Andrew Kunambura, Political Reporter – The Financial Gazette

Medical Physicist Lawrence Mhatiwa demonstrating how the digital linear accelerator works at Oncocare Cancer which was opened doors last week.

A NEWLY opened private cancer hospital has added a fresh impetus to the response to cancer, the silent killer responsible for more than a thousand deaths in Zimbabwe every year.

Established at a cost of US$10 million, the state-of-the-art facility is daring the cancer monster, dreaded by all and sundry.

A cancer diagnosis is, presently for many, a death sentence.

Oncocare became only the second hospital which treats cancer in Zimbabwe after Parirenyatwa, which has, however, been facing serious operational challenges, mainly due to ageing machinery that frequently breaks down.

Parirenyatwa has also suffered heavily from skills flight as experts and experienced personnel seek greener pastures outside the country.

As such, until Oncocare arrived, Zimbabwe had been grappling with the shortage of cancer drugs, cancer specialists, as well as lack of adequate information on the disease.

Oncocare, a world class hospital, which opened its doors to the public in Harare last week, offers sub-specialties in cancer care that include radiation treatment (2D, 3D, IMRT), medical oncology (chemotherapy) with dedicated hospital mixing pharmacy, treatment support (immunity support, palliative care, pain management) and a specialist cancer retail pharmacy.

“We are here to offer a holistic treatment for all cancers and compassionate service. Our sense of preparedness is very high,” said Ben Deda, Oncocare’s founding chief executive officer.

Oncorecare has opened its doors at a time when government is being accused of not doing enough to tame cancer despite the scary statistics of the disease.

Experts project that cancer cases could explode into a crisis of major proportions in the not so distant future.

According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, cancer has become more threatening than HIV and Aids.

Statistics released by the Zimbabwe National Cancer Registry (ZNCR) show that there is a steady increase in reported cases, with cervical cancer being the most prevalent.

In 2011, recorded cases were 5 553, while in 2012 cases stood at 6 107, before escalating to 6 548 in 2013.

ZNCR figures for 2015 released on World Cancer Day (June 2) this year indicate that more than 7 000 cases of cancer have been identified.

The bulk of these cases were detected in the last two stages of the disease when the situation is already beyond redemption except with serious intervention.

Of the affected, an estimated 1 200 die from the disease annually.

This has been attributed to lack of awareness among communities, one aspect which Oncocare claims to be prepared to handle.

Even more worrying, according to ZNCR, is the rising trend of childhood cancers which accounted for three percent of the cancers recorded in the period — the highest ever.

This is also emphasised in a 2014 study by KidzCan — a charitable organisation which focuses on improving the provision of an early diagnosis and effective treatment of cancer in children, as well as contributing to the well-being of those children suffering from cancer — which noted that 243 new cases of cancer in children were reported and 106 children died from cancer-related illnesses in that year.

There has also been a sharp rise in cases of other cancers such as breast cancer, prostate cancer and cervical cancer.

Yet, in a classic case of lack of government commitment in the face of these challenges, Zimbabwe still lacks a cancer policy to guide medical practitioners.

As such, the response to the cancer scourge has been left in the hands of the private sector.

It is in light of these stark truths that health practitioners in various fields put their heads together to establish Oncocare.

And the founders are under no illusion about what lies ahead.

“It’s a new journey and a difficult one, but one which we are excited about,” Deda said.

There are enough reasons why many cancer patients have to be both excited and worried.

One thing which everyone is clearly aware of is that cancer treatment, whether done inside or outside the country, is expensive, and so the new hospital might bring no relief to the poor patient.

In the same vein, it is going to take a lot of effort to convince the richer patients to gain trust in local treatment, especially for those who are already receiving chemotherapy in other countries such as South Africa and India.

In terms of equipment, Oncocare compete with any medical facility on earth.

While the hospital is yet to come up with a treatment cost regime, radiotherapy generally costs between US$3 000 and US$4 000 for a whole session, minus the high cost of drugs.

A patient may need a minimum of six cycles and these can go up to as high as 12.

A cycle is the time one goes through chemotherapy and then breaks before the next treatment to allow the body to recover.

But, despite the new hope brought about by the facility, many still wonder whether ordinary patients would afford treatment at the facility.

Deda said they were negotiating with public institutions so as to incorporate poor patients.

“We are currently finalising charges, but we want to make treatment very affordable and accessible because there would be no point in setting up a hospital which does not serve the people,” he said.

“We are drafting a scheme whereby we rate our patients on their ability to pay. So everybody will come, but (you) have to be in a category which you can afford to pay for.

“We will also try to incorporate all public institutions so that they can refer patients to us and they will be put in a government slot. So there will be an agreement between Oncocare and government. Our patients can also be able to continue with chemotherapy at, say Parirenyatwa, if they run out of money midway through the treatment,” he added.

Oncocare is also seeking to use its information wing to disseminate information on cancer prevention.

Oncocare is departing from analogue radiation done at Parirenyatwa using an old machine to a more sophisticated digital ultrasound radiation which is the latest cancer treatment technology in the world.

Zimbabwe’s first one-stop cancer treatment centre possesses the latest linier accelerator machine, which provides what is known in medical terms as mosaic oncology because of its precision.

The machine is supplied by a United States manufacturer, Sun Nucleus, which monitors it up to the day it is decommissioned.

Focused ultrasound uses sound waves to destroy damaged tissue deep within the body, doing away with the need for incisions or radiation therapy.

It has been approved in the US as a treatment for several conditions, including prostate, breast and cervical cancers.

“We are going to use advanced technology to give patients the same treatment they are receiving in India, South Africa and anywhere else in the world.

“This system (ultrasound) ensures that radiation goes to the tumour and nowhere else,” said medical physicist, Lawrence Mhatiwaho, who was brought back from the United Kingdom.

“It is connected to international centres so that we can get a second opinion from other experts on how to treat a patient and also, if necessary, bring in some of the world’s best oncologists,” he added.

The hospital is establishing a world class database which shall allow for proper storage of information for future reference as well as serve as a cancer information centre.

Said leading cardiac and thoracic surgeon, Munyaradzi Rumhizha, who joined Oncocare as the medical services director: “The database would be crucial in gathering and storing statistics because, as of now, very few details are captured in the country.”

Health experts are, meanwhile, encouraging lifestyle changes where people adopt healthy diets, increase physical exercises, and avoid excessive alcohol as preventive measures.

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Killer Zivhu

IT is not often that a convicted conman rises from prison dungeons to become a national political sensation.

And when that happens, the prison and correctional services should indeed celebrate.

History has very few examples of such people who get condemned by both moral and legal edicts only to rise against all odds.

There is Charles Colson who worked as the former special counsel for former United States president, Richard Nixon, from 1969 to 1973, and was best known for being part of the Watergate Seven.

Following his release, Colson started Prison Fellowship, a national ministry that helps prisoners develop or restore a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Colson’s touching programme has helped prisoners live a better life and strengthen their spirit.

Then there is film star, Robert Downey Junior who, from 1996 to 2001 was one of Hollywood’s biggest bad boys.

The actor was arrested several times during those years for drug-related charges involving possession of cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

Downey eventually battled his addictions and made a highly successful comeback, staring in several blockbusters.

Comedian Tim Allen also comes to mind.

In the beginning of his comedic career, he was arrested at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport in Michigan for possession of cocaine and was charged with drug trafficking.

The ex-convict quickly turned his life around after prison and became one of America’s favourite comedic actors.

Rap music superstar 50 Cent, also known by his real name, Curtis Jackson III, was arrested on drug-related charges and sentenced to three years in prison in 1994.

Back then, Jackson was still an aspiring rapper, who was determined to make something of himself after his release.

After his release, 50 Cent began rapping and his popularity surged with the release of his first album, Get rich or die trying, in 2003.

Crime indeed does not pay; and Zimbabwe’s own ex-convict, Killer Zivhu has learnt that lesson and has added his name to the list of former criminals who did not let jail break their spirits.

The first thing you notice about Zivhu is the confidence he exudes, which some mistook for a sense of insecurity.

Such assertions stemmed from the fact that the man has a tainted past, one which his adversaries have tried to exploit countless times to no avail.

For the benefit of those not yet in the know, Zivhu, the Chivi Rural District Council (RDC) chairman last week won the presidency of the Association of Rural District Councils of Zimbabwe (ARDCZ) — unopposed.

This was despite spirited efforts by his opponents who had hoped to have him disqualified on the basis of his 2005 fraud conviction and subsequent jailing.

Facts are that Zivhu was convicted of two counts of fraud in April 2005 after he coned two men of huge sums of money.

He initially faced three counts, but the other case was withdrawn.

In the first case, which was later withdrawn, Zivhu took ZW$4,5 million from a woman affiliated to his cross border traders association so that he could source foreign currency for her, but instead converted it to personal use.

In the second case, he received ZW$6 million from a pastor pretending he would procure goods for him from Zambia but, again, put it to different use.

So under these compelling circumstances, arguments then came thick and fast that Zivhu was not eligible to contest in the local authority elections, and therefore should not stand for the ARDCZ presidency.

But his own argument, which was never backed by evidence, has been that he had successfully appealed against both conviction and sentence.

In fact, his insistence that he never did time for fraud, having left the country soon after the “successful” appeal and only came back in 2010, has only been taken as a laughable joke.

When you win as much as he did, who the hell cares what anything means?

Who has ever seen a person’s return from abroad so perfectly coinciding with one’s marked date of prison release?

But whatever the case, Zivhu is one man who has managed to write his own piece of history.

He also chairs the Zimbabwe Cross Border Traders Association.

Touted as the champion of development in his rural area, Zivhu has completely outshone his own legislator, Mathias Tongofa.

And rumours are that he is actually seeking to upstage the rather reserved Chivi Member of Parliament in the next general elections due in less about 18 months.

At the venue of the ARDCZ elective congress seven days ago, Zivhu sauntered onstage to raucous applause and the booming riffs of approval from the floor as he took to the podium to outline his vision for RDCs.

Just before his confirmation as the new president, there were last ditch attempts to stop him by fielding a shock candidate. His opponents went round the Harare International Conference Centre auditorium spreading cautionary tales about the perils of electing him, but in the end he had the last laugh.

When you win as much as he did, who the hell cares what anything means?

He stepped to the lectern and did some infectious gestures, which he had obviously rehearsed over the past months.

It was a nodding wave, a grin, a half-sneer, and a little applause back in the direction of the audience, his face the whole time a mask of pure self-satisfaction.

And then, in his trademark deep Karanga dialect, he spelt out his vision for RDCs, much to the amusement of his colleagues.

“We want to make sure we develop all growth points so that they attain town status in the foreseeable future,” he said, referring to dozens of shopping centres established by government in the 1980s as a way of developing the countryside and help curb rural-urban migration in the process.

That has, however, failed to succeed because the growth centres have been largely unattractive to investors.

Zivhu says he is there to resuscitate this long lost hope.

“I will work to ensure that we attract investment in these growth points. There are enough resources within respective RDC to turn their fortunes around. There are mines, and there is a lot of agriculture in some places. So there is no reason why these areas cannot develop.

“Starting next year, we are having RDCs expos so that they can exhibit the resources that can attract investors in their areas. I will ensure that there is proper administration of the association so that we accurately advocate issues of RDCs,” said Zivhu, who is replacing, Mutasa RDC chairman, David Guy Mutasa.

He added: “My heart bleeds for the people. I want to serve the people. All I am saying is let’s have a new dispensation.”

Zimbabwe has a total of 60 RDCs, some of which are located in Zimbabwe’s poorest areas.

Zivhu used his much publicised projects in Chivi as the pedestal to his successful election as ARDCZs president, but while his words are too easy to fall for, the road ahead is difficult to navigate and certainly would require much more from the man whose star is rising.

When he was jailed in April 2005 for fraud, newspaper headlines screamed: “Zivhu’s fall from grace!”

Now, they can equally scream: “Zivhu’s return to grace!”

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Nicholas Goche had his suspension rescinded.

THERE is growing acrimony between ZANU-PF cadres whose suspensions were lifted by the party’s National Appeals Committee (NAC) and those who assumed their positions in the wake of a ruthless purge in 2014 that targeted former vice president Joice Mujuru and her allies, the Financial Gazette can report.

Dozens of ZANU-PF officials were either shown the door or suspended for varying periods for throwing their weight behind Mujuru as their preferred candidate to succeed President Robert Mugabe who, at the age of 92, is now in the twilight of his political career.

Fifty-two officials have lodged their appeals with NAC, created specifically to consider pleadings from cadres who felt they were unfairly treated. The committee has so far reviewed 25 cases of which seven cadres had their suspensions lifted.

Jason Machaya and Chiratidzo Mabuwa, from the Midlands, had their penalties overturned, while Nicholas Goche from Mashonaland Central had his suspension rescinded as well.

In Masvingo, Killian Gwanetsa, Paul Chimedza and Tongai Muzenda — son of the late vice president Simon Muzenda — saw their appeals sailing through.

NAC, chaired by Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko, is still to go through a thick file of pending appeals from several other ZANU-PF politicians who were punished for being too close to Mujuru, whose association with the ruling party ended in 2014 after she was accused of plotting to unseat her boss, unconstitutionally.

Among those with pending appeals are Webster Shamu, Tendai Savanhu, Francis Nhema and Flora Buka.

A precedence that has induced friction between the returnees and those who orchestrated their downfall has been set in the Midlands after Machaya bounced back as provincial chairman.

He is however, still to chair a single meeting in the region a month into his reinstatement. Soon after his suspension was lifted in early July, he got involved in a horrific car crash along the Harare-Gweru road while on his way from a NAC meeting that presided over his appeal.

He is currently recuperating in a Harare hospital amid lingering suspicions among his family that his top-of-the-range Land Rover Discovery 4 vehicle could have been tampered with, resulting in one of the wheels coming off while cruising towards the Midlands provincial capital of Gweru, hence the accident.

ZANU-PF insiders said the possibility that cadres being thrown a lifeline may revert to their old positions has created tensions between the returnees and people who benefited from their demise.

The latter are fearful of losing their positions as well as being victimised for persecuting the so-called allies of Mujuru who, at the time of their censure, commanded influential positions in the ruling party.

In order to preserve their positions, they would want the returnees to start all over again from the cell, which is the lowest structure in the party.

Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko

Reports indicate that there exists a long queue of people gunning for constituencies belonging to suspended members in the hope that they would be precluded from participating in the 2018 plebiscite.

In the Midlands, Machaya’s nemeses are livid over NAC’s decision, vowing to give the politician a rough landing.

Even before 44 out of 50 Midlands provincial executive members passed a vote of no confidence on him in November 2014, which led to his suspension in May last year, Machaya would cast a forlorn figure at Provincial Co-ordinating Committee (PCC) meetings as rivals boycotted meetings he would have convened.

