Category: zimbabwe

MASVINGO — Nine people, including two children, were killed and at least 25 others hospitalised on Tuesday after a bus failed to stop at a railway level crossing and was struck by a train in the Lowveld, the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) and police confirmed.

The collision occurred on Mbizi Road in Triangle, Chiredzi district, at around 7AM when a Makuku Bus travelling from Chikombedzi to Masvingo drove onto the crossing in the path of an oncoming goods train.

The NRZ said the train had been travelling from Triangle to the NRZ Lundi siding.

The NRZ said the bus driver “failed to observe level crossing rules, which require drivers to stop and check for oncoming trains before proceeding.”

Among the nine dead were seven adults and two minors. Twenty-five passengers were taken to hospital, the parastatal said, where they were receiving treatment.

Police, in a separate statement, confirmed nine fatalities and said 26 people had been injured.

“More details will be availed soon as police officers are still attending to the accident,” national police spokesman Commissioner Paul Nyathi said.

Emergency services including police, ambulances and the fire brigade were on-site managing an active rescue operation, the NRZ said.

The NRZ extended condolences to the families of the dead and wished the injured a speedy recovery. The parastatal also used the statement to appeal to road users: “We would also like to urge all motorists to strictly observe level crossing regulations to avoid loss of lives and injuries.”

HARARE – A Harare resident has filed an urgent High Court application seeking to halt the further installation of prepaid water meters across the city, arguing that the City of Harare and its private partner are operating without legal authority, in breach of the city’s own water by-laws.

She also accuses the city of violating the Administrative Justice Act through its failure to consult residents before imposing a fundamentally new system of water supply.

The case could derail the government’s plans to extend the prepaid metering model to Bulawayo and other cities nationwide.

Bernaddete Makaya, a ratepayer from Mabelreign, is represented by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). She cited the City of Harare, the minister of local government and public works, and Helcraw Water, a Southerton-based private company, as respondents in her June 3 application.

Helcraw Water has been contracted to implement the prepaid meter project across Harare. The company is owned by Farai Jere, a Zanu PF member of parliament, raising questions about the procurement process through which the company secured its partnership with the City of Harare.

If it succeeds, it would not only suspend the Harare rollout but effectively block the government’s reported plan to impose the same prepaid metering model in Bulawayo, which is understood to be next in line for the programme.

In her founding affidavit, Makaya states that the City of Harare, acting in partnership with Helcraw Water, began installing prepaid water meters across Harare sometime in 2025. The rollout reached the Sunridge area of Mabelreign in 2026, when a meter was installed at her residence.

“Since the installation of the pre-paid water meter, I discovered that if I do not purchase credit for water my taps run dry and the water does stop running at my house,” she deposes.

Makaya further says the meter is enclosed in a locked black box fitted outside the house, making it impossible for residents to verify the accuracy of readings – a problem compounded by frequent water cuts in the area. The system offers only a small in-house monitor that displays the water credit balance when the digits 11 are pressed.

She contends the prepaid system is the “complete opposite” of the post-payment system that previously governed water supply in Harare, under which residents received water first and were billed afterwards, either by estimate or for actual consumption over a given period, usually a month.

The legal challenge rests on three grounds. First, Makaya argues that neither the Urban Councils Act nor the Harare Water By-Laws of 1913 authorise a prepaid water distribution system. Both instruments, she says, provide only for a post-paid system.

The introduction of prepaid meters therefore lacks any legal instrument to support it and is ultra vires the existing regulatory framework.

Second, Makaya argues the prepaid system violates the mandatory 24-hour written disconnection notice requirement enshrined in section 69(2)(e) of the Third Schedule to the Urban Councils Act and Clause 8(a) of the Standard Form Contract for Water Supplies, which forms part of the Harare Water By-Laws. Under the prepaid system, water is cut off automatically the moment a consumer’s credit is exhausted, with no prior written notice delivered physically or by registered post as required under section 61 of the by-laws.

“The water supplies are just disconnected when the water credit is exhausted,” she states, adding that the ability to check a balance on a monitor “does not amount and suffice to the written notice which is required in terms of law.”

