, by yourself, to the effect that arms were discovered in Nkomo and ZAPU owned properties and that the cache of arms were part of a plot to overthrow you and your government; and that all those properties were being used for subversive purposes.

You said in Marondera on the 14th February, 1982: “ZAPU had bought more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises throughout the country. We have now established they were not genuine business enterprises, but places of hiding military weapons to start another war at an appropriate time”. You added, “Dr. Nkomo was trying to overthrow my government”. “ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, were like a cobra in a house.

The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head”.

10. You will remember that you met me and three of my colleagues at your official residence on the 5th February to discuss a number of issues, and at the end of that meeting I mentioned to you that I had received a telephone message from Bulaway to the effect that two Nitram Farms, Ascot and Woody Glen Farm had been invaded by the police the previous night and you said, you had also got information and you would inform me later what it was all about.

11. That evening I traveled with two of your Ministers on a plane to Bulawayo, Emmerson Munangagwa and Sydney Sekeramai. Little did I know that you had sent these two men to Bulawayo to display to the press arms allegedly unearthed in one of those farms, namely Ascot Farm.

12. I would have expected that as Minister under you, you would, after finding arms in Nitram owned properties, to have summoned me to your office to find out from me as to whether I knew anything about the arms.

13. I would have expected further, that you would have instructed me to have joined Munangagwa and Sekeramai in an attempt to uncover information about those arms.
I am sure, you realize how important it was for me to have physically seen the location, the quantity and nature of the arms that was discovered, especially at a time when I was still Minister. While I do not dispute that arms were found on these farms, how else would I have been expected to believe the quantity, and nature of the arms unearthed and displayed to the press were authentic.

14. As it is now, I cannot be made to believe that the quantities, quality and nature of arms presented to the press were in fact all unearthed just in those two farms. It is quite clear for the discovery to make an impact on the people of Zimbabwe and the world in general, it was necessary for those who assisted you, to ferry arms from elsewhere so as to make this accusation of a plot to overthrow the government to appear real. To quote a statement made at a press briefing at Brady Barracks on the 8th February 1982: “Arms and ammunitions so far recovered in the joint police and army search operation in Matebeleland are sufficient to equip a force of 5,000 men”. Note, in ‘Matabeleland’ and not in Ascot and Hampton Farms. However, this is neither here nor there.

15. By Monday the 15th February 1982, the two properties owned by Nitram, the only properties on which arms were found, together with properties owned by ZAPU and those owned by companies whose members were ZAPU, including properties owned by me and my family, were confiscated under the notorious Unlawful Organisations Act, which was was enacted by settler regimes to suppress liberation organizations.

16. I would like to emphasise that no other property, even those others owned by Nitram, which were all confiscated, had any arms found on them.

17. Having reminded you that arms were discovered in only two Nitram owned farms, Ascot Farm near Bulawayo and Hampton Farm near Gweru, let me further remind you that in the course of your marathon speeches round the country, telling the story of having found caches of arms meant to perpetrate a plot to overthrow you and your government, you said among other things, “If all arms cached by ZIPRA were found in or near Assembly Camps only, my government and I would not have minded”. “But that”, you continued, “a large quantity of arms was found in ZAPU owned properties, it is clear they were intended for use against my government”. You said this because you knew that ZANLA had cached a lot of arms in and near their former Assembly Camps, and there was the question of a trainload of arms that had disappeared between the [Mozambiquean] border and Mutare.

18. It appears to me you have conveniently forgotten that Ntumbane in Bulawayo, was in fact an Assembly Point for both ZIPRA and ZANLA, that after the first Ntumbane disturbances every type of weapon not allowed there, was found in that assembly point.

The same happened after the second disturbances there; heavy weapons were found in both ZIPRA and ZANLA camps in Ntumbane. Why then did you find it surprising to have found arms at Ascot farm which is hardly seven miles from Ntumbane assembly point? 19. The same applies to Hampton Farm which is not far from Connemara Barracks where there were disturbances at the same time as there were disturbances in Ntumbane the second time. As a matter of fact, Comrade Munangagwa on 26th February, said, “Four caches of arms including 600 G3 rifles stolen during the mutiny in Connemara more than a year ago were discovered on a farm near Gweru”.

20. Over and above what I have stated regarding arms caches I quote a statement by (PF) ZAPU Central Committee held in Bulawayo on the 15 February, 1982, “The Central Committee is dismayed at the deliberate attempt to build a case on an issue whose background the Prime Minister very well knows emanates from a war situation. The Central Committee denies the allegation that ZAPU had any prior knowledge of the arms caches anywhere. The administration of the army and all military issues, including former combatants’ assembly camps, were placed under the responsibility of the Joint Military Command, thus removing ZAPU and ZANU of responsibility over military affairs. We wish to categorically deny the allegation of a plot to overthrow the government. On the contrary, PF ZAPU did everything, and still does for the consolidation and success of our independence” (Herald).

21. On Thursday, February 17, you announced at a press conference that I and three of my colleagues, J.M. Chinamano, J.W. Msika and J.G. Ntuta were dismissed from your government. You made your announcement at a press conference and we learnt of our dismissal from your government by press, television and radio. I was completely flabbergasted and astounded by your accusations, your actions and the manner in which they were made. What stunned and bemused me even more is that I was convinced that you knew in your heart of hearts that all accusations were false.

22. I was also convinced that you could not have been unaware of the repercussions of your statements and actions on former ZANLA and ZIPRA combatants in the National Army and in the police, and the feelings of divisiveness and hostility they would arose.

23. You must know that it was soon after your initial statements and actions that there was talk of polarization of ZANLA and ZIPRA former combatants within the National Army.

Mutual suspicion and mistrust was maximized, and clashes between the two groups became commonplace.
24. Meanwhile, former ZIPRA Commanders were summoned by the Army Command, at your instruction, for questioning and investigation. This was done, it is said, by the military police and/or the C.I.O. Later, ordinary former ZIPRA men, irrespective of rank were also taken for investigation.

25. Information has it that during these investigations there was a lot of beatings and torture of all types, that a number of these young people were killed and others maimed.

26. These actions were followed by desertions and defections from the National Army not only by former ZIPRA combatants, but also by former ZANLA.

27. It was then that we learnt from your public speeches, and those of your Ministers, that a number of armed robbers and bandits in the country was growing, especially in the Western Province of Matabeleland.

28. Later your public statements and those of your Ministers began to stress that these armed bandits were infact politically inspired dissidents.

29. Information has it also, that some 300 or so ZIPRA combatants and a few ZANLA who were arrested after the troubles in a battalion camp near Karoi were detained secretly somewhere near Harare and are taken in small batches to be court martialed and executed, with no right of appeal and without informing their next of kin. It is further known that the last of these executions that has come to light took place on February 14, 1983.

30. It was when in your Parliamentary Speech you openly and blatantly accused me personally and ZAPU as a party of organising, maintaining and directing such armed dissident activities that I met you, and after thorough discussion, that I thought you accepted our position that we were not in any manner connected with these elements.

31. I found it necessary to meet you because despite the fact that I had continuously and persistently denounced and condemned the activities of these dissidents and had demanded that you appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee, without success, to investigate who these dissidents are and who succours them, instead you found it necessary to accuse us in parliament the way you did.

32. During December, overtures on unity between ZAPU and ZANU were ma de to me by your emissaries in the persons of President Canaan Banana and Minister Enos Nkala. After two meetings with them I thought we had made progress and suggested to them that the next meeting should be with yourself.

33. A meeting between us was accordingly held at State House, Bulawayo early in January 1983. The meeting did not go as well as I had expected because it appeared to me that you were averse to what I discussed with President Banana and Enos Nkala. However, despite that, we agreed between ourselves to form a Committee of 6, comprising three ZANU and three ZAPU representatives.

34. Although nothing much was achieved at the meeting between us, I believed nonetheless that moves towards an understanding between ZAPU and ZANU were making progress.

35. Yet on Tuesday, the 25th of January [1983], I received information from people who were fleeing from Mbembesi that mass beatings and killings were being perpetrated by young men in camouflage uniforms who were calling themselves the ‘Fifth Brigade’.

36. By the 26th January, the numbers had grown and the information given us was that more people were being brutally beaten and killed by these young men.

37. On the 27th of January, I decided to take 12 of the people, who had themselves experienced violence at the hands of members of the Fifth Brigade, to Harare so that they may themselves explain to government what in fact was talking place.

38. When I arrived in Harare, I presented the matter to Comrade Muzenda who, in the absence of the Prime Minister, was acting Prime Minister. After I informed him of the situation in Mbembesi, which by that time had spread to Bubi and Tsholotsho, the acting Prime Minister delegated his Minister of Home Affairs, Ushewonkunze, who had expressed ignorance of these happenings, to go and meet the afflicted people in Highfields.

39. When Ushewonkunze failed to turn up until Friday afternoon, I decided to call a press conference and informed the conference of the mass killings by the Fifth Brigade; by that time the numbers reported killed by the Fifth brigade had risen to 95.

40. The following week a government spokesman made much play of the fact that Josiah Gumede; who I had told the conference that I understood by reports from Mbembesi, was among those who were killed; but because he had survived his ordeal, the spokesman completely ignored the fact that many more other people were killed, a fact Gumede himself had made known to you and president Banana.

41. During the first week of February a censure motion was presented to parliament by the chief whip of ZANU-PF against ZAPU and its leadership because of exposure of the carnage by the Fifth Brigade. Almost every ZANU member who spoke abused and scorned ZAPU, and more particularly myself, for having exposed the killings, which now had spread to Nkayi and Lupane. It was quite evident that ZANU-PF had full knowledge of what was happening but was not prepared to intervene or call a halt to those most barbarous actions which the Fifth Brigade, in the name of security, perpetrated against fellow citizens of Zimbabwe in the so-called ‘curfew’ areas.

42. On Saturday February the 19th, I was prevented from traveling to Prague to attend an executive meeting of the World Peace Council (which your press called Soviet sponsored) and which was to take place on the 21st and 22nd of that month. My ticket and passport and those of my three colleagues who were traveling with me were seized by the police when we were arrested. When I was released seven hours later, my three colleagues remained in custody and were later issued with detention orders which remain in force to this day.

43. On the 19th February, I was taken to the Bulawayo Charge Office where the police demanded that I make two ‘Warned and Cautioned’ statements to the effect that they were investigating the possibility that I had committed certain crimes: under the Law and Order Maintenance Act, because they had found on me, two sets of notes containing: (a) a statement I made in Parliament in connection with the serious situation in Matebeleland Province created by killings and other atrocities, and (b) notes prepared for a meeting I was to have had held with you about the same situation but did not come off.

2. That they were investigating a possible contravention of the Currency Exchange Control Act because they found on me $300 Zimbabwe dollars; meant for my wife, but in the packing rush was forgotten in my brief case.

Later that day, I was called back to the Charge Office and told that they (the police) had received a telegram from the Harare police to the effect that I should make another ‘Warned and Cautioned’ statement in reply to a possible charge that the police in Harare were investigating a possible contravention of the Precious Minerals Act in that the police had found emeralds in my Highfields residence when they were searching for arms in that house on the 5th October 1982.

44. About three weeks earlier, I had been made to make a ‘Warned and cautioned’ statement by the Harare police to the effec t that they were investigating a possible breach of the Law and Order Maintenance Act when I addressed a press conference in Harare, in which I had revealed the killings of people in Mbembesi, Bubi and Tsholotsho.

45. I made those ‘Warned and Cautioned’ statements denying those possible charges. It was clear to me, as it could be, to any responsible person that these were trumped up possible charges designed by your government to harass and embarrass me.

46. Is it reasonable for anybody to believe that possession of a copy of a speech made in parliament and an unpublished notes to be used in a meeting with the Prime minister could be a breach of the Law and Order Maintenance Act? Is it reasonable for anyone to believe that I would export from the country $300 Zimbabwe dollars. To what purpose? Is it reasonable to believe that the so-called possession of emeralds in early October, 1982 could still be for investigation by the police in mid-February, 1983? What investigation after four months of physical so-called ‘possession of emeralds’.

47. On Sunday the 27th February, 1983, I received a letter from the police informing me that before leaving my house for any place, I should report to the Police Station. I refused doing this because I had no charge preferred against me, and could not understand why the police should have been so interested in my movements.
48. About the 1st or the 2nd of March, 1983, security forces, including the Fifth Brigade, were deployed in Bulawayo western suburbs and on the 5th March, 1983: my house was raided by the Fifth Brigade. Three people were killed and property, including three cars, was vandalized by the raiders. It was after this act that I realized why the police were interested in my movements.

49. I then decided to leave the country for the time being as it was clear to me that my life was threatened.

50. During the weeks that followed the deployment of the Fifth Brigade in the Western Province of Matebeleland, right up to the day I departed from Zimbabwe, hundreds of brutally assaulted people from the so-called ‘curfew’ areas of Mbembesi, Nyathi, Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho had come to my home and related horrible accounts of brutal beatings, mass rapings, mass killings, maiming of hundreds of innocent unarmed, unresisting men, women and children as well as looting and burning of villages and houses.

51. Before leaving my house and finally Bulawayo on the 8th March, 1983, reports had come to me of untold brutalities and inhuman and degrading treatment of people within Bulawayo itself and of people being marched in their hundreds to the adjacent bush areas on the outskirts of Bulawayo, to be shot and their bodies left rotting and some taken away to unknown destinations and never to return.