“There is no way we can accept Machaya as our leader in the province…He too has personally not forgotten that experience from his earlier stint as chairman,” said a Midlands PCC member who declined to be named.

In Mberengwa South, there has been a lot of jostling for Mabuwa’s seat, and her return is a cause for concern for those who had injected resources into the constituency in preparation for the 2018 polls.

The deputy Minister for Industry, Mabuwa, said she could not comment on the ructions in her home province, preferring to say: “I am concentrating on doing what I am supposed to do and I am not eyeing any position for that matter.”

In Gokwe-Nembudziya constituency, incumbent legislator, Justice Mayor Wadyajena, an ally of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, said he will rise to the challenge should NAC rule in favour of Buka, who was handed a five-year suspension last year.

Buka who was the lawmaker for the area for over a decade is reportedly carrying out low key activities in preparation for her return.

Once cleared by the Politburo, she may also resume her duties as the ZANU-PF Women’s League’s secretary for administration, a position currently occupied in the interim by Letina Undenge, who took over from the late Espinah Nhari, who was booted out for chanting anti-Generation 40 (G40) slogans at a rally.

“I will teach her (Buka) an electoral lesson if she dares try to wrestle the constituency from me. I have worked well with the people there and they will stand by me,” said Wadyajena.

It is, however, not just in the lower structures of the party where there is resistance against the lost lambs.

Some of the suspended officials who are trooping back into the party used to hold senior positions in the top organs of ZANU-PF such as the Politburo, the Central Committee and the National Consultative Assembly. Some were also in the top echelons of the ZANU-PF Women’s League.

In Mashonaland Central, there is confusion over what will become of Goche, who was the second most senior ZANU-PF politician in the province, after Mujuru, prior to his suspension.

Goche was a member of the Politburo, the Central Committee and National Consultative Assembly.

Goche suffered probably the worst humiliation in 2014.

Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere

ZANU-PF’s national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere

He was accused of hiring assassins to eliminate President Mugabe and had to be hospitalised after suffering from hypertension.

Indications are that Goche could be earmarked for the post of Provincial Affairs Minister, which fell vacant after Martin Dinha won the Mazowe North National Assembly seat.

At law, Dinha automatically relinquished his position unless President Mugabe reappoints him.

Dinha is being linked to the Justice Ministry as either a full minister or as Mnangagwa’s deputy at the ministry.

In the political hotbed of Masvingo, party cadres are plotting to forestall the possibility of Gwanetsa resuming the chairmanship.

Gwanetsa chaired the province before his suspension.

This week, Gwanetsa confirmed the lifting of his suspension, but remained tight-lipped about his next move.

“It is true (that my suspension has been lifted), but I do not want to discuss it with the press. There are many party processes that I am waiting for (to be completed) and until they are complete, I will not be commenting,” he said.

Asked if it was true that he was considering reinstatement as provincial chairman, Gwanetsa simply said: “I will let people say whatever they want to say. I will not speak until the right time comes.”

Masvingo is currently being led by interim chair, Amasa Nenjana who replaced suspended Ezra Chadzamira.

In Gutu South, aspiring ZANU-PF legislators were plotting against the incumbent and now have a fight in their hands now that Chimedza is going nowhere.

Chimedza said he would take on those who were prematurely campaigning in his constituency.

“They are causing confusion. They should wait until the party officialises campaigns. But now that I have been given the green light to start working for the party, I will do all that is necessary to get re-elected,” he said.

The lifting of the suspensions has also widened fissures between Mnangagwa’s allies and a rival G40 faction, which appears to be at the forefront of wooing back most of Mujuru’s former allies.

G40 now claims to have Machaya, Chiratidzo Mabuwa, Gwanetsa and Goche in its ranks.

Mnangagwa’s allies are therefore seeking to get the party to halt the appeals as it feels they are strengthening their opponents.

“The committee has been very impartial, pardoning Mujuru’s allies while at the same time dismissing our people. That is very unfair. Some people in G40 could be happy with some returnees because, remember, some of them were supporting Mujuru together. So it will be a reunion of estranged cadres. It’s Mnangagwa who has nothing to gain here,” said one official.

NAC has infuriated Mnangagwa’s allies by upholding the dismissal of war veterans leader, Christopher Mutsvangwa and former provincial youth chairpersons, Godfrey Tsenengamu, Godwin Gomwe, Vengai Musengi, Kumbulani Mpofu, Edmore Samambwa, Tamuka Nyoni and Washington Nkomo while pardoning Mujuru’s former allies.

ZANU-PF’s national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, this week tried to calm the situation by claiming that there won’t be any interference with the existing structures.

“No one is going back to their old positions; where have you ever seen that happening? It does not work like that. The norm is that whenever someone has their suspension of expulsion reversed, they start from the lower structures. You can check with (secretary for administration, Ignatius) Cde Chombo. He is the one issuing the letters (of lifting suspensions) so he should be able to give you further information, but I have told you the truth,” he said.

Chombo was not reachable for comment at the time of going to print.

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Despite Lake Kariba itself and the massive wilderness skirting the lake teeming with wildlife and other natural resources, the living conditions for the people of Binga have been pathetic.

THE sun mercilessly baked the earth.

The skies were cloudless and for miles around, all one could see was parched, barren earth studded by sporadic, low bush resignedly shedding off leaves.

Also garnishing the near barren panorama was shrivelled grass, now convenient fodder for termites.

This outback, otherwise called Binga, is naturally hostile, but this year, the situation has been compounded by a ravaging El Nino weather phenomenon, which practically rendered crop cultivation in this hot region impossible.

The local residents have exhausted whatever little food they had.

Such is the situation in the Tonga hinterland of Binga, whose age old inhabitants are forever condemned to destitution and starvation; as both man and nature deviously conspire to push the souls of Binga to the edge.

Here lives the BaTonga people whose past and present is defined in terms of human suffering and neglect having been driven off, without compensation, from their original homeland when waters of the massive Lake Kariba started to flood their motherland in the late 1950s following the completion of the Kariba Dam wall.

Despite Lake Kariba itself and the massive wilderness skirting the lake teeming with wildlife and other natural resources, the living conditions for the people of Binga have been pathetic.

The future, too, does not look bright at all.

Children cut their education short in big numbers because the distances from home to the nearest school, for many, are dissuasive having had to do the daily oscillations on empty and rumbling stomachs.

Frequently, vicissitudes of life catch up on the exposed girl child, who is waylaid on her way to or from school by cunning men. Before she knows it, she is pregnant, blighting a future that could otherwise have been bright.

“There is a huge problem now within communities in terms of early marriages and child abuse cases that affect school going children. There are many incidents of girls falling pregnant and dropping out of school,” said prominent humanitarian activist, Isaac Mumpande, who chairs a local humanitarian and activism organisation called Basilwizi Trust, which was specifically formed to advance the cause of the highly marginalised Tonga communities.

To understand the context of his gloomy narrative, one needs to look at the vast possibilities at the disposal of these communities that only require commitment on the part of government to transform BaTongaland into an agriculture hub.

For a fact, the land lies in the country’s arid natural Region Five, which receives too little rainfall to sustain crops.

But, it hardly ever needs to sorely rely on rain for agriculture: Lake Kariba’s waters hardly benefits the locals.

The people can do with simple irrigation technology.

But for 57 years, all the Tonga have received from successive governments is a buffet of empty promises that have never materialised.

One perfect example is the Bulawayo Kraal irrigation scheme which has not taken off since the ground-breaking ceremony took place 12 years ago.

It is a multi-million dollar project which has never had a dollar invested in it, except by word of mouth.

It is located just metres from the shores of Lake Kariba and yet, not a drop of water has been pumped into it.

Initially, the project was a brainchild of former vice president, Joice Mujuru.

Mujuru, now leader of opposition party, Zimbabwe People First, visited the project at the time and commissioned equipment ranging from bulldozers to clear land, water pipes, tractors, disc harrows and everything else that can be mentioned.

Those with sharper memories will remember a high-spirited former vice president appearing on television, declaring that a new era had dawned in Binga. Hunger and poverty would soon be a thing of the past.

In sharp contrast, hunger and poverty have stubbornly refused to be relegated to the archives.

Elders living in sparsely populated villages around the scheme recounted to the Financial Gazette that as soon as Mujuru left the place, huge trucks arrived in the area with hired workmen to load all the project equipment and drove away.

They left the Tonga dream shattered.

Traditional Tonga mud huts on stilts, near Binga, Zimbabwe

There was a glimmer of hope when, at about this time last year, government again headed back to exactly the same irrigation scheme, with exactly the same message.

This time, it was First Lady, Grace Mugabe, who spearheaded the revival of the fading BaTonga dream when she descended there to commission the scheme for the second time.

Again, equipment was moved to the area and was unveiled amid pomp and fanfare.

Sadly, one year on, the only indication that there are remote plans to establish an irrigation scheme are the vast tracts of land cleared of trees, and tractors gathering dust and changing colour due to the effects of the terrible elements of the weather.

The land lies desolate for acres on end, engulfed by an insipid silence that spells nothing but neglect.

Locals say apart from clearing the forests, nothing else was done.

Workers who came in to do preparatory work never got paid for the half year they spent doing the work, the Financial Gazette was told; and, duly, they left.

Contractors also left after government failed to honour its end of the bargain, carrying with them their bulldozers.

The resident irrigation engineer, it was further said, has since also packed his bags, taking refuge in Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city, over 400 kilometres away.

For a people to whom much was expected and nothing delivered, there is sheer frustration.

“The situation is just frustrating. There is nothing going on here. We wonder why this project is failing to take off and we can only think this is marginalisation at its worst,” were the stoic words of local councillor, Juma Muleya, whose face is just as sullen as everyone else in the area.

Even the traditional leaders are peeved in no small way.

“There is no progress here. It is only talk without implementation. We don’t know what is lacking. If it’s labour, our children are prepared to work for free so that this project succeeds,” said Chief Binga, Gaster Siateya.

Throwing his hands up in the air and shaking his head vigorously, as if to dramatise the anger boiling in the communities he presides over, he added: “We are only a few metres from the river and yet there are no pipes to connect us. We have been abandoned.”

Apart from this irrigation scheme that never was, the locals feel cheated by governments that have ruled Zimbabwe since they were displaced from the banks of the great Zambezi River.

Having been affectionately known as the BaSilwizi or People from the great river, they have, however, no modern relation to the sole resource that their forefathers passed on to them.

Over the years, the benefits of the river, that was bulged into the enormous sea called Kariba, have been enjoyed by men and women voyaging from far and wide, doing so on the basis of the strength of money and political power.

These rich and connected come to fish in the area and to hunt game because they can easily afford the licenses demanded by government, fetching millions of dollars that circulate nowhere nearer BaTongaland, which is land of just pole and dagga structures.

The BaTonga recount gripping stories of how they have had to use their own labour and meagre resources to build schools so that they could educate their children and help themselves wiggle out of the nagging poverty.

The only thing government does is come to inspect the buildings to see if they are fit for human use and deploy teachers.

Villagers said they are criminalised as poachers if they try to go to the lake to catch fish, even for the next meal, much worse when they try to hunt for small game that is, surprisingly, still abundant in the virgin forests of the hinterland.

The few fishing groups that have been cleared to ply the waters are ill-equipped.

“We have been trying to lobby relevant stakeholders, especially the Ministry of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment so that in the implementation of the empowerment programme, they allow the Tonga (people) to benefit. Remember they paved way for the construction of the dam,” Mumpande said.

“We have fishing cooperatives and we are lobbying government to exercise some level of positive discrimination in terms of issuing fishing licenses so that at least locals get a substantial percentage of fishing licenses, but this has been very difficult to achieve because the government says the lake is a national resource,” he added.

The Financial Gazette interviewed a group of women who formed a fishing co-operative, which is a perfect example of how success can be brought to Binga communities, government willing.

“We catch about 20 to 28, 50kg bags of kapenta every month, and sell them at US$50 each. Our lives have been transformed a lot and we are trying to save for better equipment so we can double our catch,” said chairperson of the Bindabuko Banakazi Fishing Co-operative, Sinikiwe Mwinde.

But such opportunities have eluded the majority of people in Binga.

Despite being among the pioneer arrivals in the country, the BaTonga have continuously been marginalised.

History records that they trekked from East Africa around 300AD, settling along the Zambezi Valley, where a deadly fusion of tsetse flies, mosquitoes and their ravenous bites prevented their population from growing, eventually getting outnumbered by the Shona-speaking tribes that settled in the country centuries later, around 900AD (DL Beach, 1980).

Since independence, the Tonga people have remained maligned from the rest of the country.

Oral tradition popular in the area has it that President Robert Mugabe once came face to face with the wrath of the people when he visited the area in 1983. It is said that chiefs confronted him saying he should make it clear if government considered them Zimbabwean or Zambian citizens.

Decades later, they expressed their frustrations by voting for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party — a pattern they have maintained since 2000.

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President Robert Mugabe

… as youth, women leagues take the gloves off

THE power dynamics playing out in ZANU-PF will enter a new phase from tomorrow as the two wings of the ruling party — the youth and women’s leagues — convene crucial meetings that would set the tone for the 16th annual national people’s conference to be held in Masvingo in December, the Financial Gazette can report.

The ZANU-PF Youth League will set the ball rolling tomorrow when it convenes its first National Youth Assembly meeting at the party’s headquarters in Harare – the first such indaba since its national executive was ushered into office in 2014.

Next week, the Women’s League will congregate at the same venue for a two-day National Women’s Assembly, which will open on Friday, before closing the next day.

Article 202 of the party’s constitution requires the Youth League National Assembly to convene an ordinary session at least twice a year, which means it can have as many sessions in a year as it deems necessary.

The same constitution is, however, silent on the number of women’s assembly meetings that could be held in a calendar year.

While this is the case, both the women and youth leagues have not had these meetings ever since they were elected into office about 20 months ago. That they have all of a sudden awoken from their deep slumber to act in line with the charter has raised eyebrows, coming hard on the heels of unrelenting onslaughts on Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his allies.

ZANU-PF insiders told the Financial Gazette this week that the meetings, whose agendas are being kept a closely guarded secret, were meant to provide a convenient platform for Mnangagwa’s rivals to push for an extraordinary congress in December where those aspiring for President Robert Mugabe’s position would either be demoted or shown the door.

Trending under the Generation 40 moniker, or simply G40, Mnangagwa’s rivals accuse the veteran politician, who turns 70 on September 15, of plotting to succeed his boss, notwithstanding the fact that President Mugabe does not intend to leave office as long as he is still popular within his party.

While Mnangagwa was forced to issue a public statement last month, dismissing the allegations in the wake of vicious attacks on his person by Sarah Mahoka and Mandiitawepi Chimene, his rebuttal has done very little to appease those who are baying for his blood.

Mahoka is the secretary for finance in the ZANU-PF Women’s League, while Chimene leads a faction of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) that has remained loyal to President Mugabe following the fallout between the incumbent and some members of the association’s executive.