Third, Makaya invokes the Administrative Justice Act directly, arguing that the City of Harare and Helcraw Water, as administrative authorities, failed in their duty to act lawfully under section 3 of the Act. This includes the failure to consult affected residents before rolling out a system that fundamentally altered how water is supplied, metered, and disconnected across the city – replacing a post-paid model residents had operated under for decades with a prepaid one, without any public participation process or prior notification.

The system also fails to provide statements of account in relation to water consumption as required under section 49 of the Harare Water By-Laws, a further ground of unlawfulness cited in the affidavit.

The draft order seeks a suspension of all further prepaid meter installations by the City of Harare and Helcraw Water, and an order directing the city and the minister to promulgate by-laws governing a prepaid water metering system within three months. The draft proposes no order as to costs.

HARARE — John Musekiwa, the president of the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, broke down in tears and quit mid-meeting on May 28, declining an endorsement he had already received and plunging the industry body into a leadership crisis that sources say bears the hallmarks of a deliberate conspiracy.

The previously unreported developments come on the eve of the Chamber’s Annual Mining Conference and Exhibition, which opens in Victoria Falls on Wednesday, with the newly installed president, Fungai Makoni, the managing director of platinum miner MIMOSA, expected to preside over the four-day gathering.

The dramatic scenes unfolded during an online Annual General Meeting (AGM) attended by 34 paid-up members – a gathering that was supposed to be a formality.

ZIMASCO CEO Musekiwa, his first vice president Munashe Shava – the administrator of Hwange Colliery – and second vice president Makoni had all been nominated three weeks earlier and, in keeping with Chamber tradition, were expected to be endorsed without contest.

Under the Chamber’s leadership structure, the president and his two deputies each serve two consecutive one-year terms. Succession follows the same hierarchy: the first vice president is expected to ascend to the presidency in due course, with the second vice president rising behind him. Musekiwa’s abrupt departure upended that succession ladder.

Traditionally, after uncontested nominations, there has never been an election for the president and the two deputies. But a veteran mining executive, who is also a past president, intervened the moment endorsements were put to the floor, demanding that each candidate be voted on individually.

“The intervention came as a surprise because, traditionally, the top three never go through an election after uncontested nomination, even though this is something that is provided for in the constitution,” said a senior mining industry executive who attended the meeting.

Lawyers were on hand, a detail that struck several attendees as suspicious.

“The lawyers were ready to explain this unusual occurrence,” the executive added.

Musekiwa was put to the vote and endorsed. Then the same past president intervened again, insisting Musekiwa be given the opportunity to accept or decline. What followed shook the meeting.

At that point, Musekiwa is said to have broken down before announcing that he was declining the endorsement, citing health reasons. The million-dollar question, sources said, is why he waited until that moment to withdraw.

His departure immediately triggered a constitutional puzzle. With the presidency vacant, the second vice president, Makoni, was put forward for the top post ahead of first vice president Shava – itself an unprecedented move for the Chamber.

Procedural wrangling followed as Shava and Makoni were locked in an election. Questions were raised about the absence of auditors to oversee the vote, only for it to emerge that auditors were already present.

“Someone raised questions about logistics for the elections, such as the need for auditors, but to our surprise auditors were present, and this was also odd,” another executive said.

An initial proposal to vote by a show of hands was abandoned after concerns were raised.

“Initially, they said voting would be done through a show of hands, but some were uncomfortable and eventually it was decided that voting would happen through email,” the executive said.

What followed made the email vote itself suspect, a source said. Some attendees are alleged to have used the confusion to campaign actively, with Shava reportedly targeted by a de-campaigning effort orchestrated by an executive from one of Zimbabwe’s leading platinum miners.

A vote that normally takes less than ten minutes dragged on for over 45 minutes.

“We have established that people who had voted in a certain way were coerced to change their positions, and they rewrote emails indicating that they were switching candidates,” one executive said.

“As more information comes to light on what happened behind the scenes, it points to a huge scandal.”

Makoni was eventually elected the Chamber’s new president. That outcome meant Shava retained his first vice president post rather than ascending to the presidency in line with the normal succession order.

However, Shava subsequently resigned, sources said, because he believed the process had been manipulated.

Musekiwa and Shava both declined to comment.