52. Now that I have attempted to give an account of some of your publicly expressed opinions and beliefs about me and ZAPU, and have also tried to summarise the more important events that took place as well as actions or non-actions during the course of the three years since our independence, and have some bearing on your attempt to impose a one- ZANU Party State on the people of Zimbabwe, I give hereunder my reactions.

53. In retrospect, I now believe that I and ZAPU were deceived and cheated by you and your party when you talked of unity, reconciliation, peace and security. I now honestly and sincerely believe that when you invited us to take part in your government you believed that we would reject your offer and set ourselves up in strong opposition to you and thereby label us disgruntled rejected plotters.

54. I can now see that your insistence on establishing assembly camps in Bulawayo and Harare, and of your Ministers Nkala and others coming to Bulawayo to make inflammatory statements which sparked off the first Ntumbane incident, was all part of a plan and strategy to destabilize the country, especially the Western Province of Matebeleland, so that you could use incidents there as an excuse for using military action to crush me and my party.

55. It is now obvious to me that when you demoted me from the Ministry of Home Affairs which you knew was negotiated for a purpose at the time you invited us to take part in your government; that while you knew that we felt it was necessary for us to take part in one of the security ministries (Defence or Home Affairs) so that the former ZIPRA men drafted into the ZNA and ZRP may feel confident, thereby solidify both the army and the police, you deliberately took that action. It is clear you wanted us to pull out of your government at that time so as to destabilize the army and the police, create dissidents out of the deserting ZIPRA men and then call us plotters against your government.

56. It is clear you thought you had struck a political bonanza by the arms caches fiasco and you handled it the way you did, to achieve the following: To make the country believe that I and ZAPU wanted to overthrow your government.

That the world at large should view us as a group of people who had lost the elections and now wanted to wrest power from you and your government.
To polarize the population into bad guys and good guys and so destabilize the country.
To polarize the former ZIPRA and ZANLA combatants both inside and outside the army and police, so as to create a former ZIPRA grouping to be labelled dissidents.
To create within ZAPU a group that would believe there was a group within the party, that in fact, was plotting to overthrow the government.
As a pretext, to use discredited and archaic settler imperialist legislation, the Unlawful Organisations Act, to confiscate ZAPU supporters’s property.

57. When you announced the confiscation of ZAPU and Nitram properties, property belonging to Companies of individual ZAPU members and to me and my family, you said it was because all these properties were acquired for hiding arms. Now that it is known no arms were found on any property other than the two farms belonging to Nitram, Ascot and Hampton Farms, how do you justify the blatant and arbitrary forced acquisition of all these properties? 58. Even the confiscation of the two farms on which arms were discovered is questionable.

Nitram as a Co-operative company, whose membership was more than 4,000 former ZIPRA combatants, who had contributed towards the purchase of these farms, and therefore, could not be held responsible for action or actions of a few people, who have not been identified even at the High Court trial that ended in the acquittal of six of the seven people accused of treason and caching arms.

59. With regards properties owned by ZAPU formed companies as well as those formed by us individuals, I can only say your action against them was even much more obscure. I do hope Mr. Prime Minister, you realize the harm inflicted by your ill-considered action on these properties including those owned by Nitram. Thousands of people were thrown out of resident-employment; this includes former combatants as well as former employees of those farms, who had become members of co-operatives established there. The Herald of 17th February, 1982 says, about projects at Mguza, “The co-operative venture and Secretarial training centers for women ex-combatants have been hailed by several people, including the Minister of Finance, Enos Nkala, as a model of its kind”.

60. All this is gone; with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of movable property of all types including over-head irrigation equipment worth $700,000 [Zimbabwe dollars] is ruined and some of it missing. Other movable property which was looted from Mguza Complex is what Dr. Sekeramai referred to as, “The other equipment, such as a very modern operating theatre lamp with its own generator, and a sophiscated dental unit, in excellent condition and not used at all was found”. This equipment meant for the College and co-operative farm inmates and people who attended a co-operative clinic there.

61. Among the most important properties of ZAPU that were taken away by the army and the C.I.O. from the Nitram farms, i.e. Nest Egg, were ZAPU Archives which were stored there for safe-keeping. They contained all ZAPU records covering the whole period of our struggle outside and inside the country, including the list of all ZAPU and ZIPRA war casualties. As a result of this, no names of ZIPRA dead were available for inclusion at the Heroes’ Acre Roll of Honor list on the 10th and 11th August, 1982.
This, you will agree is a very serious matter.

62. What disturbs me most, is that when you banned the companies that ran various properties and projects you said, “ZAPU had bought more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises throughout the country. We had now established they were not genuine business enterprises, but places to hide military weapons to start another war at an appropriate time”, (Sunday mail, 7th February, 1982). This was a deliberate distortion.

63. At the time you made the above statement ZAPU had only 2 farms, one near Harare and the other near Gweru; and had only 5 business enterprises, 2 in Harare, 2 in Gweru and 1 in Masvingo. If by ZAPU you meant farms and businesses run by companies such as Nitram and those owned by individual members of ZAPU: the position is as follows: Nitram had only 4 farms and 4 business enterprises. Companies owned by individual members of ZAPU had 3 farms near Harare, 2 near Bulawayo and two business enterprises in Bulawayo and 1 in Mbalabala. All these ventures Mr. Prime Minister, cannot be said to be, “throughout the country”, nor, “more than 25 farms and more than 30 business enterprises” as you said in your statement.

64. You deliberately gave the impression to the country that, projects on those properties were run clandestinely; and yet you knew, I had, without success, several times invited you, to visit Nijo Products, 1.2 million dollar ZAPU Composite Agricultural Project, just outside Harare. I said your visit to that particular project was important and necessary because I felt it could be used as a model for resettlement purposes.

65. You were aware further that the Mguza Secretarial Training College was officially opened by Minister Shaba and that that College and the Mguza Co-operative Farming Project were visited by President Banana and Enos Nkala a few weeks before your banning order was issued. I am certain, you must have been aware that the Lido Motel in Queens Park, Bulawayo was being used as a hostel for over 300 former ZIPRA war disabled, as government had failed to house them anywhere.

66. You will remember when I met you in your office in August, 1982, you made known to me that the involvement of my family property Walmer Ranch, where we built our Makwe home, would be revealed in evidence during the Masuku, Dabengwa trial at the High Court. The trial has come and gone, Masuku and Dabengwa acquitted. However, I was told by a defence lawyer of a bizarre story about some military training supposed to have been conducted at Makwe Farm which was presented by the prosecution and was later unconditionally withdrawn by them without argument. You will know that our home at Makwe has been surrounded by the army and police ever since you made your announcement of the 16th February, 1982. All meaningful activity came to a complete halt and incalculable damage was done to all we were trying to do there.

67. I am certain you should recall what I told you when we met in your office in August, that what I had at Makwe outside the working of the farm was a big gathering where I met members of the Gwanda Community Co-operative, to discuss a grand settlement scheme in which the Makwe Irrigation Scheme and our Makwe farm would be the core of the project.

White farmers had been approached to either donate or sell at very reduced prices their farms within the area, and the response was promising. This scheme had been forwarded to the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement by the Gwanda Co-op through the local district council machinery. It was hoped that the Scheme would be presented to Government through appropriate channels for funding through ZIMCORD.

68. You must have known through your respective Government departments, local authorities and your various devices of information collection, that Kennellworth-Carisbrook Farm near Harare, Lingfield near Gweru and Mbalabala Village near Esigodini were all being processed to be handled in the same way as above, and as the Mguza complex had shown, be it in a small way, that it was feasible to implement such schemes, it was believed that the Makwe Project would succeed.

69. All these schemes were in the spirit of what I had discussed with you in December, 1981. I had made it plain to you Prime Minister, when I met you in your official residence; that your Resettlement policy was a national disaster, and you agreed with me. These schemes were meant to present practical approach models, to both rural and peri-urban resettlement, that would embrace everybody and not just a few who are said to ‘qualify’.

70. But, with full knowledge of all this, you chose to tell a crowd of more than 18,000 people at the Rudaka Stadium in Marondera on the 13th February, 1982, that, “We desire a new richer life for all … and we wish to see changes in people’s way of living standards and economic status. But in the midst of all our endeavours our colleagues in Government, were stockpiling and building enough weapons of war to arm 20,000 men”.

71. What baffles me even more, is that, you said all the above when you knew that less than 2 months prior to your Marondera meeting, I had offered myself to take over your Ministry of Lands and Resettleme nt in an effort to assist you and through you, the country to make a success of its most vital development programme. You turned down my offer, saying I was too old to handle that Ministry, however, you said you would invite me to be one of the members of a resettlement Ministerial Committee you were about to institute. To you all this meant plotting.

72. You also had knowledge that on December 29, 1982; while I was on holiday, I was requested by Brigadier Chinenge to assist him to demobilize more than 5,000 former ZIPRA combatants at Gwaai River Mine Assembly Point and willingly drove over 150 miles to help. How could I have done all these things if I was bent on overthrowing you? Who do you think I would have called on to use all those arms after assisting to integrate some ZIPRA combatants in the ZNA and ZRP and assisted in dispersing others to their respective homes.

73. It is now very clear to me that you were very unhappy with the extent of my cooperation and that of ZAPU because you did not want peace and tranquility. You did not want stability, progress and development, because such conditions would not give you the turmoil and instability you required for your political-military action to liquidate those you chose to, and thereby impose your one-ZANU Party State.

74. It is obvious to me why you decided to form the Fifth Brigade outside the structure and command of the National Army, so that you may use it as a party and Tribal Brigade for eliminating and liquidating, as you have many times said, those you chose to destroy. As a matter of fact, when I questioned the formation of the Fifth Brigade outside the Zimbabwe National Army without consultation, you angrily replied and said, “Who are you to be consulted? This Brigade”, you said, “has been formed to crush those who try to subvert my government, and if you attempt that, they will crush you too”.

75. You took action against what you called ZAPU sponsored dissidents. But because you wanted to maintain this show of subversion, you have not, for almost one year and 4 months, arrested and put on trial a single dissident. Yet you have continuously, for all this period, persistently accused the ZAPU structure and those who support that structure for organising, maintaining, feeding and directing the dissidents so as to justify an armed attack on the masses.

76. It is known through information given by the masses in the affected curfew areas, that in fact the people who go about killing, maiming, raping and burning government property are in fact organized provocateurs planted by ZANU-PF in the form of undercover pseudo- dissidents. … It is further known that government property destroyed by dissidents was property used by district councils who were made up of 100 ZAPU members, who were known to have worked hard to use this equipment for developing their areas vigorously and with great enthusiasm.

77. It is known that about 90% of the victims killed by dissidents were either top ZAPU officials, ZAPU businessmen and teachers, ZAPU local government officials and generally ZAPU supporters. The remaining 10% appear to be white people. Not a single ZANU supporter was killed during this period. Does not this fact speak for itself? One does not know what the position is or would be after the Fifth Brigade’s bloody escapade in the Western Province of Matebeleland.

78. It can be said without hesitation that to have used the police as if they were ZIPRA officers in the Dr. Bertrand case was an abominable and fascist like attempt to portray to the country and the world at large that former ZIPRA combatants had plotting tendencies so as to blemish the name of ZIPRA.

79. I believe that the notes that were purported to have been sent by former ‘ZIPRA dissidents’ to the police, when foreign tourists were abducted near Bulawayo in July 1982, were in fact an effort to show ZAPU and former ZIPRA combatants in bad light.

Having said that, I would like to make it clearly understood that former ZIPRA combatants are not the responsibility of ZAPU but of the Zimbabwe government, like anybody else. Despite this I found it necessary to activate and involve the masses in the areas where it was thought kidnappers may be hiding with the tourists, but before I concluded the exercise government declared a curfew in those areas, making them no- go places, causing an abrupt end to that effort. Why that was done I do not know to this day.

80. I now understand why you have maintained legislation such as the Law and Order Maintenance Act, the Unlawful Organisation Act and the Emergency Powers Act; which was enacted by former regimes specifically for the suppression and oppression of the black population of Zimbabwe, and for use against their effort to struggle for independence, social justice, enjoyment of freedom and human rights. You now seem to enjoy and justify the use of these notorious laws to deny your own people that which they fought and died to achieve.
What is it that makes you believe that this independence, which you and I and indeed the masses of Zimbabwe fought for, for so long should now be maintained and protected by this type of legislation? Don’t you think there is something wrong?

81. I am not surprised that you have decided to maintain a state of emergency which was declared by Ian Smith on the 5th November, 1965 in preparation for his illegal action to declare, control and protect his type of independence.

82. During the protracted war our people were subjected to every kind of cruelty and oppression. No man’s life was safe, it was the frequent fate of an innocent villager to be shot out hand, to be arbitrarily arrested and often to be tortured, to suffer the burning of his village, the massacre of his women and children, the destruction of crops and livestock, to suffer long years of imprisonment or to endure the pangs of long exile. The legal basis of this campaign of terror was the ‘State of Emergency’.

83. You well know that in point of fact the Law and Order maintenance Act was used to undermine and subvert law and order to quite a horrendous degree, and the declaration of a ‘state of emergency’ itself was instrumental in creating an acute state of emergency by unleashing forces which inflicted a wave of murder and brutality upon our people which, in its savagery and disregard for humanitarian considerations, had no precedent among our people.