ZNLWVA chairman, Christopher Mutsvangwa, along with his entire executive have since been dismissed from ZANU-PF for denigrating the party’s leadership in what is essentially a counteroffensive by G40 for their role in trying to rally support for a Mnangagwa presidency.

Several allies of Mnangagwa, including Pupurai Togarepi, the secretary for youth affairs, have either been suspended or dismissed from the party for promoting factionalism.

Having isolated Mnangagwa from his allies, ZANU-PF insiders said the youth and women’s leagues are turning up the heat on “the crocodile” or “ngwena”, as the Vice President is affectionately known for his cunningness.

They are hoping to turn the forthcoming conference into an extraordinary congress where the party’s constitution could be amended to accommodate a woman in the presidium.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa

ZANU-PF used to have a clause reserving one of the two slots for the party’s second secretaries and vice presidents (VPs) for a woman, but it was revoked in December 2014 during the melee to get rid of Joice Mujuru, who had deputised President Mugabe since 2004, when that provision was first introduced.

The other VP slot is reserved for a former ZAPU cadre as part of the Unity Accord signed in 1987 between President Mugabe and the late Joshua Nkomo, to end the disturbances that rocked the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces in the mid 1980s during what became known as the Gukurahundi era.

At its December 2015 conference held in the resort town of Victoria Falls, ZANU-PF acceded to the request from the Women’s League to incorporate a woman VP in its presidium before the end of this year.

The current presidium comprises President Mugabe and his two deputies, Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko, who represents the former ZAPU cadres as spelt out in the Unity Accord.

Party secretary for administration, Ignatius Chombo, is an ex-officio member of the presidium.

In terms of the ZANU-PF constitution, an extraordinary session of congress may be convened whenever it is deemed necessary and at the instance of:

(1) The majority of the members of the Central Committee; or

(2) The President and First Secretary, at the instance of not less than one third of members of the Central Committee, or;

(3) The President and First Secretary, at the instance of at least five Provincial Executive Councils by resolutions to that effect.

On receipt of a resolution requesting an extraordinary session of congress, the President shall forward the same to the secretary for administration, who on receipt of the said resolution, gives at least six weeks notice to convene an extraordinary session of congress.

The Central Committee will then formulate the necessary procedures for the execution of the business of the extraordinary session of the congress.

The extraordinary session of congress shall then deliberate only on those matters for which it has been specifically convened. Three-quarters of the members of congress shall’ form a quorum for the convening of the extraordinary session.

In the event that President Mugabe yields to pressure to convene a special congress and that the quota system is adopted, many believe that Mphoko could be safe because there is no known desire among ZAPU cadres to either recall him or have him re-assigned.

If the current onslaught on Mnangagwa is anything to go by, it would appear that his nemeses would want him to be re-assigned to the vacant post of national chairman or expelled from the party altogether for harbouring presidential ambitions.

An extraordinary congress might also result in President Mugabe, as the sole appointing authority in the party, ringing changes to the Politburo and the Central Committee, which now has a number of gaps following the recent suspensions and dismissals of errant party officials.

The Central Committee has also shrunk as a result of deaths, among them of Espinah Nhari in May and Aguy Georgias in December last year.

To all intents and purposes, this would constitute another shake-up in the party.

Mnangagwa’s allies are particularly worried about reports that their opponents want to capitalise on tomorrow and next week’s meetings to re-ignite the push for the appointment of a female vice president, first proposed by the Women’s League almost a year ago.

“There is serious tension on the ground. People from higher structures are coming to influence the youths. These meetings could change the political arena forever,” said a member of the Youth League national executive who declined to be named.

“The meetings are turning out to be the type of conferences we have just before each congress. It appears as if people are very serious with the (female VP) issue”.

Judging from the reports from a meeting held last week in Mazowe at the First Lady’s orphanage, the forthcoming women’s assembly meeting could be explosive.

Former war veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa

According to sources that attended the meeting, ZANU-PF Mashonaland West Women’s League provincial chairperson, Angelina Muchemenye took Mahoka and Chimene to task for disrespecting the party’s leadership by confronting Mnangagwa on separate occasions.

Mahoka rose to notoriety in May when she publicly attacked Mnangagwa for allegedly leading a faction. She was followed by Chimene who launched another tirade on the Vice President last month for allegedly plotting to unseat President Mugabe.

Muchemenye is also said to have accused Mahoka of frustrating development projects in Mashonaland West.

Mahoka is currently navigating a storm in her constituency, Hurungwe East, for allegedly diverting some of the money donated to the First Lady for personal use, claims she denies, as being advanced by her foes.

Efforts to get Mahoka to comment were futile after she first told this reporter that she was travelling and advised him to call later, after which she was not answering calls to her mobile phone.

Contacted for comment, ZANU-PF’s deputy secretary for youth affairs, Kudzai Chipanga, described their meeting as routine.

“That is speculation by people who are not in the know. These are routine constitutional meetings to discuss our issues as a party,” he said.

This was also echoed by the party’s national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere.

“The youths and the women are mandated by the party constitution to have national assembly meetings. They are not mysterious meetings as is being advanced by some creative minds that want to sow divisions in the party. These are party processes to allow them to have dialogue with the President,” said Kasukuwere.

Deputy secretary for women’s affairs in ZANU-PF, Eunice Sandi-Moyo, was not available for comment as well as the Women’s League’s secretary for administration, Letina Undenge.

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Vice Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko.

THE ZANU-PF Women’s League may not make any fresh resolutions ahead of this year’s annual conference, according to highly placed sources within the organ, who insisted they were still pressing for a return of the women’s quota in the party’s presidium.

At the Victoria Falls conference last year, the women agitated for a quota compelling the party to have a woman within the presidium, which is entirely composed of men.

It is made up of party president and first secretary, President Robert Mugabe and his two deputies, Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko.

Secretary for administration, Ignatius Chombo, is an ex-officio member of the presidium.

The women want one of the vice presidential positions to be occupied by a member of the league.

One source said they wanted this before the annual conference slated for December in Masvingo.

It had been expected that the party’s leadership would start implementing this resolution after the congress by making the necessary amendments to the party’s constitution.

The process is initiated by the department of legal affairs headed by Patrick Chinamasa.

However, no effort has been made to alter the party charter as yet, a development which has greatly angered the women.

Their demand — part of a factional battle between two key factions in the party — comes as the party lines up numerous meetings ahead of the potentially epoch-making December conference.

Last weekend, restless ZANU-PF youths met in Harare for a Youth League National Assembly meeting, where President Robert Mugabe pulled a shocker by promoting Kudzai Chipanga to the powerful position of secretary for youth affairs.

Chipanga replaced Pupurai Togarepi, who was dismissed for allegedly fanning factionalism.

Togarepi was linked to a faction called Team Lacoste, which is reportedly lobbying for Mnangagwa to succeed President Mugabe.

The other faction, which is opposed to Mnangagwa’s ascent to power, is called Generation 40 (G40).

The President’s surprise move was received with a pinch of salt by a group of power brokers within ZANU-PF that wants Mnangagwa to succeed the incumbent, while opposing G40 members received it with joy.

G40 has vowed to thwart Mnangagwa’s presidential ambitions.

Chipanga is closely linked to G40.

The Women’s League was also set to hold its own national assembly meeting on Saturday, where members are expected not to make any fresh resolutions unless the party implements their demand for representation in the Presidium.

But by yesterday, indications were that the date for the national assembly meeting had not yet been agreed, although earlier indications were that the meeting would be held on Friday and Saturday.

Women’s League spokesperson, Thokozile Mathuthu, said the meeting would not be held on Saturday.

“There is no assembly meeting on Saturday. We are going to have it, but not this Saturday,” she said.

Mathuthu professed ignorance over a planned deal to maintain last year’s resolution on representation in the Presidium.

“Where did they make that agreement? I don’t know about it,” she said.

The women’s quota clause was struck off the ZANU-PF constitution in 2014 as a measure to deal with former vice president, Joice Mujuru.

But sources insisted yesterday that the women had indeed agreed to press for the same resolutions they placed before the December 2015 conference.

“The women don’t want to make fresh resolutions for this year’s conference because their previous resolutions have not been implemented,” said a member of the Women’s League who declined to be named.

Eunice Sandi-Moyo, the deputy Women’s League boss; Hurungwe East legislator and the league’s national secretary for finance, Sarah Mahoka; Senate president, Edna Madzongwe; and Gweru businesswoman, Smelly Dube, a members of the organ, are believed to be among those pushing for the idea.

The Financial Gazette understands that there are a few of Mnangagwa’s backers in the league who are not comfortable with the Women’s League position.

These include secretary for security, Shuvai Mahofa, deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Marble Chinomona and Mashonaland West provincial Women’s League chairperson, Angeline Muchemenye.

Sandi-Moyo — who presented the league’s resolutions at Victoria Falls — has already been tasked to inform President Mugabe on the Women’s League position once the national assembly meeting is held.

A source suggested Mnangagwa’s allies will not have any chance to influence the Women’s League.

“While they might be against the idea which seems to be giving more pressure on their preferred faction, they are likely not to have any chance to raise their concerns. They have already fallen behind. Everything will, however, depend on the President, who has the final say,” added the source.

The ZANU-PF ship has been rocked by factional tides that have failed to subside after the sacking of Mujuru in 2014.

The former vice president was accused of leading a faction that was allegedly plotting to unconstitutionally remove President Mugabe from power.

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Lake, Mutirikwi, receding to dangerously low levels.

ZIMBABWE’S sugar industry is heading for a major crisis as water at the country’s largest inland lake, Mutirikwi, recedes to dangerously low levels.

The lake could be de-commissioned around mid November.

Statistics availed by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) paint a grim picture.

As of Sunday, the lake held only 79 980 mega litres of water out of its total capacity of 1 378 082 mega litres.

This represents a frightening 87,4 percent drop in water levels, which means the lake is now left with less that 12,96 percent of its water capacity.

According to management at ZINWA’s Runde Catchment Area, the rate of water loss, now between 0,07 and 0,10 per day, is expected to rise significantly as the country enters the peak dry summer season (October and November), which is the hottest period in Zimbabwe.

The consequences of the country’s principal inland, man-made reservoir drying up could spell doom for sugar cane farmers downstream at Chiredzi’s sugar estates.

Water demand in the Lowveld peaks between the hot four months that precede the rain season, which now starts very late in December.

Ever since the construction of Lake Mutirikwi was completed in 1960, the 56-year-old dam has only been decommissioned once, during the devastating drought of 1992.

The lake’s waters retreated to just 0,3percent at the time.

The lake was also nearly decommissioned in November 2013 when water levels dropped to four percent, but was saved by timely rains.

Chiredzi cane famers at Tongaat Hullet’s Triangle and Hippo Valley Estates and thousands other individuals depending on Lake Mutirikwi’s water are already feeling the pitch.

So ominous has the situation become that ZINWA — the custodian of national water resources — has been forced to monitor the water levels around the clock.

Zimbabweans consume around 400 000 tonnes of sugar every year and production of the commodity could be drastically cut due to poor quality of the sugarcane crop, owing to poor water supplies.

Any shortage of sugar can easily impact on downstream industries.

It might also force government to lift its ban on sugar imports to augment local supplies.

ZINWA’s Runde Catchment Area operations manager, Jonathan Juma, said they have already been forced to introduce a stringent irrigation water rationing regime due to the dire situation.

ZINWA is currently releasing just 10,1 cubic metres per second downstream, compared to the 32 cubic metres per second it releases when water levels in the lake are normal.

“The sugar industry is actually being affected as we speak. The farmers have reduced their raw water consumption to 43 percent of what they normally require. All the other small dams are nearly empty,” he said.

Bangala and Muzhwi dams that supplement Mutirikwi, have already been decommissioned after they ran out of water in March, while Manjirenji dam, off Chiredzi River, is virtually empty.

Manjirenji irrigates more than 4 000 hectares of sugarcane plantations in Mkwasine, which is dominated by individual farmers who sell their crop to Tongaat Hullet after harvesting.

“If it continues at this rate, there is a very big possibility that we can come to a point where we can no longer release water to the Loweveld for irrigation,” Juma said.

Standing on the dam wall, one can clearly see the substantial depletion of the water.

Outcrops that were once completely covered by the massive lake are now cleary visible.

In addition to irrigating sugarcane plantations, the City of Masvingo also solely relies on the lake for its domestic water, while several other small scale irrigation schemes littered along Mutirikwi River downstream also face collapse.

Juma allayed fears that Masvingo City and Chiredzi town would face serious water shortages.

He said if the worst happens, they would stop all irrigation activities and redirect all the remaining water to domestic use. We will be forced to stop releasing water for irrigation just to accommodate the people downstream and for domestic use in Triangle and Chiredzi.

“If we do this, the remaining water can service these areas until March next year when we expect the situation to have improved,” he said.

Zimbabwe Sugarcane Farmers Development Association, Admore Veterai, said farmers are already using improvised water saving mechanisms working hand in hand with ZINWA as they battle to stay on the field.

“It’s a catch 22 situation, but we are fighting to beat it. Given the climate change phenomenon, it’s not surprising that we are experiencing this shortage of water and it’s not going to improve unless we think up strategies to contain the situation.

“As farmers, we are already using water conservation techniques because we know that if rains do not come early, we could be in serious trouble.

“For example, we are now irrigating at 70 percent and jumping some lines so that water only goes where it is required,” said Veterai, a former police chief.

Meanwhile, the completion of Tokwe-Mukorsi dam, with capacity to irrigate at least 25 000 hectares of farmland and expected to replace Mutirikwi as Zimbabwe’s largest inland lake, has for long been touted as the single biggest solution to water woes in the Loweveld.

Government has, however, been struggling to complete the dam, currently at 95 percent complete and requiring US$20 million, owing to shortage of funds. Construction work at the site has since stalled.

Besides Tokwe-Mukorsi, whose construction was first mooted in 1955, but only started in 1998, there are several other dams which are still just pipe dreams.

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ZANU-PF national spokesman, Simon Khaya Moyo

….Simon Khaya-Moyo seeks treatment in SA

THE intense infighting in the ruling party is putting unbearable strain on ZANU-PF bigwigs’ health as it emerged this week that Simon Khaya-Moyo, the Minister of Policy Coordination and Promotion of Socio-Economic Ventures in the President’s Office, is among top chefs that have been in and out of hospital, fighting hypertension-related illnesses.

Khaya-Moyo, the ruling party’s secretary for information and publicity, has not been reporting for duty for the past three months and has also been conspicuous by his absence at many government and ZANU-PF functions.

Most notably, the 71-year-old politician has been unable to attend the last four Politburo meetings, resulting in Ignatius Chombo, the party’s secretary for administration, assuming some of his responsibilities, including making important public announcements.

