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Source: Lack of funds stall Thorngrove rehab | Newsday (News)

ABOUT $46 million is required to complete refurbishments at Thorngrove Infectious Diseases Isolation Centre in Bulawayo, but funds are in short supply, an official said yesterday.

BY PATRICIA SIBANDA

This was disclosed during a tour of the facility by the provincial inter ministerial task force on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thorngrove projects manager Partson Mashamba told the taskforce that $46 million was still needed to complete the project.

“We need about $46 million to finish the work, and this excludes the kitchen, laundry and administration block. Outstanding now is plastering, some bit of brick work, flooring, wall tiling and electrical works,” Mashamba said.

“For the isolation centre alone, we are looking to say by Sunday next week, we should be done, meaning the end of the month.”

The centre is one of the facilities which were designated to cater for coronavirus cases in Bulawayo alongside Ekusileni Medical Centre, the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) and the Mpilo Central Hospital.

Mater Dei Private Hospital has already completed the refurbishment of its COVID-19 facility.

The taskforce also toured the UBH and Ekusileni to take stock of progress.

Mashamba said they were carrying out work that does not require funds.

He said they were currently installing 26 beds in the 40 bed medical facility.

Meanwhile, Ekusileni received a donation of $500 000 to reinstall a borehole pump that was stolen last week.

Addressing journalists, Bulawayo Provincial Affairs minister Judith Ncube said she was happy with progress at Thorngrove.

“At Thorngrove, there is a lot that has been done,” Ncube said.

“Remember in our last visit, we were not happy at all, even the deputy minister was not happy. But today, I am happy because you can tell that men are at work. Indeed, they have done a lot because if you look at the extension, the roofing has been done; they are left with few things in the plastering.”

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Source: ZACC hunts down corrupt ministers | Sunday Mail (Top Stories)

Lincoln Towindo

A former Cabinet Minister, a Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and a prominent property mogul face arrest for criminal abuse of office, fraud and abuse of funds following investigations into land deals by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission.

Although the names could not be divulged at the time of going to print, ZACC officers were said to be finalising processes to pick them up any day from now.

Investigations have been completed in more than a dozen cases involving the alleged sale of State land and corrupt allocation of housing stands. This follows an audit report into sales completed last year by a commission of inquiry led by Justice Tendai Uchena that traced land transfers in urban areas since 2005.

ZACC chairperson Justice Loyce Matanda-Moyo confirmed the development, saying the former Cabinet Minister ranked top among the alleged land barons.

She said investigators were finalising the dockets for at least 12 cases in Harare alone.

“We have 12 active cases in Harare that are nearing completion. A former Cabinet Minister has most of those cases and ranks tops. Those cases are nearly complete. I cannot divulge the intricate details now,” said Justice Matanda-Moyo.

In Harare prominent names recommended for investigation by the Uchena Commission included former First Lady Grace Mugabe, former Cabinet Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo, ex-Local Government permanent secretary Engineer George Mlilo, ex-Cabinet minister Ms Nyasha Chikwinya, businessman Dr Philip Chiyangwa, former Harare South legislator Mr Shadreck Mashayamombe and Mr Nhamo Tutisani.

“In Gweru, investigators are nearly through with a big case involving former Minister of State and a well-known property mogul. We planned to decentralise to all provinces so that we can fast-track investigations into all cases raised by the commission but we were forced to delay because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Justice Matanda-Moyo said once the lockdown has been lifted, ZACC will be opening an office in Bulawayo to deal with all the cases in the  Matabeleland provinces.

“We are also planning to recruit more officers so that we can open a Masvingo office soon.”

The Uchena Commission revealed that land barons, housing co-operative leaders, property developers and politically-connected people illegally sold $3 billion worth of urban State land since 2005 and pocketed most of the funds.

It also recommended the investigation and possible prosecution of 431 cases of suspected corruption in the sale of State land.

The Commission also recommended lifestyle audits and investigation of possible abuse of office charges for past and present Government officers connected with managing State land.

Thousands of desperate home-seekers purchased housing stands from land barons only to find that there were no roads, water or sewer while some of the stands were on wetlands, servitudes, sites earmarked for schools, clinics or other places where housing was not allowed.

Secretary to the Uchena Commission, who is also Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Permanent Secretary, Mrs Virginia Mabhiza, told The Sunday Mail that Government was working out ways to regularise some of the housing co-operatives.

“The secretariat has set up committees to look into ways of implementing the recommendations from the Uchena Commission report,” said Mrs Mabhiza.

“We have finished setting up the implementation committees for each province. The committees will now move into the provinces in order to start implementing recommendations from reports for each province.

“Where there are cases that need follow up they will do so and this includes regularisation. Where there are cases that need to be reported to law enforcement, they will be reported and the law will take its course.”

She said the committees had been delayed by the national lockdown.

“We are waiting for the restrictions to be eased so that we can start moving in and implement the recommendations. But everything now is with the implementation committees and they are handling each and every case that may have been flagged by the Commission.