84. Taken together, these facts indicate clearly that for many years an unparalleled campaign of barbarism and terror was waged against the masses. Yet this campaign failed; our people did not submit, they fought back until finally victory was won and independence achieved.

But what in fact has been achieved? It is painful to ask this question, for it springs from events which have increasingly darkened the horizons of Zimbabwe over the past year or more, events I am trying to summarise in this letter.

85. You knew that having created the confusion, you would then be able to take military and legal action against deliberately created ‘political and armed dissidents’; hence the arrest of men like Lookout Masuku, Dumiso Dabengwa and others, and decided to charge them with treason. It is a shame to all of us who fought for liberty, freedom and the rule of law, to see Dumiso, Masuku and others being immediately arbitrarily detained after acquittal by the High Court.

86. It is a well known fact that in Zimbabwe today, there are more people detained without trial than in fascist South Africa. Most of these people are also without formal detention orders and the next of kin have no idea as to whether they are alive or dead.

These people are not enemies of Zimbabwe, but patriots who have suffered, like us and many others, in the struggle to free their country, Zimbabwe, peasant men, women as well as young men and women who only happen to be caught, in a conflict the government itself created.

87. The double tragedy of Zimbabwe today is, firstly, that the routine and administrative use of detention, torture and arbitrary repression has been adopted by an independent government, and secondly, that this government uses the very same mercenaries and torturers as the former regime used against the struggling people. In fact the situation today is in some respects is even worse, as our government has abandoned even those standards of bourgeois legality which the Smith regime generally attempted to hide their repression behind. Under that regime you could be detained but a least you were more likely to be issued with a detention order. You were therefore, less likely to simply disappear as is the case today. The mercenaries and torturers used by the former regime are known and are very few, and therefore their exclusion from our security organs could not have disrupted those organs.

88. There are, in Zimbabwe today, so many different groups of armed men with power to do virtually anything to people. People get arrested by the C.I.O., the Law and Order Section of the police, the so-called ZIMPOLIS, the so-called ZANU Intelligence Service (which is not an arm of government), the Military Police of the Zimbabwe National Army, the Fifth Brigade (which seems to regard execution as the most effective method of arresting people), the Youth Brigade (which is also an arm of the party, but used as if it were part of the machinery of government), the Militia, by ZANU party officials, by undercover pseudo-dissidents – the list is endless. In fact, the rights of the Zimbabwe citizen as defined in the Constitution are meaningless.

89. One of the most disgraceful and shaming aspects of our independence which is difficult to defend, is that we have taken the methods and men used to oppress, torture and kill our people and tried to use them to consolidate our ‘independence’. You cannot take weapons, methods and people designed to defend colonial fascism and try to use to them defend the people. It is just not possible. Today in Zimbabwe the same torturers that Smith used against the people are back in business ‘defending a people’s government’. They must smile to themselves when they are ordered to continue their torture of patriots by an independent government.

90. The methods of torture are also the same: electric shocks, beatings, burning with cigarettes, suffocation using wet sacks, and psychological torture. In the recent case of the State vs Dabengwa and others, the government must surely have been embarrassed when the activities of Fraser, Arnold (of CIO) and DSO Kaurayi were revealed in court. These men whose record of torture and atrocities against the people during the liberation war are well known, were brought into this case by our government to use their same techniques against the heroes of the liberation struggle.

91. In court it was revealed that Fraser assaulted, tortured and threatened ZIPRA men to tell lies against their commanders. DSO Kaurayi did the same to workers on the NITRAM farms. Arnold, the so-called chief of the investigation offered bribes and threats to witnesses to try to get them to change their evidence. Fraser has now run back to his masters in Pretoria. Arnold and Kaurayi remain to be used again to prostitute justice and bring disgrace on the memories of the fallen heroes of our struggle.

92. Under the terms of the Indemnity Act, which we condemned as barbaric and fascist during the liberation struggle, a citizen has no right of appeal or redress against those who illegally torture, maim, kill, destroy property or do any illegal act on him or against him. I am sure you realize that the result of this use of Smith’s laws and torturers has been to create in an independent Zimbabwe a climate of terror and fear even more discriminate than that created by the Smith regime. Remember, there is no war in Zimbabwe today.
93. As it is in Zimbabwe, everyone faces this fear. It is a fear created by the fear the government itself obviously feels. What is it that the government is in fear of is not very clear, but the fact that our government lives in daily fear cannot be doubted.

Ministers fear to walk the streets without armed men around them, roads are sealed off, convoys of armed men race through the streets sirens wailing announcing this fear.

94. The real victims of this climate of fear are the people themselves. How can the people get on with the vital task of building the nation when all around them they feel this insecurity and fear? At any moment they know that this machinery of fear and repression may be turned against them. The people of Murewa may have not yet felt the bayonets of the Fifth Brigade, but they have already heard the stories. In their faces is the fear that one day this party army may be turned against them. It is certain that some ZANU members fear that the Fifth Brigade may be turned against ZANU and that it may even turn against its creators. Is this the climate of a confident, free, proud and independent people and government? You do not teach young people to be contemptuous of human life and expect them to respect yours.

95. Mr. Prime Minister, as I have mentioned above, the way the sec urity organs of Government in their generality is being used has created fear and despondency in the minds of a wide section of our people. But, let me stress, that the activities of the Fifth Brigade in particular are something I never expected could happen in Zimbabwe. I could not make myself believe that such activities could have been carried out with your knowledge and approval.

96. It was when you were reported to have given an astounding declaration at a rally in Zhombe that I realized you support what the Fifth Brigade has done and continue to do in Matebeleland; quote “When men and women provide food for dissidents, when we get there we eradicate them. We do not select who we fight, because we cannot tell who is a dissident and who is not ” (Financial Times, Telegraph and The Times, 15.4.83).

97. Comrade Prime Minister, you know that about two weeks before election day in March 1980, then Governor of Southern Rhodesia, Lord Soames, called all leaders of political parties contesting in the election and told them that “because of the security situation in the eastern Districts of Zimbabwe there could be no free and fair election there”, which meant election would in fact not take place.

98. You will remember, I am sure, that about four or three days before polling day, Lord Soames unilaterally and without consultation, announced that elections will take place in all districts in the country, including the Eastern Districts. I am sure you will agree with me that, with all the goodwill in the world, the Good Governor, could not have made the ‘Security Situation’ in the Eastern Districts so stable in less than two weeks, to be able to conduct ‘free and fair elections’.

99. You know as well as I do, that the unstable and dangerous security situation in the Eastern Districts was caused by your party, ZANU (PF) which maintained armed former ZANLA combatants throughout that area; who terrorized by beatings, tortures and even killing anyone who did not comply with ZANU (PF) directions. It was made impossible for any party other than ZANU (PF) to operate in the Eastern Districts area.

100. We in ZAPU tried to canvass support for elections in those districts, and ended up with two candidates killed, 18 party workers killed and several others severely beaten up, some of them permanently maimed, and while others disappeared to this day. I approached you and told you what your party was doing with little or no effect at all on the situation there.

101. Now that the 1985 elections are approaching ZANU (PF) has begun using the same tactics as were used in the Eastern Districts before and during the 1980 elections.

This time the Fifth Brigade is being used as state machinery to terrorise and coerce the people in Matebeleland. Some believe that you are doing all this not just for electoral advantage, but that your aim is genocide.

102. As an effective coercive stunt, the Fifth Brigade was deployed in the area ostensibly to root out dissidents but in fact to terrorise the masses by beatings, torture, killings, rapings, looting, burning of villages, and literally doing anything atrocious on such a large scale as to instill fear into the people, not only in the affected areas, but that the effects of the action would pervade the entire population of Zimbabwe.

103. This has been followed by maintenance in every area of sizeable groups of the Fifth Brigade and reinforced by armed Youth Brigades in areas like Gokwe and Zhombe to organize forced ‘Pungwes’ (rallies held from dusk to dawn) at which the old and the young are forcibly given doses of ZANU (PF) indoctrination. This group has continued to carry out selective beatings, torture, killings and kidnappings in their respective areas. In areas like Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho only sizeable groups of the Fifth Brigade are maintained. It is general practice during these ‘Pungwes’ that young women, schoolgirls and residents’ wives are forced to have sexual intercourse with Brigadiers.

104. District Councillors, Chiefs and Headmen are o rdered by these armed young men to give numbers of people under them, and then given corresponding number of ZANU (PF) membership cards and told to return with cash and lists of names on a given day.

These are the methods used for organising rallies for ZANU (PF) Ministers and other officials.
105. I know and accept that the Fifth Brigade was deployed in these areas after the murder of about 200 people in about a year and the destruction of thousands of dollars worth of government equipment by dissidents. But Mr. Prime Minister, I am sure you appreciate the absurdity of trying to protect people who have had 200 of their number killed in 12 months by dissidents while the Fifth Brigade in the process of that protection kills 3,000 to 5,000 people in six weeks.

106. I know that you have denied that any such things have taken place in Matebeleland, but the fact is that the evidence of this is irrefutable and based on the testimony of numerous first- hand witnesses, not least on that of many of the victims who survived. These victims include teachers, nurses, District Councillors, etc. Apart from victim witnesses, there are among others well known international aid organizations who were friends of Zimbabwe during the war and after independence, came to work with our people on the ground level. Added to these witnesses are different Churches which work in the affected areas. I would refer especially to the testimony of no less than 6 Catholic Bishops who were moved to issue a joint signed pastoral statement at their Easter 1983 conference. They did this, I would remind you, after I made my own disclosure at a Press Conference and in parliament late in February.

107. It has to be appreciated that, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, indeed any Christian Bishop, is a person who has devoted his life to the service of God. In order that his ministry shall be effective, he has an obvious interest in maintaining friendly and cordial relations with the government of the day. It is certainly not in his interest, or that of his flock, to act in any way which will make such relations difficult or discordant. We may conclude therefore that when he is so moved he acts from a deep sense of personal conviction.

By A Correspondent- Exiled former Local Government minister and Zanu-PF commissar Saviour Kasukuwere yesterday hit back at President Emmerson Mnangagwa, saying the extradition order his administration was seeking from the South African government had nothing to do with criminal offences, but was a ploy to vindictively settle political scores.

He was reacting to government’s call for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to answer to four counts of criminal abuse of duty as a public officer during his tenure as minister.

He also said Mnangagwa wanted to fix him as a political rival and was angry that he, along with his exiled colleagues Walter Mzembi and Patrick Zhuwao, had taken the issue of rampant human rights abuses to South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party.

Kasukuwere, a close ally of the late former President Robert Mugabe before his ouster via a military coup in November 2017, said he had no criminal case to answer, but was being persecuted for resisting Mnangagwa’s rise to power.

“This is desperation by Mnangagwa. He knows I have no crime, but my crime is I was and still am against his takeover of the party using the military. He can’t put a criminal charge against me after he told the Gweru provincial co-ordinating committee meeting that he was after me and the others who did not like how he took over the party,” he said.

“It is political because Mnangagwa is my political rival and as he stands there, we have a dispute and he is using courts to threaten me. He can’t threaten me and use it to fix political nemesis. That is abuse of power.

“I am not a character he can harass, I am not a criminal and all the criminal charges they have tried to stick on me have collapsed,” Kasukuwere charged.

“This thing (has to do with) the ANC and this is the way he has chosen to respond to our calls for a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe,” he said in apparent reference to him and other former Zanu-PF officials exiled in South Africa engaging the ANC through its secretary-general Ace Magashule.

Magashule led a team of ANC officials who flew to Harare last month for a meeting with Zanu-PF officials, while insisting there was a crisis in Zimbabwe.

The ANC insisted there was a crisis in Zimbabwe, but Zanu-PF angrily denied there was a crisis accusing some ANC elements of working with Western diplomats to destabilise the country.

Mnangagwa told a meeting in the Midlands capital of Gweru that the G40 elements were spreading falsehoods against Zimbabwe and would ask South Africa for their extradition.

But Kasukuwere insisted he was not a criminal and he had nothing to hide or fear.

“I have come before and I am ready to come again and clear my name. Why did they not arrest me in November 2017 if they knew I was a criminal? They decided to shoot and try to kill me. I came back in 2018 and they charged me with border jumping. Then again later, the charges were dismissed. Politics of vindictiveness. Criminals are in charge of our country hence they rely on guns to threaten citizens,” Kasukuwere fumed.

He is being accused of corruptly parcelling out over 220 hectares of land in Harare and Masvingo to the sister of former First Lady Grace Mugabe, Shuvai Gumbochuma, while the other arose during his days as Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment minister where the State alleges he corruptly awarded a tender to a company called Brainworks Capital without following procedure.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is seeking to have Pretoria extradite the former minister to Zimbabwe to face trial and the indictment papers have since been prepared.

However, the NPA, in an affidavit by one Nelson Mutsonziwa commissioned by chief law officer Chris Mutangadura to the South African government, claims there was nothing political about the charges Kasukuwere was facing.

“This request is not being pursued for political reasons or any ulterior purpose. Zimbabwe guarantees that Saviour Kasukuwere will receive a fair trial in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe. The Republic of Zimbabwe also undertakes to render assistance to the Republic of South Africa in any criminal matter,” the request read.

Kasukuwere was acquitted after he was arrested for allegedly illegally skipping the border at the height of the military coup.