He has also missed important national events such as the Heroes and Defence Forces days, amid reports that he is spending much of his time in a South African hospital, although he often flies back home.

Speculation is rife that Khaya-Moyo could have succumbed to the energy-supping hard politics playing out in ZANU-PF.

His political fortunes took a knock in 2014 after he was accused of being part of a faction led by Joice Mujuru, who was President Robert Mugabe’s deputy back then.

At the time, he was being linked to a vice presidential slot that had been left vacant following the death of John Nkomo in January 2013.

Khaya-Moyo only survived the chop after abandoning Mujuru and her allies, having realised that the odds were heavily stacked against the former vice president, who was being accused of plotting to unseat her boss unconstitutionally.

Despite switching allegiances ahead of the 2014 congress held in the capital city, that could not prevent his demotion from being the party’s national chairman to the position of secretary for information and publicity – seven ranks down the pecking order.

In government, he was moved to the obscure Ministry of Policy Coordination and Promotion of Socio-Economic Ventures in the President’s Office which, despite being a mouthful, duplicates the functions of other ministries.

That in itself creates friction between the ministry and other government organs that should operate autonomously.

Efforts to get a comment from Khaya-Moyo were fruitless.

Presidential spokesman, George Charamba, declined to shed light on the minister’s whereabouts, saying he would not publicly discuss someone’s health issues.

“I am not competent to talk about someone’s personal health issue,” said Charamba.

Close family sources, however, told the Financial Gazette that the former ZANU-PF national chairman has been making frequent flights to South Africa for treatment.

A family source said: “He spent about three weeks in a South African hospital last month and came back at the end of the month. He flew back to South Africa last week as his condition deteriorated. As of now, I am not sure if he is back in the country. He is battling hypertension”.

Meanwhile, former justice, legal and parliamentary affairs deputy minister, Fortune Chasi, and former home affairs deputy minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, have spent the last six days each at the same private hospital in Harare, suffering from hypertension.

The two legislators were admitted separately on Friday last week.

Fortune Chasi

The Financial Gazette managed to talk to Chasi after paying him a visit on Tuesday evening, but could not get access to Ziyambi, who was admitted in the adjoining room.

“I have been here since Friday. It’s hypertension, but I am recovering now,” Chasi said.

Asked about Ziyambi, he said: “He is (in the room) next door, but we haven’t seen each other though.”

Chasi was also fingered as a member of the Mujuru cabal, and received brickbats from militant ZANU-PF youths who wanted him ousted from the party after he was accused of attempting to block First Lady, Grace Mugabe from expanding her projects in Mazowe South.

He miraculously survived the purging spree that came after the 2014 congress.

Ziyambi too has not had it easy in ZANU-PF.

He lost his position as Mashonaland West provincial chairman and his ministerial job in October last year after being accused of fanning factionalism in the party.

He was linked to Team Lacoste, a faction rooting for Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over as President when the incumbent exits the political arena.

After playing an instrumental role in the demise of maverick former ZANU-PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman, Temba Mliswa, ahead of the December 2014 congress, Ziyambi assumed the chair in the interim.

The Zvimba East legislator reigned in the province for nine months before he was booted out of the position in September last year after he was handed a two-year suspension from ZANU-PF.

The following month, he was fired from government, although he retained his seat in Parliament.

Several ZANU-PF officials have had their health impacted on negatively by the political twists and turns in the ruling party.

After being suspended from the party, former Harare provincial chairman, Amos Midzi, was founded dead inside his vehicle at his farm, in what appeared to have been an act of suicide.

Another victim of the purges that targeted Mujuru’s followers, Acquillina Katsande, died at the age of 55, with family members disclosing that she had been devastated by the events that changed her political fortunes in ZANU-PF for the worst. A ZANU-PF proportional representative MP, Joan Tsogorani, also died last year after a hypertension attack following a public fall out with other party functionaries.

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Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere

A LAND row involving Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, could destabilise the party’s Youth League after it took a factional dimension targeting three youth league members, the Financial Gazette has learnt.

Kasukuwere was accused by President Robert Mugabe last week of allocating land meant for distribution to youths to political cronies, who included several ZANU-PF party bigwigs and executives of the Youth League.

Sources indicated that Team Lacoste, a faction linked to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, had seized on the alleged lapse by Kasukuwere, a perceived kingpin in a rival faction called Generation 40 (G40), over which he was publicly censured by President Robert Mugabe last week.

Kasukuwere is alleged to have parcelled out land earmarked for youths in urban areas to cronies, angering the ruling party’s first secretary and president.

Some of the beneficiaries of Kasukuwere’s goodwill included Kudzai Chipanga, the recently promoted secretary for youth affairs, Innocent Hamandishe, the league’s national political commissar and Kasukuwere’s younger brother, Tongai, who is also an executive in the league.

Some youths linked to Team Lacoste are now reportedly baying for the censure of the three, who vanquished several Team Lacoste-aligned youth members from the league, resulting in their expulsion for alleged indiscipline.

The rival youths are reportedly trying to put pressure on President Mugabe to wield the axe on all those accused of benefitting from Kasukuwere’s largesse.

Some of the land was also reportedly parcelled out to popular cleric, Walter Magaya, who has unveiled housing projects around the country.

Chipanga, Tongai and Hamandishe allegedly got 50 hectares each from Kasukuwere, but the three have strongly denied the allegations, saying they were simply victims of calculated factional plots.

G40 now dominates the Youth League national executive after Mnangagwa’s allies were either expelled from the party or suspended as part of the factional fights within the former liberation war party.

These included the league’s former boss, Pupurai Togarepi, who was replaced a few weeks ago by Chipanga; former secretary for administration, Lewis Matutu; and former deputy secretary for administration, Sibongile Sibanda.

Tongai, who is strongly tipped to take the now-vacant deputy secretary for youth affairs position, said he did not get any land from his brother.

Tongai contested for the position during the chaotic pre-congress Youth League conference in August 2014, but lost to Chipanga, an adversary-turned-comrade.

“I have no such land. If I took an inch of it, let people go and repossess it,” Tongai said.

He blamed his foes for concocting the allegations to force him out of the league.

“I know this is all about that position, but I am not even interested in it. We are directed by the party. I do not have a culture of jostling for positions,” he said.

Chipanga also denied benefitting from any land allocation.

“This is just a smokescreen by those people who want to label others as corrupt for political mileage, but it’s sad. We are actually pressing government daily to expedite the distribution of the land to the youths. It’s all lies, but we shall not be deterred,” he told the Financial Gazette.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Hamandishe also dismissed the allegations against him, saying: “It’s all malice coming from people who are just jealous with our tremendous achievements as the Youth League. It’s so sad that instead of working for the country, these people take a great deal of their time plotting against mere youths, including cooking up all sorts of lies.

“They even planted a story in the press suggesting that I was manhandled and slapped in the face by angry youths who were demanding their land back at a meeting in Chitungwiza when at that time I was actually campaigning for ZANU-PF in Bikita West where there is a by-election pending. That is how far lying has gone.”

Kasukuwere has also denied the allegations, despite President Mugabe insisting last week just before a Politburo meeting that he had given land to his cronies, diverting it from its intended use – distribution to party youths ahead of 2018 national elections.

Sources insisted Team Lacoste youths were unlikely to relent from their renewed battle against G40 foes.

One source indicated that as part of their strategy, the Team Lacoste youths were “stirring trouble by influencing the lower structures where they have considerable influence to instigate rebellion against the three (Youth League executives)”.

“It’s yet to be seen if they can win this but following the land scandal, things seem to be tilting in their favour presently. There are even plans to raise criminal charges against them,” said one member of the league.

G40 supporters say the trio and Kasukuwere were being targeted by Team Lacoste which wanted to regain influence of the Youth League.

“It’s really sad my brother. It’s this position which has arisen after Chipanga was elevated so they said let’s destroy these youngsters,” said a member of the youth league executive who declined to be identified.

“We have worked hard to finance the Youth League from our own earnings and we have kept it running to the extent that the President has praised us, but this is what happens. It’s sad.”

But a Mnangagwa ally dismissed this as nonsense.

“It is the President who raised the issue in the Politburo. Is the President Lacoste? Corruption is corruption, especially when it is raised by the President. They have cases to answer and they should do just that, rather than hide behind the factional issues. They surely do not expect people to fold their hands and sit back when the President is demanding answers,” said one member of the Youth League aligned to Team Lacoste.

“They should just explain how they got that land if they got it. I think bringing in the factional mantra is a smokescreen,” the official said.

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Didymus Mutasa

HATS off to Zimbabwe’s opposition family for daring a Goliath!

But alas the giant has stirred and its angry snarl has temporarily unnerved the opposition.

As the giant called ZANU-PF awakens from its slumber, its potential to send the opposition into disarray is abundantly evident, albeit the fact that the means of disrupting the unity between the opposition parties might be neither democratic nor constitutional.

Using all the machinery of State and from its own arsenal, ZANU-PF, being the ruling party it is, has undoubtedly influenced, behind the scenes, the banning of public protests.

Many people have also been arrested by the country’s police force, which has taken advantage of some contentious provisions under the controversial Public Order and Security Act.

Rallies have, on and off, been put on hold for reasons that many observers believe are indicative of a government that has run out of ideas in as far as keeping the country’s volatile political situation under control is concerned.

After attempting to thwart all voices of dissent, the ZANU-PF government is now being accused of creating dubious fringe parties to confuse the opposition.

A classic example of government’s shenanigans emerged when, recently during a meeting between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and representatives of 18 political parties under the National Electoral Reform Agenda, (NERA), some 30 outfits claiming to be opposition parties emerged literally out of thin air.

ZEC had invited NERA — a grouping of opposition political parties pressing for electoral reforms ahead of the potentially explosive 2018 general elections, for the meeting to discuss the thorny electoral reforms issue.

Arriving for the meeting last week NERA was met by an extraordinarily large number of other opposition political outfits that outnumbered the group’s own membership.

NERA representatives were forced to walk out midway through the meeting, leaving ZEC to proceed with the remaining other 30 opposition parties, some of which had some very strange names, according to NERA legal representative, Douglas Mwonzora.

NERA believes that all the 30 parties were bogus and were hastily created in the nick of time to simply outnumber NERA when it came to voting on any resolutions so as to thwart progress towards electoral reforms.

Such can be the cunning and shrewd nature of the beast called ZANU-PF.

That is probably why the party has hardly flinched each time the opposition has challenged it over the past 36 years that it has ruled the southern African nation.

Its actions have clearly shown that it is determined to maintain the status quo, because it has, so far spectacularly, matched NERA pound for pound on all fronts.

NERA and all the opposition parties it represents are facing a colossus of a party which, once it takes a stand, is prepared to defend it to the bitter end; no matter what it takes.

If the terrain demands change of tactics, the ruling party adjusts accordingly — as recent events have clearly shown.

And most likely, NERA might have underestimated the nature of the warfare that it has thrust itself into, raising fears in some circles that NERA could be fighting a losing war.

Political thinker and high-ranking ZANU-PF official, Jonathan Moyo, last week joined the currently raging debate on electoral reforms with the following short but very insightful tweet: “We cannot reform ourselves out of power.”

Political thinker and high-ranking ZANU-PF official, Jonathan Moyo

What is clear from Moyo’s assertions is that ZANU-PF is unwilling to implement any electoral reforms, especially given that it now faces a potentially formidable united opposition which has a realistic chance to defeat it in a free and fair election.

With divisions tearing it asunder, ZANU-PF realises that it needs an electoral field tilted in its favour to win and it will not easily give in to NERA’s demands.

And its actions over the past months have proved that it is prepared to take on NERA both on the rough and the smooth terrain.

It has the arsenal to do so.

When NERA staged a demonstration in the capital, Harare, last month, the ruling party, which has instruments of State power at its disposal, unleashed the anti-riot police armed with stinging teargas and water cannons that spat out itchy liquids.

Some of the protesters are now languishing in remand prison while others are in hiding.

ZANU-PF has, however, tried to give the impression that it was a fair player as well.

On two occasions last week, ZEC invited NERA representatives to dialogues aimed at mapping the way forward.

Both meetings ended disastrously.

The first meeting, which was held on Monday in Harare, ended with NERA representatives walking out after finding that ZANU-PF had planted not less than 30 “bogus” political parties.

The parties made sure to raise disagreements on any subject such that it would be put to vote, in which case they overwhelmingly defeated the 18-member NERA.

On that basis, the meeting became a complete waste of time.

NERA representatives retreated to the Media Centre where they expressed disappointment with ZEC and the ZANU-PF government.

The group then threatened to flood the streets again.

From P7

In response, ZEC called another meeting last Thursday where mercurial former legislator, Temba Mliswa stole the show by venting his anger on ZEC and ZANU-PF.

ZEC chairperson, Rita Makarau, tried to calm him down, but the sharp-tongued former ZANU-PF strongman was not prepared to make any concessions.

He simply had it his way and stormed out of the meeting, thereby triggering a commotion that left Makarau with no option, but to again call off the meeting.

Meanwhile, when the ZANU-PF Politburo had met earlier this month in Harare, instead of promising the electoral reforms being demanded by the opposition, the ruling party’s highest decision-making organ outside congress actually devised strategies to fight NERA from all angles.

This is the reality which NERA cannot run away from; and with which ZANU-PF is not only pleased, but determined to preserve for as long as it is remains in power.

Clearly, time is running out for NERA.

Mass street protests alone will not yield results.

Neither will negotiations.

But NERA still cannot afford to give up just yet.

A revered Chinese founding father, Mao Tse Tung once said: “Revolutions and revolutionary conflicts are inevitable in a class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.”

In her unforgiving bestseller titled Rise Up and Salute the Sun, American writer, Suzy Kassem, also advances this edifying opinion: “Our freedoms are vanishing. If you do not get active to take a stand now against all that is wrong while we still can, then maybe one of your children may elect to do so in the future, when it will be far more riskier — and much, much harder.”

But NERA will need to think up new strategies to engage and confront government and ZANU-PF; otherwise it could just be fooling itself that it is making progress when it is not.

Political scientist, Ibbo Mandaza, has, in fact, lost all hope.

ZEC chairperson Rita Makarau

“The bottom line is what Jonathan Moyo said that we cannot reform ourselves out of power,” Mandaza said.

Even within NERA, there is not much hope.

Speaking to the press soon after the fiasco at the first meeting with ZEC last week, NERA spokesman, Didymus Mutasa suggested that ZANU-PF had already rigged the 2018 general election.

Coming from a man who knows the A-Z of ZANU-PF and its way of doing business, this was the most disheartening of statements for those in the opposition.

Reading the situation in his own way Mandaza said: “That’s how far exasperated NERA is. It’s not making any headway.”

Another issue that seems completely lost on NERA is the need to appeal to the rural electorate.

It is a known fact that in many of the country’s regions, ZANU-PF rules by the fear it instils in villagers whom it cows into voting for it in their massive numbers.

