President Mugabe has proclaimed March 27 as the date for by-elections in Mount Darwin West and Chirumanzu-Zibagwe parliamentary constituencies. The two seats fell vacant following the elevation of Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa (Chirumanzu -Zibagwe) to the post of Vice President on December 10 last year and Cde Joice Mujuru (Mt Darwin West) when she assumed the same Government post on September 11, 2013.
Cde Mujuru has since been fired for behaviour inconsistent with her official responsibilities in the discharge of her duties, including plotting to kill the President.
President Mugabe announced the new date in an extraordinary Government Gazette published on Saturday, saying the nomination courts would sit on January 29 to receive nomination papers of interested candidates for the two constituencies.
The President said in terms of section 46 of the Electoral Act (Chapter 2:13) the nomination courts would sit at the Magistrates Court, Main Street, Bindura and the Magistrates Courts Main Street, Gweru.
“Whereas as it is provided by section 39 (2) of the Electoral Act (Chapter 2:13), that after the President has been notified in terms of the said section of a vacancy among the constituency members of the National Assembly, he shall issue a proclamation ordering a new election to fill the vacancy in the same manner, mutatis mutandis, as is provided in section 38 of the Act in regard to a general election;
“And whereas it is provided by section 129 (1) (c) of the Constitution that the seat of a Member of Parliament becomes vacant upon the member becoming President or Vice President;
“And whereas the speaker of the National Assembly has notified me in writing of vacancies in the National Assembly due to the successive appointments to the office of Vice President of Joice Mujuru, who was the elected member of the National Assembly for Mount Darwin West constituency and Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa who was the elected Member of the National Assembly for the Chirumanzu – Zibagwe constituency;
“Now, therefore, under and by virtue of the powers vested in the President as afore said, I do by this proclamation: order new elections for the constituencies of Mount Darwin West and Chirumanzu – Zibagwe, fix Friday 27th March 2015 as the day on which a poll shall be taken if a poll become necessary in terms of section 46 (17) (c) of the Electoral Act (Chapter 2: 13) for the election of Members of the National Assembly for the constituencies of Mount Darwin West and Chirumanzu-Zibagwe.”
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act of 2013 that deals with the tenure of seat of a Member of Parliament stipulates that, “the seat of a Member of Parliament shall become vacant upon the Member becoming President or Vice President.’’
Cde Mujuru was, thus, going to Parliament as Vice President, not as Member of Parliament.
Cde Mnangagwa’s National Assembly seat automatically became vacant by operation of the law when he assumed the Office of Vice President of Zimbabwe last month.
The pair does not qualify for the by-elections because in terms of Section 103 of the Constitution, they cannot be legislators let alone hold any other form of employment.
Reads the section: “The President and Vice President, and any former President or Vice-President , must not, directly or indirectly, hold any other public office or be employed by anyone else while they are in office or are receiving a pension from the State as former President or Vice-President, as the case may be.’’
At law, Vice Presidents are not Members of Parliament, although they can sit there for debate, be leader of the House, conduct business there, but they do not vote.
While there has been speculation in some quarters as to what would become of VP Phelekezela Mphoko within 90 days if he did not find a seat, the same constitutional provision that strips VPs of their membership of the legislature means VP Mphoko does not need a seat to sit in the August House or retain his post as Vice President of Zimbabwe.
Cde Mphoko was last month appointed as the second Vice President. -Herald

In a bizarre case set to shock the local Christian community, a top Vapositori preacher based in Budiriro , Madzibaba Enock of Johane Masowe YeChishanu has emotionally sought a Police Order to arrest and as claimed, “expose” Harare preachers Walter Magaya, Emmanuel Makandiwa and Uebert Angel’s powers, he says are allegedly “fraudulent”.
Madzibaba Enock who has approached local police officers, says he can reveal to the law enforcement agents the true source of the prophets’ so called “powers”.
The self styled “prophets”, Madzibaba Enock said, will be visited by a police escort under his guide to expose them as fraudsters.
He said he “knows the source of for instance Magaya’s powers hence he knows how to deal with them,” adding that he will “do what he knows to expose the powers.”
He then declared war “on Magaya, Makandiwa and Angel” labelling them “agents of Lucifer who are only there to take money from poor congregants.”
He said he wants to go head on with Magaya and expose his source of powers and announced he has ordered his Vadare Team to promptly get a Police order.
Madzibaba Enock said “the time is now for Zimbabwe to know the truth about these so called men of God”.
“Kutaura kwevanhu ndekwevanhu kwaMwari ndekwaMwari isu venyama hatizvigone,” he said.
While it was not clear if the police will entertain the police order request, legal analysts said the move will not see the light of day as there is under the circumstances no legal basis Madzibaba Enock can rely upon to arrest the prophets.

ZimEye.com is receiving information from Budiriro that violence broke out on Sunday afternoon when ZANU PF activists rose to attack three MDC-T members.
This was during a meeting by the Budiriro MP and one activist known as “Archway,” was brutally assaulted with a metal object while the MP, who is the MDC-T MP Costa Machingauta was watching.
Machingauta is the MDC-T deputy youth chairperson.
Efforts to get a comment from the MDC-T party were fruitless at the time of writing and messages had not been replied to.
Meanwhile below was the submission sent in colloquial Shona:
“Ku Budiriro 4 kwaita mhirizhonga iyo yakonzerwa nema youth e ZANU PF.
“Kwakuvara vanhu vatatu ve MDC-T. Vakuvara ava vatakurwa ndivo vanhu ve ZANU. Mumwe chete akuvara zvakanyanyisa, “Archway” nesimbi.
“Izvi zvaitika MP we Budiriro, above we MDC -T akatarisa.
“MP angaachiita musangano patanga mhirizhonga iyi.
“Vanzwikwa vachitaura kuti varwadziwa nekumba vanhu ve MDC nokunwa kwavange vachaita doro.”

Former Deputy Justice minister and Mazowe South legislator, Fortune Chasi has become the first senior ZANU PF bigwig to openly speak against Grace Mugabe’s violent evictions of Manzou Farm villagers which have seen the latter reportedly beaten up by police officers during an illegal operation which was a violation of a court order.

Chasi continues to be the only Zanu PF bigwig who has the courage to publicly empathise with poor families being evicted from a Mazowe farm by First Lady Grace Mugabe to pave way for the expansion of her vast business empire in the area.
However, a party insider told the Daily News yesterday that Chasi’s “brave and admirable” stand was likely to cost him his parliamentary seat soon as “opposing Amai (Grace) is simply a suicidal mission within the party at the moment”.
“There is no doubt that Comrade Chasi’s stand on this matter is not just principled, it is brave and admirable.
“Sadly, it is likely to cost him his parliamentary seat as opposing Amai (Grace) is simply a suicidal mission within the party at the moment, moreso since Honourable Chasi has long been a marked man.
“Even higher authorities (within Zanu PF) fear crossing Amai’s path, which means the end is nigh for him, with his seat likely to end up with the First Lady herself,” the central committee member, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, said.
Contacted by the Daily News for a comment on the controversial evictions, Chasi — who was recently fired as a junior minister by President Robert Mugabe for his perceived support for former vice president Joice Mujuru — said yesterday that the government needed to be sensitive to the plight of poor people.
As a result, he said, he would work with Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) to help the traumatised families.
“I have been to my constituency and have witnessed evidence of the displaced people. Given that the atmosphere is charged and tense, I was unable to do anything.
“There were armed police evicting people and what can I do under those circumstances as I become powerless since the whole matter involves the First family,” Chasi said. Grace viciously attacked Chasi in August last year, after she accused him of trying to thwart her bid to acquire more farming land in the area.
On this allegation, Chasi said, “The First Lady has been misinformed that I was against her taking the farm in the constituency. I know that some politicians in the province misinformed her that I was fighting her bid to occupy the area and it is very unfortunate.
“The fact is affected families only appealed to me for help as their MP, and I never intended to fight the First Lady.” In her vitriolic attacks on him last year, the First Lady accused Chasi of “terrorising” her in the area, where she owns a number of farms and runs her Amai Grace Mugabe Children’s Home.
She also accused him of spreading falsehoods about her and her controversial land grabs, ostensibly in a quest to tarnish the name of the First Family.
“Zvazvakaita ndakaita apply pane conservancy iri kuseri uko which was being run by the whites,” she said. “Ndikangoona yakagara, then I applied to use it to raise mari yekuchengeta vana pano apa ndobva ndapiwa tsamba inini.
“Saka vanhu vakangozvigarisa vaichera chera imomo vakanzi vabude, iye (Chasi) akati ‘muri kuvaburitsirei? Mugabe nemukadzi wake vari kuda kutora land yese.’ Akaenda kucourt nevanhu vaye kuti kana hazvimboite.
“Iye akapiwa farm naVa(Martin) Dinha akariramba. Akatengwa nemurungu akapiwa mari akati handiride,” she said.
(I applied for a conservancy in this area which was being run by whites. I had seen it lying idle and I applied to use it to raise money to look after children at the Mazowe Children’s Home and I was given an offer letter by authorities. The people who were squatting on that conservancy were then ordered off the property, but Chasi queried why these people were being kicked off the land. He alleged that Mugabe and his wife wanted to take all the land. Chasi went to court with these squatters to resist the takeover of the conservancy. But he was given land by Martin Dinha and he refused because he had been given money by the white owner.)
In further bizarre remarks, the First Lady also claimed that Chasi had also made false allegations that she had engineered the eviction of a famous traditional healer who was staying at Henderson Farm in Mazowe, when the healer had been expelled by the Mashonaland Central leadership.
She said she had running battles in Mazowe with people who accused her of grabbing land, including a farm belonging to Interfresh, adding that it was the Mashonaland Central leadership that had allocated her a portion of Interfresh Farm that was lying idle.
But contrary to Chasi’s brave stand on the matter Mashonaland Central minister of State, Martin Dinha, claimed in an interview with the Daily News yesterday that the evicted families were illegal settlers and, therefore should pave way for the First Family “to do as it pleases”.
“I am currently on leave but I am well aware of that case. This is not a new matter, we have dealt with it before and these people should return to the plots we gave them. That is a conservancy not a place for agriculture,” Dinha said.
Dickson Mafios, Zanu PF provincial chairperson for Mashonaland Central, said the villagers had to leave the farm immediately.
“I know what is happening in Mazowe area. Amai Mugabe havafanire kunetswa. (Grace must not be bothered). I know these people were given farms to live on and they have returned.
“Some of them are illegal gold miners. Manzou is a game reserve area and what are people doing there? It is supposed to be a tourist attraction area in the province and we do not want illegal people living there,” Mafios said.
Commenting on the eviction of the villagers from Manzou Farm, MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday tore into the First Lady accusing her of being insensitive to the plight of poor Zimbabweans.
“It is a disgrace really. You cannot have that. Zanu PF has survived on chaos and impunity. This is a typical testimony of insensitivity, at this hour when rains are pouring and you start instituting those measures,” Tsvangirai observed ruefully.
Police have not just been destroying the evicted families’ homes and heartlessly slashing their maize crops, they have also left traumatised women, frail old people and young children to their own devices in the open, in driving rain. And with schools set to open next week, it is clear that many children will suffer the consequences and miss school. It is understood that Grace wants to turn the fertile farm into a lucrative animal sanctuary.
“Dai anga ari mwana wako asiri kuenda kuchikoro achirara panze (If it was your child who was not going to school and was sleeping in the open), how would you feel?
“How would you feel for those poor families you are evicting? And the irony of it is you are removing them to make way for animals instead of people,” Tsvangirai said.
“I think the time has come to call Grace to order because this is a run of madness,” Tsvangirai added on Thursday. – DailyNews