This followed rebuke by Pretoria over human rights violations including torture and abduction of activists.

Kasukuwere is one of the many G40 elements being pursued through criminal charges by Mnangagwa, including former ministers Walter Mzembi, Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao.

Zanu-PF has accused the G40 of working to destabilise the party and government from exile but the former Zanu-PF officials have denied the claims while vowing to return the party to constitutionalism.

By A Correspondent- Suspended Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) Commissioner, Frank Muchengwa, has approached the High Court seeking nullification of the verbal suspension from office, which he received from commission chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo.

In his court application for a declaratory order filed last week, Muchengwa said Justice Matanda-Moyo had no authority to suspend him, adding that that prerogative rests with President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the appointing authority.

Muchengwa was barred from accessing his office and removed from the commission’s WhatsApp group had his service pistol and personal security withdrawn.

In his founding affidavit, Muchengwa argued that he was still a serving commissioner and entitled to personal security and access to his office.

“This is an application for a declaratory and subsequent order that the oral suspension given to the applicant (Frank Muchengwa) by the second respondent (Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo) on September 11, 2020 is declared null and void; consequently the first (Zacc) and second respondents are ordered against withdrawing the applicant’s security detail and service pistol and that the applicant should not be barred by the first and second respondents from accessing his office and preforming of his duties,” Muchengwa said.

Muchengwa said on September 8, 2020, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) wrote to him advising that it had resolved to suspend him in terms of section 187 (3) of the Constitution and that the resolution had been forwarded to Mnangagwa for consideration.

“On September 9, 2020 the second respondent in her capacity as the chairperson of the first respondent removed me from the WhatsApp group of fellow commissioners and ordered that I be barred from entering my office. On September 11, 2020 the second respondent purportedly acting on contents of the letter of September 8, 2020, proceeded to give me an oral suspension from my duties,” he said.

“I am advised by my legal practitioners which advice I accept to be true and correct that the purported oral suspension by the second respondent is null and void. Section 237 of the Constitution as read with section 183 provides for the procedure of removing a commissioner from his duties. That prerogative is the sole preserve of the President.”

Muchengwa said since the withdrawal of his personal security and service pistol, he had experienced three separate break-ins at home, office and in his car.

“… I am still exposed to serious security risk. For example, there was a break-in at my house once, two in my car and once at my office. I reported the matters concerning the break-in at my house to police (CR38/01/20) the two break-ins in my car were reported to police under RRB4450263 on September 17, 2020 and there was a break-in at my office, and a report was made under (property book number 67/2020),” he said.

“Without a proper and lawful suspension in terms of the law, I still lawfully occupy the office of a commissioner and I am entitled to all attendant rights of the office. The purported suspension interferes with my right to work and consequently the right to personal security while working.”

By A Correspondent- A 17 year old Nkulumane suburb boy was found hanging from the roof of his father’s bedroom after he had gone missing for four days.

Kholo Jamela was reportedly under investigation after allegedly defrauding some members of the public. He was living with older siblings who did not enter their father’s bedroom during Kholo’s absence as he is said to be admitted to Mpilo Central Hospital.

The family was left in shock on Saturday morning when, after searching for Kholo everywhere, they found him hanging from the roof.

According to a mental wellness organisation Create Zim, Zimbabwe has the 13th highest suicide rate in the world amid reports that cases have been on the rise, making suicide the 14th leading cause of death in the country.

Suicide cases are increasing in Bulawayo especially among youths and police have called on people to consider counselling instead of resorting to suicide.

Mental wellness among men has become a public health concern considering the rising cases of depression and suicide in the country. A man’s masculinity is seen as closely tied to physical and emotional strength and invincibility which often hinders them from reaching out when in need of counselling.

Chronicle visited the Jamela family yesterday but they refused to comment only saying Kholo will be buried today. One of his uncles who identified himself as Mr Sibanda said the family would deliberate on whether to comment to the Press on the matter but were yesterday busy with burial arrangements.

Neighbours said the boy who was a pupil at Mandwandwe High School committed suicide using a rope.

Mr Khaliphile Nyoni said the boy was last seen leaving his home and his siblings assumed that he was missing.

“We are still in shock. This boy leaves us with heavy hearts and we cannot understand what really pushed him to end his life. Reports are that he was recently involved in fraud on EcoCash and police were looking for him which could have scared him into ending his life,” said Mr Nyoni.

He said the boy came from a respectable family and leaves many broken hearts in the community.

His father has been unwell and is admitted to a hospital which explains why he hanged himself in his bedroom knowing that no one would easily open it since his father was away. We hope the family will heal and that our children will remember that no amount of problems should push them to end life,” he said.

Another neighbour who chose anonymity said the boy did not leave a suicide note to at least help the family trace where his sorrows emanated from.

“We live in difficult times where people resort to suicide when faced with challenges. Kholo’s death should be a painful reminder that nothing is worth taking your life for. We feel for our neighbours who had to witness him hanging lifelessly from their father’s bedroom,” said the neighbour.

Acting Bulawayo spokesperson Assistant Inspector Nomalanga Msebele said the boy hanged himself in his bedroom, not in his father’s.

She said Kholo was last seen on October 7 by his brother after they had a conversation about builders.

“On October 7, 2020 at around 9AM, the informant last had a conversation with the deceased about builders who were supposed to construct the durawall at their place of residence. The informant is brother to the deceased and they were staying together,” said Asst Insp Msebele.

“Four days later on October 10, 2020 at around 1000 hours, Kholo’s brother knocked at his bedroom but there was no response. He discovered that it was locked from inside and used a screwdriver to open the door.”

According to Asst Insp Msebele police were notified and they attended the scene.

“Observations at the scene were that the deceased used a rope of about two metres long, green and white in colour to hang himself on the roof truss. The body was searched and nothing was found. The body was taken to Mpilo Central Hospital for post mortem,” she added.

Asst Insp Msebele said community leaders, church leaders and non-governmental organisations are ever willing to offer support and counselling to anyone in need of the services.

“We also encourage parents, guardians and school teachers to monitor the behaviour of those under their care, to question suspicious behaviour and try to control the situation before it reaches another level. As police we are also there to offer help because we cannot continue losing lives unnecessarily.”-statemedia

By A Correspondent- Mazowe rural district council has purchased new equipment for road maintenance from devolution funds an official has said.

The council engineer Cleopas Mupereki said they acquired a tipper and a backhaul loader at a cost of ZWL$ 3, 9 million.

“The cost of road maintenance in Mazowe had significantly reduced thanks to devolution funding which partly financed the purchase of a new tipper truck acquired at a cost of $3.9 million by the council,” he said.

He added that the new equipment has reduced costs since they no longer hire.

” We have managed to acquire a tipper truck and a backhaul loader that has lessened the cost of the project since we no longer hire equipment.”

Mazowe Rural District Council chairperson John Mudzonga hailed devolution saying they are managing their district from devolution funds.

Devolution funds have greatly assisted us in developing the district if we look at all the monies we realised as council they would not do much than we are doing with devolution funds,” Mudzonga said.

He heaped praises on President Emmerson Mnangagwa for bringing the devolution program.

“I would like to thank President Mnangagwa for bringing the devolution program this program should continue to assist councils in developing the country.

Residents of Concession welcomed road maintenance projects being conducted by the local authority.

“I have stayed here in Dandamera for 37 years and our roads were getting dilapidated day by day but with the consultative meetings on devolution funds being conducted by the council we have since prioritized road maintenance and that has really worked for us,” Ezra Bangwayo said.

Chipo Saidi said the new equipment will significantly assist them in road maintenance as their health was at risk from the dust roads.

“We were so much affected by dust and our health and that of the children was at risk but this road maintenance has significantly helped us,” she said.

By A Correspondent- The gruesome murder of a seven-year-old Murewa boy, Tapiwa Makore last month, has united the otherwise bitterly antagonistic parties ZanuPF and the MDC Alliance despite the father of the deceased being an opposition official.

Tapiwa’s father, Munyaradzi Makore, is MDC Alliance branch chairperson in Mutoko North.

Following the death of his son, Zanu-PF has been at the forefront through some politburo members among other top officials in visiting the family, while NewsDay is reliably informed that prominent officials from the opposition party in Harare are yet to visit one of their own.

MDC Alliance provincial youth organising secretary Sizemark Vilela confirmed that Munyaradzi was their party member.

“I confirm that Tapiwa’s father is our member. He is a branch chairperson in Murewa North,” Vilela said.

Last week, a number of top ZanuPF officials, including politburo members and Cabinet ministers, visited the Makore homestead to console the family.

Some of the officials include David Parirenyatwa, Senate president Mabel Chinomona, ministers Joel Biggie Matiza (Transport) and Monica Mutsvangwa (Information), among others.

The Zanu-PF women’s league vowed to hold a march against ritualists in support of the Makore family.

MDC Alliance provincial organising secretary Golden Mutize yesterday said some party officials had visited the homestead and helped foot the funeral costs.

“Munyaradzi Makore is one of our members. He is the Chinyani branch chairman. Remember that our branches are polling station-based. He is the one leading the mobilisation around that area. Some of our officials like Langton Matuku and Mukurazhizha have visited the Makore family. As a party, we have also contributed towards the funeral,” he said.

The remains of Tapiwa are yet to be interred as his head is still to be found.

Two suspects, Tafadzwa Shamba and the deceased’s uncle, 57-year-old Tapiwa Makore (senior), have since been arrested in connection with the suspected ritual murder.-Newsday

By A Correspondent- Parliament has warned the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture John Basera against withholding critical information on the beneficiaries of government programmes, including command agriculture, and threatened that he may face contempt of Parliament charges.

Basera has been snubbing the committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Settlement chaired by Gokwe-Nembudziya MP Justice Mayor Wadyajena by refusing to avail documents it requested.

In a letter dated October 6, 2020 from the Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda, Parliament cautioned Basera against failure to avail himself to answer to issues related to his ministry and gave him until today to respond or he faces action.

“The above-mentioned committee is currently inquiring into the financing of agricultural activities. The committee invited you to appear before it several times to brief the committee on the state of preparedness and financing of the 2020 winter cropping season and you did not come citing several reasons,” the letter read in part.

On June 30, 2020, you appeared before the committee and the committee requested you to submit a comprehensive list of beneficiaries guaranteed by government under the CBZ facility (command agriculture) for the current winter cropping season. During the same meeting and subsequent follow-ups by the committee clerk, you clearly mentioned that you will never provide that information to the committee.”

Chokuda said the committee was making a final request and he should provide the details without fail.

“To this end, the committee is requesting you to submit the following information without fail. Failure to submit the requested information will result in the preferement of contempt of Parliament charges,” Chokuda warned.

Parliament is requesting a comprehensive list of the beneficiaries of the command agriculture scheme guaranteed by government through the CBZ facility for the current winter cropping season and their details.

It is also requesting a comprehensive list of farmers or individuals who benefited from the ministry’s piggery project

By A Correspondent- A judge who recently granted bail to opposition MDC vice chairman Job Sikhala has been suspended by the Judicial Service Commission headed by Chief Justice Luke Malaba, ZimEye reveals.

Justice Erica Ndewere of the Harare High Court is accused of “misconduct and conduct inconsistent with being a judicial officer,” said Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs secretary Virginia Mabhiza.

The JSC has referred the matter to President Emmerson Mnangagwa to appoint a tribunal to “inquire into the question of removal from office of Justice Erica Ndewere,” Mabhiza added.

Sikhala, charged with incitement of violence, was granted bail on appeal by Justice Ndewere on September 22 after spending a month at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.

A day later, on September 23, legal commentator Alex Magaisa said he feared for Ndewere.

Magaisa wrote on Twitter:

“Don’t underestimate the courage of the judge who gave Job Sikhala bail. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suffers for it. When you do things against the system’s wishes, the system finds something to hit you with. Sooner or later you will hear they are investigating Justice Ndewere for this and that.”

Before delivering her judgement, sources told ZimLive that Ndewere “avoided the usual procedures and made sure the spies in the judicial structures didn’t have the judgement beforehand.”

Malaba was described as being “very unhappy” at the judge, which would have precipitated her suspension.

According to Magaisa, “individual judges are under pressure” to rule in favour of the government.

Ndewere is the second judge to be suspended after Justice Francis Bere of the Supreme Court had a tribunal appointed for him over allegations that he interfered in a civil case involving the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) and his relatives.

The tribunal sat without his input after he refused to cooperate following a refusal by the panel to have one of its members, Advocate Takawira Nzombe, recuse himself because of his alleged links to Harare lawyer Itayi Ndudzo, who was a key witness in the inquiry.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa described the anti-government protests that were planned for July 31, which Sikhala strongly agitated for, as an “insurrection”. His government has been accused of interfering with the legal system, particularly the lower courts, which routinely deny bail to human rights defenders and opposition activists.-

By Jane Mlambo| A member of the MDC Alliance pact, MDC-N led by Professor Welshman Ncube is fighting to have the Kuwadzana constituency seat which fell vacant following the death of Mirriam Mushayi.

The seat was allocated to Professor Ncube’s party in the 2018 elections but MDC-T members have already set their eyes on the seat.

In a letter to MDC Alliance Secretary General Charlton Hwende, Kurauone Chihwayi bemoaned the violation of the MDC Alliance agreement which he said is valid until 2023.