So far, NERA has been pressing for “bookish” electoral reforms without necessarily thinking about the practical applicability of the reforms that are on paper.

NERA somehow forgets that the larger part of the electorate — more than 60 percent, is in rural areas where a mere helicopter fly past is enough to remind everyone of the bloody 1970s civil war between Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Forces and guerrilla freedom fighters.

Such tactics are just some of the many in the ruling party’s huge bag of arsenal that also carries some of the most crude propaganda material.

Then there are places like Mberengwa where sometime in 2013 a supposed bomb went off in a thicket close to a crowded village, and the State broadcaster, ZBC-TV was conveniently present to capture the moment live on camera.

Every villager interviewed expressed fear that the enemy they fought in the 1970s had returned and he was after them.

Pot-bellied politicians descended upon the poor villagers to declare that the only way to keep the enemy at bay was to overwhelmingly vote for the ruling party.

The poor villagers had little choice, but to sheepishly oblige.

Political analysts are advising that NERA needs to fight also for issues like voter education and registration among others.

“I do not see any success unless there is an escalation of demonstrations combined with regional advocacy. NERA must also make its demands clearer and more attainable. So far, NERA demands have prevaricated between bio-metric voting and continuation of the current voting system under ZEC. NERA must clarify itself on ward based voting and its implications among other issues,” said political commentator, Rashweat Mukundu.

A biometric voting system is a highly advanced information system, which allows for the quick identification of millions of voters using specific biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or the iris.

Another political analyst, Alexander Rusero, said NERA might register some degree of success in pressurising the ZANU-PF administration, but would find it very difficult to achieve electoral reforms.

NERA seems to have, however, remained adamant that it will continue engaging government in the formal ways, while at the same time piling up pressure through demonstrations.

But will the colossus that NERA is fighting budge?

Time, like the ancient wise men said, shall definitely tell.

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Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere

LAND barons at Harare’s Caledonia settlement are reportedly derailing the regularisation of the slum settlement by inciting residents against a government-appointed agency overseeing the normalisation process.

Reportedly influencing residents to boycott paying US$50 per month earmarked for developing the area, the land barons have been accused of stalling progress at the settlement.

As a result, the Caledonia Management Committee, led by local government expert, Percy Toriro, has failed to raise the US$15 million meant for developing the area inhabited by an estimated 100 000 people settled on 30 000 tiny pieces of land. The committee, set up mid last year, has so far raised a mere US$2,5 million since October last year.

Sources said the land barons’ actions were part of ZANU-PF factionalism, which has resulted in their sabotage of the process because Caledonia’s development initiatives are being spearheaded by their political opponents.

This has negatively impacted on development in the populous shantytown, which lacks basic amenities like running water, sewer, electricity, drainage, roads, schools, clinics and other basic services.

Most of the residents in Caledonia are ZANU-PF supporters, who settled there 10 years ago, creating urban chaos. When government moved in last year and established the Caledonia Management Committee, it banned all housing co-operatives from collecting money from residents, who were asked to make direct deposits in ring-fenced Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) accounts.

The money would then be used by the Urban Development Co-operation (UDCORP), a government arm that has been mandated to manage the regularisation projects in all slum settlements in the country.

Housing co-operatives were also supposed to deposit into the new CBZ accounts all the money in their accounts.

Several co-operatives have, however, not adhered to this agreement.

UDCORP falls under the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing led by Saviour Kasukuwere.

It is said the land barons are particularly encouraged by the fact that Kasukuwere, the ZANU-PF national political commissar, is deeply enmeshed in the ruling party’s succession fights to notice.

Kasukuwere is considered to be a member of the Generation 40 (G40) faction that is fighting to thwart Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s presidential ambitions.

Kasukuwere has, as such, become a target for Mnangagwa’s backers in the area, who associate UDCORP and Toriro’s committee with G40.

Documents shown to the Financial Gazette this week indicate that a total of 30 housing co-operatives had not paid a single cent for the development of the area, while a good number of people in other housing co-operatives had defaulted on payment.

Sources singled out two housing co-operatives, namely Rekayi Tangwena and Tongoville as the major trouble causers.

Documents show that the two co-operatives had US$65 000 and US$40 000 respectively in their accounts at the time when UDCORP came in, yet nothing was surrendered to the management committee.

Fears abound that the money could have been abused, and some of the agitated co-operative members are understood to be baying for the blood of their chairpersons, Livingstone Chikanga for Tongoville and Casper Madzimbamuto for Rekayi Tangwena.

The two are reportedly discouraging residents from contributing towards the development of the area, alleging that the money was being looted.

“They (Chikanga and Madzimbamuto) have caused a lot of problems. They are trying to hide behind the divisions happening in the party (ZANU-PF) to cause mayhem and to push UDCORP out of Caledonia so that they can resume their illicit deals. You must remember that when UDCORP came, it shut their financial avenues and so they are bitter,” said one source.

Chikanga, whom sources described as the self-appointed mayor of Caledonia, recently exchanged words with Kasukuwere when he visited Caledonia to assess progress; he tried to convince the Minister to allow housing co-operatives to handle funds.

According to sources in Caledonia, Chikanga and Madzimbamuto have intensified their campaigns against UDCORP in the last two weeks, stimulated by President Robert Mugabe’s recent stinging rebuke of Kasukuwere over alleged fraudulent land deals in Harare.

President Mugabe alleged that Kasukuwere parcelled out land earmarked for youths to his relatives and perceived G40 allies in ZANU-PF.

President Robert Mugabe

“All the problems in this area are being caused by these two. They have recently scaled their efforts following President Mugabe’s attack on Kasukuwere. Only last week, they brought teams of journalists here and fed them with wrong information on how UDCORP was spending money. Here in phase one (of Caledonia) we are happy with the progress that has been made. We tried to sit down with Chikanga and Madzimbamuto, but we have not succeeded to convince them,” said one Caledonia resident.

“In just three months, title surveys have been completed, feeder roads are being constructed and eight bridges have been completed in areas that have been very difficult to cross before,” the resident said.

Toriro confirmed that they were seriously lagging behind in terms of regularisation of the area.

“We have covered just less than 20 percent of the work that we are supposed to do. We had targeted to collect US$15 million by now, but we have only managed US$2,5 million. Imagine how much difference the balance would have made,” he moaned.

“We are being told that people are withholding their money for certain reasons. What we can only do is to encourage them to pay so that we can proceed with the work smoothly. We still need to start working on water and sewer infrastructure as well as electricity and other facilities that require more funds,” said Toriro, who could not be drawn into discussing factional disputes and their impact on the project.

UDCORP general manager, Bright Mudzvova, denied reports that they were abusing funds.

“We have got a very clean financial system, which is open to everyone. There was a lot of abuse of funds before we came to Caledonia. UDCORP was put in place to bring an end to that and to bring real development. We therefore cannot be seen to be doing the same things that we were put in place to end.

“These allegations are being peddled by land barons who lost their income because of our presence and naturally they are bound to create lies in their attempt to discredit UDCORP and push it out of the system. Remember they were making millions of dollars which they misused, that is a massive loss on their part,” he said.

Mudzvova declined to confirm the involvement of Chikanga and Madzimbamuto and also refused to disclose the identities of defaulting co-operatives.

However, the Financial Gazette established that 30 out of 132 co-operatives were holding on to at least US$400 000 from the amount which should have been transferred to the ring-fenced CBZ transit account.

They have also not contributed a cent following UDCORP’s established.

Some of the co-operatives owing huge amounts are Zimbabwe Housing Project Trust (US$51 934) Mushawedu Housing Co-operative (US$26 237) and Campus Land Developers (US$30 000).

Madzimbamuto dismissed allegations that he was discouraging people from paying and instead blamed UDCORP and Toriro over the defaults in payments.

“That is very wrong,” he thundered when asked if it was true that he was capitalising on ZANU-PF’s divisions to destabilise development in Caledonia.

“We are not discouraging anyone from paying. The issue is that we have raised concerns over their mishandling of funds; they want us to keep quiet when they are stealing people’s money,” he charged.

“We need development here and how can we be working against the same. It’s UDCORP which is stealing money. For example, in May the Minister (Kasukuwere) came here and told us that US$5 million had been raised to help develop Caledonia and now UDCORP says they have only raised US$2,5 million. We want to know what happened to the difference,” he said, angrily.

Chikanga could not be reached for comment. However, Mudzvova maintained that UDCORP had not stolen anything.

“The good thing is that we have just been audited and the audit results will soon be there for all to see,” he said.

Caledonia has been identified as a model for regularisation of slum settlements that have proliferated on the outskirts of urban areas newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw

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ZCTU secretary general, Japhet Moyo

ZIMBABWE Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president, George Nkiwane, will step down at the labour organisation’s three day conference which kicks off in Harare today.

Zimbabwe Banks and Allied Workers Union (ZIBAWU) president, Peter Mutasa, is said to be among the candidates jostling to succeed Nkiwane.

Mutasa is currently the ZCTU’s third vice president.

A Special General Council will meet at the beginning of the conference to open nominations for positions.

Only eight affiliates will attend the conference as the other affiliates are not paid up.

ZCTU, the country’s biggest labour movement, has a total of 36 affiliates.

Nkiwane, whose five-year term ended on August 31, 2016, withdrew from running for office following a deal between warring trade union factions following a High Court challenge against postponement of the ZCTU conference to next year.

It is thought he had wanted to seek a further term but had changed his mind.

Nkiwane told the Financial Gazette this week that he was not seeking re-election.

“I have had my time and I have served the institution very well as far as I am concerned. It’s time for someone else to take over,” Nkiwane said.

“I am leaving the position a very happy man. Zimbabwe must know that I am not running for another term. I am against this handiende (I won’t go anywhere) culture,” he added.

Nkiwane’s executive had earlier postponed to June next year the holding of the ZCTU conference, arguing that some unions had not yet paid their affiliation fees.

It had been argued that the unions that were not paid up should be given time to do so to enable them to participate at the conference.

A ZCTU official said there was, however, no consensus within the executive, as some argued that if the affiliates that were not paid up had defaulted since 2009, there was no chance that they could raise their dues within a year.

“That decision was also supported by affiliates who were not paid up,” a source said, indicating that this was the major reason why the decision had been consequently challenged by some affiliates.

Presently, only eight unions are fully subscribed to the ZCTU.

The affiliates which challenged the decision to postpone the conference were ZIBAWU, the National Energy Workers’ Union and Zimbabwe Revenue Authority Trade Union.

They were represented by Lovemore Madhuku, who filed their urgent chamber application at the High Court.

High Court Judge, Justice Lavender Makoni, advised the feuding parties to settle the matter out of court when it went for hearing on Monday last week.

The parties met the following day and agreed that the conference should proceed.

Nkiwane said he had played no role in the postponement of the conference, saying he was only acting on a request by unions who wanted more time to pay their dues.

“Unions came to me and requested that the general conference be postponed to allow them more time to find money to pay their subscriptions. It was on that basis that I called for an extraordinary general council meeting which made that resolution. So it was not a Nkiwane resolution,” he said.

ZCTU secretary general, Japhet Moyo, confirmed that the conference will kick off today.

“It is going ahead, nothing has changed,” he said.

When asked about who was contesting for which position, Moyo said: “Unfortunately, I do not know about that. The system is that there is a committee that is responsible for that. They do their work and we only come to know about that on the day of elections. We don’t even know if those who are currently in their positions will be running.”

Besides the position of president, ZCTU has many other electable positions such as three vice presidents and two deputy secretary generals.

Elections for the presidency will be held on Saturday.

The ZCTU, which gave birth to the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999, is currently saddled with a debt amounting to US$1,4 million.

The debt is threatening to destroy the country’s oldest trade union movement.

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Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement Douglas Mombeshora

THE Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement Douglas Mombeshora is entangled in a land dispute with the Manyame Rural District Council (RDC) and traditional leaders from Seke communal lands, the Financial Gazette can report.

Manyame RDC took possession of a 309-hectare piece of land in June last year, but officials from Mombeshora’s Ministry turned up early this month to claim the land, arguing that it was State land.

Things then came to a head when Manyame RDC councillors teamed up with the local authority’s officials and traditional leaders from Seke and stormed Mombeshora’s office demanding that he reverses the seizure of that piece of land.

Under the country’s land acquisition laws, the Ministry of Lands administers all State land.

The Ministry is mandated to transfer any piece of State land directly to local authorities or the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing for development.

However, a Provincial Lands Committee (PLC) comprising a provincial lands officer, provincial administrator and a traditional leader, also has power to allocate land, but subject to approval by the Ministry of Lands.

Despite clearly laid down land occupation procedures, this disputed piece of land, along the Harare-Masvingo highway and covering Gilton and Kimcote farms of Beatrice, is now at the centre of a raging storm that points to bureaucratic bungling.

Last year, former Mashonaland East provincial affairs minister, Joel Biggie Matiza, recommended that Manyame RDC be allocated the piece of land, but the Ministry of Lands rejected the recommendation, although it had taken a long time before giving its response.

According to correspondences obtained by the Financial Gazette, Matiza, in his capacity as the PLC chairperson, on June 2, 2015 gave Manyame RDC permission to develop the land, despite the fact that Mombeshora had, on March 5, 2014 objected to the Manyame RDC’s application.

Documents at hand show that Manyame RDC applied for the contested land in 2010 and earmarked it for development into a rural service centre, but bureaucracy stalled progress until last year.

The planned service centre was meant to cater for thousands of people who were resettled around the area during the land reform programme.

As per procedure, the application was handled by Mashonaland East provincial chief lands officer, Wilfred Motsi, who wrote to the then Ministry of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement recommending that Manyame RDC be allocated the land.

“As a province, we do not have any objection to the said rural service centre. The development of the rural service centre will go a long way to improve revenue generation for both the local authority and government,” reads the letter Motsi wrote on May 11, 2011 addressed to the permanent secretary in the Ministry.

The letter was not responded to, prompting Motsi to then write to Mombeshora, who had just taken over the Lands Ministry.

The letter, dated November 2, 2013, repeated the same recommendations made in May 2011.

Mombeshora then wrote back to the Manyame RDC on March 5, 2014 arguing that the two farms were “a buffer to absorb the imminent expansion of Harare and Chitungwiza” and therefore were not suitable for the development of a rural service centre.

“It would not make administrative sense to establish a rural service centre on these farms in the face of such an eventuality. In view of the above, my ministry believes your council could instead focus on expanding Beatrice as a growth point,” he wrote.

But the Manyame RDC persisted with the matter, with council chairperson, Naison Mudzara, subsequently writing to Matiza after he was appointed Mashonaland East provincial affairs minister in March 2015.