OVER a dozen villagers in Nsindi, Gwanda, could each serve at least nine years in prison after they killed 20 pythons which were part of a nest of about 40 and were found dumped by a roadside. The incident, which happened on Tuesday last week comes after villagers in Zimhofu, Zaka in Masvingo, on Sunday last week found more than 30 pythons on top of a grave.
Villagers, who saw the reptiles which were over a metre long, said beside the pythons was a sack which is said to have contained the snakes.
Of the more than 40 snakes that were seen, 20 were killed by villagers fearing Satanism while the rest disappeared into the bush.
A Sunday News crew, which visited the site where the snakes were “dumped” last Thursday, only found stones which the villagers used to kill the snakes.
Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson, Mrs Caroline Washaya-Moyo, confirmed receiving reports of the dumped pythons. She said the villagers risked being jailed for killing the pythons.
“We are going to send a team to go to Gwanda and conduct investigations in that village so that we can bring the perpetrators to book. The public should know that if they come across such species they are supposed to report the case to the nearest police station or park. They should not handle the case on their own because they put themselves in danger,” she said.
“Pythons are specially protected species because in our culture they are associated with the rains. They scientifically symbolise plenty food like frogs, so it is a serious crime to kill a python. One can be locked in jail for nine years for killing a python with no option of paying a fine.”
Nsindi Village head Mr Cain Dube said he was shocked when he was informed by his subjects that there were pythons dumped a few metres behind his homestead.
“I got to know about these mysterious snakes when I was in Gwanda town. Almost everyone was talking about it. One of my neighbourhood policemen, Christopher Dube, told me that he saw 20 dead pythons at a road junction,” said Headman Dube.
“Other villagers, who saw the pythons earlier, reported that there were more than 40 of them dumped on the path. It is said that there was a sack just beside the pythons which we are confident contained the snakes. What surprised us is that when we went to the scene, the snakes were nowhere to be found, including the dead ones. This suggested that they had been taken away by somebody. I think this has something to do with witchcraft.”
Mr Dube said he almost froze with fear when he stumbled upon the snakes while coming from another village on his way home on Wednesday last week.
“I heard of the pythons when my daughter-in-law told me about them on Tuesday afternoon while I was on my way to pay a friend a visit. When I returned home the following day, I took the shortest route and that is when I could not believe my eyes when I found myself in the middle of 20 dead pythons.
“Villagers killed 20 pythons as they could not believe what they saw too. Surprisingly, when we visited the scene, those dead pythons could not be found. I think somebody had collected them back after performing a certain ritual as pythons are believed to be associated with rituals,” he said.
Another villager, Mr Aelpo Ncube, who saw the pythons, linked the incident to an act of witchcraft.
“In our culture, it is very rare for a python to be seen. In this case the pythons were many and others were found dead before they mysteriously disappeared. Everyone is shocked in the village because we do not know how we can interpret this. Surely, this might mark the end of the world,” said Mr Ncube. – Sunday News

Several government officials are fearing for their lives as police have made no progress in investigating break ins at several government offices, the state media reports claiming.
FULL REPORT: Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabiza told The Sunday Mail that ministry officials were afraid the assassins could target them. She revealed that police detectives only visited the New Government Complex twice since the attempt on VP Mnangagwa’s office.
On the first occasion, they assessed the crime scene and left. On the second day, they brought in sniffer dogs, collected fingerprints and interviewed staffers.
Mrs Mabiza said: “Obviously we need an outcome on the attempted break-in at the VP’s office that occurred last year. The police came and took statements and finger-prints from all the staff that works in the same corridor as the VP.
“We continue to live in fear because we do not know who these assailants are and by this time we expect the police to have picked someone for questioning. “Yes, the security personnel have been increased, but we now expect arrests to be made considering that sets of fingerprints were uplifted.”
Judicial Services Commission acting secretary Justice Rita Makarau said she was yet to be updated on investigations regarding the break-in at Chief Justice Chidyausiku’s office.
“Officially, no one has been apprehended by the police and they have not yet picked up any suspects in connection with the burglary that happened four months ago.
“After the burglary, police details visited Chief Justice Chidyausiku’s offices and took statements from other officers stationed there. They uplifted finger-prints from the crime scene, but up to now no suspect has been picked up.”
A Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development official – who preferred anonymity – said police should expedite the investigations.
The official said: “Police are letting us down. It is now almost seven days after the break-in and they have not picked up anyone in connection with this. There are security officers who will be on duty and these should be picked up for questioning.
“We are living in fear. They want to make arrests when someone has died and that is unfair. Remember, cyanide was sprinkled in the VP’s office and three people were affected. The next time it could be arsenic poisoning.”
Home Affairs Deputy Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said police investigations were continuing, adding that details will be revealed once there are breakthroughs.
“Investigations are being carried out in the case involving the plot to assassinate President Mugabe. A lot of developments have sprouted over the past months in relation to the assassination plot, hence our force is gathering evidence.
“As for break-ins, we are seized with these unusual developments and as a ministry we are in the process of reviewing the whole security system.
“Our preliminary observations indicate that there is a clique of people which knows the security system and taking advantage of loopholes. Police have not yet given us a detailed report on the investigations.”
Analysts advocated the immediate investigation and arrest of Gumbo, Mutasa and Goche given their links to the alleged assassination plot.
Prominent lawyer Mr Jonathan Samkange said police were not executing their duties diligently and accused them of “taking the nation on a joy ride on the notion of ‘investigations are still underway’”. It is clear the police are dragging their feet on the assassination case. The allegations were raised against the plotters, the names are there. We are now in 2015 and this all happened in 2014 and not even one of the plotters has been picked up for questioning.
“The police should just come out in the open and tell the nation the truth. If the allegations were false they should just tell the whole country.
‘‘They cannot continue saying to Zimbabweans and the international community that a treasonous act is still under investigation for more than five months.”
He continued: “They should just arrest people. The names are there; what more investigation needs to be carried out? Break-ins in Government offices and protected areas are not something we need to sit and look at as a portrait. The police should not tell us that they have uplifted fingerprints and fail to arrest or pick up suspects.
“It seems the relevant authorities are letting the police take us for a ride. When allegations are raised against individuals, they are picked up. So, why are they failing to pick up these people for questioning? It is all a hoax, the police should not let the nation down.”

The grand-lawsuit by close to 200 Mazoe families against First Lady Grace Mugabe who wants to build a game reserve and has left the villagers homeless, is set to pour humiliation on President Robert Mugabe.
The lawyer for the families, Gift Mtisi of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), told ZimEye.com there is High Ourt order barring the removals meaaning the police who carried out the evictions acted in contempt of court. “We have a court order so we are taking this forward against the government ministers involved,” he said of the illegal eviction which come shortly in the heels of another plan to kick out 600 more at Celtic Farm in the Mazowe area to pave way for another of Grace’s expansive ambitions.
Hundreds of villagers have since been left with no roof over their head in the torrential rains which pounded the Mazoe causing massive flooding.
The evictions were carried out by the police and a judge is now set to rule if the villagers’ case should be heard urgently. Mtisi in another interview told Sapa that lawyers had instituted contempt of court proceedings against police and two ministers in President Robert Mugabe’s government over the demolitions, on Manzou Estate in Mazowe district.
“We are now waiting for a judge to make a decision on whether the matter is urgent or not so that it can be heard anytime [from now],” Mtisi said.
The families were granted a court order last year preventing the authorities from evicting them from their homes near Mazowe – where Grace Mugabe already owns an orphanage, a school and a farm – until they had been allocated alternative land.
Mtisi said: “In respect of the court order, which we already had, we instituted contempt of court proceedings. We are defending the order which was granted last year.”
The two ministers cited are the minister of land and the minister of home affairs.
Human rights groups and opposition parties have slammed the demolition of the houses belonging to the villagers, some of who have been living at Manzou Estate for the last 14 years.
Separate reports on Friday said that another 600 families from the nearby Celtic Farm had also been told to vacate their plots to make way for Grace Mugabe.
“According to Grace Mugabe, might is right and the rights of the poor do not matter at all as long as the rich and powerful get their way,” Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Obert Gutu said.
The Heal Zimbabwe Trust, a prominent local rights group, said in a statement issued on Friday: “Some of the victims are sleeping in the open and most of them have young babies and children.”
SAPA

A RESIDENTIAL stands scandal has rocked the Bulawayo City Council’s Housing and Community Services department where officials shadily sold more stands than those available in Luveve, with the local authority reportedly dispatching its audit teams to investigate the matter.This comes amid allegations that some council officials were fast-tracking stand application forms upon receiving bribes from members of the public.
The scam has also sucked in councillors who allegedly approach senior officials at the department for “favours” in the allocation of stands within the city.
It is alleged that the local authority now has to find close to 200 optional stands after they sold stands to 1 000 desperate homeseekers against 800 available stands in Luveve, amid suspicion that some officials sold stands to “their people” in total disregard to a list drawn from the housing waiting list.
Beneficiaries paid at least $1 700 as deposit for the stands. The stands cost at least $3 200 for the smallest size, 200 square metres.
It is also alleged that officials in the housing department also arranged for an official from the housing office to travel to the United Kingdom to collect money made from the unscrupulous sale of the Luveve stands.
Confirming these developments, the city’s acting town clerk, Mrs Sikhangele Zhou, said they were investigating the issue and all corrupt officials would soon be brought to book.
“We only learnt about this anomaly recently which is worrying because these stands were despatched a couple of years ago. The audit team is currently investigating the matter so that first we establish what really went wrong, punish whoever is found on the wrong side of the law and ensure that residents who were affected can be compensated with other stands.
“Just as proof of the magnitude of this scam, one cannot just sell a housing stand to an individual without having first shown them the stand. Whenever someone pays for a stand, they are supposed to be given a house number. Besides, stands themselves can never have similar prices as this is determined by the size of the stand. Therefore, it is not only impossible for one to just sell stands (without showing the buyer) but it is also illegal,” said Mrs Zhou.
She called on members of the public who were affected to approach council and assured them not to panic as council had already identified land in Magwegwe North where they would be allocated stands.
The acting town clerk also revealed that if any official travelled to the United Kingdom to collect money for stands, this was done outside council.
“Yes, at times we have engaged the diaspora community in terms of possible investment opportunities in the country but I am not aware of any situation where we have sent anyone to the diaspora,” she said.
On councillors being implicated in the housing scam, the city’s mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo, said while there was nothing wrong with councillors assisting residents with ready cash in getting stands, it was illegal and a punishable offence when they solicit for bribes to play the middleman role.
“I have had a lot of people come to me requesting that I assist them in getting stands. I see nothing wrong with me putting in a good word for them within the (Housing and Community Services) department but it only becomes illegal and reportable when we have someone soliciting for bribes in exchange for playing a middleman’s role.
“Another problem is that our records are genuinely in shambles. While we have application forms dating back to the 1980s, we cannot easily locate most of the applicants because council only computerised its records less than 10 years ago. Therefore, you find some people end up exploiting the system,” said Clr Moyo.
He said the ideal situation especially with high density low income stands, was that council religiously follows the housing waiting list when allocating these stands.
“The only time when someone can jump the waiting list is probably when they have ready cash and when the shortlisted individuals do not respond to calls that they have been shortlisted to get the stands.
“It is only in the low-density suburbs that we can ignore the housing waiting list and prioritise people with ready cash. As council, we keep it in mind that our housing waiting list has ballooned to over 100 000. We try by all means that we work towards effectively reducing this figure,” said the mayor.
However, the city’s director of Housing and Community Services, Mr Isaiah Magagula, downplayed the alleged scandal within his department, saying these were malicious reports being spread by people who wanted to discredit the way council was being run.
“Why do people want to cause unnecessary panic and look for dirt where there is no dirt, it is a fact that we haven’t recently allocated any stands, so I wonder what scam they are talking about. All those allegations are all lies,” said Mr Magagula.
Impeccable council sources, however, revealed that the senior officials within the department were at the core of the scam, using their influence to allocate stands willy-nilly.
“They have the power and they really exploit it. What they are doing is that someone who has an application form which is as recent as last year (2014) can easily get a stand as long as they pay $500. They make it seem as if the application form is dated in the 90s hence making them eligible to get a stand,” said the source.
Some officials in the department have since been earmarked for transfer after voicing their concerns on the anomalies.
The source revealed that the transfers were in preparation for new stands that were set to be released in Magwegwe North, Magwegwe West and Tshabalala Extension.
Contacted for comment, two officials implicated in the irregular sale of stands dismissed the allegations claiming that these were malicious accusations being spread by someone who was aggrieved by their “exemplary” conduct within the local authority.
“These are serious malicious allegations. I am sure that whoever is saying that is so aggrieved and wants to destroy me. I am even shocked at the power that is being allocated to me. Yes I am a boss there but some of the things that I am being accused of I cannot do alone.
“As a public figure, I invite anyone who wants to investigate me to be free to do so and if I am found to be on the wrong side of the law I am willing to be punished but I can tell you that my books are all in order. Even the house I am currently staying in, you can check how I got it and I can even further prove where I got the money to purchase the stand and build,” said one of the officials.