“I am strongly disturbed by the violation of a valid MDC Alliance agreement that expires in 2023, which gave the seat to the MDC led by Prof Welshman Ncube.

“As such, I expected the MDC to elect or choose one of its own to finish the term of office left by the late Hon. Miriam Mushayi,” Chihwayi said.

The MDC Alliance was already planning to hold primary elections to replace Mushayi in breach of the alliance agreement.

“I did not see the rationale of participating in a primary election with members of the then MDC-T in the MDC Alliance. I am a full member of the MDC Alliance by virtue of being a member of the MDC,” Chihwayi alluded.

Mushayi was a member of the MDC before her party joined the MDC Alliance in 2018.

By A Correspondent- President Emmerson Mnangagwa Monday told ZANU PF’s provincial executive members, comprising youths, women and war veterans’ wings that they risked suspension and or expulsion by engaging in vote-buying.

He speaks as the ruling party has embarked on a restructuring exercise that saw it holding elections to elect District Coordinating Committees.

He also speaks when the party is holding primary elections to elect party representatives in by-elections scheduled for December.

Speaking after the closed door meeting at the ruling party headquarters in Harare, ZANU PF’s Secretary for Administration, Obert Mpofu said the meeting was called by the president himself. He added: He (president Mnangagwa) also strongly spoke about the internal party procedures and regulations as they relate to elections, and that this cannot be equated to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) process, which is meant for all political parties. He said at no point should the party use ZEC regulations on an internal selection process, but should use the party’s constitution, party regulations as they are reviewed by the party from time to time.

We have a situation where people just emerge during elections, flogging and showing money to would-be voters or to the electorate to influence them to vote for a certain candidate of their choice or to those with money. That is unacceptable. It’s a dismissible offence.

The president’s remarks come as opposition MDC has for years claimed that the governing party was engaging in vote-buying to manipulate election results.

Last year, then Health Minister, Dr Obadiah Moyo was accused of using state resources to influence election results after he ordered NatPharm to divert medicines to Lupane East ahead of a by-election

ZimFact

ON October 7, The Herald reported that President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had raked Zimbabwe “among countries that instituted better mitigatory measures against the deadly disease (coronavirus)”.

According to the report: “Zimbabwe has been ranked number 102 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The rankings were crafted in such a manner that countries in the single digit category did not do well in fighting the pandemic while those with double digits did better and those with three digits did well.”

The newspaper quotes Mnangagwa, addressing business leaders who were donating towards Ekusileni Hospital, as saying: “Those with single digits didn’t do well. Those with double digits were better than those with single digits but Zimbabwe goes to the three digits. We are number 102.”

The Herald further quotes Mnangagwa saying that the “US was on number 1, Brazil 2, Russia 3, India 4, Britain 5 and South Africa 7” on this claimed ranking.

No evidence of WHO ranking

ZimFact could not find any evidence of such a ranking by the WHO.

The WHO publishes a live dashboard of global coronavirus cases. The dashboard provides an up-to-date tally of coronavirus cases around the world, based on data from governments. It also shows the most affected countries by number of confirmed cases.

As at October 11, the US had the highest number of cases with over 7 583 748 cases, followed by India with just over 7 million cases. Other countries listed among the 12 most affected are Brazil, Russia, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Peru, Mexico, South Africa, France and the United Kingdom.

The WHO does not, however, rank how countries have handled the pandemic, as claimed by Mnangagwa.

Conclusion
Mnangagwa’s claim that Zimbabwe has been ranked among the countries that have responded better to COVID-19 is false. There is no evidence of any such ranking by the WHO.

By A Correspondent- Three people were struck to death by lightning in Gokwe North since the onset of the rains amid fears that the development is witchcraft related.

The incidents took place in Chireya, Nemangwe and Mawere, sending the community in panic mode amid allegations that some unscrupulous members of the society are selling the rain magic to deal with perceived enemies.

Chief Nemangwe says the place is prone to lightning-related deaths but this season the situation has gone from bad to worse with a spirit appeasement exercise on the cards.

“Well, the aspect of lightning-related deaths is not new to Gokwe. However, this latest development has left us in a real catch 22 situations. We normally experience such in the middle of the rainy season not on the onset as we witnessed now. I have since summoned other traditional leaders so we have a Bira to appease the ancestors which are to be held on the 14th of this month at my homestead. Witchcraft can’t be ruled out under the circumstances,” he said.

Gokwe District Coordinating Chairperson, Mrs Netsai Mushauri, who is also head of the district’s Civil Protection Department confirmed the deaths and warned members of the community to adhere to safety standards during heavy rains.

“We have since received the news about the sad deaths involving the villagers. We, however, warn citizens against staying outdoors when it is raining. We usually experience cases of people being swept away by flooded rivers. People should be patient and wait for the water levels to subsidise before they cross such rivers to avoid the unnecessary loss of lives,” she said.

Among some precautions to minimise chances of being struck by lightning, people are urged to avoid touching water and electronic equipment when it is raining.-statemedia

Paul Nyathi

The Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) under Minister Constantino Chiwenga who is also the country’s Vice President has disclosed an unbelievable coronavirus situation in the country as of 12 October 2020.

The Ministry reports that 1 112 people recovered from the killer Covid-19 disease in just twenty four hours without revealing how the people recovered.

At this rate, the country is bound to have the world’s best Covid-19 control record.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has repeatedly said that the country will be relaxing Covid-19 restrictions as the recovery rate increases. We might then be posed to be getting our masks off soon.

Below are the figures produced by the Ministry:

New cases: 10
Deaths: 0
Recoveries: 1112
PCR Tests Done: 481
National Recovery Rate: 95.1% from 81%
Active Cases: 164
Total Cumulative Cases: 8021
Total Recoveries: 7627
Total Deaths: 230

Paul Nyathi

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has made an astonishing call on war veterans and ZANU PF structures to compile a list of all Non Governmental Organisations perceived to be working against the government.

Mnangagwa made the call while addressing chairpersons of Zanu PF provincial women, youths and war veterans at the party headquarters in Harare on Monday.

Mnangagwa assured his followers of his earlier threats to deregister Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operating outside their mandates.

“There are lots of registered NGOs in the country and through the Home Affairs and Social Welfare Ministries, we are going to look at the mandate of each NGO,” he said.

“So, the Minister of Home Affairs and Social Welfare, they will depend on you war veterans, youths and women party chairpersons to give them list of NGOs operating in your areas and their mandate because you are the ones on the ground.

“So, if we discover that it is operating outside its mandate. it will be deregistered.”

Mnangagwa has repeatedly said that his government will deregister civil society organisations which stray from their mandates to dabble in national politics.

He has also issued similar threats to western embassies accredited to the country warning them stop meddling in his country’s internal affairs by working with the NGOs.

The Zanu PF led government has not had the best of relations with both civil society and western embassies which have maintained close scrutiny on the excesses of the under-fire administration.

Paul Nyathi

ZANU PF leader President Emmerson Mnangagwa, yesterday warned senior officials against the use of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) voters’ roll in conducting primary and DCC elections.

Mnangagwa convened a special meeting with provincial executive members, comprising youths, women and war veterans’ wings, where he warned leaders against manipulating the party constitution by imposing preferred candidates through vote buying and the use of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) voters’ roll in conducting the elections.

In an interview with State Media after the closed door meeting at the party headquarters in Harare, Zanu PF secretary for Administration, Dr Obert Mpofu, said Mnangagwa urged provincial executive members to follow laid down party procedures at all times.

“It was a very important meeting, which was summoned by President Mnangagwa where he called all provincial chairpersons and their wings comprising the youth, women and the war veterans’ wings,” said Dr Mpofu.

“He also strongly spoke about the internal party procedures and regulations as they relate to elections, and that this cannot be equated to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) process, which is meant for all political parties. He said at no point should the party use ZEC regulations on an internal selection process, but should use the party’s constitution, party regulations as they are reviewed by the party from time to time,” said Dr Mpofu.

Apart from sticking to consitutionalism, Mnangagwa spoke against rigging through vote buying a method which his party uses very well at every national election.

“We have a situation where people just emerge during elections, flogging and showing money to would-be voters or to the electorate to influence them to vote for a certain candidate of their choice or to those with money. That is unacceptable. It’s a dismissible offence,” Dr Mpofu said.

The party is currently conducting DCC elections in the remaining eight provinces after the process was undertaken successfully in Harare and Bulawayo provinces.

Paul Nyathi

An average Zimbabwean can only afford to eat a single egg in an entire year instead of at least one per week due to economic hardships.

The country’s largest eggs producer, Irvine’s commercial director Anele Zunga revealed the sad scenario while making a donation of 3 000 eggs and 100kgs of chicken to Kudakwashe Children’s Home in Harare on Friday at a World Egg Day celebrations.

“We are the biggest producer of eggs in Zimbabwe, on an annual basis, we produce 250 million eggs, that is just about 17 eggs for every Zimbabwean.

“Ideally, you should be eating at least an egg every week but you would find there are families and children who actually cannot afford to eat eggs every week and they taste an egg once a year,” said Zunga.

“The ideal situation will be if every Zimbabweans could afford eggs because they have essential nutritional benefits.

“We chose this home because as a business, we believe in supporting the communities that we operate in. We are very motivated when we see such good work that Auntie Rachel and her team are doing.”

Kudakwashe Children’s Home, located to the South West of Chitungwiza, in the middle of Southlea Park, feeds an average 1 000 disadvantaged people.

It is home to 27 children of whom 17 are physically challenged.

State Media

Seven police officers, who threw teargas cannisters into a bus full of passengers at the Harare Exhibition Park yesterday afternoon, now have to account for their actions with one officer identified as having thrown a cannister already under arrest.

Passengers aboard a Rimbi Tours coach had to jump out through the windows with some falling hard on the tarmac. Some were injured as they fell while others will need to be checked for possible internal injuries.

Police had stopped the bus to question and possibly arrest the driver on allegations that he had no driver’s licence and had quarrelled with passengers.

Tear smoke is usually used to disperse violent or potentially violent groups in the open air, the objective being to make the group break up and those involved run away. It is not usually used in confined spaces or where those affected are basically innocent bystanders. In this case the police wanted to question just one person, the purported driver.

Police say they had information that the person in the driver’s seat had no Class One licence before asking him to open his window. When the driver resisted, a police officer then threw tear smoke cannisters into the bus.

It is not yet clear if the police officer had been instructed by superiors to do so.

In a video clip that went viral on social media yesterday, a group of seven police officers was seen blocking the yellow Rimbi Tours bus that was enveloped in smoke. The area is a major bus stop for passengers wanting to catch a bus for the western areas.

A police branded Datsun Go vehicle was seen parked behind the bus while a Mazda B18 single cab truck was blocking the bus in the front.

The seven officers were seen pushing and shoving passengers while men and women were jumping out of the bus through windows.

Police officers in the Datsun Go just drove off when large numbers of people intervened. People could be heard grumbling while others were shouting at the police in protest.

“Munourayisa vanhu mhani. Teargasi ndereyi pakadai (You will kill the people. Why are you using teargas under the circumstances).”

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed the use of tear gas saying one officer who was seen throwing a tearsmoke cannister had been arrested.

“I can confirm the arrest of one officer for deploying tear smoke on passengers seated in a Rimbi Tours bus this afternoon at Harare Showgrounds. Investigations are ongoing and more are likely to be arrested, depending on their roles in the commission of the offence,” he said.

“We will leave no stone unturned and even the commanders of that team must explain their cases. No one is above the law,” said Asst Comm Nyathi.

Asst Comm Nyathi said the officers will be charged, both under the Police Act, and in terms of the Criminal law.

But the purported driver’s alleged offence will not be overlooked in a separate investigation. “We have instructed the command in Harare province to take action against the officers,” he said.

However, Asst Comm Nyathi said the bus crew should explain why the bus was being driven by someone without the required licence. “We understand someone who is not licenced to drive was driving the bus and full scale investigations will cover the police officers and the bus crew,” he said.

Rimbi Tours director Mr Decent Rimbi could not explain why his bus was possibly being driven by someone without a Class One licence.

He however, condemned the police officers’ heavy-handedness saying they could have used other and safer means of arresting the driver.

“We got information that police officers asked the driver to open his window and he resisted. The person who was driving the bus is a Class Two driver. After the resistance, we had police then deciding to use tear smoke.

“I feel the police were too harsh on the driver to an extent of harming innocent passengers. Some passengers have asthma or other problems that are affected by teargas, hence the action taken was unwarranted.

“From my understanding, traffic offences do not warrant such actions. If the driver does not have relevant papers, he is arrested and barred from driving.

“If the problem lies with the bus’ paperwork or fitness, it can simply be impounded. Tear smoke was not appropriate under the given circumstances,” said Mr Rimbi.

Zimbabwe Passenger Transport Association secretary Mr Oliver Chibage condemned the actions of the police.

He however, urged bus operators to comply with police orders and the law.

“As an association, we condemn the act because tear smoke cannot be used on people who are not violent, worse still those confined in a bus.

“We work with the police and if a misunderstanding arises, it must be settled in a civil way,” he said.

Mr Chibage urged operators to comply with the law and to respect traffic officers on the road.

Paul Nyathi

High Court judge Justice Erica Ndewere will be facing a tribunal after the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) recommended to President Mnangagwa to set one up to look into her suitability to hold office.

