Category: zimbabwe

Source: Tobacco auctions hang by a thread | Sunday Mail (Business)

Business Reporter

Government last week invoked extraordinary regulations that do not allow gatherings of more than 100 people, as it takes pre-emptive measures to prevent the outbreak the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus spreads through person-to-person contact.

Early last week, the TIMB wrote to the Ministry of Health and Child Care seeking expert advice on how to proceed.

The tobacco auction floors often witness an influx of farmers during the marketing season.

The declaration of a state of national disaster on Tuesday last week was followed by an order for all schools, colleges and universities to close by Tuesday this week.

TIMB chief executive officer Dr Andrew Matibiri told The Sunday Mail Business that the board was still waiting for direction from Government.

“We have written to them and we are awaiting the response,” said Dr Matibiri.

“Our decision to engage them was premised on the fact that there is a call to minimise large crowds, so we are just waiting to get expert advice and I am sure that will be very soon,” he said.

In his letter to tobacco industry stakeholders dated March 16, Dr Matibiri indicated that the marketing season is characterised by movement and congregation of thousands of farmers at tobacco selling points both in and outside Harare.

“With this prevailing pandemic in mind, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has written to the Ministry of Health and Child Care seeking an urgent response for leadership and guidance on measures that industry stakeholders should institute to prevent or control any real and potential outbreaks of the disease,” reads the letter.

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Source: Zim, Namibia to deepen cooperation | Sunday Mail (Top Stories)

Sunday Mail Reporter

Zimbabwe is committed to deepening political, economic, scientific and cultural relations with Namibia as the Southern African country is a valuable strategic partner, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said yesterday.

Speaking at Namibia’s 30th independence celebrations in Windhoek yesterday, President Mnangagwa — who is the chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Security and Defence Cooperation — said the two countries would cooperate in deepening regional and continental integration.

The celebrations also coincided with the swearing-in ceremony of Namibian President Hage Geingob for his second and final term.

“We would like to offer to you our most sincere wishes for a successful second term as the president of Namibia. I am confident that under your renewed presidency, Namibia will make great strides towards the achievement of its aspirations and in particular the attainment of strategic development goals, during this ‘Decade of Action’,” he said.

“We will stand with you in our common quest to consolidate and deepen regional and continental integration, more so in the wake of present threats such as Covid-19 as well as future challenges,” the President added.

He also expressed the country’s gratitude for Namibia’s continued push for sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States of America and the European Union (EU) to be lifted.

President Geingob, who represented SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation), in last year’s plebiscite secured 56 percent of the vote.

In his acceptance speech, President Geingob pledged to intensify the fight against corruption and gender-based violence.

He also urged the country to unite to successfully fight the novel coronavirus.

“It is a pernicious enemy that threatens all of us. In order to fight this invisible enemy, we must rise as one. We must emulate the brave deeds of thousands of Namibian men and women, who from all corners of our country, rose as one people to defeat the brutal apartheid regime. Although the enemies we face today may be different, the resolve of the Namibian people remains as strong as ever,” President Geingob said.

Yesterday’s ceremony was shadowed by the coronavirus outbreak, which forced Windhoek to cancel the planned national gathering to commemorate the country’s milestone three decades of independence.

The country has recorded three cases of coronavirus to date, which are all imported.

Funds that were meant for the independence celebrations have since been channelled to fight the disease.

Harare and Windhoek share strong bonds.

The country recently opened a dry port facility at Walvis Bay on land that was donated by the Namibian government.

The facility is expected to provide a strategic and cheaper gateway to the Atlantic Ocean for local manufacturers and international businesses.

Dignitaries who attended yesterday’s ceremony included Namibia’s founding father Sam Nujoma and former president Hifikepunye Pohamba.

The occasion was also attended by Presidents Mokgweetsi Masisi (Botswana) and Joao Lourenço (Angola).

President Mnangagwa travelled and returned from the neighbouring country yesterday.

