Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: Like father, like son: They travel in nautical miles. . . ED's mounting foreign trips expose him | Daily News

I will not allow the raging debate and shaming of the chief ruler’s penchant for frequent and extravagantly lavish travels without my pound of flesh.

Not even that I am a Shylock, but the extremeness of irresponsibility and insensitiveness to the plight of a downtrodden, short-changed, brutalised and impoverished people of our country demands that we call out against the continued mis-use of meagre resources towards foreign travel that brings absolutely nothing.

And, more annoyingly when spokesperson George Charamba makes such a shameless and absurd defence of such mediocrity.
In his 18 months of rule, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has made at least 30 foreign trips to March 2019, some a day long and to neighbouring countries, but most are over several days long, and are across continents.

Even Wikipedia does not have a full record of his foreign travel, possibly a sign of disbelief.
Social media is awash with public disdain of such recklessness, and very little such media, if any, has offered any support for the behaviour.

A social media analogy of leadership failure is encapsulated in the description of a nation that does not have sniffer dogs for emergencies such as the on-going devastation and destruction by Cyclone Idai but can hire Gulfstream jets for its rulers.

Early in his rule, some saw Mnangagwa as modelling himself to a Paul Kagame. I now suspect that he actually did so, and unfortunately emulated some of the bad habits of Kagame.
In 2018, the Rwandan strongman made 34 foreign trips over five continents, each of them on a lavish Gulfstream-hired or rented by the Government of Rwanda from Crystal Ventures Limited, a company in which Kagame himself is speculated to be a major shareholder in consortium with his ruling party.

Kagame, the president, hiring from Kagame, the businessman. Most of Kagame’s trips are described by Rwandan observers as meaningless and useless, each preceded by huge advance security and protocol teams that are entitled to foreign currency allocations for exquisite hotel accommodation, food and subsistence, incidental expenses and shopping bonuses.

Such arrangements were common talk in (Robert) Mugabe’s era with many of his hordes of lieutenants having built houses and purchased fleets of cars on travel allowances alone. There is insufficient transparency on how Mnangagwa’s trips are managed, or troop numbers.

In contrast to Mnangagwa’s and Kagame’s 30 and 34 trips in a period not much more than a year, Barack Obama undertook 52 foreign trips in the entirety of his eight years as President of America.

One would be tempted to assume that some of these reckless African leaders actually see themselves as the presidents of first world countries or of the oil rich house of Saudi. Pitiful.

Nevertheless, there are some African leaders who have their heads screwed on right, and who have a clear agenda for their economic trajectories, in particular where there is need for austerity.

John Pombei Magufuli of Tanzania hardly ever travels out of the country, preferring, mostly, to send his Foreign minister.
In the words of Magufuli, a minister and his assistant are much less costly than a president and his delegation.
Can someone please tell this to Charamba? Since his inauguration in 2015, Magufuli made three foreign visits in 2016, to Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda, and two such visits in 2017, to Ethiopia and Uganda.

His explanation for not attending the 2018 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was simple, “to save money”, and he profoundly thanked his Foreign minister for ever so diligently representing Tanzania.

Even the despot Ugandan Yoweri Museveni skipped UNGA 2018 arguing that the 15 minutes allocated to each leader to speak could not justify the costs for a typical presidential entourage.
He added that the Ugandan Cabinet had agreed on austerity measures and that one of the targeted budget lines was presidential foreign travel.

In October 2015, Malawi President Peter Mtharika returned from a UNGA to a hostile public opinion about his reckless travelling. In trying to placate the public, he angrily declared that he did not personally like travelling.

At least he immediately kept his word. For the first six months of 2016, he did not leave the country, and made it known that he had stayed away from at least 15 scheduled international trips.
He listened to his people, at least for six months, and has significantly cut down foreign travel ever since.

Former President Ian Khama of Botswana had a self-imposed exile from the international community.
He did not attend UN or AU summits, describing them as a waste of time and always sent his deputy or ministerial representative. Alas, the former deputy, now president of Botswana, has chosen to rule from the skies. What a shame. At least they have the money.

Our Mnangagwa has been on an avalanche of so-called state or working visits to China, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan on the Gulfstream, with very little to show for it.

He attended the 2018 UNGA shunned by other African leaders, and equally shunned by Russia’s Vlamir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and India’s Narendra Modi.
In his lame attempt to defend the use of the Gulfstream, Charamba displayed an unusual immaturity and lack of substance. “Tinoti kupererwa, akapererwa.” Simple questions he does not address are: Why doesn’t our ruler simply stay home. When journeying north on African Union business, why doesn’t he ask South African Ramaphosa for a ride?