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces has entered into a dodgy deal with an unknown (shady, as admitted by the government) Chinese company to establish the Zhing Zhong Cement company which they want to start on top of the Charumbira ancestral lands following the discovery of limestone underneath. The Zim government admits this Chinese company is unknown and the army has already moved into the area seeking to force the villagers out with neither compensation nor relocation plan.
STATE MEDIA REPORT:
Over 500 families in Charumbira communal lands in Masvingo have demanded full compensation and alternative land for resettlement before agreeing to pave way for a new multi-million-dollar cement manufacturing project earmarked for the area.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces entered into a joint venture with an unknown Chinese firm to establish Zimbabwe Zhing Zhong Cement Company that plans to open a cement plant in Charumbira area.
This follows the discovery of rich limestone deposits in the area last year. The company has already applied to Masvingo Rural District Council for an operating licence to start the project.
However, families from about 16 villages that will be displaced by the cement company want clarity on the issue of compensation.
The families, through their traditional leadership, vowed to resist efforts to displace them unless they were guaranteed of the availability of alternative land to resettle them.
They said lessons from the Tokwe-Mukosi disaster in Chivi had taught them the importance of receiving compensation first when there was mass relocation of people to pave way for a big national project.
Chief Fortune Charumbira yesterday said officials from Zimbabwe Zhing Zhong Cement Company recently met villagers from his area to solicit their views on the project.
He said villagers were not against the opening of the cement plant, but wanted clarity on some issues.
“The Tokwe-Mukosi disaster taught people a lot of experiences and in Charumbira there are about 16 villages that will be displaced by the proposed cement project, but the affected people need clarity in black and white on the issue of compensation and the exact timelines of its payment,” he said.
“People in Charumbira are not against development but they also want to know the extent of benefits that will accrue to their area because of the cement plant. There are also issues to do with pollution and resettlement that need to be addressed before people can accept to be moved.”
“There is the realisation that modern infrastructure such as roads, clinics and new schools will be opened while employment will also be created, but villagers around the project also need a share of the development cake,” he added.
Masvingo RDC chief executive officer Mr Martin Mubviro said the project would directly employ 4 000 workers with work on the cement plant expected to start soon.
“We have already told Zimbabwe Zhing Zhong Cement Company what they need to do before we can consider their application. Their project has to get thumbs up from the community around where they want to open their plant,” he said.
Mr Mubviro said once the Charumbira community had agreed to the project, council would then pass a resolution giving Zimbabwe Zhing Zhong Cement Company an operating licence.
The proposed cement plant will become Zimbabwe’s fourth and is expected to further consolidate the country’s position as a major cement producer in southern Africa.
FACEBOOK COMMENTS
 

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  Edmond Kadzunge So where is the brutal seizure of the land there?Its this kind of journalism which is causing problems the world over.Nxaaaa.

  Like · Reply · about an hour ago

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  ZimEye “It is indeed brutal, read carefully and you will see. Furthermore, the move is in principle and practice militant as legally the army does not have operation standing isolated from government especially to conduct private business as is the case now. Can you envision the army owning for instance a beerhall, how the public will view them? Again if a member of the same taxpaying public, wishes to utilise that beerhall will they feel free to enter its vicinity? If someone misbehaves at the beerhall, will they not be crushed with brute force? All this points to the fact that the army has taken a brutal turn as they abuse their standing.” – REPLY from Tendai Mhlanga, article author.

  Like · 1 ·  · 46 minutes ago ·

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  Getrude Mhlanga Chaweya zhing zhong company OMG!

  Like · Reply · about an hour ago
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  Ndabezinhle Ngwane Zimlies

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A fatal accident occurred near ZBC Mbare studios Friday night at 10PM.
One person was killed as a Toyota Hilux (pictured) crushed into a bus felling right under it.
A police comment could not be obtained at the time of writing and the deceased’s identity was not known. More to follow in this developing story… PICTURES:

STATE MEDIA: The First Family does not own Manzou Farm in Mazowe and has nothing to do with the eviction of illegal settlers taking place in the area, Minister of State for Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs Advocate Martin Dinha said yesterday.
He said the area was not for human habitation and the province was making efforts to restore it to its former status as a national heritage site. Manzou Farm was a game park and the Department of National Museums and Monuments declared it a national heritage site years ago.
However, it was invaded by illegal gold panners. Adv Dinha said Government had “no apologies to make” as the evictions were merely a provincial exercise dealing with squatters.
“It has got nothing to do with the First Family at all,” he said. “This business of abusing the name of the First Lady, her privacy and integrity must come to an end. Zimbabwe is not a banana republic as wished by some people and we have not deteriorated to that level of lawlessness and anarchy.”
Some sections of the media reported that the land invaders were evicted at the behest of the First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe, claiming she wanted to set up a multi-million-dollar wildlife sanctuary.
Only 48 families, not 600 as touted by the private media, were giving the province headaches. It emerged yesterday that the reason behind the families’ resistance was illegal gold panning with “certain politicians” in the province influencing them to stay.
Most of the land invaders came from Glendale and Chiweshe.
Said Adv Dinha: “Our people must know that we cannot just wake up and stay anywhere, those in need of land know we have authorities at district, provincial and national levels. We make no apology and we will deal with all illegal settlers accordingly. Spent forces like those influencing them have no political relevance.”
He said Manzou Farm was a Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management area and Government was moving towards re-establishing the game park and the Nehanda National Monument.
“The game park, prior to the land reform, was owned by a consortium of business people but at the height of the agrarian reform people invaded the area and started poaching and illegal gold panning activities also affecting Henderson Research Station, a Sadc quarantine center specialising in animal research in the process,” Adv Dinha said.
“Efforts to amicably restore the status of the game park has been met with stiff resistance because they (invaders) are being influenced politically. The whole of Manzou was designated as Nehanda National Monument with the same status as Great Zimbabwe. This means that it became a National Parks and a national heritage site, which had to be protected environmentally. In terms of this Government proclamation, the area should be preserved as a cultural heritage site and was not for occupation by people. The Provincial Development Committee resolved that they were going to resuscitate Manzou Game Park and its national monument status.”
He added: “Traditional authorities point out that Manzou was among the holiest national heritage sites in Zimbabwe having places such as Baradzanwa and Shavarunzi, where the great Mbuya Nehanda lived.”
He said because of illegal gold panning and political influence, the illegal settlers were refusing to go despite being offered an alternative place.
Although Adv Dinha, did not mention any names, First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe last year accused Mazowe South legislator Cde Fortune Chasi of terrorising her in Mazowe, where she runs a Children’s Home.
She said Cde Chasi, who was recently fired as Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Deputy Minister, was peddling falsehoods that the First Family wanted to take all the land in Mazowe.
Said Adv Dinha: “They simply do not want to leave the area because the main activity they are carrying out is gold panning thereby causing wanton destruction of vegetation, creating dongas not suitable for animal habitation.
“From 2008, I have had meetings with these people and they agreed to be removed. It’s not a communal area like areas adjacent such as Chinamhora, Chikwaka and Masembura.
“We have carried out an exercise where we relocated them to Lazy, Blagdon and Nyandirwi farms in Mazowe. Transport and all logistics were in place, schools and boreholes were there but they are still here (Manzou Farm).”
“It is only 48 families giving us problems yet another 1 200 families accepted their fate and are happily living in those areas allocated.” When The Herald visited the area yesterday demolitions were still going on and some of the affected people interviewed pleaded for more time.
“We have crops and although we have been fighting for a long time, they should just give us more time than leaving us in the open,” said one villager identified as Mr King Makhosa. herald

As ZANU PF seeks to recuperate itself after ejecting Joice Mujuru and her powerful camp, the party has begun dishing out thousands of dollars, brand new cars and vast tracts of land to local pastors, as payment to the men of the cloth for routine facility sermons to prepare voters’ minds in preparation for the looming bi elections after the much anticipated ouster of Joice Mujuru MPs, in a string of activities all culminating to the 2018 polls.
Pastors have since begun receiving the same preferrential treatment as village chiefs.
More than 20 pastors at the weekend converged at the Bulawayo Red Cross building along Lobengula Street, for a mobilisation session and to discuss their recently announced special incentives from the ruling  ZANU PF party which are on condition they start political campaigns with their worshipers.
This came to light when this journalist sneaked into the meeting to attend as one of them in a bid to gather information after a tip off from one of the “anointed pastors” and founder of a Bulawayo based Pentecostal church. The clergymen are going to be beneficiaries of the farms and will also be receiving Ford vehicles and farming inputs of the same quality as those given to traditional chiefs in the country.
According to one of the pastors who was addressing the gathering and identified as Pastor Ndlovu from New Rivers of Life Ministries, “This is manna from heaven bazalwane; we have to utilise this opportunity to have farms and cash to grow our Ministries and protect our skins from agony,” he said to a round of applause from attendants.
Pastor Ndlovu’s sentiments were echoed by those of Hope Revival Apostles founding Bishop Kunene, who said the offer was a sign of a bright future. “This is a sign of a fruitful year for Christians. We need to convince our congregants of a possible violence free 2018 general election if all of us are in the farms offered to us, and we will be in safe hands by simply taking this offer,” he said.
Also in attendance were pastors from Lion of Judah, Zionist Fellowship, Zvirigo Zvezwi church, Good hope Ministries, Resurrections Fellowship, Zviratidzo Zvevapostori, Ambassadors Fellowship, End Time Message, Kingdom Fellowship Ministries, Rivers of Life Ministries, Apostolic Faith Fellowshipping, Messengers of Christ, Christian World Ministries and Zion Christian Church respectively.
In separate interviews with a number of pastors after the meeting that revealed the mission of the gathering, ZimEye.com was told that the meeting was a blessed one as it seeks to equip Christians. “This is an answer to our prayers, as land is one of the most important things on earth given by the heavens. We are in need of farms to produce our own food,” said Pastor Ruwodo of Kingdom Fellowship.
Asked to comment on their relationship with ZANU Pf, Bishop Dlodlo of Resurrections Fellowship said, “All political parties in the world are God’s creation. Therefore every individual must abide by the rules of the government of that day.
What we need is to be within the ruling party so that we can also eat the cake that was created by God, and this cake is Zimbabwe. Youngman don’t you want a farm to look after your family and to feed your family? You need to eat before you write your stories,” said one of the pastors before driving away.
Efforts to get comment from ZANU PF Bulawayo provincial Chairman Callistas Ndlovu hit a brick wall, as his mobile was continuously not reachable.
Meanwhile Central Committee member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu confirmed there are programs engaging churches.  He said, two Sundays ago we had a big church service involving more than 2000 people, organised by the churches and (Andrew) Wutaunashe’s Family Of God Church, on reconciliation and praying for leadership. And then before that we had Prayer Day on Unity Day and we had about six pastors. So we are working with churches, we are not working in isolation. We have got party members who some of them are also priests, so we don’t separate the party and the church,” he said.

WHILE the nation is still aghast over the eviction of 200 families to make way for First Lady Grace Mugabe, it has emerged that 600 more families at Celtic Farm in Mazowe have been ordered to vacate the property this week so she can further extend her business empire.

This comes hardly 24 hours after she forcibly evicted over 200 families at the nearby Spenenken and Arnold Farms, which form Manzou Estate, where she has publicly declared her interest.

Manzou Game Park is on the edges of Mazowe Dam.

Villagers claimed that their colleagues at Celtic Farms One to Four had been given notices to vacate the farm to pave way for Grace.

They alleged that Grace had entered into a gold mining and processing partnership with a Chinese firm at Wagna Gold Mills, which they wrested from its previous owner, only identified as Munyoro.

Grace was said to be operating the mine through a proxy, a top police officer in the Police Protection Unit.

Grace, who runs an orphanage, an affluent primary school and Alpha Omega Dairy project, has publicly announced plans to annex more land to set up a private wildlife sanctuary, hospital, secondary school and Robert Mugabe University.