Justice Ndewere is facing allegations of misconduct and conduct inconsistent with being a judicial officer.

Justice Ndewere last month bravely granted MDC Alliance vice-chairperson Job Sikhala $50 000 bail.

Sikhala is facing charges of inciting public violence. He had been in remand prison for weeks after he was denied bail at the magistrates’ court.

In her ruling, Ndewere attacked the police for using social media in their investigations instead of establishing their own independent probe.

She said Sikhala’s conduct was never that of a fugitive running from the law, but he was fleeing from unidentified men who were following him after police claimed he was fleeing arrest following a flimsy press statement issued by the police.

She blasted the police for using a vague press statement instead of calling Sikhala’s lawyer.

A day after giving her judgement, commentator Alex Magaisa said he feared for Ndewere.

Magaisa wrote on Twitter:

Her suspension from the bench over the yet to be disclosed misconduct will be automatic by operation of law once the tribunal is put in place.

Highly placed sources though indicate that Justice Ndewere could be in trouble for failing to provide her seniors with the Sikhala bail judgement before delivering it in court.

If the tribunal clears her, she returns to the bench; if the tribunal makes other findings and recommendations she could well lose her post. The tribunal is not a criminal court, but can report that certain conduct is not consistent with holding judicial office.

This brings to two the number of judges that have allegedly conducted themselves in a manner that constitutes judicial misconduct, and which calls for a tribunal hearing.

Supreme Court judge Justice Bere is on suspension pending the outcome of the tribunal that probed him and is now compiling its report to the President.

Secretary for Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mrs Virginia Mabhiza yesterday confirmed that JSC had referred the matter to President Mnangagwa, the appointing authority, for a judicial tribunal in terms of the Constitution.

“The JSC has referred to the President a recommendation to set up a tribunal to inquire into the question of removal from office of Justice Erica Ndewere, a High Court judge,” she said without giving details of the allegations levelled against the judge.

“A tribunal will be constituted very soon and in terms of the Constitution, the judge will be suspended once the tribunal has been set up.”

THE Gokwe North Community is living in fear after three people were struck to death by lightning since the onset of the rains.

A dark cloud is hovering around Gokwe North following the sad incidents with villagers now on each others’ throats, amid witchcraft accusations.

The incidents took place in Chireya, Nemangwe and Mawere, sending the community in panic mode amid allegations that some unscrupulous members of the society are selling the rain magic to deal with perceived enemies.

Chief Nemangwe says the place is prone to lightning-related deaths but this season the situation has gone from bad to worse with a spirit appeasement exercise on the cards.

“Well, the aspect of lightning-related deaths is not new to Gokwe. However, this latest development has left us in a real catch 22 situations. We normally experience such in the middle of the rainy season not on the onset as we witnessed now. I have since summoned other traditional leaders so we have a Bira to appease the ancestors which are to be held on the 14th of this month at my homestead. Witchcraft can’t be ruled out under the circumstances,” he said.

Gokwe District Coordinating Chairperson, Mrs Netsai Mushauri, who is also head of the district’s Civil Protection Department confirmed the deaths and warned members of the community to adhere to safety standards during heavy rains.

“We have since received the news about the sad deaths involving the villagers. We, however, warn citizens against staying outdoors when it is raining. We usually experience cases of people being swept away by flooded rivers. People should be patient and wait for the water levels to subsidise before they cross such rivers to avoid the unnecessary loss of lives,” she said.

Among some precautions to minimise chances of being struck by lightning, people are urged to avoid touching water and electronic equipment when it is raining.

IN a spine-chilling incident that left people in Village 4 under Chief Svosve in Hwedza shocked, a man axed his wife and two children to death after she allegedly told him, he was not the biological father of the kids.

Innocent Chakabuda, allegedly struck his wife twice on the back of her head before turning it on his two children following a heated domestic dispute sparked by suspicions of infidelity.

As if that was not enough, Chakabuda, downed pesticide in an attempt to take his own life after allegedly axing his wife Junior Dzonga, their children; Vongai and Anenyasha Chakabuda.

The incident occurred on September 8, 2019.

On the day in question, Chakabuda had a misunderstanding with his wife on the suspicion that she was having an extra-marital affair.

It was when his wife told him that he was not the biological father of their two children.

Irked by his wife’s words, he went on to grab an axe, struck her twice on the back of her head before turning it on their children, whom he also attacked twice each on the back of their heads.

Chakabuda was then arrested.

Yesterday, Chakabuda appeared at the High Court charged with three counts of murder.

Chakabuda, through his lawyer Mr Phanuel Mazhande of Mazhande Legal Practice, denied the charges when he appeared before Justice Erica Ndewere.

In his defence prepared by Mr Mazhande, Chakabuda challenged admission of his warned and cautioned statement saying he gave it after being coerced.

Mr Mazhande raised issues on Chakabuda’s sanity and applied that he be examined by two Government medical doctors before trial commences.

Justice Ndewere granted the application and ordered that Chakabuda returns to court on October 26 for trial.-The Herald

A SUSPECT who was allegedly part of a gang that killed a man in Mpopoma in a fight over a girlfriend has been arrested at a hideout in his rural home in Lupane, Matabeleland North Province
Rabson Tshuma (27) a self-employed carpenter at Manwele in Mzilikazi suburb, who was in the company of accomplices who are still at large, allegedly stabbed Bhekumuzi Nkomo (28) to death at an illegal house party at a shebeen in Mpopoma suburb.

Nkomo was stabbed with a knife in the chest and shoulder and he died on the spot.

Tshuma was not asked to plead when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Miss Nomagugu Maphosa charged with murder. He was remanded in custody to 15 October and was advised to apply for bail at the High Court.

The State’s case as presented by the prosecutor Mr Carrington Dhliwayo is that: “On the night of 4 October 2020, at 54/1693 in Mpopoma suburb the accused person who was in the company of his accomplices who are on the run were drinking beer at a shebeen where the now deceased was also a patron.”

The court heard that an altercation ensued between the accused persons and the deceased over one of the accused persons’ girlfriends. The scuffle degenerated into a fist fight and the accused person produced a knife and stabbed Nkomo once in the chest and once on the shoulder.

The accused and his accomplices, who are still on the run, fled from the seen. A post mortem was conducted and it was ascertained that the cause of death was haemorrhagic shock, chest (viscera) bleeding and chest stabbing.-Chronicle

ZANU PF First Secretary and Emmerson President, Mnangagwa, yesterday warned senior officials against breaching party rules and regulations when conducting District Coordinating Committee (DCC) and primary elections.

The President convened a special meeting with provincial executive members, comprising youths, women and war veterans’ wings, where he warned leaders against manipulating the party constitution by imposing preferred candidates through vote buying and the use of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) voters’ roll in conducting primary and DCC elections.

The stern warning comes at a time when the revolutionary party is investigating cadres who caused chaos in the Kwekwe Central constituency during primary elections on October 3, where prospective party candidates, Kandros Mugabe was battling it out with 26-year-old Cde Energy Dhala Ncube, in primary polls ahead of a by-election.

The primary elections were suspended indefinitely.

In an interview after the closed door meeting at the ruling party headquarters in Harare, Zanu PF secretary for Administration, Dr Obert Mpofu, said the President urged provincial executive members to follow laid down party procedures at all times.

The meeting, Dr Mpofu said, was called by President Mnangagwa to give direction to the party, especially the provincial leadership, on the appropriate mode of behaviour when conducting internal elections.

Dr Mpofu said the President directed all party leaders to be fully conversant with the party’s constitution as it relates to the election of party leaders. 

“It was a very important meeting, which was summoned by President Mnangagwa where he called all provincial chairpersons and their wings comprising the youth, women and the war veterans’ wings,” said Dr Mpofu.

At the meeting, President Mnangagwa condemned the imposition of candidates, saying the electorate should choose their preferred representatives.

“He also strongly spoke about the internal party procedures and regulations as they relate to elections, and that this cannot be equated to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) process, which is meant for all political parties.

He said at no point should the party use ZEC regulations on an internal selection process, but should use the party’s constitution, party regulations as they are reviewed by the party from time to time,” said Dr Mpofu.-The Herald

Farai Dziva|Teachers have rejected donations from fired Zanu PF MP Killer Zivhu.

In a joint statement, teachers unions described the donations as an insult to the noble profession.

Below is part of the joint statement released :

We are worried that His Excellency, President ED Mnangagwa, made remarks threatening teachers on industrial action before seeking engagement and remaining indifferent to the plight of the teachers.

Teachers are not for charity, but professionals who are only crying for dignified treatment, reasonable salaries and befitting conditions of service.

We are shocked by some acts of ‘benevolence’ in the form of food handouts by some misguided elements who want to hijack the teachers’ incapacitation for personal aggrandisement.

The nation should know that teachers in all public schools are not at work because the government has failed them and will not succumb to any threats.

Where there are incidents of teaching taking place, it is just cosmetic.

Police throw tear smoke into a bus full of children and elderly people…

Watch video below…

Farai Dziva|MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has pointed out that the dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

In a statement on Sunday, President Chamisa accused Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration of trampling on teachers’ fundamental rights.

See statement below:

I’m in Buhera where parents are extremely concerned about education and the dignity of students in schools.

Teachers must be paid real money and in $US.

Teachers must be capacitared and have decent conditions of service. The dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

Education is the backbone of any nation. Teachers are the conscience of society. A nation that neglects its education neglects its civilization.

A government that ignores its teachers ignores its future!

Farai Dziva|MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has implored Zimbabweans to remain steadfast in their quest for freedom from tyranny.

President Chamisa made the remarks at the funeral of MDC Alliance MP Hon Anna Myambo in Chitungwiza on Friday.

He took a swipe at Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa for using guns to silence dissenting voices.

Said President Chamisa: Mnangagwa is using guns to suppress the will of the people.Mnangagwa has guns and we have the people.

Don’t be intimidated, Mnangagwa cannot arrest the whole nation.

In Zimbabwe everyone is prison, Mnangagwa himself is in prison.”

He added:”(Thokozani) Khupe is playing with a snake.Wait and see you cannot play with a wild beast one day it will kill.Can you harness a snake’s eggs? It’s too risky – sadly that is what Khupe is doing.

Hon Myambo was a dedicated party cadre.This thing(recall) affected her.”

Farai Dziva|MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has implored Zimbabweans to remain steadfast in their quest for freedom from tyranny.

President Chamisa made the remarks at the funeral of MDC Alliance MP Hon Anna Myambo in Chitungwiza on Friday.

He took a swipe at Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa for using guns to silence dissenting voices.

Said President Chamisa: Mnangagwa is using guns to suppress the will of the people.Mnangagwa has guns and we have the people.

Don’t be intimidated, Mnangagwa cannot arrest the whole nation.

In Zimbabwe everyone is prison, Mnangagwa himself is in prison.”

He added:”(Thokozani) Khupe is playing with a snake.Wait and see you cannot play with a wild beast one day it will kill.Can you harness a snake’s eggs? It’s too risky – sadly that is what Khupe is doing.

Hon Myambo was a dedicated party cadre.This thing(recall) affected her.”

MEDICAL Doctors who were on strike have apologised for their misconduct with the government pardoning and allowing them to go back to their workstations.
It was indeed a rare moment when doctors in training who have been on an industrial action countrywide met Vice President Retired General Dr Constantino Chiwenga, who is also in charge of the health and child care portfolio.
Accompanied by the Chairperson in the Department of Health Professions Education at the university of Zimbabwe, like prodigal sons, the doctors admitted their misconduct and expressed remorse for their actions.
In a heart to heart talk, the vice president reminded the doctors that their professional mandate adding that they must value the sanctity of life in whatever action they decide to take.
Dr Chiwenga assured the doctors that government is committed to ensuring that health care workers are adequately remunerated.
Deputy minister of health and child care Dr John Mangwiro thanked the vice president for his understanding and giving the doctors in training a second chance to pursue their studies.
Members of the health services board were also in attendance.
Last year some doctors were dismissed from public health service for violating multiple labour provisions, leaving the Government with no option but to institute disciplinary action.
In August last year the Government through the Bipartite Negotiating Panel offered to review all health workers’ basic salaries by 50 to 76 percent on a sliding scale.
All health workers, junior doctors included were in agreement and signed the collective bargaining agreement on the understanding that negotiations centred on reviewing allowances would continue.
Government also made a commitment to look into the provision of transport for health workers and further review the cost of living adjustment in the fourth quarter of the year.
However, some doctors backtracked and disowned the agreement.

Watch the live video loading below……please be patient as it uploads

Members of the Welshman Ncube’s MDC which was incorporated into the MDC Alliance in the run up to the 2018 elections under the Alliance agreement are up in arms with the Nelson Chamisa led side to the Alliance over the Kuwadzana constituency by election candidate.

The Ncube led side went up in arms declaring that the seat was reserved for them as per a 2018 agreement.

The feuding led to former party spokesperson Kurauone Chihwayi withdrawing from contesting the primary elections declared by the Alliance.

In a letter to the MDC Alliance secretary general, Chalton Hwende, Chihwayi, expressed his disappointment in being forced into a contest with other MDC Alliance partners.

“I am strongly disturbed by the violation of a valid MDC Alliance agreement that expires in 2023, which gave the seat to the MDC led by Prof Welshman Ncube.

“As such, I expected the MDC to elect or choose one of its own to finish the term of office left by the late Hon. Miriam Mushayi,” Chihwayi said.