I am certain that, as his defender, Ramaphosa will gladly stop-over to pick him up. So would Zambia’s Lungu for southbound Sadc trips. Why not ask host countries to pay for our ruler’s travel on basis that we cannot afford.

It is common knowledge in international relations that you do not invite yourself to a state visit in the country of another, you are invited.
Therefore, Charamba, next time our ruler is invited for a State visit, the hosts should send the Gulfstream. Period.
In addition, for countries that are of no benefit, let us stick to secure telephonic communications. Another suggestion is to upgrade the ruler to skype, GoToMeeting or Zoom for less sensitive talk.

Another serious consideration is to give our ruler the single remaining Air Zimbabwe plane to share with his two deputy rulers, in particular if he cannot co-travel on it with other passengers as you say.
But the father did at times.

That way, Charamba, you will save the airline brand, and protect the travelling public, which you suddenly do not want to inconvenience from extra security checks and downgrades from business class.

A quick arithmetic between you and Finance minister Mthuli Ncube will show that the Gulfstream costs, and the medical flying ambulances to India and elsewhere for the deputy rulers, against the profit that Air Zimbabwe will lose by giving up their remaining  plane for executive duties, will be a no brainer.

However, I am most certain that this is not the issue.
The issue is that our chief ruler does not want to use that old cheap rickety heap of metal said to be the remaining plane, and which does not have the settings so accustomed on the Gulfstream. Simple.

May I remind you Charamba, that you equally defended Mugabe when he was the only Head of State that attended a United Nations summit on oceans, and when he wanted to attend the World Culture Festival in India, among a host of worthless, useless, expensive foreign trips in which they stayed in the world’s premier hotels, in presidential suites, all in the name of working for Zimbabwe’s betterment.

What an absurd display of political class extravagance, which you are again defending now. Mhembwe rudzi, inozvara mwana ane kazhumu. Our ruler learnt from the father.
Writing for the Great Lakes Post, Chris Kamo, a respected journalist, having truly been pained by the extravagance of Kagame’s foreign trips and waste of resources when their much touted economic success has untold horror gaps of health services and neglect, described him as a travelling Nyakivale vagabond.

I salute you Chris Kamo, and David Himbara, your pens and keyboards make Kagame tremble.

is an independent political observer and commentator writing in his personal capacity.

He can be contacted on mnhmutasa@gmail.com

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Source: We have learnt our  lessons, the hard way | Daily News

THE recent Cyclone Idai — which devastated parts of Manicaland, Masvingo and Mash East provinces of the country — has brought us face-to-face with the power of nature.

The natural disaster made us aware — in a very cruel way — of our glaring shortcomings as a nation, both in terms of our response strategies as well as startling ill-preparedness.

To make matters worse, we seem to have an insensitive leadership in central and local government as well as at political party levels.

These are the ones who were keen to turn the cyclone into a turf where they could slug it out for political relevance and mileage.
Cyclone Idai killed over 300 people although official figures put the toll around 180 while thousands of
families were left homeless after their homes were destroyed.
The cyclone also destroyed schools and infrastructure like roads, bridges, power lines and other communications facilities.

But first and foremost, Zimbabwe got wind of the approaching cyclone that was expected to strike the country’s eastern neighbours — Mozambique — first before pulverising arid Chimanimani and Chipinge, proceeding further inland towards Masvingo.

All this was already in the public domain yet our leadership behaved like ostriches, sticking their heads in the sand, pretending nothing would happen.

Whatever weird reasoning could explain the lack of timely information dissemination to alert the hapless villagers in the hardest hit Chimanimani, the unfortunate innocent souls of Ngangu Township in Chipinge, who all resigned to fate when disaster struck.
If information on the disaster had reached these unfortunate souls earlier, perhaps we would be talking about an entirely different story.

Local government structures available could have easily been utilised to communicate with the people while central government was to immediately spring into action, evacuating people from the possible Idai routes to higher ground where possible.

Political party leaders are prepared to spend thousands on campaign rallies but sadly are not prepared to spend a dime in life-saving processes like the evacuation of desperate people from possible danger. This was a worthy cause because of the sanctity of human life.