According to the villagers, heavily armed police officers yesterday besieged Spenenken and Arnold farms and burnt down some makeshift homes that had remained intact after Wednesday’s raid.

“Six truckloads of police officers armed with guns, baton sticks and sniffer dogs arrived in Manzou today (yesterday morning),” Costa Chirimba, one of the villagers said.

“The trucks returned with another load and ordered villagers to pack their belongings before they destroyed the houses.”

Another villager, Gift Chikowore, said police pulled down some houses before property was removed after villagers deserted their homes hoping that the police would spare them if household goods remained inside.

“But the police destroyed the houses and set on fire the grass thatch on houses they destroyed yesterday (Wednesday),” he said.

“They also blocked the roads to make sure that villagers did not run away.”

Presidential spokesperson George Charamba and principal director (State Residences) Dzepasi Innocent Tizora again could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Charamba did not answer his phone, while Tizora’s number was not reachable.

Villagers whose homes were destroyed on Wednesday slept in the open while yesterday they were busy looking for transport to carry their belongings from the farm.

However, most of them said they did not know where to go as they left their previous homes 14 years ago at the height of the land reform programme.

Villagers have already engaged the services of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to stop police from evicting them as ordered by the High Court last year when over 700 villagers were evicted before harvesting their crops.

Last year, some of the affected villagers were initially dumped in Rushinga, Lazy and Blagdon farms in Concession before they took legal action and got a High Court reprieve to stay at the property until they had been allocated alternative pieces of land to resettle.

“The lawyers have advised us that they have written to the Judicial Services Commission to get the police to respect the High Court order and stop the eviction.

“They were promised a response by 8am (yesterday), but up to now, no response had been received,” George Musa, one of the villagers said last night. – SouthernEye

Chitungwiza residents have raised concern over the poor state of their roads which were left impassable by heavy rains that pounded the town and many parts of the country over the past few days.
In an interview with Talking Harare, Chitungwiza Residents Trust (CHITREST) coordinator Tinashe Kazuru said the heavy rains have exposed the poor road quality in the town and blamed the local authority for failing to consistently repair roads and only try to react to situations.
‘The road situation in Chitungwiza has worsened as almost all roads are not passable due to heavy rains that hit the town and created craters that are dangerous to motorists and pedestrians. They (city council) knew that the rainy season was coming, but surprisingly they were folding their hands, they are only trying to react now when the situation has already worsened,’ said Kazuru.
He encouraged the residents to resort to social responsibility and try to rectify the problem on their own saying council has shown that it has no capacity to solve the problem. ‘We are encouraging residents to use rubbles and sand to cover potholes. It’s not a permanent solution to the problem but for now it has proven to be useful especially given that the local authority has no interest and capacity to solve the problem,’ added Kazuru.
Commenting on the same issue, Chitungwiza Commuter Operators Association secretary general, Farai Muza shared the same sentiments with Kazuru saying kombi drivers were now afraid of putting the lives of commuters in danger as the situation on the roads had become unbearable. ‘This is not at all good. We are incurring many expenses in trying to repair our damaged vehicles and as we ferry passengers, there is great danger that you might drive into a pothole and if you are not lucky people might get killed in the process,’ said Muza who also blamed responsible authorities for failing to take immediate action.
Some motorists also told Talking Harare that they were shocked at the lack of commitment from their local authority to repair potholes on their roads.
‘We are surprised, everyone is seeing this but nothing is being done,’ said Sungano Mabika a Chitungwiza motorist.
The roads situation has worsened from the time the rainy season begun not only in Chitungwiza but in greater Harare as well. The capital city’s mayor Benard Manyenyeni was forced to hold a crisis meeting with ZINARA Board Chairman Albert Mugabe to map the way forward.
Meanwhile, the heavy rains that hit greater Harare and many parts of the country left a trail of destruction as many houses collapsed in areas like Caledonia, Hopley and Chitungwiza. Bridget Tamayi of Caledonia had this to say about the situation in the informal settlement, ‘…things are not well in Caledonia, these rains have destroyed our homes and most people are sleeping outside in the cold. Those that are lucky to have cars are actually using them as shelter. We are calling on the government and interested parties or even individuals to assist in any way they can. If these heavy rains come again, we will be in bigger trouble. Some people are sleeping outside with children and this is very worrying.’

THE cash-strapped Zimbabwean government, which has been struggling to pay civil servants’ salaries and bonuses on time and provide adequate social services, has bought new vehicles for senior members of the spy Central Intelligence Organisation at a cost of more than US$2 million, top government sources have revealed.
The expenditure comes at a time government is also shelling out cash to buy top-of-the-range vehicles for new ministers, appointed by President Robert Mugabe in December after he fired vice-president Joice Mujuru and 15 ministers deemed to be her allies as factionalism in Zanu PF raged.
The sources revealed that in addition to catering for the new ministers government also rewarded District Intelligence Officers (DIOs) last month with the 2013 version of the top-selling Toyota Corolla.
The vehicles are said to have been bought in South Africa at an average cost of US$25 000 each. There are about 60 DIOs, meaning government spent at least US$1,5 million on the vehicles.
In addition, Provincial Intelligence Officers (PIOs) and other agents at their level were allocated Toyota Fortuners — described as mid-sized sport utility vehicles (SUVs) — which cost an average of
US$50 000.
Zimbabwe has 10 provinces, suggesting the PIOs gobbled about US$500 000, but other officers at that level who are not stationed in the provinces also received vehicles, bringing the total vehicles cost to more than US$2 million.
The revelations come as Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa allocated US$89 241 000 to the CIO, which falls under the President’s Office, in his 2015 budget.
The allocation for the CIO was listed under special services, which accounted for a significant amount of the US$190,052,500 allocated to the President’s Office.
Of the total 2015 budget of US$4,1billion Chinamasa said US$3,7billion would go towards recurrent expenditure, mostly labour costs, leaving precious little for crucial development projects and social services.
Mugabe, currently in Singapore for his annual vacation, is expected to reshuffle his cabinet again soon, where he is likely to drop more ministers suspected to be in the retreating Mujuru camp, and also name new ministers to fill vacancies created by the purge.
So far Mugabe has dumped Mujuru and several ministers including some who had seemingly become permanent fixtures in government. These include Didymus Mutasa, Webster Shamu, Francis Nhema, Olivia Muchena and Nicholas Goche.
Although government has over the years been complaining about declining revenue inflows as the economy remains stuck in the doldrums it has not hesitated to buy state-of-the-art vehicles, among them expensive versions of the Mercedes Benz and all-terrain vehicles for ministers, deputy ministers, senior civil servants and top security personnel considered the real power behind Mugabe’s throne.
New officials in government whom government has catered for include Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko, Samuel Undenge (Energy and Power Development), Supa Mandiwanzira (Information Communication Technology), Christopher Mushowe (Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment), Christopher Mutsvangwa (Welfare Services for War Veterans), as well as Prisca Mupfumira (Public Service.
Others include Tsitsi Muzenda, who was sworn in as Energy and Power Development deputy minister in December, as well as Mandi Chimene (Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister) and Biggie Joel Matiza (Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs minister).
The 2015 budget figures showed government’s skewed spending priorities. For instance, security ministries will gobble US$1bn of the budget, about a quarter of the total budget, while little was given to ministries like Industry and Mines which are at the heart of the economy. Industry and Commerce received US$23,2million and Mines US$18million, which is far smaller than the CIO budget alone.
By comparison, Defence was allocated US$380 million, Home Affairs US$485 million and the Office of the President and Cabinet — which houses the CIO — US$190 million.
Although economic ministries — except Agriculture which received US$225 million — were allocated paltry sums, social ministries were well-supported.
Health was allocated US$377million and Education US$919 million. — Independent

FORMER vice-president Joice Mujuru’s fate rests with President Robert Mugabe who is expected to decide whether she should be prosecuted on graft charges when he returns from his holiday in the Far East next week, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt.
Mujuru lost the vice-presidency after being dumped by Mugabe ahead of the Zanu PF congress in December.
Her ouster was sealed after she was subjected to a vicious and sustained public attack by First Lady Grace Mugabe and her supporters, who accused her of, among other things, plotting to oust and assassinate Mugabe, abuse of office, corruption, extorting shares from private companies, and illegally dealing in diamonds and gold.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has assembled a team of detectives, led by Chief Superintendent Luckson Mukazhi, to investigate Mujuru. The team has searched companies and premises linked to her after securing a search warrant from the High Court.
A senior police officer revealed that although investigations had reached an advanced stage, Mugabe would ultimately make the decision on whether Mujuru is prosecuted or not.
“She may no longer be the vice-president, but the matter is being treated sensitively hence the President will make the decision, like he normally does in high profile cases. As it is, the investigating team is regularly briefing superiors at PGHQ (Police General Headquarters),” said the officer.
“The Commissioner-General (Augustine Chihuri) will obviously brief the President on the investigations and he is the one who will decide how we proceed.”
Another officer said the investigating team was not sure their investigations would lead to the prosecution of the former vice-president, given the politics at play.
“There is a chance that the powers that be ordered the investigation as part of plan to maintain pressure on Mujuru and her allies post congress. It is difficult to tell whether the investigations will amount to anything because the president will have the final call,” said the officer.
While officially opening the 6th Zanu PF congress in December last year, Mugabe said the former vice-president and her allies, including civil servants, faced arrest if evidence was found that they were corrupt.
“If the allegations are proved there will be prosecution … and if you were a minister, deputy minister or civil servant, basa rinobva rapera (you will be fired)… People will lose their jobs, ministers, civil servants will lose their jobs and even face the wrath (of the law).”
Mugabe literally called Mujuru a “thief” who had betrayed the trust placed on her by members of the Women’s League, who in 2004 recommended she be elevated to the post of Vice-President.
“In 2004, women said they want one of them in the top leadership of the party. We agreed on that and said it was fine. It was building our leadership in the party,” Mugabe said.
“You gave us someone whom you thought was honest; her name is Joice Mujuru.
“I do not want to blame the women for giving us the VP, you thought she was a good person. We do not choose you to be thieves, but to end it (theft) in your areas. You should never send a thief to catch a thief. If we are sent to catch thieves and we become thieves, who will catch the thieves?” Mugabe asked.
However, Mugabe has a long history of failing to match his anti-corruption rhetoric with substantive action.
Without mentioning names, Chihuri announced during a pass-out parade in December at Morris Depot that the police would swoop on corrupt people in line with Mugabe’s sentiments, leading to the team being set up to investigate Mujuru. This led to an uproar, with many observers pointing out Chihuri did not need Mugabe’s say-so to execute his duties.
“This stance is in line with the organisation’s constitutional mandate and, more importantly, with His Excellency the President of Zimbabwe’s (Robert Mugabe) sentiments during the official opening of the 6th Zanu PF national people’s congress.”
Mujuru has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence and in a statement last year said she was willing to stand trial.
Mugabe fired Mujuru and several ministers linked to her in the biggest purge in Zanu PF since Independence, paralysing her faction.
Among the casualties were Didymus Mutasa (Presidential Affairs minister), Webster Shamu (Information Communication Technology), Francis Nhema (Indigenisation), Olivia Muchena (Higher and Tertiary Education), Dzikamai Mavhaire (Energy), Nicholas Goche (Public Service), Simbaneuta Mudarikwa (Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs minister) and Munacho Mutezo (Energy deputy minister).
He also dismissed Flora Buka (Minister of State for Presidential Affairs), Paul Chimedza (Health deputy minister), Sylvester Nguni (Minister of State in former Vice-President Mujuru’s Office), Tongai Muzenda (Public Service deputy minister), Petronella Kagonye (Transport deputy minister), Fortune Chasi (Justice deputy minister) and Tendai Savanhu (Lands deputy minister). – Independent

Harare city council which has been pumping contaminated water to residents, is today shutting down all its water supplies from the Jaffray Water Treatment Plant.
 
Council announced in a statement that they are shutting down all supplies from the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant from 1600hrs on Friday.
 
The shutdown will stretch to 2200hrs on Sunday the 11th of January 2015.
 
The purpose of the shutdown is to allow for the installation new pumps at the plant.
 