Mashonaland East provincial affairs minister, Joel Biggie Matiza

“Manyame Rural District Council is seriously concerned with the implications of the Minister (Mombeshora)’s response to plans of council and the attainment of our targets for the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset). As a council, we are supposed to contribute to the successful implementation of the country’s economic blueprint and the establishment of the rural service centre is one way by which we can make our contribution. The resettled farmers in Gilston and surrounding areas need services in the form of schools, clinics, markets and other social facilities critically lacking in the area,” reads Mudzara’s letter.

“We are kindly requesting for your assistance in engaging the Minister of Lands over the issue. Council has the capacity to develop the land once authority is granted,” the letter further reads.

Matiza responded to the letter by granting Manyame RDC full custody of the land and permission to proceed with its development project.

Matiza’s letter reads: “As the minister of state for provincial affairs, Mashonaland East, together with the provincial lands committee, I have granted Manyame Rural District Council permission to imitate development at Gilston in Beatrice, and commence the process required to establish a rural service centre. Manyame RDC is also hereby granted full custody of the infrastructure at Gilstone.”

And acting on the strength of Matiza’s letter, Manyame RDC started developing the land.

According to sources, the local authority drew up a plan which it submitted to the department of physical planning which falls under the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing.

The ministry reportedly approved the plan, but subject to certain alterations it had recommended.

The council then effected the changes and re-submitted it to the department of physical planning for final assessment.

At the time, it had already commenced developments such as paving of roads and general pegging.

Council also set aside 200 residential stands for youths.

However, early this month, officials from Mombeshora’s Ministry went to the area and started doing their own pegging.

“They came and destroyed an expensive banner we had put up. They also started parcelling out what they have termed agro plots and some of the land has been given to churches to establish private schools. We wonder if this is in the same spirit of promoting urban expansion on which basis Mombeshora used to deny us the land,” said an agitated councillor who declined to be identified.

“We are taking the fight to his doorstep,” fumed the councillor.

The Financial Gazette understands that on September 19, all Manyame RDC councillors, accompanied by council chief executive officer, Farirai Guta, chief Seke and members of a the Seke Youth Development Association (SYDA), besieged Mombeshora’s offices in Harare and demanded a meeting with him.

They had to confront his deputy, BeritaChikwama, to let the minister agree to meet them.

“When Mombeshora finally came, the first thing he did was to accuse us of staging a rally in his office because of the huge number of people. He then plainly told us that the RDC has no permission to be on the land and advised us to look for an alternative farm,” said one source who attended the meeting.

“He also denied that he initiated any land allocations and referred us to the Ministry of Local Government. When we produced documents that showed council had been given the land, the only thing he did was promise us that he would carry out investigations,” added the source.

Unconvinced, councillors regrouped for a full council meeting on Tuesday last week where they vowed to keep fighting for the land.

“It was resolved (at the meeting) that we shall not look for another farm. As council, we have already directed finances towards this project which we believe is key to our aspirations. Everybody was very angry at the meeting,” said one councillor.

Meanwhile, youths from SYDA are understood to have camped on the land and are threatening to beat Ministry of Lands officials if they visit the place.

Said SYDA vice chairman, Xavier Katanda: “We view this sinister move as an attack on our very survival and we urge the minister to respect the vision of the President in so far as youth empowerment is concerned. We hope higher offices are watching.”

Katanda confirmed that some youths are already camped at the area, saying “they were provoked by Mombeshora’s ministry.”

Matiza declined to comment on the matter this week, saying he could not discuss the issue since he was no longer a minister.

Mombeshora was not answering calls to his number.

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Harare Town House

THE Harare City Council (HCC) has suspended any future dealings with the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) after the two parties clashed over one of the projects that the city fathers are currently implementing, the Financial Gazette can report.

While the exact details of the fallout were not immediately available at the time of going to print, so bitter is the HCC that it has decided to freeze out IDBZ from plans to re-develop Mbare Musika market.

Harare mayor, Bernard Manyenyeni, confirmed that relations between IDBZ and council had soured.

“The souring of the relationship with the bank has nothing to do with Mbare or Olshevik. The role of IDBZ is suspended for all council projects because of another project,” he said, before terminating the telephone conversation.

Council had approached IDBZ in May this year soliciting for funds to re-develop the giant Mbare-Musika market, which comprises a dilapidated fresh produce arcade and a rundown bus terminus, as well as several ancillary sections crammed around the two areas.

HCC had been criticised for failing to upgrade the fresh produce market which, if fully utilised, can earn up to US$24 million annually.

Built during the colonial era, the market has a carrying capacity of 2 000 traders.

In recent years, demand for stalls at the market has soared owing to a shrinking formal job market.

As a result, some long-term leaseholders are subletting their stalls, creating chaos and filth, which poses a health hazard.

Council is also losing substantial revenue because those subletting the stalls are not paying fees to council.

In order to fix the rot, the city fathers had submitted a project proposal to IDBZ, to upgrade Mbare Musika, including its bus terminus.

IDBZ had responded by advising council to submit a proper and appropriate business model for Mbare Musika, saying the project “would be financially viable and sustainable and there would be no need for additional land to subsidise the project”.

This is according to a HCC business committee report submitted to council last week.

“Council had resolved to engage the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe to undertake a financial analysis of the project (in preparation for the partnership). The committee now considered a report dated 31st October by the acting town clerk (Josephine Ncube) wherein she reported that the proposals were forwarded to the bank and after all the analysis, the bank made the observation that the city had erred when it involved external parties without a clear project concept and the requisite feasibility studies,” the report reads in part.

While council had given Ncube until December 31 to produce a proper feasibility study that would culminate in the production of a bankable project proposal, there is now a change of heart at council as a result of the strained relations between HCC and IDBZ.

The Financial Gazette can reveal that HCC will no longer deal with IDBZ in future projects.

The city fathers resolved at a full council meeting held last Thursday to flight a tender for the Mbare-Musika project and open it up to more potential investors.

“The tender is expected to be awarded by late January or early February 2017,” a councillor said on Tuesday.

Council has also invited an obscure construction company known as Olshevic to make a presentation on its proposals to develop Mbare Musika bus terminus, the market and a shopping mall.

Mbare Musika remains condemned as improper for use due to its advanced age and poor state.

Poor sanitation and lack of proper storage facilities at the market have also not helped the situation for both traders and their customers.

After taxing journeys, overnight from their villages and farms often in open trucks, farmers also find themselves without a place to put up and store their produce on arrival at Mbare Musika.

This has put pressure on both government and council to find a lasting solution to the problem.

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Higher and Tertiary Education Minister, Jonathan Moyo

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC)’s case against Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Jonathan Moyo and his deputy Godfrey Gandawa might go up in smoke because of bungling on the part of the anti-graft watchdog as well as political pressure from warring ZANU-PF factions, the Financial Gazette heard this week.

ZACC is accusing Moyo of conniving with Gandawa and some officials within his Ministry to fraudulently siphon more than US$400 000 from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZIMDEF), for personal gain.

While the Tsholotsho North legislator has conceded to using part of the ZIMDEF funds to buy bicycles and motor cycles for traditional leaders in his constituency, he is still pleading innocent because the money he is alleged to have abused was used to bankroll the ruling ZANU-PF party.

Observers have been keen to see Moyo having his day in court to answer to the charges.

But legal experts averred this week that ZACC – long accused of being a toothless bulldog – might have undermined its case by arresting Moyo and attempting to bring him before the courts last week without following due process.

They argued that at law, once such scenario arises, what it means is that the matter could be technically struck off the roll and might have to proceed by way of summons, that is, if the State succeeds in gathering enough evidence.

The Higher Education Minister, one of the sharpest brains in the ruling party, has already capitalised on ZACC’s clumsiness by successfully challenging the manner he was arrested at the Constitutional Court (ConCourt).

In his ruling on Moyo’s application last week, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, said “the continued opposition to the application by ZACC was driven by something else other than legal considerations”.

Chidyausiku’s observations, according to legal experts, reinforced claims by Moyo that the anti-graft body could be pursuing a factional agenda against him.

There is therefore a real possibility that tables might turn, with the hunter becoming the hunted.

Moyo is already questioning the appointment of acting National Prosecuting Authority(NPA) Ray Gowa on the basis of his previous conviction for dishonesty and defeating the course of justice by the High Court of Namibia.

He is also querying the suitability of Goodson Nguni to hold office at ZACC notwithstanding his disqualification from appointment on account of his conviction in South Africa and whether the statutory body has arresting powers.

Regarding the latter, he got some relief last week when Chidyausiku suspended all criminal proceedings against him until the determination of a constitutional challenge on whether ZACC has arresting powers.

Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku

Moyo has distinguished himself as one of the potential spoilers of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s alleged bid to succeed President Robert Mugabe when he decides to quit active politics.

Along with the ruling party’s national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere and Patrick Zhuwao, President Mugabe’s nephew, they constitute a triumvirate in ZANU-PF agitating for a life presidency of some sort.

As such, Mnangagwa’s backers have been burning the midnight oil to finish him off politically.

In July, Mnangagwa came out for the first to publicly deny allegations that he was aspiring for the top office.

Despite the denials, his rivals are unrelenting in their attacks to quash his bid.

Moyo has even threatened to sue Mnangagwa, along with presidential spokesman George Charamba and Christopher Mushohwe, the Information Minister, for fomenting his troubles.

United Kingdom-based law lecturer, Alex Magaisa, this week said ZACC’s errors could completely jeopardise their case.

“The lesson in this is that law enforcement agents like ZACC and police must ensure that they get their procedural details right. If they fail to adhere to procedural rules, they could avail easy opportunities for the accused to escape prosecution,” he wrote on his personal blog.

“If the court finds that ZACC acted unlawfully, it will have to make an order whether to stop prosecution permanently or make such an order as is appropriate in the circumstances,” he continued.

Harare lawyer, Philip Nyakutombwa, said the case is of such a sensitive and public nature that it is difficult to comprehend how or why ZACC could act outside its mandated power, thereby exposing the entire case to technicalities.

“They (ZACC) are conversant with their legal mandate and we assume they have the human capital and skills to know how to discharge of their mandate,” said Nyakutombwa.

“The outcome from the Constitutional Court is critical to the Magistrates Court case and compelling arguments are being made such that without having gone into the merits, the case may become a stillbirth,” he added, suggesting that the whole process could end up being reduced to mere political drama.

“One gets the feeling that this could have also been an orchestrated exposé that is meant to flex muscle as it were and show that the powers-that-be have damning information on all their politicians and can use it as and when they please,” he opined.

Nyakutombwa, however, thinks Mo-yo, if political aberrations are to be set aside, should still have his day in court.

“On merit, the accused must have his day in court; the State must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and ultimately he must pay back the money,” he said.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Another lawyer, Takudzwa Mafongoya, said Moyo could might sue ZACC for wrongful arrest.

“He can sue for any prejudice suffered if it is proved that he was illegally arrested,” the lawyer said, adding that ZACC’s only option would be to ask the police to arrest Moyo since the Constitutional Court ruled that it does not have arresting powers.

“If ZACC does not have powers to arrest, it can still refer the matter to the police to arrest him.

“It might have bungled and raised dust, but if it has evidence, that will speak ultimately,” he said.

The NPA has conceded that it could not proceed to prosecute Moyo since his arrest was improperly handled.

While Moyo’s rivals could press hard to have him prosecuted, the political gamesmanships might complicate matters.

That the case has been consumed by heavy political influence cannot be disputed.

Twice, President Mugabe has ostensibly blocked Moyo’s arrest.

The first incident was when ZACC waylaid Moyo at the ZANU-PF national headquarters in Harare last month wanting to effect an arrest, but the move flopped after President Mugabe intervened.

He was also supposed to appear in court on Friday last week but reports suggested that President Mugabe ordered ZACC to allow him to skip court so that he could attend a graduation ceremony at the National University of Science and Technology.

The anti-graft body falls directly under President Mugabe’s office.

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Temba Mliswa

JOURNALISTS in Zimbabwe seem to have great difficulty resisting the temptation to prefix the name Temba Mliswa with rich superlatives.

Controversial, mercurial, outspoken, combative and valiant are some of the numerous prefixes associated with the politician.

The former fitness trainer has developed quite a thick skin to face any situation and his sharp tongue, coupled with a fiery and volcanic temper, has made him a politician in his own league.

This, definitely, is the kind of a man that those who have an affinity for drama and showmanship have been dying to see illuminating the Eighth Parliament of Zimbabwe.

In Mliswa, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda, has Zimbabwe’s own version of Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, to contend with.

Mliswa was voted back into Parliament last month, more than a year after he was expelled from the National Assembly for being part of Joice Mujuru’s faction in ZANU-PF, accused of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe from power.

But not all who sit in the august House view his return as a welcome development.

Cabinet ministers, for example, now know that Wednesday’s question time would never be the same again with Mliswa back in Parliament.

Since his expulsion from ZANU-PF and subsequent dismissal from Parliament last year, Mliswa has been fighting the ruling party on all fronts and has never shied away from the hottest political topics in the country.

He has also formed his own pressure group, the Youth Advocacy for Reform and Democracy (YARD), composed of young people who are extremely loyal to him.

YARD played a key role in his Norton National Assembly by-election victory, matching ZANU-PF pound for pound on the campaign trail, even when the ruling party decided to turn violent.

The run up to the polls was fraught with drama and controversy — all the time with Mliswa at the centre of it all.

Those who attended the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission stakeholders’ meeting at a local hotel still recall how he dared the commission’s chairperson, Rita Makarau, unflinchingly telling her that her organisation was an unfair arbiter on elections in the country.

Makarau, as moderator at the meeting, was trying to stop him midway through his contribution, a sure way to infuriate the short-fused politician.

Trying to calm Mliswa, Makarau suggested that he comes to her office the following morning to discuss his concerns over a cup of tea.

His response, which was followed by a walkout, was sharp.

“I don’t want your tea, I can make my own tea at my house,” he shot back.

With that, he became the star of the show, something he does all the time without effort.

During his first stint in Parliament, when he was representing Hurungwe West, Mliswa asked arguably the toughest questions to ministers during the usually heated Wednesday question time.

Among those who were frequently at the receiving end of his sharp tongue was Agriculture Minister Joseph Made whom he asked to resign because of alleged incompetence.

Mliswa also took to task Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister, Obert Mpofu, asking him to reveal the source of his enormous wealth.

Now that Mliswa — the only independent Member of Parliament in the legislative assembly — has no political party leash around his neck, the nation awaits unrestrained fireworks in the august House.

In fact, he has already given glimpses of what the remaining one-and-half year life of this Parliament holds.

He recently dismissed the recent 2017 National Budget consultation meeting with MPs in Bulawayo, as a waste of time and money because their input would never be considered.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda

“I think the Minister of Finance (Patrick Chinamasa) should just tell us how much money he has budgeted for each ministry and not waste time on these meetings,” he said.

It is quite easy to figure out which ministers could be his prime targets.

For now, Mpofu could be safe because he was shunted to an obscure Ministry of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, whose mandate is, to all intents and purposes, to do nothing.