Some had the audacity to publicly say that the country had inadequate resources to carry out any evacuations yet we all know that those in power live plush lives and are flown out even when they complain of a simple headache.
Zimbabwe was also exposed for its grave ill-preparedness and shoddy response strategies during the time when the cyclone struck.

Without doubt, the cyclone-related deaths could have been minimised had prompt efforts to airlift people from disaster-struck areas had immediately been put in motion.

However, the Department of Civil Protection (DCP) — which got a measly $2,36 million in the 2019 national budget against the $10 million they require for their operations — was clearly resource-impaired.

Despite its pleas to have the allocation adjusted upwards to enable the department to functionally optimally, attending to disasters, which include road traffic accidents. Civil education, which should  — under normal circumstances — remain a continuous process, is the mandate of the department.

Because of population growth and the shrinking of fertile land as well as shortage of water, people end up settling in risky places without considering the topography of the area in question.

Village heads in rural areas at times settle people anywhere for the lure of the dollar the land-seeker is always prepared to part with, compromising the lives of the innocent settlers who — out of a combination of ignorance and desperation — end up living in flood-prone areas. Such people could have been warned of the impending danger.

The DCP is expected to run an effective early warning system when prospects of a disaster loom. Their communication campaigns, which should reach the length and breadth of the country, cannot be visible when they operate on a shoestring budget.

The co-ordination of evacuation of people in harm’s way and to lead rescue efforts in times of disaster are also the mandate of the DCP something that was evidently absent during Cyclone Idai.
Government must adequately capacitate the DCP and also contribute optimally in the formulation of effective response strategies and evacuation processes as well as promptly mobilising assistance from non-governmental organisations and other international partners.

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Source: Anjin to sink $20m as it resumes operations …Alrosa to operationalise office end of April | The Sunday Mail March 31, 2019

Kuda Bwititi
Chief Reporter

Anjin is set to resume mining in Chiadzwa in May this year, while Russia’s Alsora will complete setting up its office by the end of next month, raising expectations Government will achieve its targeted haul of US$400 million in revenues from diamond mining.

It is believed that the Chinese mining company, which was forced to shut operations in February 2016 as the old administration designated mining of the precious stones to the Government-owned Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) — will pour an initial US$20 million to restart operations.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando told The Sunday Mail that the new diamond policy will naturally attract additional investments into the sub-sector.

Minister Chitando said fresh investments will complement the “huge expansion drive” presently being implemented by ZCDC.

“ZCDC is on a huge expansion drive and is going to produce 4,1 million carats this year on the back of the conglomerate plant that was commissioned by His Excellency, President Mnangagwa, towards the end of last year.

“Anjin, which used to operate in the area, is now back on the ground. We expect that it will commence production, at the latest, by end of May. We are looking at it being a significant producer in that regard,” he said.

In addition to mining its old claims, Anjin will also work on new areas, as well as carry out exploration.

Last year, Zimbabwe produced 2,8 million carats.

Minister Chitando believes that the diamond industry will anchor Government’s vision to earn US$12 billion from the sector within the next four years.

An executive from Anjin, who elected to remain anonymous, said the company would replace some equipment that was either stolen or vandalised during its three-year hiatus.

“There is need to replace some of the equipment at the mine which was stolen or vandalised. It is sad that some of the equipment was stolen despite the presence of police officers. We are, however, going to import new equipment. So we hope to resume operations at the old mine in a matter of weeks. Furthermore, we are going to purchase more equipment for exploration in other areas,” he said.

The company, he added, will employ 300 people from the Chiadzwa community.

“So far, we have already shown our commitment by donating US$70 000 to some of the people in nearby areas who were affected by Cyclone Idai,” he added.

Second secretary and press attaché at the Russian embassy in Zimbabwe Ms Anna Kryukova said an advance team from Alrosa was already in the country.

“I am aware that there are two officials from Alrosa that are currently in Zimbabwe.

“They are working on surveying the areas for the diamond operations as well as setting up an office in the country,” she said.

Minister Chitando said Government will continue exploring potential diamond fields to expand the scope of diamond production beyond the Chiadzwa diamond fields.

On Monday, Government commissioned an aeromagnetic survey over a 400-square-kilometre area in Mwenezi, Masvingo province.

Interestingly, the 10 million carats forecast by 2023 doesn’t not factor in potential discoveries in the area.

Two companies have also been roped in to explore for kimberlites (diamond pipes) in the greater Chiadzwa area as Government angles for conglomerate diamonds, which are more valuable than alluvial diamonds.