An announcement by Harare West legislator Jessie Majome read, “Last chance to stock up water! until 1600hrs today- if your taps are are not yet dry already form our usual ‘normal’ Monday to Thursday drought . Please remember safety first- to keep all water containers sealed and away from young children who can drown in them, even just buckets, and to shut all taps tightly to avoid flooding homes when the water returns hopefully on Sunday 2200hrs as promised.
I’m disappointed that the Municipality is not supplying bowsers and is not maintaining and servicing the 4 boreholes I drilled and donated to it with my 2012 CDF, for times like this. CDF is a once off disbursement and cannot sustain machinery maintenance hence donation to Council would make the project sustainable. There’s one each at Sherwood Drive between Hillmorton and Clavering Roads, Ashdown Park Shops, Haig Park cnr Latchmore and Lauchlan Aves (drilled by an anonymous donor but which I repaired), Marlborough District Office at Civic Centre, and Chichera Plot Good Hope( whose tank was destroyed by my 2008 elections ZANU PF rival for the ‘crime’ of ‘having been installed by an MDC’ MP but whose replacement I sourced but am seeking the costs of remounting it)

These are your boreholes Harare Westerners, please form committees to secure them andensure Council maintains them, please inbox me so we can coordinate this as Council’s failure is most disappointing. My plan has been to drill at least 8 boreholes in 2 phases in each of our 2 wards with CDF. I’ve done phase 1 i.e. half of this with the only CDF I got in 2012. Since we were promised it in this year’s budget I hope I plan to complete this by phase 2 but I am not too happy to donate this resource to Council again without a maintenance plan commitment from it and you the community.
Thank you to the churches and individuals who are generous to allow us to draw water at this and all our times of need. God bless you!
Your MP
 

DJ Munya, (real name Munyaradzi Milimo) who is on trial for kidnapping and murdering accused boyfriend of his wife, Tinashe Magorimbo, could walk free soon after the police failed to perform basic toxicology on the deceased’s body.
This came to light as it was revealed neighbouring South Africa cannot assist with forensic pathology services in the case of the Star FM presenter.
Milimo and his alleged accomplices, Taurai Janhi and Mohammed Matare, are facing murder charges through poisoning and their lawyer, Mr Lucky Mauwa, is making efforts to have them removed from remand.
In their fifth application for refusal of further remand, Mr Mauwa told the court that a letter from a law officer at the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Mr Albert Masamha, indicated that their South African counterparts could not assist in the matter.
“The letter from the law officer says they cannot be assisted by their South African counterparts.
“It is clear that the State is not ready, therefore there is no prejudice if the accused is removed from remand. They can proceed by way of summons if their house is in order,” he said.
However, Ms Sharon Mashavira applied that the matter be postponed to February 13 pending trial
“We are still awaiting indictment papers from the High Court and the record for the accused has been sent to the Prosecutor-General’s Office.
“It is not the State’s intention to infringe on the accused’s rights but murder cases are complex and they take long for investigations to be completed.
“We are in possession of a letter from law officer Mr Masamha and another from South Africa laboratories pertaining {to} test results of toxicology and histology, which have been dragging this matter,” she said.
Mr Mauwa has unsuccessfully made the same application in the past.
Ms Mashavira alleges that Magorimbo was murdered after failing to pay Milimo US$5 000 for having an affair with his wife. Magorimbo allegedly paid Milimo US$1 000 in February last year through Janhi and Matare as part payment of the US$5 000.
Milimo commissioned Janhi and Matare to “deal” with Magorimbo after he became evasive over the outstanding payment, the court heard.
In May, the group human resources director of Magorimbo’s employer, Premier Services Medical Investments, David Mandishona, allegedly received a text message demanding a US$5 000 ransom for the release of Magorimbo who had disappeared, the court heard.
On the same day, Milimo allegedly went to Magorimbo’s residence where he assured the deceased’s wife, Millicent, that her husband would return the following day, ordering her not to report to the disappearance to police.
The following day Magorimbo showed up naked and staggering, his hands tied with a shoelace, and collapsed as he approached the ground floor of his flat, the court heard.
He was rushed to West End Hospital in Harare where he was diagnosed with poisoning before he died the same day. – State Media

MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has blasted Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa labeling him a stubborn or “unrepentant” ghost from the past.
Narrating his view that there is no hope with the current crop of government leadership, Morgan Tsvangirai said ZANU PF efforts to reform have only been plastic and void of substance.
 
Below was his full speech delivered
We meet again after a very bleak so called festive season at a time when the national predicament is worsening every day.
The signs of national leadership failure are now even more glaring for everyone to see, with government now literally lurching from one crisis to the other.With paralysis everywhere, the President, insensitive to the overwhelming national crisis, has delegated his appointed green lieutenants to manage the crisis whilst he goes on leave, to the extent of even extending the same.
For his age, it is understandable why our President would want to rest. But what he needs is not an annual holiday but to admit to his failure of leadership at this critical national hour of need. Surely, we cannot all be blind to the reality of his state of health, his age and his physical frailties.
2. The national crisis
As I said in my end of year statement 17 days ago, we are in the middle of a serious crisis. National revenue has dwindled and government is struggling to pay its own workers.There is no predictability on government policy as such policies are being changed every day.
In 2014, the economy contracted sharply, with GDP declining by between 10-14 percent, the same decline as during the economic collapse of 2008. The budget was $4,1 billion in 2014 while expenditure was $4,8 billion plus a revenue shortfall $300 million ,giving rise to a massive budget deficit of $1 billion or 22 percent of expenditure. This was funded mainly by short-term borrowings and creditors, giving rise to severe cash flow problems for 2015 and beyond.
The lesson is that Zimbabwe urgently needs to re-engage the international community for budgetary support if it were to meet essential social and other targets.
During 2014, FDIU inflows into Zimbabwe were only $160 million, compared to $5,7 billion in Mozambique. As a consequence, the liquidity situation has reached critical levels, with 10 commercial banks closing their doors since Zanu PF resumed control of the State in August 2013.
There is no respite in the ongoing financial collapse while business continues to suffer from the collapse of confidence as represented by the Stock Market which has declined by 40 percent since the election of 2013. Unemployment has continued to spiral in the past 18 months and is now threat to national stability. Ten percent of the national workforce has been made redundant as companies continue to close.
The parlous state of State enterprises is a sign of a collapsing government, with even the Grain Marketing Board offering workers bags of grain in place of salary arrears. Most of them are indebted, while the majority of the poor people in the country will not access health facilities as government owes in excess of $3 million to public hospitals.
The national budget and the government’s much-vaunted blueprint, ZimAsset, have failed to inspire growth and a positive impetus in the economy. In fact, the blueprint has proved to be much ado about nothing.
3.The façade of reform
There have been changes in the leadership of both Zanu PF and the government by the appointment of two new Vice Presidents. Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko were added into the cockpit of both party and government. It is simply a cosmetic change without any substantial impact on the direction of the country.
The newly appointed Vice Presidents have their work clearly cut out for them. But predictably, they cannot extricate themselves from Mugabe’s ruinous and disastrous legacy. They are entrapped in the same policy failure that has characterized Zanu PF governance culture in the past 35 years.
Attempts have been made by Mnangagwa, the acting President and some of his acolytes, to brand themselves as reformists when in fact they are unrepentant hardliners.
There are those who are so naïve as to believe that token changes in the cockpit can lead to realignment of our politics and that those token changes can spearhead a reform agenda.
These are leaders who were not elected but appointed to their positions. They have no mandate from the people and will simply do Mugabe’s bidding.
If Mnangagwa were sincere about reform, he would have pushed for the implementation of the Constitution in his capacity as Minister of Justice and leader of government business in Parliament. Any leader who is keen on genuine reform would have prioritized the implementation of the people’s charter endorsed by over three Zimbabweans in a referendum.
These latest Mugabe appointees are desperate to brand themselves as different and yet we know they have little room to maneuver outside the dictates of the appointing authority.
In the case of the acting President, he has a tainted record that Zimbabweans will never forget both in terms of his role in Gukurahundi, repression in the presidential runoff of 2008 as Minister of Defence and the electoral theft of 2013.
4. Defining the end-game—-The 2015 agenda and the way forward
Never in the history of the MDC have we faced a national challenge to find a solution to the end-game. Following our very successful Congress, a clear roadmap to the endgame was adopted and the implementation of those resolutions is our immediate task.
The following are the five areas of focus for 2015:
1. National Convergence Conference
In line with our Congress roadmap, we in the MDC are going to initiate the convening of the National Convergence Conference. After that conference, there will be a new roadmap, agreed across the political divide, to rescue this country from its current quagmire.
The national convergence conference will not be an MDC platform but a platform for all players in their diversity to agree on the national grievances and together chart the way forward for the country.
The idea of a national convergence conference arose after a realization that the national crisis is affecting every Zimbabwean despite, our political, racial and ethnic differences.
We shall be calling political parties, civic groups, the church, war veterans and other independent groups and individuals to come together so that we can discuss the national crisis and agree on the way forward. This is an opportunity for all of us in our diversity to mobilize the national sentiment for a national solution.
2. Rolling out a national and global campaign to liberate the people
As we have said before, we reserve the right to mobilize the people of Zimbabwe around the national grievances agreed under the convergence conference. There will also be an attendant global campaign to sensitize the region, Africa and the world on the crisis in the country and the need to return to legitimacy.
Stopping Zanu PF must not only be a national campaign. Liberating the people of Zimbabwe must be a global cause.
We have written to SADC Heads of State warning them of a possible implosion in Zimbabwe. SADC and the AU must appreciate that the declining economic situation and the implosion in Zanu PF as the party in government has far-reaching consequences for stability, democratisation and development in the region.
3. Implementation of the reform agenda (Constitutional and Electoral reforms).
Subsequent to the national and global campaign, there has to be expedient and urgent implementation of the genuine reforms, including Constitutional, electoral and other reforms agreed under the auspices of SADC and the AU as key to the conduct of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
4. Campaign for national elections and the return to legitimacy
Implementation of agreed key reforms should then be followed by free, fair and credible election that does not breed a contested outcome.
5. Economic and Social Transformation
Economic and social transformation is the fifth and last signpost that should be the responsibility of the legitimate government after the free, fair and credible election.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the MDC faces a historic challenge of completing the post-liberation democratization agenda. We are aware of our historical mandate to deliver positive transformation in the lives of the people.
As I have stated often-times, we reserve our right as a party to mobilize the people of Zimbabwe to engage in legitimate and constitutionally permissible action to petition government on any of the national grievances affecting ordinary Zimbabweans in their diversity.
And yes, we dare not fail in that goal.
And yes, in our diversity we shall attend the national convergence conference designed to map the way forward for our beloved country.
In the MDC, we believe in this country becoming a dignified home to all its citizens.
Farmers, housewives, students, business people, labour, the church and the unemployed deserve a dignified country with abundant and equal opportunities for all.
The MDC is calling for unity of purpose by all democratic forces. Now is the time for the broader democratic movement to unite and rally together in finding a solution to the crisis we face as a nation. We should not allow egos and petty differences to stand in the way of the noble agenda to bring change in the country and to positively transform the lives of the people.
We will not rest until we achieve that historical obligation well within our lifetime.
I thank you.

There was outrage in the UK yesterday when the British government denied the grandparents of Andrea Gada,a 5 year old girl who was killed by a motorist in Eastbourne on the 16th December, visas.
The five-year-old’s funeral has since been postponed to a date to be announced.
Andrea died three weeks ago, on December 17th after being hit by a car on Friday Street the day before. She was flown to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, but died of her injuries. Her funeral service was set to take place on Friday (January 9) at Seventh-day Adventist Church, Hailsham Road, Polegate at 11.30am, but has since been postponed.
Her mother Charity and dad Wellington had arranged Andrea’s funeral for Friday (January 9), and the community rallied round and raised £5,000 for the funeral and to help fly family members over – including Andrea’s grandparents.However, when Andrea’s parents, Mr and Mrs Gada, applied for a visa for their relatives to attend, the request was denied.
Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd said he was ‘angry’ at the ‘callousness’ of the Home Office in refusing the visas for the grief-stricken family.