But there is no escape for Made, especially given that the nation is getting into the agricultural season with no adequate preperations.

But without doubt his biggest targets could be his four nemeses, Saviour Kasukuwere (Local Government) Jonathan Moyo (Higher and Tertiary Education), Ignatius Chombo (Home Affairs) and Patrick Zhuwao (Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment), all of whom have had a taste of what it feels like to cross Mliswa’s path.

Already, Mliswa has threatened to effect a citizen’s arrest on Moyo and Kasukuwere for their alleged corrupt activities.

Moyo is accused of misappropriating funds under the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund, while Kasukuwere is accused of fraudulently allocating large pieces of land meant for ZANU-PF youths to his relatives, friends and political surrogates.

Both deny those allegations.

Perhaps, no one knows better how not to cross Mliswa’s path than Kasukuwere who must surely have regretted his decision to delve into the legislator’s personal life at a rally in the run up to the Norton by-election after he fired unbridled salvos back at him. Both Moyo and Kasukuwere filed lawsuits against Mliswa when he branded them homosexuals and thieves last year.

Typical of him, Mliswa has since written to the High Court demanding that the case, which has not yet been placed on the roll, be heard.

Chombo also knows Mliswa very well.

Following his suspension as Mashonaland West provincial chairman for ZANU-PF, Mliswa clashed with Chombo several times after refusing to take orders from the Minister, who is regarded as the provincial political godfather there.

In one incident, Chombo refused to give the floor to Mliswa at a ZANU-PF Provincial Co-ordinating Committee meeting in Chinhoyi citing his suspension.

Mliswa had forced his way in, only for him to interject Chombo’s presentation throughout, repeating all the words that Chombo spoke.

Zhuwao, whose political base is in Mashonaland West province, also clashed with Mliswa during the latter’s tenure as provincial chairman.

Analysts were this week divided over Mliswa’s return to Parliament.

Some said his return was a welcome development since he brings fervent debates and vibrancy to the National Assembly and the committees.

Minister of Local government Saviour Kasukuwere

“It is healthy for Parliament to have such strong characters who will enrich debates in the House. For Parliament to properly function, it needs more such fearless figures that not only represent their constituencies, but also do the oversight role wholeheartedly,” said John Makamure, executive director of the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust.

The director of the Parliamentary Monitoring Trust, Sibanengi Ncube, weighed in saying: “We are definitely expecting him to add one more critical voice in Parliament. We have tasted his pudding before and we know what he can deliver.”

During the campaign for Norton, Mliswa found himself somewhat a strange bedfellow of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) camp led by former Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.

Now, expectations are that he would join the MDC MPs in adding a critical voice to the debates and bringing ministers to account for their actions in an assembly that is often dominated by the sheepish ZANU-PF parliamentarians, who cannot be seen challenging ministers — their superiors in the party.

Political scientist, Ibbo Mandaza, argued that Mliswa’s return to the august House will not change anything.

“Wasn’t he an MP before? He was and did not influence anything. Nothing will change,” he said on Tuesday.

Mandaza was also wary of Mliswa’s controversial nature.

“He has been embroiled in controversy all the time and this could work against him and his ideas. He also seems to be entangled in too many establishments. There are reports that he is a war veterans’ man; others say he is (Vice President Emmerson) Mnangagwa’s man, while others even say he is MDC-T or Zimbabwe People First. This makes him no less controversial.

“Mliswa’s return will not help matters regarding the legislative processes of the country because we have an Executive which is too powerful and does not respect the principle of separation of powers. In fact, the legislature is a lame duck and this means the Executive will always have its way,” Mandaza opined.

University of Zimbabwe political science professor, Eldred Masunungure, believes Mliswa has what it takes to leave a positive mark in Parliament.

“If you go back in history, you will notice there have been some individual legislators much like him who have made lasting contributions in Parliament. I can refer to Margaret Dongo who shook Parliament in the 1980s and made contributions that reverberated across the whole country. The same can be said of (Buhera South legislator) Joseph Chinotimba. Some may take him as a joke, but he makes some very positive contributions.

“I would place Mliswa in the same category. What you need to understand about him is that he is someone who does not just make senseless emotional outbursts, but he speaks a lot of substance. My only fear is that he could return with vengeance and bitterness, wanting to revenge on ZANU-PF for expelling him. He needs not to have his sense of bitterness stand in the way,” said Masunungure.

Masunungure also disputed the fact that Mliswa could fail to deliver due the fact that he is someone’s proxy.

“He doesn’t strike me as someone who can allow other people to tell him what to do. He has a proven reputation of standing up for his own beliefs. He is not in anyone’s basket, he is in his own basket and I doubt very much that anyone could be successful in controlling a liberal individual like him,” he said.

Political commentator, Rashweat Mukundu, said the noise that Mliswa brings to the august House is necessary.

“His fearless voice is needed in debates and committees. While ZANU-PF is dominant, voices that challenge it are needed in Parliament. He, however, needs to direct himself to substance rather than rubble rousing,” Mukundu said.

Mukundu, however, said there was real danger that Mliswa could find himself fighting ZANU-PF wars instead of focusing on critical parliamentary and policy issues at stake.

“Mliswa is a product of ZANU-PF factionalism and he still has connections within the party. One can expect that he will still be fighting ZANU-PF factional wars. He needs to prioritise issues of concern to the people who voted for him,” he said.

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Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans AssociationFormer war veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa

Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association leader Christopher Mutsvangwa

THE Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) is co-ordinating the preparation of a document highlighting people’s grievances while seeking consensus around a candidate they shall support going into the 2018 harmonised elections, the Financial Gazette can exclusively report.

In what could further widen the chasm between them and the ruling ZANU-PF party, the former guerrilla war fighters are crafting their own version of the Freedom Charter, borrowing heavily from the South African Freedom Charter of 1955, celebrated annually as a major political milestone in South Africa’s post colonial history.

ZNLWVA members, led by Christopher Mutsvangwa, are presently going around the country, collating information to be used in crafting the document which will become more like their bible in their future engagements.

This comes as the 1970s liberation war fighters are re-organising themselves in the wake of their fallout with ZANU-PF, after they had issued a scathing communiqué in July, chastising the party’s leadership for ruining Zimbabwe’s once prosperous economy.

On Saturday, the war veterans threw down the gauntlet by doing away with the position of patron in their constitution, currently held by President Robert Mugabe, at their meeting in Masvingo.

President Mugabe had been ZNLWVA’s patron since 1980, when the association was formed.

The association’s secretary general, Victor Matemadanda, confirmed that ZNLWVA members were on the ground, gathering information for the report.

“It’s not about war veterans. It’s about Zimbabwe. We are gathering values for Zimbabwe, which we are all going to subscribe to. We want to answer this fundamental question: What are the characteristics of the Zimbabwe that we want to live in? If we find those, we will agree and say this is the way we want to go,” he said.

Matemadanda said the charter should produce the best candidate for the presidency of the country in 2018, elaborating thus: “Anyone who thinks of ruling this country should subscribe to this and, if that happens, the person will then go to the people to talk to the people because he would be subscribing to the conditions of Zimbabwe”.

There is a general belief in ZANU-PF that the former freedom fighters, who fought a protracted war against Ian Smith’s Rhodesian government, could be preparing the ground for Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom they prefer to succeed the incumbent.

But the war veterans face stiff resistance from another faction in ZANU-PF known as Generation 40 or simply G40, which is opposed to Mnangagwa.

The former liberation war fighters have openly called for the ouster of perceived G40 elements from ZANU-PF, among them national political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, and Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education.

In terms of their latest project, once they have gathered information from across the country for the report, they will incorporate input from other existing material in the spirit of inclusivity.

The war veterans are currently studying “The Zimbabwe We Want,” document produced by local churches in 2006.

In producing the Freedom Charter, emphasis shall be on the equitable distribution of the country’s resources.

ZNLWVA is hoping to capture socio-economic grievances that are at the heart of the general populace, particularly in areas of equal rights, access to land, employment, education, health and peace.

The Freedom Charter will also highlight the former freedom fighters’ 2017 calendar.

The document is likely to ruffle feathers and rekindle hostilities that were laid bare after the war veterans surreptitiously authored a damning communiqué, denigrating the ZANU-PF leadership.

In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies sent out 50 000 volunteers into townships and the countryside to collect “freedom demands” to develop their Freedom Charter, which was a statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa

The alliance consisted of the ANC, which is now the governing party, and its allies, namely the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People’s Congress, which were fighting for the dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The charter was famed for its opening demand: “The people shall govern.”

At their meeting in Masvingo on Saturday, the ZNLWVA executive made it clear that they would not be supporting ZANU-PF in the 2018 elections.

Their divorce from ZANU-PF was evident when they successfully campaigned for Temba Mliswa, an independent candidate, in the Norton by-election held last month.

“All these things that are happening now are happening because we allowed leadership to be monopolised by one party.

“Now it appears like if you even talk about leadership, you have committed a crime.

“There are some facts of life that we want to be answered by the people,” said Matemadanda.

The ex-combatants, according to Matemadanda, are redirecting their guns towards ZANU-PF, which they have identified as the root cause of the problems affecting the country.

“The (liberation) war was fought because of the national grievances and the people agreed to support the war. Our war (with ZANU-PF) now is aimed at addressing these same national grievances,” he said.

Constantly casting his eyes around as if alert to some danger and, stretching his hands during the interview, Matemadanda continued: “Senior ZANU-PF officials are sharing national resources among themselves. Varikuti varikudya nepedu. Tirimanyana eshiri here isu anosvisvinirwa mumuromo (they say they are eating on our behalf, are we nestlings?). Let resources be shared equitably among all the citizens.

“What we need is to find a political role and in doing so we are not targeting an individual. We are looking beyond individuals.”

He said the war veterans were not looking for funding from anyone in their latest project.

“It’s not about funding. When we went to war, no one was funding us. We can achieve this with our own little possessions. These fighters have sacrificed before for this country. They cannot fail to sacrifice once more,” he declared.

Contacted for comment this week, the Minister of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees, Tshinga Dube, said he was not aware of any charter being prepared by ZNLWVA.

“I haven’t heard of it. The Ministry is not involved in that,” he said.

ZANU-PF has itself been moving around the country trying to win the war veterans back following the fallout which saw Mutsvangwa and his entire executive being booted out of the party.

In the past two weeks, the party has made frantic efforts to extend the olive branch to the restive former freedom fighters with very limited success.

Only last week, President Mugabe released a US$3 million war chest to the Ministry of Welfare Services for War Veterans, to capacitate it in its programmes.

Last week, he handed over 13 all-terrain vehicles to the Ministry for use by field officers.

Dube, his permanent secretary, Walter Tapfumaneyi and ZANU-PF secretary for war veterans’ affairs, Sydney Sekeramayi have been deployed to the provinces to meet the former freedom fighters.

They have so far not had the warmest of receptions because the majority of the war veterans remain aligned to Mutsvangwa who was fired from both ZANU-PF and government for gross insubordination.

Tapfumaneyi was reportedly booed and scorned at a meeting in Chinhoyi on Sunday, while Dube had a torrid time when he addressed the war veterans in Mutare the previous day.

This is the first time that ZANU-PF is facing a crisis in which the former freedom fighters — for long its agent provocateurs — are working against it.

New war veterans Minister Tshinga Dube

On Tuesday, government, through the War Veterans Ministry, met the Mutsvangwa-led war veterans executive to try and thaw frosty relations between the former guerilla war fighters and the ZANU-PF government.

The meeting attracted some of the who is who in the ruling party such as secretary for administration, Ignatius Chombo; State Security Minister, Kembo Mohadi; and War Veterans Minister, Dube.

In the joint statement released soon after the meeting on Tuesday evening, war veterans said they were being driven away from the party by the current leadership which has no respect for them, adding that they would go back to supporting the party only if it reverts back to what they referred to as the “original and authentic” leadership.

Reacting to the meeting between the war veterans and government on Tuesday, ZNLWVA spokesperson, Douglas Mahiya pointed out that that indaba would not affect their plans.

He instead criticised Tapfumaneyi, for attempting to set a parallel agenda for the meeting when the permanent secretary recently appeared in the press ahead of the meeting saying the Ministry was playing the role of intermediary between war veterans and ZANU-PF.

“The meeting was meant to address welfare issues and it does not in any way interfere with the association’s programmes. We are going ahead with our programmes as we previously stated.

“The problem is with Tapfumaneyi who believes he is the king of war veterans and he can tell us what to do and boss us around when he is not even a member of our association and is not a member of ZANU-PF at any level,” said Mahiya.

Matemadanda weighed in saying: “The freedom charter is going ahead. Our position regarding ZANU-PF is clear and we presented it very clearly in the meeting. We can only support a ZANU-PF which respects the ideals of the revolution.”

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Because child prostitution is illegal, minors have no access to services accessed by seniors in the same profession.

ENTICED, or rather bothered by the blurring music coming from a dimly-lit bustling bar conjoined to a lodge on the edge of Chipinge town’s central business district (CBD), I slithered into the joint.

The music came from electro-acoustic transducers purposefully hanging from iron roof trusses. The noise mercilessly thudded the revellers’ ears.

I ordered a cold Fanta and took a vantage observatory seat in one desolate corner of the packed bar.

No sooner, the barman, bowing to popular demand, played a song which is currently a hit, sending the bar into rapid commotion as revellers, young and old took to the dancing floor.

“Mai mwana uri avocado, unenge Dherira, (My darling you are tender like an avocado pear, you are like Delilah),” so went the song.

The beat was met with pulsing dances, while the majority sang along to produce an electric atmosphere.

In the middle of the melee, a flock of barely dressed young girls suddenly stormed into the bar and raced straight to the centre, assuming complete dominance of the dance floor.

The barman conspiringly increased the volume.

After about half an hour of serious dancing, the barman decided that it was the right time to change the rhythm for the more relaxed and slow beats.

Some revellers responded by retreating to their seats and conversed in hushed tones, while others could be seen escorting the scantily dressed girls out.

Upsettingly, many of these girls looked very young and well below the age of consent.

Outside, one of the small girls — roughly aged 15 years, was whisked away in a car by a man old enough to be her father.

One beautiful girl, who should still be going through her lower level secondary education, appeared at the bar, a shade too late to catch the best customers who had since been whisked away by the early birds.

To protect the name of the innocent girl, I will call her Sharon. She is just 15.

She is one of the dozens of Chipinge’s minors who have been driven into transactional sex by deviations of life and a crumbling economy.

The Chipinge night joint, whose identity has been omitted for professional reasons, is just but one of the many prostitution hotspots in the town where men come to whet their sexual appetites on kids.

Even on a quiet weekday night, teen transvestites — some as young as 13 — line up under the bright lights of the main thoroughfare connecting the CBD and the bar scouting for customers.