“I did not see the rationale of participating in a primary election with members of the then MDC-T in the MDC Alliance. I am a full member of the MDC Alliance by virtue of being a member of the MDC,” Chihwayi alluded.

He further said members of the then MDC-T should withdraw from the primary elections as a way of showing respect to the terms and conditions of the 2018 agreement.

The late Mushayi was a member of the MDC led by Welshman Ncube.

Paul Nyathi

Recalled ZANU PF Chivi South legislator Killer Zivhu has donated canoes to teachers at an undisclosed school for them to use to catch fish at Tokwi Mukosi Dam.

In the video below, Zivhu says he is donating the canoes to the teachers to catch fish at the Tugwi Mukosi dam and they can either eat the fish or sell them to sustain themselves.

Last week Zivhu also donated mealie meal and relish to some teachers.

Watch the video below:

State Media

Successful applicants for the six free to air national commercial television licences will be issued with licences to operate by the end of November.

This was revealed during the ongoing public inquiry via Zoom, for the provision of Free-to-air National Commercial Television Broadcasting Services, by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe. The public inquiry is done in this manner to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

The public inquiry commenced today, Monday October 12 and will end on Wednesday October 21.

BAZ Twitter page said: The Chair of Free-to-Air National Commercial Television Licensing Public Inquiry Commission Mr. Charles Sibanda revealed that successful applicants will be issued with licences by end of November 2020.”

He was speaking during the slot for Acacia Media where they laid out their case as to why the station should be considered.

Apart from Acacia Media there are other 13 applicants for the television channels, namely, AB Communications (Pvt) Ltd t/a Flex TV, Blackbury Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd t/a Blackbury TV, Conduit Investments (Pvt) Ltd t/a Conduit TV Station, Continental Television (Pvt) Ltd, Channel Dzimbahwe (Pvt) Ltd t/a Channel D, Fairtalk Communications (Pvt) Ltd t/a Keyona TV, Heart & Soul Broadcasting Services (Pvt) Ltd t/a HStv, Jester Media Services (Pvt) Ltd t/a 3KTV, Just in Time TV (Pvt) Ltd t/a JIT TV, Medianet Productions (Pvt) Ltd t/a Sunrise TV, Meditation Investments (Pvt) Ltd t/a Zim news Channel, Rusununguko Media (Pvt) Ltd t/a NRTV and Zimpapers (1980) Limited t/a ZTN.

IOL

Taxpayers forked out more than R100 000 for what has now been dubbed a ’joyride’ to Zimbabwe for ANC officials.

On Monday, the DA questioned whether the amount of R105 545 was accurate as it excluded other expenses.

Last month, the trip made headlines after it was found that ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule and Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu had piggybacked on a ride to Zimbabwe. Initially, only Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula had been given permission to travel to Zim using the state’s Air Force jet.

The DA’s Kobus Marais said they were of the view that the trip has been grossly under-calculated.

“The R86 000 per hour confirmed by the Minister of Defence to President Cyril Ramaphosa excluded the costs related to landing rights and parking of the Falcon 900 for nearly 24 hours, the costs related to onboard food and drinks as well as the costs related to pilots and onboard staff. In addition, the official passenger list indicated the Minister plus six members of the ANC’s NEC were on board, which correlates with the seven people she indicated in her letter to her Zimbabwean counterpart on 7 September 2020 when she requested a visit to Harare,” Marais said.

The DA has written to National Treasury to ascertain whether Finance Minister Tito Mboweni was consulted prior to going on the trip.

Marais said the Defence Act is clear, Section 80(3)(a)(i) states that, the Minister of Defence must first consult the Minister of Finance before allowing conveyance of any person who is not an officer or employee of the State on board a SAAF aircraft.

“However, there is no reference in any of the two reports submitted by Minister Mapisa-Nqakula to President Cyril Ramaphosa of any consultation with the Finance Minister. If, as we suspect, Minister Mboweni was not consulted, then the use of the SAAF jet by the ANC delegation results in irregular, wasteful and unauthorised expenses,” he said.

He said they want to know what steps Treasury will take against Minister Mapisa-Nqakula and the ANC’s blatant and unauthorised abuse of State resources.

“Additionally, as far as the costs are concerned, the DA wants to know if Treasury was consulted by Minister Mapisa-Nqakula to determine a reasonable amount the ANC must pay back for abusing State resources,” he said.

ZBC

PARLIAMENT is requesting information regarding beneficiaries of the Government guaranteed scheme for winter cropping season as well as the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement’s piggery scheme for this year.

In a letter written by Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Dr John Basera, parliament through the parliamentary portfolio committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement chaired by Gokwe Nembudziya legislator Justice Mayor Wadyajena is requesting names of beneficiaries under the CBZ facility.

“The above-mentioned committee is currently inquiring in to the financing of agricultural activities. The committee invited you to appear before it several times to brief the committee on the state of preparedness and financing of 2020 winter cropping season and you did not come citing several reasons.

“On the 30th of June, 2020, you appeared before the committee and the committee requested you to submit a comprehensive list of beneficiaries guaranteed by government under the CBZ facility (Command Agriculture) for the current winter cropping season. During the same meeting and subsequent follow ups by the committee clerk, you clearly mentioned that you will never provide that information to the committee,” reads part of the letter.

Clerk of Parliament also warned Dr Basera on the consequences to be faced for failure to avail the rested information.

“To this end the committee is requesting you to submit the following information without fail. Failure to submit the requested information will result in the preferment of charges of contempt of parliament: Comprehensive list of beneficiaries of the Command Agriculture Scheme guaranteed by Government through the CBZ facility for the current winter cropping season and their contact details; Comprehensive list of farmers or individuals who benefitted under the Ministry ‘s Piggery Project in 2020,” reads part of the letter.

Contacted for comment on the issues raised by Parliament, Dr Basera did not answer his mobile phone.

Government has partnered with local banks for the funding of the winter cropping season which has been described as successful considering the number of hectares cultivated under wheat this year compared to previous years.

This year through the help of financial institutions, the country planted 41 000 hectares of wheat compared to 29 000 hectares of the crop last year.

Business Day

SA has much to answer for the sorry state Zimbabwe is in. Back in 2002, so much was riding on the Movement for Democratic Change( MDC) led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai being able to beat Robert Mugabe at the polls.

Tsvangirai said the night before the result was announced he was visited by the SA observer mission leaders, Brigalia Bam and Sam Motsuenyane, who told him he had won. So it came as a big shock when the wily Mugabe was announced as winner — and the election was declared free and fair. Patricia de Lille was part of the SA parliamentary observer mission and later said when she left the Sheraton Hotel in Harare each morning she saw many of her fellow MPs sitting in the foyer. They were usually sitting in the same comfortable chairs when she returned at the end of the day. In short, they failed to do their duty.

Justices Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke conducted the SA judicial review, which concluded that the poll was not free and fair. But government refused to allow public access to the report until 2014 and only released it after the Mail & Guardian repeatedly appealed to the courts. By then another couple of elections had come and gone with increased levels of brutality, the decimation of the farming community and millions of Zimbabweans fleeing their country for the perceived greener pastures of SA. Tsvangirai was arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges of treason and would certainly have gone to the gallows had it not been for the heroic efforts of the late George Bizos to secure his acquittal. Subsequent elections in 2008, 2013 and 2018 were marked with the same degree of brutality.

After the 2008 poll, which was particularly bloody and SA and Sadc observer missions yet again declared free and fair, Tsvangirai was forced into forming a government of national unity with Zanu-PF. Like Joshua Nkomo, who was forced into a unity government with Mugabe in 1987 to stop the genocide of the Matabele, Tsvangirai thought it the only way to stop the bloodshed and the downward spiral of the of the economy. While the unity government existed peace prevailed and the economy recovered to a degree, thanks to the fiscal management of Tendai Biti, who dollarised the economy. For a short time Zimbabwe flourished as a third world country with a first world currency.

The 2013 poll saw the end of the unity government as the MDC prepared to contest the election. Tsvangirai’s campaign saw him traversing Zimbabwe in his red bus, with “Morgan is More” emblazoned on the side. He did not lose the election in terms of popularity with the electorate, but lost it due to a grossly inflated voters roll that contained the names of tens of thousands of people who had died or emigrated. Tsvangirai beat Mugabe at the initial polls winning 47.9% against Mugabe’s 43.2%, forcing a runoff. But he withdrew from the second campaign following an exceptionally bloody campaign by Zanu-PF forces that targeted MDC voters.

Eventually, in August 2017, not long before his untimely death, Tsvangirai decided it was time to unite all opposition parties under a new properly registered and constituted party, the MDC Alliance. He would lead it and Nelson Chamisa would be his deputy. MDC-T would continue as a stand-alone party and Thokozani Khupe, appointed in 2014, would remain as its deputy.

Tsvangirai felt he was allowed to appoint new deputy presidents as at the 2014 MDC Congress a motion was moved and passed that the party president would be allowed to appoint other officers as he saw fit. The secretary-general of the party at the time was Douglas Mwonzoro, who failed, possibly deliberately, to do his duty by recording the minutes of congress, which it turns out has been to his advantage as he now sits firmly in the Khupe camp. This recently came back to bite Chamisa and the MDC Alliance.

The subsequent disputed 2018 poll clearly demonstrated that Zanu-PF was up to its old tricks again. Khupe only garnered a little more than 45,000 votes, while Chamisa, according to votes recorded by photographing signed off results papers at individual polling stations and collated at the alliance headquarters, got more than two-million, more than enough to become president of Zimbabwe and form a new democratic government. But the official results posted by the electoral commission told a different story. Chamisa won 44.3%, Mnangagwa 50.8% and Khupe, now installed as the official leader of the opposition, just 3.42%.

But Khupe is hungry for power and has done everything she can to nullify the validity of Chamisa’s presidency of the MDC Alliance in court. What people do not realise is that Khupe was elected vice-president of the MDC T in 2014 for a period of only five years. This expired in July, a fact the Harare High Court ignored when it handed down its judgment at the end of August nullifying Chamisa’s presidency of the MDC Alliance, which Khupe has now hijacked as her own. Khupe has been in cahoots with Zanu-PF for some time.

Backing this assertion up, and reminiscent of Bell Pottinger’s white monopoly capital campaign funded by the Guptas, is the fact that Zanu-PF pays a Washington PR company, Mercury, $1.5m a year to promote Khupe as the leader of the official opposition. The reality is that Zanu-PF is trying to put lipstick on the pig, aiming for a de facto one-party state under the guise of democracy.

What is encouraging is that Khupe has little support, despite hijacking the MDC Alliance as her own, is busy firing MPs and city councillors and has been captured in a Twitter video saying she is in politics because “It’s all about getting money. We are doing this for the money”.

Chamisa will bounce back. He has a loyal following among democracy hungry Zimbabweans that transcends tribal affiliations He will rebrand and rebuild an inclusive party that will most certainly win an election provided it is free and fair.

It is time for Cyril Ramaphosa to act, not only as the president of SA, Zimbabwe’s most important neighbour, but as the current president of the AU. He needs to know that Zimbabwe is in greater peril that it ever has been before, and that the adverse impact it has been having on SA will escalate. He needs to get independent negotiators who will listen to all parties about the situation in Zimbabwe. When Lindiwe Zulu visited Zimbabwe recently with ANC hangers-on, she was reportedly told by Zanu-PF not to speak to Chamisa, despite his efforts to arrange a meeting. This has to stop. We now need an honest broker.

• Hudleston is a Zimbabwe-born journalist and author of The Face of Courage, a 2006 biography on Morgan Tsvangirai.

GOVERNMENT is impressed with implementation of COVID-19 mandatory health protocols at the country’s airports following the resumption of domestic and international flights.

This comes as Zimbabwe opened its airspace two weeks ago to allow free movement of goods and human traffic after months of a COVID-19 induced national lockdown.

The resumption of flights does not however mean laxity, as government remains on high alert to ensure the consolidation of strides achieved in containing the virus.

It is against this background that the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Senator Monica Mutsvangwa, was at Robert Gabriel Mugabe international airport this Monday to assess the implementation of government directives in respect of COVID-19 mandatory health Protocols.

According to the Director of Airports, Mr Tawanda Gusha, Covid-19 containment measures put in place have so far been encouraging without any incidences.

“ Since flights resumed we have had 30 per cent load factor and the numbers have been increasing each passing day as we try to contain the pandemic, he said.

After an assessment tour of the country’s biggest airport, Senator Monica Mutsvangwa was left satisfied that the responsible authorities have put in place all the necessary precautionary measures to ensure a safe environment.

“I am here on a tour of the airport and I have assessed the situation here and I am happy to report that travellers are showing confidence with protocols with regards to preventive and control measures taking place here in line with World Health Organisation and government regulations,” said the Minister.

Demonstration of ease of doing business is also being exhibited at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport health centre where three laboratories have a testing turnaround time of not more than two and half hours.

By A Correspondent| The Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services has announced that the seven police officers who fired tear cannisters inside a loaded bus at Showground today have been arrested and will be charged.

This was revealed on Twitter after the video of the incident went viral on social media this afternoon.

“Govt has been made aware of an incident at Harare Showgrounds where a team of 7 officers have been arrested for deploying tear smoke in an occupied bus. They will face charges. The crew of the bus has also been arrested as the bus in question was being driven by a tout,” the ministry said.