Value addition

ZCDC, which will be commissioning a new mine in Chimamimani within the next three months, is currently looking for technical and financial partners to establish a diamond beneficiation centre — to be designated as a special economic zone — that is expected to be operational by year-end.

Minister Chitando said: “In addition, we will then have small businesspeople who will be housed to do the value addition of the diamonds. So these are people who will value-add the diamonds into final products such as jewellery.”

The commitment that was recently made by Botswana through the Bi-National Commission (BNC) to assist in beneficiating the country’s precious stones “will compliment what we are already doing as visits between officials from the two countries will be taking place in the coming weeks”, according to Minister Chitando.

Government, Alrosa and ZCDC are also expected to announce a comprehensive deal by the end of April.

Part of the new administration’s plans to achieve an upper middle-income economy by 2030 are premised on leveraging on the country’s abundant mineral resources.

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Source: Zim to revamp education system | The Sunday News March 31, 2019

Prof Amon Murwira

Walter Mswazie, Masvingo Correspondent

THE Government is working round the clock to ensure universities and polytechnics become innovation hubs amid revelations that the country has a very low skills level of 38 percent which does not go hand in glove with the country’s 94 percent literacy rate owing to the past education system that stifled innovation.

Presenting a public lecture titled, “Unpacking the new model, education 5.0 : expectations and challenges” at Great Zimbabwe University (GZU)’s Robert Mugabe School of Education in Masvingo on Friday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said it was disheartening to note that Zimbabwe was not faring well when it came to the issue of skills and yet it had the highest literacy rate in Africa.

He said the past education system kept Zimbabwean academics in a cage divided into moral, technological and scientifically models with its implementation based on 3.0 model which stifled innovation and needed to be overhauled.

“When we conducted the national skills audit from December 2017 to April 2018, the result we realised was that our literacy rate is at 94 percent and the national skills level is at 38 percent. You will meet someone being surprised while looking at the potholes on a road but doing nothing about them. The action should be to fill the pothole,” said Prof Murwira.

“Our natural sciences and humanities skills level is at 97 percent, business and commerce is 21 percent, agriculture 12 percent, health and medicine is five percent while the skills level for the arts is moderate,” he said.

He said the 3.0 education design worked well during its time as it served its intended purpose but it was high time the country adopted the 5.0 model design which put more emphasis on production of goods and services by universities and polytechnics.

“I am giving you a condition on how we can move out from the caged philosophy of the 3.0 model design through making goods and services as universities. The emphasis on 5.0 design is in knowledge and skills, as production can only happen when these two aspects are available. You cannot know and not do or do anything without knowing. Skills development is our main focus as a nation and President Mnangagwa is behind that,” he said. 

He however, said some of the skills were deliberately devalued by professional bodies and said the system used to rate skills or qualifications should be scrutinised.

“Legal skills as well as medicine have a big deficit as we do not have many legal minds. This is due to bottlenecks in the systems introduced by the colonial masters but we have to change that. We should wean ourselves of the spirit of being the only ones who have done something at the expense of having more people trained in that particular field. Who told you that only a person with 15 points at Advanced Level makes a good doctor? This criterion should be scrutinised. I like the Midlands State University motto which says, our minds, hands and destiny as we have to produce something tangible, as universities,” he added. 

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Source: Court orders Chinese firm to pay worker | Daily News

The Gweru Labour Court has found a Chinese-owned cement company, Livetouch Investments (PVT) LTD guilty of unfair labour practices and ordered the Redcliff-based company to pay an aggrieved worker his dues by May 31.

The matter was heard before High Court judge Justice Emilia Muchawa on Wednesday.

The case pits Lazarus Maposa who was the applicant against Livetouch Investments and Robert Masanga who were cited as first and second respondents respectively.

Maposa, who is a designated agent for the National Employment Council for Cement and Lime Industries, had won a Tribunal ruling that found the Chinese company guilty of underpayment of wages and unpaid overtime and cash in lieu of leave days and ruled that the company should pay the complainant.

Maposa had lodged an application with the Labour Court for confirmation of the Tribunal ruling.
Justice Muchawa confirmed the ruling and ordered the company to pay Masanga in full.

“The ruling by the applicant is confirmed. The 2nd respondent be and is hereby ordered to pay the sum of $3 265.43 being underpayment of wages and non-payment of cash in lieu of leave; the amount be paid by the 31st of May 2019 and that there be no order as to costs,” ruled Muchawa.

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