Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: 'Stricter water rationing on the cards for Harare | Daily News

HARARE City Council (HCC) is set to introduce a stricter water rationing regime as dam levels at Lake Chivero continue dwindling.
Acting distribution manager Tapiwa Kunyadini told a full council meeting that the city’s raw water was now very concentrated with nitrogen and phosphorus because there has not been any significant rains.

The engineer’s remarks come as Mabvuku councillor Munyaradzi Kufahakutizwi had asked why some suburbs continue to suffer water shortages. “We will be instituting a stricter water rationing regime especially for areas in the northern suburbs to 72 hours per week to allow for pumping to Highlands and Pomona areas. We have stopped drawing water from Prince Edward Dam because it is now very low and cannot be extracted. Apart from the poor rains, our major problems now are chemicals and rehabilitation of our treatment works which may take a lot of time,” Kunyadini said.

He emphasised that the raw water quality was now extremely concentrated and needed a lot of chemicals to delineate to make it fit for human consumption. The council engineer indicated that council was now pumping 300 megalitres of water daily against 620 ML they were pumping last year.

“We are hoping that with the works that we are undertaking to the various clarifiers at Morton Jaffray and the commissioning of Avondale pump station, we will be able to have returned water production to over 500 Ml by end of April,” he said.

Environmental management committee chairperson Kudzai Kadzombe said the city should look into other sources of water as a matter of urgency. She said alternatively, council should also have additional mobile water treatment units to draw water and treat it from smaller sources.

“The engineers should look into other methods of purification because the number of chemicals we are using is too much. We understand that the quality of our raw water is extremely bad but the chemicals used should be reduced,” Kadzombe said.
Water rationing comes as HCC is also looking to investors for three additional mobile treatment units that will pump water to suburbs such as Glen Lorne, Borrowdale, Mabvuku, Tafara, which have gone for years without municipal water.

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UNITED Family International Church (UFIC) leader Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa has been implicated in a case in which five men were reportedly kidnapped and tortured for allegedly stealing gold ore from Havilah Gold Mine in Mutoko, which is believed to be owned by the clergyman. Lloyd Sande (24), Godknows Mhungu (21), Bornface Mudzonga (29), Julius Mudzonga […]

Source: Zupco deal unsustainable | Daily News

HARARE – Last month, government allowed a fleet of private buses to join forces with the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (Zupco) in servicing cities and towns so as to counter the high transport costs that were being charged by kombi operators.

The exorbitant fares had adversely affected workers and school children who commute daily to and from work/school.

Coming immediately after the three-day stay-away which ran from January 14 to 16 this year, some of us were suspicious of this act of generosity.

Stung by the hugely successful protests, government did not only blame the main labour movement and non-governmental organisations for the violence, looting and wanton destruction of property that accompanied the demonstrations: It was also quick to blame kombis operators for withdrawing their services.

By introducing alternative cheap transport, government has therefore had its revenge. Although the idea appears noble on paper, we wondered if it could last.

While this is being touted as an initiative by the moribund Zupco, we doubt if the parastatal had anything to do with it.

In its current state, Zupco has no financial stamina to deliver on its end of the bargain and it is only a matter of time before the independent bus operators walk away from the deal.

To start with, there are a lot of grey areas regarding how this arrangement was structured, especially in terms of payments for services rendered.

We also don’t think that Zupco, even with the help of Treasury, can sustain fuelling all these buses when the country is grappling with fuel and foreign currency shortages.

Already, events of the past few days have been disturbing to those who thought their transport problems were over as the buses became erratic, hence leaving passengers stranded.

We hear some of the operators have pulled out, resulting in kombi operators taking advantage of the situation by doubling their fares once again.

Zupco and its parent ministry of Local Government should explain to the commuting public on the challenges they are encountering so that people make other transport arrangements as they have to adjust their transport costs.

It is a big betrayal for Zupco and its parent ministry to keep quiet and pretend that everything is okay as workers and school children get stranded until late in the evening.

While government is pinning its hope on the buses sourced outside the country by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, these may take years to come. Without proper structures, systems and effective management at Zupco, the effort can also easily to go waste.

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Source: Court rebuffs GMB bosses' challenge to $1m fraud rap | Daily News

HARARE – A Harare court yesterday turned away a challenge to the prosecution of three Grain Marketing Board Pension Fund (GMBPF) executives facing charges of defrauding the grain utility of $1 million.

Harare regional magistrate Lucy Mungwari declined to take up an appeal by executives Korbs Kobie Mutandiro, 59, Basilio Sandamu, 64, and Taona Munzvandi, 48, for exception to the fraud charges, throwing out their challenge that claimed their company was supposed to be charged as a legal entity not in their individual capacities.

According to the State, sometime in the late 90s, the government embarked on the Land Reform Programme which involved compulsory acquisition of land for re-distribution.

In terms of the Land Acquisition Act Chapter 20:10 and through an extraordinary Government Gazette general notice 591 of 2001, a notice was given to acquire Romany Farm under deed of transfer number 5421.

It was alleged that on April 30, 2013, Munzvandi, allegedly in connivance with Mutandiro and Sandamu, hatched a plan to defraud the fund.

The court heard Munzvandi and Mutandiro entered into an agreement of sale of the said farm to GMBPF for $2,5 million knowing that the farm had been acquired by the State.

Acting on the misrepresentation, GMBPF transferred $1 040 000 into Organs Resources (Pvt) Ltd Standard Chartered Bank corporate account where Mutandiro is the director and signatory to the bank account.  Earlier, Mutandiro had allegedly fraudulently acquired 51 percent of the shares from the previous owner David John Sheehan for a purported value ZW$5 million.

Mutandiro then allegedly connived with his accomplices and entered into an agreement of sale with GMBPF for $2,5 million although they knew that the farm had been acquired by the State.

A memorandum of understanding was subsequently entered between Romany Farm and GMBPF for a joint venture for purposes of land development.

The court heard Mutandiro, Sandamu and Munzvandi did so without a requisite certificate-of no-present-interest.  After the agreement had been completed, Munzvandi then allegedly instructed the finance manager at GMBPF to transfer $1 070 000 into Mutandiro’s Organs Resources.

The offence was unearthed after GMBPF realised that Romany Farm had been handed over to Local Government ministry for urban development in 2015.

As a result, GMBPF was prejudiced $1 040 000 and nothing was recovered.

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