He was accompanied by Minister of Defence and War Veterans Affairs Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri and Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) Mr George Charamba.

 

 

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A guard noticed a man in town this week who he knew was a thief. He approached him from behind and then jumped on him and arrested him!

Source: Traveling without maps – The Zimbabwean

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Source: Zesa cuts Eskom debt to US$4m | Sunday Mail (Top Stories)

Mtandazo Dube

LOAD-SHEDDING is expected to significantly ease within the next three months as Zimbabwe is close to settling its debt with South Africa’s Eskom — one of the country’s major power suppliers — while payments to Mozambique continue, a Cabinet minister has said.

Some of the units that are presently being rehabilitated at Hwange Thermal Power Station are also projected to come on line “in the next month or two”.

The debt owed to Eskom, which currently supplies the country with 50 megawatts (firm) and 350 megawatts (non-firm), has been reduced from US$33 million to US$4 million.

Speaking to Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN), Energy and Power Development Minister Fortune Chasi said the country intends to unlock additional power from both Eskom and Cahora Bassa of Mozambique.

“Yes, we are making them (payments) religiously. We have reduced the debt to US$4 million or thereabouts. We are also working on further reducing our indebtedness to Mozambique,” said Minister Chasi.

It is believed that as the country progressively reduces its debt to regional power suppliers, its creditworthiness, which makes it able to purchase additional electricity, is also improving.

“ . . . it is going to be pivoted on us having to be creditworthy and the first step is to make sure that you pay your bills and that is what we are doing.”

Minister Chasi indicated that refurbishments of Hwange Thermal Power Station are nearing completion.

“We have a number of units in Hwange which should be finalised in the next month or two,” he said.

Virus poser

However, work on expanding the thermal power station is being held back by the current coronavirus outbreak, as restrictions on global movements are also affecting experts working on the power plant.

“We want to come out of where we are now, we are expecting improvement in the next month or two. Sadly, the virus that has wrecked the world is now delaying our projects.

“Chinese personnel that were working on the Hwange project were locked down in China, but work has been progressing very well. So we might have a bit of a delay on account of that.”

Minister Chasi said if all goes well, there should be a 270-megawatt addition to the grid when the refurbishments are completed.

“That is a significant amount of power. If we pour that into our system, we should be able to get much greater relief, but the target is to say that by mid-year we want as much as possible to do away with load-shedding.”

Government also expects Kariba Power Station to increase its power generation.

“We are encouraged by the inflows into the dam (Kariba Dam). I think the tributaries are getting more saturated, thereby enabling more water to flow into the dam. But we are in the mode of water conservation at the moment.

“We are at about 12 percent. We had an increase . . . in the last month or two of about 2 percent. We do not want to use the water now. We want it to accrue to significant levels, and so both Zimbabwe and Zambia are not using the water, we are waiting for better levels. We remain hopeful that this is going to happen.”

Improving electricity supplies, Minister Chasi added, are “clearly the efforts that our Government has been making”.

“We are becoming more dependable and reliable as far as those that supply power to us are concerned but we are doing many things on many fronts — energy conversations and metering Government departments. I started by metering my own ministry,” he said.

Zimbabwe has hinged its economic growth prospects on stable power supplies.

“Energy is key to economic prosperity and so our approach takes that into account. The fulcrum of our policy interventions is energy for prosperity. We have targets as Government, for example, in the mining sector and farming — power is necessary.

“Big companies like Schweppes and Old Mutual have embraced renewable energy. People are beginning to appreciate solar and that is a key component to our energy mix.”

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Source: MDC smart cities hyperbole | Newsday (National)

THE political drama across the world is getting to the extremes each election time. Issues of electability, photogenics and who says the most persuasive or populist policies seems to get ahead. This scenario has played itself in the United Kingdom and the United States, where populist candidates Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have won the highest political offices.