Government says seven police officers have been arrested following a shocking incident that occurred at the Harare Showgrounds pickup point in which Zimbabwe Republic Police officers threw teargas in an occupied bus.

This was tweeted by the Ministry Of Information, Publicity and broadcasting services late Monday afternoon.

More details to follow.

Former Zanu PF Mashonaland Central youth chairperson Godfrey Tsenengamu will spend another night in custody after Harare regional magistrate Mr Ngoni Nduna said he was yet to complete his bail ruling.

Mr Nduna said he should be done by tomorrow morning.

Tsenengamu initially appeared in court on Saturday on incitement to commit public violence with an alternative charge of incitement to participate in a public gathering with intend to commit public

violence.

Tsenengamu was among 14 political activists, including MDC-Alliance deputy chair Job Sikhala and Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) president Obert Masaraure, who were on the police wanted list for inciting public violence.

He handed himself over to the police on Friday.

HIGH Court Judge Justice Evangelista Kabasa has stopped the primitive ill-treatment of a widow, Manesi Ncube by interdicting a local traditional leader and a Councillor from evicting her from homestead in Mpoyi village in Plumtree.

Ncube was in August 2020 ordered to leave her village following allegations by some community members that she neglected her sick child and left her to die in her homestead.

Aggrieved by the irrational decision, Ncube approached Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) for legal assistance and this led Shepherd Chamunorwa of ZLHR to file an urgent chamber application at Bulawayo High Court seeking an order to interdict Headmen Madlambuzi known as Fidzani Ndlovu and Witness Ncube, the Councillor for Ward 12 in Hingwe, Plumtree in Matabeleland South province, from evicting her.

During the court hearing, it emerged that Ncube’s daughter, who had passed away, was actually an adult person, who was married to a man who also resides in the same village. The man decided to take Ncube’s daughter back to her mother when she became seriously ill.

At some time, Ncube being a widow and having other minor children to look after, decided to travel to Botswana in search of employment to fend for her children.

While she was in Botswana, her adult, married daughter passed away. On her return home to bury her daughter, Ncube discovered that she had been buried and the community had taken a resolution that she was irresponsible and should be evicted from the village.

A traditional court was convened at the beginning of August 2020, and it was decided by the community leadership that she must vacate by 31 August 2020.

As the court proceedings were underway, it was discovered that Ward 12 Councillor Ncube assisted by other villagers had destroyed one of Ncube’s houses at her homestead.

However, the destruction and eviction has since been stopped by Justice Kabasa, who interdicted Ndlovu and Ncube from evicting the widow and also ordered them to restore her to her homestead.

Ndlovu and Ncube were also barred from harming the widow or her children physically or destroying or demolishing her homestead.

Chamunorwa has also assisted Ncube to report the destruction of her property at the local police station and is currently awaiting the outcome of investigations by Zimbabwe Republic Police members.-ZLHR

Farai Dziva|MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has pointed out that the dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

In a statement on Sunday, President Chamisa accused Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration of trampling on teachers’ fundamental rights.

See statement below:

I’m in Buhera where parents are extremely concerned about education and the dignity of students in schools.

Teachers must be paid real money and in $US.

Teachers must be capacitared and have decent conditions of service. The dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

Education is the backbone of any nation. Teachers are the conscience of society. A nation that neglects its education neglects its civilization.

A government that ignores its teachers ignores its future!

HIGH Court Judge Justice Evangelista Kabasa has stopped the primitive ill-treatment of a widow, Manesi Ncube by interdicting a local traditional leader and a Councillor from evicting her from homestead in Mpoyi village in Plumtree.

Ncube was in August 2020 ordered to leave her village following allegations by some community members that she neglected her sick child and left her to die in her homestead.

Aggrieved by the irrational decision, Ncube approached Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) for legal assistance and this led Shepherd Chamunorwa of ZLHR to file an urgent chamber application at Bulawayo High Court seeking an order to interdict Headmen Madlambuzi known as Fidzani Ndlovu and Witness Ncube, the Councillor for Ward 12
in Hingwe, Plumtree in Matabeleland South province, from evicting her.

During the court hearing, it emerged that Ncube’s daughter, who had passed away, was actually an adult person, who was married to a man who also resides in the same village. The man decided to take Ncube’s daughter back to her mother when she became seriously ill.

At some time, Ncube being a widow and having other minor children to look after, decided to travel to Botswana in search of employment to fend for her children.

While she was in Botswana, her adult, married daughter passed away. On her return home to bury her daughter, Ncube discovered that she had been buried and the community had taken a resolution that she was irresponsible and should be evicted from the village.

A traditional court was convened at the beginning of August 2020, and it was decided by the community leadership that she must vacate by 31 August 2020.

As the court proceedings were underway, it was discovered that Ward 12 Councillor Ncube assisted by other villagers had destroyed one of Ncube’s houses at her homestead.

However, the destruction and eviction has since been stopped by Justice Kabasa, who interdicted Ndlovu and Ncube from evicting the widow and also ordered them to restore her to her homestead.

Ndlovu and Ncube were also barred from harming the widow or her children physically or destroying or demolishing her homestead.

Chamunorwa has also assisted Ncube to report the destruction of her property at the local police station and is currently awaiting the outcome of investigations by Zimbabwe Republic Police members.

By A Correspondent- A Harare magistrate has ordered the imprisonment of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage minister Kazembe Kazembe for 60 days for contempt of court.

Kazembe failed to compensate a Gweru student, Simon Mandoza, for $199 500 for injuries suffered following a savage assault by police officers in 2018.

Magistrate Tilda Mazhande gave the minister a two-week ultimatum to pay or he would have to serve 60 days in prison.

Mandoza’s lawyers Fiona Iliff and Obey Shava, from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, then applied and obtained an order for Kazembe’s incarceration which was granted by the court.

“It is ordered that in default, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kazembe Kazembe be and are hereby declared to be in contempt of court in that they have wilfully disregarded the order of this honourable court issued on 20 November 2019 by magistrate Mazhande,” reads the order.

“The fourth respondent (Kazembe) be sentenced to 60 days imprisonment, the whole of which is suspended for 14 days on condition that in his official position as the Minister of Home Affairs, he causes payment of the judgment debt of $199 500 together with interest at the prescribed rate from the date of summons to the date of full payment.”

The order said should Kazembe fail to comply, he shall immediately be committed to prison to serve the sentence imposed by Mazhande.

The police arrested Mandoza on September 20, 2018 while he was standing outside a fast-food outlet in Harare’s central business district (CBD) waiting for his brother to pick him up.

He was not aware that the police were carrying out an operation against informal traders in the CBD at that time.

As a result, Mandoza was slapped by a police officer and forced to get into the back of a police vehicle.

While they were in the vehicle, the same police officer beat Mandoza with his truncheon on the shoulder and at the back of his head, while he threatened to further assault him.

He was finally taken to Harare Central Police Station, where he was released without any charge preferred against him.-Newsday

Watch the live video loading below…… please be patient as it uploads

By A Correspondent- Citizens here have expressed shock at a video which is showing police details throwing a teargas canister inside a bus full of passengers some of whom included children.

In the video, several passengers fell out of the bus through the windows risking being crashed by oncoming traffic while escaping from the teargas smoke.

A man commenting on the development in the video also alleged that a female police officer threw the teargas canister inside the Rimbi bus which was ferrying passengers.

It could however not be immediately established when and what time the incident occured but suggestions are that the incident occurred at a pick up point near Harare Show Grounds.

Watch the live video loading below… (please be patient as it uploads)

watch the live video loading below…..(please be patient as it uploads)

By A Correspondent- Teachers’ representative groups on Sunday jointly expressed concern over President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s remarks with regards to teachers’ salaries and condition of service.

The president had assured the nation that the “government will never be held to ransom by teachers” who were failing to report for duty in a bid to push government “to do what they want.”

Teachers responded in a joint statement saying they were not deterred by threats since “incapacitation is greater than any threat.” 

Read the statement in part:

We are worried that His Excellency, President ED Mnangagwa, made remarks threatening teachers on industrial action before seeking engagement and remaining indifferent to the plight of the teachers. Teachers are not for charity, but professionals who are only crying for dignified treatment, reasonable salaries and befitting conditions of service.

We are shocked by some acts of ‘benevolence’ in the form of food handouts by some misguided elements who want to hijack the teachers’ incapacitation for personal aggrandisement. The nation should know that teachers in all public schools are not at work because the government has failed them and will not succumb to any threats. Where there are incidents of teaching taking place, it is just cosmetic.

Salary negotiations between the government and teachers did not yield expected results as teachers viewed offers by the government as insignificant in light of the soaring inflation.

The government recently reviewed the cost of living adjustment by 40 percent but teachers still refused to return to work.

Workers are on average earning an equivalent of US$35 which is below the poverty datum line.

Meanwhile, learners are reportedly engaging in mischievous acts as there few teachers (29%) in schools to be monitoring them.-Newsday

Farai Dziva|MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has pointed out that the dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

In a statement on Sunday, President Chamisa accused Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration of trampling on teachers’ fundamental rights.

See statement below:

I’m in Buhera where parents are extremely concerned about education and the dignity of students in schools.

Teachers must be paid real money and in $US.

Teachers must be capacitared and have decent conditions of service. The dignity of the teaching profession must be restored.

Education is the backbone of any nation. Teachers are the conscience of society. A nation that neglects its education neglects its civilization.

A government that ignores its teachers ignores its future!

By A Correspondent- Zimbabwean national Blessing Bveni will appear in the Cape Town high court this morning when he is set to start his defence.

Bveni is accused of murdering two people in the Table Mountain National Park and attacking 10 others during a spate of violent attacks in the park in early 2018.

He is also accused of using a fake Zimbabwean passport to gain temporary asylum in SA.

Fifty-year-old pilot Doug Notten was stabbed to death by a “kind-eyed” killer on February 20 2018 while he was walking on a mountain path near Fish Hoek. His wife, Julia, who was with him at the time, escaped unharmed.

“When he approached us, I thought he was a good-looking man. He had beautiful, kind eyes. But when he pulled out a knife, his eyes turned into slits and his whole face turned to anger and he just started stabbing Doug, repeatedly,” said Julia.

A few weeks later in March 2018, cyclist Ian McPherson was stabbed to death a few hundred metres from where Notten was killed. McPherson’s new mountain bike was stolen in the incident.

A SANParks master tracker arrived on the scene and tracked the stolen bicycle’s tyre tracks over the sand dunes, leading past an infrared camera of a residential complex. The black and white image revealed what police say was the culprit pushing a bicycle minutes after McPherson was attacked. The man was wearing a V-neck shirt.

McPherson’s bicycle and cellphone were tracked down to Masiphumelele, a nearby informal settlement, and when police interrogated the vendors who were selling the items, they said they bought the items from a Zimbabwean named Blessing. Police tracked down Blessing to a home in Philippi East where they arrested him.

Watch the video for a full recap of how the police and prosecution believe Bveni pounced on his victims.

-TimesLive

By A Correspondent- Industry and Commerce Deputy Minister Raj Modi has dismissed as fake and shocking reports which suggested that he was operating a plant that brews an illicit brand called “The Commander In Chief.”

Modi claimed that all his alcoholic beverages are approved by the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) adding the reports are inspired by a motive to undo his “good name.” He said:

I was shocked to wake up to news that I manufacture and sell an illicit beer called Commander In Chief.

I have no idea what inspired that story because it is not only false but malicious. This is a figment of someone’s imagination. I don’t make alcohol which is not approved by the Standard Association of Zimbabwe.

I challenge whoever came up with those allegations to prove that I manufacture such a product. Where do I manufacture it? Does it even exist? I doubt because I have not come across it.

Modi said he legally manufactures three alcoholic products namely Modivine Brandy, Everest Can Spirit and Divine Vodka.  challenging those who have complaints about their quality to come forward.

By A Correspondent- There has been a three car pile up accident along Samora Machel in Harare.

The accident occured this morning at a curve near Cresta Lodge.

One of the vehicles overturned.

This is a developing story.

By A Correspondent- With the rising cost of electricity, there has been increased interest in splitting electricity meters by landlords and tenants.

A split meter allows each family within a property to split their electricity consumption. This way, they only pay for the electricity that they use an no one else’s. it also works for businesses in solving a situation where several companies within a premises are sharing a single meter.

Representing a company that retails and installs prepaid electricity meters, *Power Split Meters,* Mr. Herbet Chibhememe said they have seen an increase in demand for the solution as more people become aware of its benefits. “People are now realising that this issue of sharing electricity consumption is not sustainable. Electricity is now quite expensive and people are opting to just get split meters so that they just pay for what they use as a family or business.

Even those that are tenants are getting these meters because even when they decide to move to a new place, they can take their electricity split meter with them.

It just makes sense when you think about. Those that use less electricity should pay less and high spenders should pay more. Having a situation where everyone pays the same is unfair.”

Mr. Chibhememe said that their company has been helping customers move to prepaid meters for close to 5 years now.

He explained:

“Some are only getting to know about us now but we’ve been providing this solution for almost 5 years now. Electricity is now expensive – people are actively looking for a solution to manage these costs better. Even for families that are sharing a single house, they can buy a split meter and separate their consumption”

Power Split Meters can be contacted on WhatsApp number +263 777 556 864 or +263 779 136 276