 
Mr Lloyd said, “This awful accident has shocked us all. Eastbourne has done what it does best in difficult situations like this and rallied around in support as a community. I was dismayed therefore to discover that the Immigration Services have refused point blank to issue visas for the family to come over from Zimbabwe to attend little Andrea’s funeral. This is despite Mr and Mrs Gada giving me a categorical assurance the grandparents and aunt would be returning home soon after paying their respects.
“I am extremely angry at the callousness shown by the Home Office. To me this is an immigration decision which lacks compassion and basic decency; attributes which I know are front and centre with the vast majority of British people. I have written a further urgent letter to the Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire MP, asking that he intervene and reconsider his officials’ decision. A young girl has died tragically.
“My constituents have rallied round superbly so the devastated mother and father can bring her parents from Zimbabwe to help support them at this immensely difficult time. For the sake of everything that is good about our country – its tolerance, compassion, strong support of family, and profound sense of shared community, exemplified by the way in which Eastbourne has pulled together to help the Gadas, I implore the Minister to do the right thing; grant this grief-stricken family the temporary travel visas, and allow their kith and kin to pay their last respects to little Andrea.” – Eastbourne Herald/Additional Reporting

A MAN of no fixed abode, allegedly lured a nine-year-old Makokoba girl to West Park Cemetery in Bulawayo, where he is said to have raped her once before choking and leaving her unconscious, a court heard yesterday.
Elias Siampande (63) originally from Binga, was not asked to plead to the rape charge when he appeared before Bulawayo senior magistrate Sibongile Msipa Marondedze yesterday.
The magistrate remanded him in custody to January 20th.
The court heard that on December 27th last year at 5pm, Siampande met the girl at the canteen gate of MaDlodlo Beer Garden in Makokoba, where she was coming from her mother’s kitchen.
He asked her to assist him to carry his loaves of bread from his house and she agreed.
It is the State’s case, that instead of going to the said house, he led the girl to a bushy area near West Park Cemetery, where he pushed her to the ground before stripping off her pants and raping her once.
The girl screamed, but Siampande choked her until she fell unconscious before leaving her there.
The girl later gained consciousness and looked for her clothes, but could not find them.
She then wrapped a jersey around her body and walked towards Makokoba, where she met Sibonisiwe Dube, who accompanied her to her home.
They met the girl’s mother, who was already looking for her and the child narrated her ordeal.
The mother then reported the matter to the police at Mzilikazi.
Siampande was arrested on January 4 2015 in Lobengula at MaMkhwananzi beer garden. – SouthernEye

POLICE yesterday swooped on Manzou Farm in Mazowe and forcibly evicted more than 200 villagers after demolishing their homes, to pave way for the First Lady Grace Mugabe’s planned private wildlife sanctuary project.
Some of the affected villagers, who left behind thriving maize crops, said about six truckloads of armed police officers stormed the area in the morning and demolished their pole and dagga houses.
In instances where villagers were not at home, the police allegedly just stormed into their houses and threw out their property, before pulling down the structures.
Two villagers identified as Paradzai Kazingizi and Misheck Matema were forced to flee, as police chased them after they attempted to resist the demolitions.
When our sister paper NewsDay arrived at the farm, hordes of villagers sat pensively besides their belongings pondering their next move, while a thick cloud hovered over the area, as it threatened to rain, further compounding their situation.
“They (police) came this morning (yesterday) and ordered us to remove our belongings from houses,” Canaan Chamboko, a villager said.
“They destroyed the houses using our hoes, axes and their equipment.
“They told us to go where we were before we moved to Manzou Farm way back in 2000.”
The villagers were being ordered out of Spenenken and Anorld farms, which form Manzou Estate.
Some of the villagers claimed that the First Lady wanted to set up a game park, apart from mining gold that was reportedly abundant on the farm.
“The police told us that all the people from Spenenken and Anorld farms should vacate,” Dernboy Chaparadza, another villager, said.
“We did not resist eviction, but they should allocate us alternative land in line with the High Court ruling made last year.”
Last March, police destroyed homes and evicted over 700 villagers from the same farm, allegedly at the instigation of the First Family.
The villagers were later dumped in Rushinga, Lazy and Blagdon farms in Concession before they took legal action and won a High Court reprieve to stay at the property until they had been allocated an alternative piece of land to settle.
Villagers then started trooping back on the strength of the High Court order.
“We voted for Zanu PF, but they treat us like we are nothing,” Chaparadza said.
“They only want us towards elections and dump us after.
“They have destroyed the industry and some of us, although we are professionals, now live on subsistence farming and now they take land away from us, how do they expect us to survive?”
Another villager, Innocent Dube added: “We have elderly relatives and children, what are we going to do with them in the open this rainy season?
“Look, very soon it will be raining and out homes have been destroyed”.
The villagers said the sad thing was that efforts to evict them were always made during the summer cropping season.
“Is that how we should treat each other in an independent Zimbabwe?” a female villager quipped.
The villagers said they had been staying at the farm under the 2006 Rural Land Occupiers Act and efforts to regularise their stay had been hitting a brickwall since they moved in at the height of the land reform in 2000.
Presidential spokesperson, George Charamba and principal director (State Residences) Dzepasi Innocent Tizora, could not be reached for comment yesterday. – SouthernEye

The five year old land ownership dispute between Chisumbanje villagers villagers and Billy Rautenbach’s Green Fuel Company has resurfaced again with ugly clashes resulting in the detaining of a one year toddler being witnessed in the area.
The one year toddler Ashley Mugovera was detained at Chisumbanje police station on Monday together with her mother Regina Chigidi after being picked while they were busy in the contested fields in the Chinyamukwakwa area of Chisumbanje.
Speaking to this reporter, the mother of the toddler, Regina Chigidi said they were arrested together with four other villagers including Kazi Mugovera, Florence Mugovera, Samson Mugovera and Chipo Chiripinda.
“We were busy in our fields when we saw police officers wielding button sticks disembarking from a police truck approaching towards us and we never bothered because this has been our land for years,” said Chigidi.
She added that the police officers ordered them to stop what they were doing and when they questioned why they were being forced off their fields, they were arrested and taken to Chisumbanje police station.
The police later returned and arrested Vaina Ndlovu, Edmore Ndlovu and Hasani Simango who were all detained at the police holding cells for three days.
An eye witness from the area, Samson Mashava said the police fired teargas to disperse villagers who were resisting being evicted from their fields.
“The police officers, who have become a permanent feature in our area, came and fired teargas to disperse the villagers who were asking to know why they were being forced out of their pieces of land,” said Mashava.
He further questioned why Green Fuel was acting in bad faith by grabbing what was rightfully theirs and using police officers when they know that there is no clarity over ownership of that land in question.
During the arrests, there was drama as police and farmers chased after each in an epic battle that lasted for almost an hour.
Member in Charge at Chisumbanje Police only referred to as Nyamuzinga could not entertain the media, saying he had no power to comment on the issue.
Claris Madhuku who is a community representative and the Director of Platform for Youth Development, a youth pressure group fighting for land justice condemned the continued arrest and harassment of villagers as inhumane and very political.
“We will have to consider suing some of the arresting police officers and the Member in Charge for this insensitive and unlawful arrest of innocent villagers due to police overzealousness despite the land dispute and boundary challenges being well recorded and can only be
settled through dialogue and not through arrests ” Madhuku fumed.

[lightbox link=”http://www.zimeye.com/wp-content/live_images//2015/01/nursescartoon.jpg” thumb=”http://www.zimeye.com/wp-content/live_images//2015/01/nursescartoon.jpg” width=”640″ align=”right” title=”nursescartoon” frame=”true” icon=”image” caption=””]Nurses at Zimbabwe’s major state hospitals have started a go-slow, with doctors threatening to join them if their bonuses, which were due on the 2nd of January 2015, are not paid by Friday this week.
People visiting patients at Parirenyatwa Hospital confirmed that service delivery is markedly slower, with nurses on duty taking longer to attend to patients, leading to queues getting longer.
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) yesterday gave the government an ultimatum to pay outstanding bonuses by Friday the 9th of this month before nurses withdraw their services by Monday next week if their grievances are not addressed.
The crisis could be crippling as doctors say they are in ‘full solidarity with the proposed industrial action by nurses.’
“ZHDA [Zimbabwe Hospitals Doctors Association] wishes to advice the Health Service Board, our employer that it will be very difficult for doctors to discharge their duties in the absence of nurses in our hospitals. A swift response to avert this looming nationwide strike is required first by providing bonuses, revising the pay and allowances structure for health workers this January as per the last meeting of the Bipartite Negotiating Forum and lastly engaging all health workers into meaningful negotiations for revising health workers salaries,” said ZHDA President, Dr Fortune Nyamande in a statement.
The government had promised to pay nurses their bonuses in the beginning of January.
ZBC is in possession of a memorandum (dated 12 December 2014) from the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr Willard Manungo, addressed to the Civil Service Commission Chairman, Mr Mariyawanda Nzuwa with treasury committing to pay nurses bonuses on the 2nd of January.
Health Services Board (HSB) Public Relations Officer, Mr Nyasha Maravanyika confirmed that after receiving the memo, they sent circulars to health institutions notifying workers they were to get their bonuses on the 2nd of this month.
In October and November last year, junior doctors went on strike for weeks before they called off the industrial action.
The doctors who participated in the strike had their salaries slashed as punishment.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) says the breakdown of dialogue in the civil service has destroyed all efforts to negotiate salaries and packages for teachers.
The teachers say the absence of the National Joint Negotiating Forum where government and workers used to meet has made it difficult for workers to hold wage and benefits bargaining meetings.
Apex Council Chairperson, Mr Richard Gundani said it is government which has not acted in good faith as it is yet to appoint a team leader to represent its interests.
Contacted for comment, the Acting Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Cde Walter Mzembi called on the teachers to exercise restraint and wait for the recently appointed substantive minister, Cde Prisca Mupfumira to address the issues which government is well aware of.
Teachers also called on government to focus on the national curriculum review exercise by ensuring the capacitating of teachers as the drivers of the programme is well funded.
Almost 16 years since the completion of the Nziramasanga Report, implementation of the recommendations set to revive the curriculum are yet to take off the ground.

Women forcing men to have sexual intercourse with them at gun point along the country’s highways have resurfaced along the Masvingo- Beitbridge road.
Three cases have so far been reported with the latest being on the Sunday the 4th of January.
Police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the cases.
According to the information from the police, a 22-year-old Zimbabwean working in South Africa boarded an unregistered Nissan X-Trail vehicle from Beitbridge going to Harare at around 1900 hrs on Sunday.
The vehicle had three people one male who was driving and two females who pretended to be strangers.
Upon reaching Chivi turn off, the vehicle turned along the Tokwe-Mhandamabwe road and stopped after travelling for about four kilometres.
The man was robbed of his mobile phone, US$150 and 4000 rand at gun point.
The accused persons drove three kilometres further where a Toyota Gaia with two female adults emerged.
The women had pistols.
The complainant, whose hands had been tied, was then forcibly injected with an unknown substance by the man and forced to have sexual intercourse with the three women.
Senior Assistant Commissioner Charamba urged the public to desist boarding private vehicles especially unregistered Toyota Gaia, Toyota Ipsum, Toyota Noah, Toyota Duet and Toyota Vitz vehicles as they are mostly used by unscrupulous people. -ZBC

There was violence in Harare when a woman, and wife of an intelligence officer completely disrobed herself as she prepared to beat up her hubby who had strayed away with prostitutes in a Hatfield beer-hall.
 
The man, (name withheld) was at the time squandering his bonus with several ladies of the night at the Jongwe Corner, a bar in Hatfield on Christmas night.
 
The woman, (name withheld) is a well known Domboshawa businesswoman.
 
As seen in the following video shot during the very heat of the drama, she is heard refusing to be silenced and violently bludgeoning her way into the pub as the surrounding crowd tries to restrain and tell her to put her clothes or at least a Zambia-cloth on.
 
But she continues emotionally protesting, “Ndirikuda kutaura nemurume wangu. Anomutorera chii everytime?; Anomutorera chii – Why does she take him away from me everytime,” she tells ZimEye.com.
 
She then continues while being asked to cool down since her husband had allegedly moved away from the building. But she remains convinced he is hiding somewhere in the building “Ndiye arikuziva kwa ayenda – he is the one who knows where she went,” she said referring to her hubby’s girlfriend.
 