“You will recall that the secretariat had senior officials from the ZRP (Zimbabwe Republic Police) who helped with gathering of evidence. They also drafted dockets for cases that needed prosecution and some of the cases have already been before the courts.”

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Source: Nehanda was never hanged, but executed in jail: Senator | Newsday (News)

SENATOR representing people with disabilities Watson Khupe yesterday claimed that the country’s spirit medium Ambuya Nehanda was never hanged on a tree contrary to popular beliefs, but was executed in jail.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

Khupe was contributing to a motion in Senate on abolition of the death penalty in Zimbabwe, where he came out against the proposal, saying that murderers and rapists should face the guillotine as they would have committed grievous crimes.

He said his reasons for supporting the death penalty emanated from the fact that his mother was murdered and he still felt the pain of injustice.

“There are many people that are raped or murdered and how do their relatives feel if the death penalty is abolished? People on death row also survive on taxpayers’ money and should government continue to tax people to ensure murderers survive?” Khupe asked.

“There is also a misconception about the murder of national spirit medium Nehanda during the First Chimurenga war, where it is said she was killed through hanging. People should research because there is a thesis which was written by a Catholic priest (Rungano Zvobgo) which states that she was actually executed in prison,” he said.

But he said that inasmuch as he was opposed to abolition of the death row, there was need to efficiently investigate murder crimes to ensure that innocent people are not convicted and end up being hanged.

However, the majority of senators opposed the death penalty, including Harare Metropolitan senator Morgan Femai (MDC Alliance), who turned up in the House together with Harare Metropolitan senator Elias Mudzuri and Midlands senator Morgen Komichi.

Most MDC Alliance senators were not present.

“This is a Christian country and the Bible is clear that we will all ultimately die, but no one has a right to execute another person,” Femai argued.

“When Nehanda was executed, she said her bones shall rise, and they have risen. So the death sentence should be abolished or else the people that we execute as a country will come back to haunt us.”

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Source: Zimbabwe: Church leaders condemn abduction of politicians | ICN

Three female members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance (MDC-Alliance) were allegedly arrested at a roadblock and abducted in Harare by unknown men, last Wednesday. They were found on Friday, dumped by a roadside 80 miles north of Harare severely beaten and traumatised.

The women: Joana Mamombe (MP for Harare West), Cecilia Chimbiri (MDC Alliance Youth Assembly Vice-Chair) and Netsai Marova (Deputy Organising Secretary of the Youth wing) had taken part in a peaceful protest against the government’s Covid-19 lockdown which was put in place without support for the poor.

In a strongly-worded statement released this week, the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) to which the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC) is a part, denounced the abductions. They also drew attention to the brutal assault of two Zimbabwean women in the country’s second-largest city, Bulawayo, on 16 April at the hands of six police officers.

“Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) has received with shock and disbelief the news of yet another abduction and inhuman treatment of three young women including a Member of Parliament. This comes only some few days after the barbaric physical assault of two women, Ntombizodwa and Nokuthula Mpofu, of Cowdray Park, Bulawayo by six police officers. It should be stated that the reports suggesting that Harare West Legislator, Joana Mamombe and her colleagues Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova were taken from police custody, and were tortured and sexually assaulted and inhumanely treated by yet to be known agents point to something that is against the heart of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and the various International Conventions to which Zimbabwe is a signatory and, above all, to our cultural norms and our fundamental Christian beliefs regarding the sanctity and dignity of life,” said Zimbabwe’s Church leaders.

“First, it is deeply disturbing that the country has seen so many cases of abductions in the last few months, most of which have not been conclusively investigated. What is further disturbing are the insinuations, from some state agents, that all these abductions arc either stage-managed or carried out by an unrecognisable ‘third force’ without substantiating such claims with credible and irrefutable evidence. This constitutes the denigration of responsibility of the highest order on the part of government,” said the Church leaders.

ZHOCD has called for a full investigation. They condemn the ill-treatment of women as a whole, particularly, “in 2020 when the whole world is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, which was a global high point in recognition of the dignity of women after centuries of patriarchal domination and treatment of women as second class citizens of the world.”

Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for East and Southern Africa, condemned the abduction of the three MDC female politicians. She said: “Zimbabwe has a history of enforced disappearances, with some activists having gone missing for years now. Many activists have been tortured in police custody, despite denials by police.”

Since 2019, more than 50 social and political activists have been abducted and tortured by unknown persons. In September 2019, Dr Peter Magombeyi, President of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, who was campaigning for better working conditions, was abducted, beaten, tortured and later dumped by the roadside. He survived the ordeal. (At the beginning of this year, hospital doctors in Zimbabwe earned justunder $200 a month.)

Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister, Kazembe Kazembe has ordered the Commissioner-General of Police to institute a full-scale investigation into the abduction of the three female MDC leaders. He said the Commissioner-General should “establish what transpired, who did what, and the motive behind the actions.”

Zimbabwe’s Church leaders under the ZHOCD have pledged to continue offering pastoral support, comfort and protection to all victims of abductions and brutality.

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The MDC Alliance was on the right direction until Komichi, Mwonzora and others decided to [...]