The situation in Chipinge could mirror a bigger national tragedy where more and more minor girls are being forced into commercial sex work due to the crumbling economy, which has wiped out livelihoods for the majority of the Zimbabwean citizenry.

The surge in child prostitution among Zimbabwe’s largely conservative societies has also been attributed to the breakdown of the social fabric, which is partly a result of the economic crisis.

Sharon’s story, as she narrated it, follows the familiar route: Her mother — the only parent she had ever known — died three years ago. She and her younger sibling, who is in primary school in Munoirirwa, about 50 kilometres from Chipinge town, were left under the care of an elderly grandmother, who could hardly afford to fend for them.

As a result, she left school and went to Chipinge after a relative linked her to someone who needed a domestic worker, where she endured tormenting conditions for six months before a friend introduced her to transactional sex.

She could not return to the village knowing the bad situation there.

“At our home there was no food, so my little brother and I would go around the village begging for food so I couldn’t go back there,” she narrated her past.

“Since I started this (prostitution), I have been able to rent a room with my friend, and it leaves me with a bit of money for me and my young brother who does not know where the money comes from,” added the unblushing 15 year-old.

Very few men ever ask her age and she lies to the few that bother to do so.

She puts her age at 18, just to tally with the age of consent in Zimbabwe, according to the 2013 Constitution.

At law, it is criminal to have sex with a minor.

“A few clients have walked away after learning that I was 15 so I have to lie. I can’t let money go,” she said.

There are no official records of women and children working in prostitution, but some organisations say the vice has rapidly increased in recent years as the country’s economy continues to nosedive.

Children from Zimbabwe’s disadvantaged socio-economic strata are particularly vulnerable and susceptible to such vices like sex work.

And authorities hardly admit that child prostitution exists.

Child sex workers lack bargaining power in negotiating safe sex with their clients, most of whom are successful men of means.

They end up giving in to demands for unprotected sex in some instances at the grave risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) as well as HIV and Aids.

Because child prostitution is illegal, minors have no access to services accessed by seniors in the same profession.

A handful of young professionals are engaged in an uphill struggle to highlight the issue of child prostitution.

Youths rights lobby group, Real Opportunities for Transformation Support (ROOTS) has, for example, been actively involved in educating societies about the rights of the girl child as well as attempting to open new doors for girls trapped in the vicious circle of exploitation and abuse.

ROOTS’ pioneering efforts have been instrumental in supporting victims through the entire cycle from prevention to repatriation, working with hundreds of children, especially girls and sex workers.

“Our research shows that there are about 2 000 underage girls overtly engaged in commercial sex work in Zimbabwe. Some are as young as 12 years old, but there are thousands more who are engaged in varying degrees of transactional sex,” said Beatrice Savadye, founder and director of ROOTS.

This places Zimbabwe among the top league of nations such as Sierra Leone and South Africa with hair-raising child prostitution incidences.

“ROOTS is focused on offering these girls an alternative source of income through vocational training and a safe place to live while they acquire the skills to find sustainable livelihoods,” she added.

Social scientist and University of Johannesburg research associate, Admire Mare, said unless the country’s economy recovers, more children would continue to resort to transactional sex.

“The economic challenges have spawned unprecedented levels of desperation, which has seen some children dropping out of schools to take up commercial sex work as a fall back position. In most urban areas, night clubs and bars have become havens for these nocturnal activities,” he said.

“There is need for government to prioritise economic recovery so that unemployed people can better their lives. Commercial sex work will further complicate efforts to end HIV and Aids. It exposes children to inter-generational sex, which increases chances of contracting STIs,” he added.

The Zimbabwean chapter of the United Nations international Children’s Emergency Fund, realising the gravity of the issue, has been working in disadvantaged communities in an attempt to curb child prostitution.

Child prostitution has been defined by the UN as an act of engaging or offering the services of a child to perform sexual acts for money or other consideration with that person or any other person.

By 1990, international awareness of the commercial sexual exploitation of children had grown to such a level that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

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President Robert Mugabe

A SURPRISE resolution by the ruling ZANU-PF party’s Mashonaland Central province is seen giving President Robert Mugabe (pictured) the ammunition he has been desperately looking for to end factionalism, which has left his party extremely vulnerable with only less than two years before the make-or-break polls in 2018, the Financial Gazette can report.

President Mugabe will descend in Masvingo for the party’s 16th annual people’s conference as the only heavyweight in ZANU-PF’s presidium with a secure job, having received the thumbs up from the 10 political provinces to represent the party as their presidential candidate in the 2018 elections in which he is likely to face his long-time deputy-turned foe, Joice Mujuru, following their nasty fall out in 2014.

A resolution by Mashonaland Central — the bedrock of ZANU-PF’s support — pushing for the amendment of the party’s constitution to allow members to vote for President Mugabe’s two deputies in the same way they voted for the party leader, would mean that none of the bigwigs in the presidium, with the exception of the incumbent, is safe in the event that the resolution is adopted at the conference.

President Mugabe and his two deputies, Vice Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko, constitute the party’s presidium.

Before the 2014 congress, the national chairman of the party was part of the presidium, but the functions allocated to that position are now being exercised by the two Vice Presidents on a rotational basis in what was supposed to end the ugly factional fights that had broken out in ZANU-PF.

Political observers opined this week that the ball was now essentially in President Mugabe’s court who, as the party’s first secretary and president, has the discretion to determine what goes into the conference’s agenda. That in itself, according to observers, presents the ZANU-PF leader with a perfect opportunity to strike factionalism in the head by decisively dealing with the “mischief makers”.

ZANU-PF is currently torn between two factions that are embroiled in a bitter contestation to influence President Mugabe’s succession.

Before the 2014 congress, the two factions were led by Mujuru, the former vice president, and Mnangagwa who, at the time, was in charge of the party’s legal portfolio in the Politburo.

Mujuru could not survive a ruthless purge that uprooted her foot-soldiers across the party’s political provinces going into the congress. She, along with her key allies, were dismissed from ZANU-PF and government for plotting to unseat President Mugabe, unconstitutionally.

But that did not destroy factionalism in the party. Another faction, going by the moniker Generation 40 (G40) emerged immediately after the congress to frustrate Mnangagwa’s bid to replace President Mugabe whenever he so decides to retire.

None of the perceived faction leaders have admitted their role in the internecine infighting rocking ZANU-PF.

Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko

In July this year, Mnangagwa distanced himself from the so-called Team Lacoste, which is alleged to be propping up his interests.

A quartet comprising ZANU-PF Politburo members namely: Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere and Patrick Zhuwao, President Mugabe’s nephew, has also denied purported links to G40.

Nonetheless, the infighting has spiralled out of control to the point of paralysing both the party’s business and the workings of government at a time when the country is faced with an economic crisis of gigantic proportions.

Last week, the ZANU-PF leader acknowledged the existence of the two factions – Team Lacoste and G40.

He warned against successionist politics, saying those plotting to take-over from him should rather redirect their energies to working for development.

It now appears that the ZANU-PF leader could have the last laugh at the five-day conference to be held in Masvingo between December 13 and 17.

On Tuesday, Dickson Mafios, the Mashonaland Central provincial chairman, said the region had resolved to push for the amendment of the constitution to allow members to vote for vice presidents in the same way they voted for the President.

He said the current situation, created after the party expelled Mujuru, was not democratic, adding that Mashonaland Central felt the one-centre-of-power principle was not beneficial to anyone because those appointed by the party’s President under this concept were not protecting his integrity.

“The one centre of power concept came from us and we can have it altered. We are saying we want alterations. The President is an elected official, why not the vice presidents? It’s an appeal which we are putting before the party and we want the vice presidents to be elected with at least one of them being a woman,” said Mafios.

Mnangagwa and Mphoko were appointed into their current positions by President Mugabe in 2014.

Mphoko’s appointment was in line with the 1987 Unity Accord signed between President Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, now late, which obligates ZANU-PF to accommodate a former ZAPU cadre as one of the two Vice Presidents.

In terms of the ZANU-PF constitution, the power to amend the constitution rests with the Central Committee, subject to ratification by congress.

It is either that any member of the party supported by 50 other members or any organ of ZANU-PF may propose or move a motion for the amendment of the constitution provided they follow proper procedures.

It would appear that the resolution by Mashonaland Central is in sync with last year’s plans by the ZANU-PF Women’s League to remove one of the Vice Presidents and replace him with a woman.

Also, Manicaland Provincial Affairs Minister, Mandi Chimene, demanded sometime this year that an extraordinary congress be convened to deal with Mnangagwa if President Mugabe was hesitant to fire him.

This was after the President had been fingered for stoking factional fires in the party.

It therefore appears that the proposal from Mashonaland Central fits into this plan notwithstanding the fact that President Mugabe has previously indicated that he has been with Mnangagwa for so many years that he would unlikely conspire against his deputy.

Perceived G40 members are also under pressure, especially in the wake of corruption allegations against Moyo and Kasukuwere, and allegations of incompetence against Zhuwao.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Team Lacoste wants the conference to flush out those fingered in acts of corruption in a bid to weaken G40.

Amid the conflicting pressures, it is now up to President Mugabe to decide in which direction the pendulum should swing.

There were indications that Mashonaland Central province’s resolution was unlikely to succeed given that there is insufficient time before the party conference to allow for constitutional amendments to effect the proposals. But precedent suggests that anything that has the backing of President Mugabe would find support from members and sail through regardless of constitutional provisions.

All the 10 provinces met to deliberate on their conference resolutions at the weekend, with Mashonaland Central providing the most contentious resolution after its inter-district meeting in Bindura.

G40 currently controls party structures after it successfully purged Mnangagwa’s allies this year. They could use that numerical advantage to spring surprises at the conference.

Team Lacoste members are accusing G40 of designing the latest scheme simply to target Mnangagwa, saying their rivals were seeking to challenge President Mugabe’s appointing authority. They accused Kasukuwere, who comes from Mashonaland Central, of orchestrating the resolution.

But Kasukuwere said he had nothing to do with the proposal.

“I have nothing to do with the resolution. (Yes), I come from the province (but) I do not meddle in provincial issues; I am a national leader. I do not make the resolutions; the resolutions are made by the people so it’s nonsense to believe I influence their decision,” he charged.

He also denied reports that the resolution was specifically targeted at Mnangagwa saying: “I thought it was a resolution by the province to conference. Let conference handle it. After all, we have not received resolutions from the provinces. We will receive them on Friday then we consolidate.”

Kasukuwere has come under fire from Team Lacoste functionaries, including war veterans, who want him fired.

They accuse him of orchestrating the purge of Mnangagwa’s allies from the party, among them the leadership of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association.

The entire leadership of the war veterans was shown the exit door by ZANU-PF in July this year after they questioned its leadership.

ZANU-PF’s deputy secretary for legal affairs, Paul Mangwana, who is believed to be a Mnangagwa ally, poured cold water on prospects of the resolution succeeding.

ZANU-PF’s deputy secretary for legal affairs, Paul Mangwana

“The changes will have to go through the party’s legal machinery. So at the moment, we are simply hearing so many propositions being made, but we are not in any way tweaking with the existing party constitution,” said Mangwana.

He said ZANU-PF would need to convene a special congress to make constitutional changes required by Mashonaland Central’s resolution; this could not be done by the forthcoming conference.

Political scientist, Ibbo Mandaza, said Mashonaland Central’s overture was a direct challenge on Mnangagwa’s position in the party.

“They are targeting Emmerson. They are hoping that through elections they may be able to boot him out … It’s part of the succession fight, especially given that G40 has regrouped,” he said.

But another political scientist, Eldred Masunungure, said it was very curious that Mashonaland Central had only requested for the revision of the selection of the Vice Presidents only, leaving out other structures such as the Politburo whose members are also handpicked.

“It was very unwise and imprudent for Mashonaland Central to make that recommendation. It’s an extreme move…There might be undercurrents, although it can be read as a challenge to the President’s powers. If Mashonaland Central wanted to be taken seriously they should have challenged the whole constitution. For example, everyone in the Politburo must be elected rather than confine their resolution to one layer of the party structure… It doesn’t make sense. It should be applicable to all levels and not just the Vice Presidents. As it is, it is designed to affect one layer of the party structure. However, in the absence of explicit reference to those undercurrents it (resolution) represents a challenge to the President’s powers…but it’s a challenge that has not been made in good faith,” said Masunungure.

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Members-of-the-anti-riot-police-Pic-Aron-Ufumeli-2

By around midday, order had returned to the city centre as police took control of the situation.

THE Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) on Wednesday deployed police details that far outnumbered protestors, swiftly crushing the demonstration against the introduction of bond notes in central Harare.

The protests were organised by several pressure groups led by #Tajamuka, a grouping of youths that have had several run-ins with authorities in recent months.

Opposition political parties coalescing under the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA), had also given notice of their intention to participate in the demo which police had refused clear, but there was no sign of their presence.

Instead, just a few dozens of #Tajamuka activists picketed along Harare’s busy Nelson Mandela Street around midmorning and started toy toying, attracting a swift response from the ZRP, which deployed truckloads of truncheon wielding riot cops numbering at least three times more than the demonstrators.

Sensing danger, the protesters quickly melted away into the crowds and later made sporadic appearances elsewhere in thinner pockets, co-ordinated by what appeared to be choreographed whistles.

But each time that happpened, police trucks furiously drove through the busy streets of the capital, sending pedestrians scurrying to safety, while mystified motorists swearing.

By around midday, order had returned to the city centre as police took control of the situation.

By lunchtime, the capital city, Harare, which has been the centre of deadly running battles in recent months, as police cracked down on rioters, had calmed, with shops and other ventures opening for business.

Traffic was flowing smoothly, while vendors and pedestrians went about their daily routines without incident.

However, #Tajamuka activists still claimed the demonstration was a success.

#Tajamuka national co-ordinating committee member, Hardlife Mudzingwa, said the demonstration was not the monumental flop that it appeared to be.

“We do not measure success of an event just by the expected results; there are so many other aspects we are looking at to say it succeeded. For example, the ZRP deployed its officers at predawn to take positions at all strategic areas and intimidate people. So for us, it is a success when government commits so many resources to fighting us,” he said.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) spokesman, Obert Gutu, also said the protests succeeded.

“The demo was very successful until it was ruthlessly and unlawfully crushed by the police. This is the homestretch for the crumbling, paranoid and bankrupt ZANU-PF regime. Of course, the regime is terribly afraid of the people.This explains why the regime has deployed so many armed police officers and secret service operatives onto the streets of Harare,” said Gutu.

Interestingly, national police spokesperson, Charity Charamba, said she did not know that police officers were on the ground.

“I do not know what was happening. I was away at some function and I don’t know what took place or what was supposed to take place,” she said.

The demonstration comes as government fast-tracked the introduction of bond notes in the country despite a major public outcry. Government argues that bond notes are a temporary solution to a devastating liquidity crises ripping through the tottering Zimbabwean economy.

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