When told she would not be allowed to enter the pub stark naked and asked to wear clothes, she relentlessly replies, “Hazvina basa izvi!”
 
She then goes inside to the stage area where the man has been hiding and determinedly fights with her husband while still stark naked. The husband gets a hard thrashing while the woman sits on his chest and then the man runs for dear life with the wife in pursuit for about 200 metres towards Seke road.
 
After the chase, she is still refusing to get dressed insisting on going back to the club naked this time to deal with the so called prostitute. She is then eventually thrown out by the pub’s security men. Refresh this page in 40 Minutes. To get the video via WhatsApp, send your request to +263783322419 SUBSCRIBE TO ZimEye.com for more breaking news.

Violent CIO Wife Strips Naked Bludgeons Husband by zimeye
 

Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party has furiously protested to the installing of 32 additional tollgates by the Zimbabwe roads authority, Zinara, which comes at a time when the body’s managers were stealing millions and a recent audit revealed $40million has been systematically looted (READ MORE).
Below was the party’s official statement in full:
The MDC is appalled by the decision of the Zanu PF regime to roll out 32 additional tollgates across the country at a time when the majority of the people of Zimbabwe are living in abject poverty and squalor.
In 2014, the Zanu PF regime collected a total amount of US$132 million from the 24 tollgates that are already in place. It is abundantly clear that the sum of US$132 million that was collected in 2014 from the 24 tollgate has been misused and abused by the rogue Zanu PF regime. The country’s major roads remain in a dilapidated condition and indeed, there is no single tarred road in Zimbabwe that is not littered with huge potholes.
Motorists are called to pay money at the country’s existing 24 tollgates but apparently, the money is not chanelled to the intended purpose of road maintenance as well as road construction. Zimbabwe’s roads are now a death trap, mainly due to the failure by the Zanu PF
regime to properly and constantly maintain the country’s highways using money collected from the existing 24 tollgates. Instead of maintaining the country’s roads using the tollgate fees, the rogue Zanu PF regime diverts the money collected at the tollgates to pay civil servants’ salaries as well as bankrolling the wasteful expenditure of the bloated bureaucracy that includes several ministers and deputy ministers.
The decision to construct 32 additional tollgates across the country is thus, solely meant to extort more money from motorists in order to fund Robert Mugabe’s extended holiday jamborees as well as to pay for his numerous overseas trips, mainly to the far East.
The MDC strenuously condemns the Zanu PF regime’s decision to construct 32 additional tollgates instead of using the money collected at the existing 24 tollgates to rehabilitate the country’s collapsed road infrastructure.
We have stated it before, and we repeat it here and now: that Zanu PF regime is not fit for purpose and that the people of Zimbabwe shall continue to wallow in poverty for as long as this corrupt and rogue regime remains in office.
The MDC calls upon the patriotic people of Zimbabwe to thunderously oppose and resist the proposed construction of 32 additional tollgates.

An undertaker at one of the top funeral parlours in Gokwe, GFA, was caught pleasuring himself on a corpse, an incident that has left Gokwe Hospital staff members in both shock and fear.
The body belonged to a top businesswoman who died just before the new year of a long illness.
The man, who has begged reporters not to be named, per his own admissions was caught pants down while lifting himself from the ground as two nurses rushed entering in at the door just as semen fluids were seen flowing down from his manhood and also at the deceased’s lower abdomen whose corpse lay on the floor.
The mortuary attendant is now locked in a bitter wrangle with relatives of a late former business woman, whose corpse was sexually abused during an embalming session by the undertaker.
According to a close relative of the late businesswoman who cannot be named to protect the dignity of the late respected mother, the undertaker took advantage of the situation at the referral hospital and sexually abused the corpse before he was caught in the act by two staff members who were bringing a cadaver to the same morgue. So terrified were the staffers(names withheld) that they say they did not think of reporting the incident to the police.
“After he was caught in the act by hospital staff, they (staff members) notified us before reporting the matter to hospital senior officials. We agreed that he would pay four beasts as compensation, which he agreed and he paid three, promising to pay the last beast after the burial of our sister. He is still to pay the beast and this is now in breach of the agreed period,” said the relative who identified herself and (aunt) Mai Manyoni.
The relative also told ZimEye.com that the undertaker messed the corpse while he was making love to the late woman, as semen was noticed in her legs and dress. “We cleaned his semen from our sister’s body, so he must respect us and honour his debt,” said the aunt.
The undertaker in question who pleaded not to be named in the press, admitted to the circumstance to ZimEye.com and begged with the family to give him time to settle the debt. “I am not refusing to give them the last beast, but the problem is with my other family members who are also punishing me saying why did I do such a thing…”
The man may have endangered himself since businesswoman is said to have died of a long illness.
Relatives of the late businesswoman have since given the undertaker up to three months to pay off his debt or risk legal action. “We will give him up to the end of February this year before we take legal action, as everything is in black and white, with his signature, admitting what he did and his promise of paying off the penalty,” said the deceased’s sister.
 
Asked to comment on sexual abuse of more corpses at the hospital, Gokwe hospital officials who refused to be identified appeared to admit to the circumstances, but referred all questions to the Ministry of health for official press comments.
Meanwhile, a police docket was being opened against the man at the time of writing, and this reporter was told by a police source an arrest would be actioned on the offender.

The 30 pythons found on a grave in Masvingo were placed there by a gang of witches, Zaka residents have said. Following the publication of this story by the State Media, headman John Chivambo told this reporter via Whatsapp, the snakes were placed there by witch doctors intending to cause alarm in the community while enhancing their businesses.
“Vakatowonekwa kakawanda vachimbeya mbeya ipapo vhiki rapera iro – [They were seen litering there last week] Tinovaziva vese vana Matuture, navana Sibanda, hakunazve imwe zhira yekuti nyoka dzinawanikwa pa marinda kana dzisina kuiswa ne vanhu” he said.
STATE MEDIA REPORT: ZIMHOFU villagers under Chief Ndanga area in Zaka are in shock after more than 30 pythons were found on top of a grave on Sunday morning. The villagers, most of whom are superstitious, explained away the rare sight as an act of witchcraft.
Chief Ndanga confirmed the incident.
He said the shocking incident which was witnessed by more than 40 villagers occurred around 9AM.
“I can confirm the incident but I’m yet to get finer details. It’s true that snakes were seen coming out of a grave at a local cemetery. I’m, however, not sure about the number of these reptiles. I heard that they were many,” said Chief Ndanga.
A still shaken village head, Jeremiah Matumbike, said the incident was the first of its kind.
He said the local leadership was in the process of trying to locate and identify the family connected to the “strange” grave.
Matumbike said once identified, he would ask the family to seek assistance from a prophet or sangoma for an explanation of the strange happening.
“The incident is a rare sight. I saw the snakes myself, more than 30 pythons, coming out of the grave. I’m perplexed and would want to know the meaning of this unusual incident.
“The family concerned should seek divine intervention or consult a sangoma. This could be an act of witchcraft,” said Matumbike.
He said snakes were rare species in the area, hence a report was quickly made to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority whose personnel attended the scene and managed to capture some of the snakes.
Matumbike said the entire village was in shock and none seemed to comprehend the significance of the strange incident.
“We’ve never seen a python in this area until now. Something big or strange is going to happen either to the area or concerned family. These pythons could be a warning. It could be that the spirits are angry and want to be given their due respect. About 50 villagers witnessed the incident. A formal report was made to Parks and Wildlife Management.
“Officials attended the scene and managed to capture only 20 pythons as they were disturbed by heavy rains.”
Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson Caroline Washaya-Moyo dismissed talk that the incident could be an act of witchcraft.
“It’s typical of a python to give birth to many snakelets or hatchlings and there’s nothing cultural about this incident,” she said.
However, a renowned Bulawayo traditional healer, Cornelius Ncube, said traditionally it was taboo for a python to be seen at or near a grave.
He associated the incident with witchcraft.
“I don’t believe these were simply pythons, but goblins. Snakes don’t move in groups. The dead might be communicating a special message to the living using these pythons.
“Relatives of the dead should dig deeper in working out a solution to this mystery,” Ncube said.

A woman from Mzilikazi in Bulawayo has struck her sister’s mother-in-law with a brick after she refused to allow her to take her niece.
Sizalokuhle Siwela pleaded guilty to assaulting her sister’s mother-in-law, Senzeni Masuku, with a brick when she appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Tinashe Tashinga yesterday, but said the mother-in-law was the aggressor and she was just retaliating.
The magistrate convicted and remanded her out of custody to January 15 for sentencing.
“Why did you assault someone regarded as your mother-in-law?” asked Tashinga. “She was the one who started the fight,” Siwela responded.
“I had a child strapped to my back and she was the aggressor, so I retaliated.” The court heard that on December 30 last year Siwela and her younger sister went to Masuku’s home in Mzilikazi to collect her sister’s child from the mother-in-law, the child’s grandmother.
It is the State’s case that when she raised the issue with Masuku, there was misunderstanding between them, as the mother-in-law refused to allow the child to go with her mother. Siwela picked a brick and struck Masuku once on the face with it.
Masuku sustained a deep cut and was taken to Mpilo Central Hospital, where she received treatment. A report was made to the police, leading to Siwela’s arrest. southern eye

CAPTURED fugitive Johanne Masowe eChishanu leader Ishmael Chokurongerwa was yesterday denied bail after he was deemed a flight risk and remanded in custody to February 20 this year after he was implicated in the assault of police officers at his shrine in Budiriro, Harare, last year.
Provincial magistrate Milton Serima dismissed as unfounded Chokurongerwa’s claims that he was not present when his church members attacked police officers, journalists and members of the Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) when they visited his shrine in May last year.
“The court finds it quite surprising to hear the accused through his lawyer claiming that he was not present when the violence occurred,” Serima said.
“Some of his church members were charged and convicted of the same offence, now that he is aware that his members were imprisoned it is most likely that he will abscond and not attend trial.”
The magistrate further said one would wonder why Chokurongerwa (44) did not show up at the shrine for over seven months after learning that violence had erupted at the shrine if his claim of being absent from the scene was to be believed.
The State alleges that on May 30 last year, ACCZ president Johannes Ndanga, his delegation and 26 police officers visited Johanne Masowe eChishanu’s site at Budiriro 2 in Harare to address the gathering over issues of child abuse.
It is alleged when Ndanga began reading the document, the gathering started singing their church songs and Chokurongerwa challenged him to speak in Shona and not in English.
At that juncture Ndanga is alleged to have ordered the police to arrest Chokurongerwa accusing him of interjecting his speech.
The court heard Chokurongerwa allegedly started singing an inciting song called Umambo hwepfumo neropa (The Kingdom of the Spear and Blood) following which Ndanga, his delegation, police and journalists were severely assaulted.
Eleven members from Chokurongerwa’s church were last November slapped with a five-year jail term each for the same offence.
They have since lodged an appeal against both conviction and sentence at the High Court and the matter is yet to be set down for hearing. SouthernEye

FIRST Lady Grace Mugabe has reportedly renewed plans to evict over 200 families at Manzou Farm in Mazowe district — a year after she forcibly evicted over 700 other families from the property in a bid to turn the vast farmland into a private game sanctuary.
Villagers who declined to be named for fear of victimisation said hordes of police officers driving Nissan UD trucks had been visiting the farm since last Wednesday ordering them to vacate the area.
“They (police) have been coming here ordering us to leave the farm. This is despite the fact that government has not allocated us alternative land as ordered by the High Court last year,” said one villager who is facing eviction.
“We have been tipped that the police intend to come tomorrow [today] in large numbers and destroy our homes to force us out of the farm. We are very worried about the timing of such evictions which always come during the summer cropping season.”
However, police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba yesterday said she was not aware of the matter.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba could not be reached for comment yesterday.
In March last year, heavily armed police stormed the area and razed villagers’ homes and forced them out of the farm.
The families were later dumped in Rushinga and at Lazy Farm and Blagdon Farm in Concession.
Five of the villagers approached the High Court which ruled that, the villagers, most of whom had moved on the farm at the height of the chaotic land reform in 2000, had the right to stay at the property until government provided alternative land.
Their stay at Manzou Game Park had been protected by the 2006 Rural Land Occupiers Act.
They had tried to engage government to regularise their stay to no avail until Grace identified the land for the expansion of the Mugabe empire in Mazowe. Grace a few months ago confirmed that she wanted to build a secondary school, hospital and university to be named after her husband, President Robert Mugabe.
The First Family already owns a vast dairy project, Gushungo Dairies, an orphanage centre and an elite primary school in the area.
The First Lady also recently reportedly grabbed 1 500 hectares from Interfresh Holdings which houses the Mazowe Citrus Estate.
During her Meet the People Tour rallies last year, Grace said she was unapologetic for grabbing land, claiming she took away disused land and that she wanted the First Family to lead by example and show the nation that the land reform programme was not a fluke.
Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs minister Martin Dinha had pledged to allocate Grace more land as long as she requested it.
The Mugabe family is one of the many multiple farm owners in the country despite the government policy which does now allow multiple ownership of farms.
High Court judge Justice Ben Hlatshwayo was in 2008 elbowed out of his Gwina Farm north of Harare by the Mugabe family while former Standard Chartered Bank chief executive Washington Matsaira met the same fate on his Nyabira Farm. – SouthernEye