Johnson and Trump took leadership of their countries on the back of rising nationalist sentiment, a promise to reclaim power from the European Union (nostalgia for imperial days) and Trump’s call for “making America great again”.

Journalist James Ball in his acclaimed book, Post Truth – How Bullshit Conquered the World, sets a new bar on analysing the concept of politicians who lie, twist the facts and maintain the lie even if they are exposed as they try to win an election. The book analyses the 2016 Brexit and Trump election into the Oval office.

Ball argues that social media has helped bullshit to spread across the populace, but more importantly that it’s the audiences who are no longer able to discern, interpret issues based on their prejudices and most likely people who want to fit-in. The phenomena has been called “echo chambers”.

In Zimbabwe, there is the unending electoral political drama between Zanu PF that has dismally failed to deliver on its election manifesto and a populist opposition that continues to drum legitimacy issues two years after polls in the hope to remain politically relevant going into 2023.

The opposition MDC last week held a smart councils summit in the capital, which was officially opened by its leader Nelson Chamisa. This in many respects should have been a large and far-reaching meeting on local governance since the opposition controls all the 15 urban councils that have mayors. However, for a party rich in hyperbole and pursuit of international fads, this was a lost opportunity.

The MDC has been besotted with the idea of smart cities. In its 2018 election manifesto it said: “The MDC Alliance government thus undertakes the following:

• Regenerate, repair, refurbish and remodel existing cities.
• Construct new modern smart cities and expand existing ones.
• Convert and expand all major growth points into SMART+ hubs.
• Use cities as drivers of diversified growth and creation of jobs.
• Provide adequate capital funding to local authorities to meet the challenges.
• Promote density of housing and cost-efficient transport solutions to realise the urban dividend.
• Provide basic modern amenities particularly water reticulation, waste management, public lighting and sewage reticulation.
• Provision of local security to the citizen.”

It is interesting to note that the term “smart city” is not defined. The term means cities that harness the power of the internet to drive services in the digital world. These are futuristic cities that depend on the internet of things to function.

The MDC has no comprehensive local governance policy, its ideas are shared on an ad hoc basis depending on who is speaking and to which audience. For one to appreciate the policy paralysis in the opposition one has to look no further than its crown jewel – Harare City Council.

In 16 years of effective control, from Elias Mudzuri to Herbert Gomba’s mayorship, the city has not had a developmental blue-print with clearly defined time horizons. The city has no discernible policy on public transport, city expansion, housing, education and health provision. It has perfected the art of muddling through.

Harare, for the second-year running, has failed to audit its books after it abruptly terminated its billing software contract with BIQ Technologies. The city does not have an up-to-date asset register, in other words it does not know what it owns, giving room to bureaucrats and unscrupulous councillors to strip the local authority of its assets. In the meantime, the city is struggling to bill for services rendered.

Last week’s MDC summit cannot be said to be anything revolutionary for the opposition party. It was another routine get together to praise sing its leader, Chamisa. One needs not to dig deep to expose what was going on. Let us for a moment look at the resolutions of the two-day summit.

• “The councillors should be guided by our SMART policy to ensure that they provide effective service delivery,
• Engage with citizens in a spirit that reflects the social democratic values of freedom, solidarity and justice especially with the informal sector (vendors in particular), the vulnerable including managing challenges around informal settlements.
• Councils should protect the environment and wetlands, no allocation of stands should be done on wetlands.”

Juxtaposing the manifesto against the summit resolutions lays bare the unco-ordinated policy development, haphazard manner of implementing ill-defined policies and having an incompetent people-driven policy they do not understand.

The city has been dragged to the High Court and lost on cases of allowing development on wetlands.

The MDC has to cut back on hyperbole and start delivering, making the 15 urban councils its springboards for policy formulation and implementation. It should let the results speak for themselves, move towards service delivery than seeking international fads to bamboozle audiences.

Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist and writes here in his personal capacity.

The post MDC smart cities hyperbole appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.

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