Buhera South legislator Joseph Chinotimba has rushed to expelled Joice Mujuru’s defence as she and her perceived supporters faced imminent farm invasions in reprisals.
Anyone trying to attack Mrs Mujuru and take her allies’ farms, should be arrested and thrown into jail, Chinotimba said.
He told ZimEye.com, “Hapana munhu wekwa Mai Mujuru anotorerwa munda, vakadzingwa kuZANU PF here? Hapana munhu akadzingwa kuZANU PF. Hapana akadzingwa kuZimbabwe. Kudzingwa muparty hakutaurwe kuti wavakutorerwa munda bodo, kwete. Hautorerwe munda wako, unoramba unawo. Mai Mujuru muZANU PF, naKaukonde maZANU PF. Ukaona vanhu varikunovatorera munda vanhu ivavo matsotsi, vanofanira kusungwa… put them in jail,” said Chinotimba.
He added saying that even Jabulani Sibanda would not lose an inch of his land even though he was expelled from the party.
His comments come as threats emerged against former CIO boss, Nicholas Goche, also accused of backing Joice Mujuru, and marauding youths prepared a raid on his farm in Shamva.

ZANU PF’s land policy shift announced Monday that the party 14 years after violently grabbing white owned farms, is now for the first time allowing whites to co-own land with blacks, brings humiliation to the whole nation and particularly on President Robert Mugabe himself as it is a direct admission by Mugabe of destroying the economy through the violent invasions, the MDC-T party has hinted.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s party in a statement bemourned the country’s economic situation 14 years after Robert Mugabe’s chaotic land reform began.
“The MDC views the Zanu PF decision to allow contract farming and joint farming ventures as a very insincere and ill-timed gesture particularly as it comes a little too late when the entire Zimbabwean population has suffered the consequences of the demise of the agricultural sector,” the party’s spokesperson Obert Gutu said.
He said people have been taken aback by ZANU PF. “More than 90% of Zimbabweans are wallowing in poverty as a direct consequence of the Zanu PF regime’s ill-conceived, chaotic and violently executed so-called land reform programme,” he said.
He continued, “the manufacturing and industrial sectors have fallen on hard times due to the failure by the Zanu PF regime to successfully execute a sustainable and holistic land redistribution exercise.
“Whilst the MDC has always called for the sustainable and equitable redistribution of land to all deserving Zimbabweans and as a measure of uplifting the living standards of the country’s citizens, the Zanu PF regime hijacked the programme and completely failed to effect a viable land reform exercise thus leading to the total collapse of the commercial agricultural sector.
“As a direct result of the Zanu PF regime’s ineptitude and gross incompetence, Zimbabwe has been reduced from being the breadbasket of Africa, to being a basket case.
“The MDC has always advocated for a land reform exercise that would guarantee the upliftment of the people of Zimbabwe’s living standards, regardless of race, colour or creed.
“The MDC maintains that the land reform exercise should ensure that there is sustainable food production and that people are empowered to develop and grow their farming skills in order to positively impact their communities.”
 
THE WHITE FARMERS OF ZIMBABWE   
(HARARE)Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the land (William Jennings Bryan, 9 July 1896).
How prophetic these words are proving to be for Zimbabwe. In making this statement, however, Bryan could never have dreamt of a government purposefully destroying its own farms. The ZANU PF Government campaign to obliterate commercial agriculture, under the guise of agrarian reform, but in reality in the interest of retaining power through illegal and violent means, has been largely effective. A major part of this campaign has been incessant propaganda, based on distortions and lies, designed to give it respectability. Further deceptions have sought to give the impression that the pretence of agrarian reform has been successful. The remarkable achievements of the commercial farmers and the crimes and injustices they have suffered must not be allowed to be similarly distorted or forgotten.
Commercial farming started in then Rhodesia in the 1890s on what was, for the most part, virgin land. The wheel had not previously been in use; there were no roads or railways; there was no electricity or telephone; there were no fences, boreholes, pumps, windmills, dams or irrigation schemes. The first farmers had to discover how to contend with diseases, pests and parasites of livestock and crops that were foreign to them. The climate, soils and vegetation were vastly different from those in the more developed world.
 
From this starting point agriculture developed faster than it had anywhere else in the world and the country became self-sufficient in most agricultural products. In many cases yields per hectare and quality equalled or bettered those in the developed world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Year Book of 1975 ranked Rhodesia second in the world in terms of yields of maize, wheat, soyabeans and groundnuts, and third for cotton. Rhodesia’s Virginia tobacco was rated the best in the world in yield and quality, while maize entries in world championships were consistently placed in the first three places. A combined ranking for all these crops would have placed the country first in the world. The world’s largest single citrus producer was developed early in the country’s history. The highest quality breeding stock of numerous breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry were imported; at the same time the indigenous cattle were developed into highly productive and respected breeds. Zimbabwe beef was favourably regarded on the most discerning European markets. Wildlife was incorporated into farming systems to develop a highly successful eco-tourism industry and endangered species, such as the black rhino, found their most secure havens on farm conservancies.
Zimbabwe was the world’s second largest exporter of tobacco. This, together with exports of maize, soyabeans, cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, fruit, vegetables, flowers and beef, made agriculture the major source of foreign currency. Agriculture contributed more to the gross domestic product than any other industry. It was the largest employer of labour, providing employment for about a third of the total labour force. Zimbabwe earned the reputation of being the breadbasket of central Africa.
To-day foreign aid is considered indispensable for development in the developing world. In Zimbabwe, agriculture developed with no such aid. Commercial farmers also did not benefit from the free seed, fertilizer, tillage and other inputs currently being dispensed in an effort to induce production from the resettled farms.
The benefits accruing to the country from the commercial farming sector extended far beyond the value of agricultural products and employment. The farmers contributed to the leadership, fabric and welfare of society out of all proportion to their numbers. It was largely this fact that was to make them the prime target of a government desperately clinging to power. Each farm was, to a greater or lesser extent, an outpost of civilization. Many farms established schools for the children of their workers; every farm was a clinic, dispensary and ambulance service. Commercial farmers tended to be exemplary neighbours to the communal area peasant farmers, providing unpaid help in many ways. It was from the agricultural shows organized by farmers that the Central African Trade Fair grew.
All these contributions to the growth of the economy and the welfare of the country emanated from fewer than five thousand farmers, on less than half the land.
 
After the Rhodesian Government’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1965, the tenacity and initiative of the farmers in diversification significantly helped the country to survive the comprehensive sanctions that were imposed upon it. The few agricultural products that had hitherto been imported were quickly brought into production locally. And it was the farmers who bore the brunt of the terrorist attacks during the ensuing Rhodesian war. They were under continuous threat of armed attacks on their homes, ambushes, and land mines. Many farmers and their family members and workers were murdered. And yet agricultural production was unaffected. Independence in 1980 brought relief to most of the country but in Matabeleland attacks by “dissidents” resulted in even more farmers being murdered than had been the case during the war.
From the mid 1980s there followed little more than a decade of comparative normality. It is noteworthy that during the first two decades of the post independence period the government was encouraging the continuance of commercial agriculture. Nearly half of the farmers on the land in 2000 had purchased their farms during that period with the approval of the government, which had claimed first option rights on all land sales.
The worst nightmare for the farmers was to come from 2000 onwards. In 2000 an unrigged referendum was held on the Zimbabwe Government’s proposed alterations to the constitution. It came as an unbearable shock to Mugabe and his ruling ZANU (PF) party when the result showed that they did not have majority support. It was unthinkable that they should ever relinquish power. From this time on the Mugabe government made the retention of power at any cost its prime focus. The farmers, although making up only a minute fraction of the population, were seen as key supporters of the opposition who could influence their large labour force and other rural people, potentially the government’s main support base. The farmers were, therefore, first to be punished by vindictive and brutal attacks; then driven from their farms by government-sponsored agents so that they could no longer make a meaningful contribution to the opposition. At the same time, those incited by the government to invade the farms, and those to whom dispossessed land was given, could be expected to be loyal government party supporters. There had previously been ample opportunity for genuine, orderly land reform, with offers of international donor funding, but the land was to be used as a political tool. Now, 20 years after independence, this violent campaign was suddenly instituted to retain the ruling party’s grip on power. Disguising this under such evocative rhetoric as “agrarian reform”, “land redistribution to the landless” and “recovery of stolen land” has deceived and earned the support of many naïve observers; it has provided an excuse for other knowing, but equally malevolent leaders, to support these actions.
This “land reform” took the form of state-sponsored terrorism conducted by rabid bands of so-called war veterans or, as political analyst John Makumbe has put it, “ZANU (PF) hoodlums and hired hands”. The findings of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum Report were that this was a government-planned seizure of land, not spontaneous action by landless blacks, as claimed by the government. In this government-sponsored frenzy farmers and their workers were violently attacked and many were murdered; their property was wantonly destroyed or stolen, their farm animals and pets were cruelly maimed and killed, and wild life on the farms was decimated. Farmers and their families lived for extended periods in states of siege, surrounded by threatening armed thugs. Many farmers were illegally detained in prison. Ultimately, the unbearable pressure, or the direct threat to their lives, has forced more than 90% of the farmers off their farms.
 
It is difficult to fully comprehend the enormity of what has happened to these farmers. In addition to the abuse, violent attacks and cold-blooded murders, farmers in one sweep lost their homes, their land, their crops, their animals and their equipment; they have had their businesses, built up often over more than a generation, closed down, their livelihood terminated; all this with no compensation or insurance coverage. According to the Human Rights Forum Report, more than 10 000 farm workers are believed to have died after their expulsion from farms, as a consequence of loss of housing, nutrition and health care on the farms. Through all of this there was no one to whom the farmers could turn for help; there was not even public protest on their behalf. There was no recourse to law since the law was no longer applied. Court rulings were ignored. The police were usually fully aware of what was happening; often they supported or participated in the violence. There was even a case where a police roadblock knowingly allowed free passage to cars carrying armed assassins; both on their way to murder a farmer and on their return after the deed had been done.
Most of the farms now lie largely derelict and unproductive. Many are occupied, not by the peasants the campaign was proclaimed to provide for but by ZANU PF cronies, army, police and church leaders, favoured in order to win their political allegiance. Although the farms were taken over as fully functioning concerns, production immediately fell to such low levels that the country now faces widespread starvation and is dependent on food aid.
In a radio interview the Zimbabwe Minister of Lands and Resettlement was asked why Zimbabwe, formerly referred to as the breadbasket of central Africa, was now suffering perpetual, severe food shortages? Drought has been the usual excuse offered for this, even in seasons of adequate rainfall. On this occasion the excuse given was that it took time for new farmers to get into production. This was in spite of the fact that they took over established farms, often with standing crops. Ironically, within days of this interview it was reported that, as a result of dispossessed Zimbabwe farmers settling in Zambia, within one season that country already had an exportable surplus of maize.
What has happened to the economy of Zimbabwe, mainly as a result of the elimination of most of its commercial farmers, is now fully evident. There are a number of lessons in this saga for South Africa. Will they be heeded? (ZimEye, Zimbabwe)
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FULL STORY- CLICK HERE

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

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

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

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