Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: ZACC objections window closed | The Herald March 27, 2019

Mr Chokuda

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
Parliament yesterday closed the window for members of the public to raise objections against candidates nominated for the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) commissioners posts. At least 133 people from different backgrounds were nominated for the public interview.

In an interview, Clerk of Parliament Mr Kennedy Chokuda confirmed that they were no longer accepting objections after the close of business yesterday.

“We have been receiving objections and today is the closing date for receiving objections, before we move to the next stage,” he said.

“But I cannot disclose the figure on the objections we have received at the moment.”

In terms of the law, the Parliamentary Committee on Standing Rules and Orders (CSROs) is mandated to invite objections from the public before it conducts public interviews with the nominees.

“We are going to submit the objections that we have received to the sub-committee for considerations and make necessary recommendations to the CSROs,” said Mr Chokuda adding that the final list would be published in the newspapers inviting successful candidates to appear in Parliament for interviews.

It is, however, procedural for Parliament to investigate allegations against the ZACC nominees before the public interviews.

Once the public interviews are done, then the 133 candidates’ list will be whittled to 12 names which will be forwarded to President Mnangagwa for consideration. Only 10 commissioners will be appointed.

A team of investigators from the ZACC has submitted an adverse report to Parliament on 16 candidates that were nominated for the public interviews. The adverse report dated March 21, 2019 was handed to Mr Chokuda’s office last week.

The 16 candidates include Mr Denford Chirindo, Dr Catherine Muchechetere, Mrs Christina Fundira, Mr Boyana Ndou, Dr Nanette Silikhuni, Dr Onesmus Nyaude, Mr Smile Dube, Mr Never Katiyo, Mr Albert Mandizha, Mr Geoffrey Nyarota, Mr Mehluli Tshuma and Ms Caroline Chigumira.

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Source: Magaya church’s tax evasion trial kicks off – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 27, 2019

BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE

The trial of Prophetic Healing and Deliverances (PHD) Ministries led by Walter Magaya, which is accused of evading paying income tax for sales valued at $28 706 040, kicked off yesterday with the church denying the allegations.

PHD Ministries representative Nelson Marimo, who appeared before Harare magistrate Hosea Mujaya, pleaded not guilty to four counts of violating the Income Tax Act, saying the church only received donations, tithes, offerings and contributions from its members, which he said were not taxable.

Marimo, who was represented by Admire Rubaya and instructed by Oliver Marwa and Everson Chatambudza, said PHD Ministries, as a church, did not carry any trade through any company or other statutory corporation. He added that the church did not generate any taxable income through operating guest houses or accruals from any investments.

“The accused denies generating taxable income through selling church regalia, anointing oil, and holy water or from conducting any trade in the manner alleged. All the monies received by the accused are exempted from income tax considering that all these receipts and accruals are donations, tithes, offerings and contributions from its members, nothing more than that,” Rubaya submitted.

“The accused person disputes the alleged financial statements allegedly from Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, purporting that there were sales amounting to $28 706 040 in the manner alleged or at all. The accused will challenge the extraction of any evidence from such disputed documents.”

On the count where Magaya and wife Tendai allegedly received $2,4 million and $$954 522 respectively, the defence said the amounts in question were not covered by the definition of remuneration in terms of the 13th schedule of Income Tax.

The defence claimed the amounts were for loan repayments and the couple’s bank accounts were used as conduits for easy accounting purposes. Marimo said the allegations were simply to embarrass the accused person and they were clearly designed to destroy the church.

The State represented by George Manokore led evidence from Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) chief investigation officer Tinashe Madakadze, who told the court that PHD Ministries registered with the tax agency on October 20, 2014 as a voluntary church organisation.

Madakadze told the court that he wrote two letters to PHD Ministries asking for information, but the letters were not responded to, leading to them raiding their computers in terms of sections of the Income Tax Act.

The Zimra official told the court that he went on to ask for further information from the banks which hold accounts for the church.

Allegations are that sometime in October 2018, Madakadze conducted tax investigations on PHD Ministries and recovered financial statements from the church computer covering the period 2013 to 2017.

The State alleges that the accused did not declare or submit income tax returns for the said period to Zimra in violation of the Income Tax Act.

The post Magaya church’s tax evasion trial kicks off  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: When poor communities start asking searching questions! | Herald (Opinion)

Charles Dhewa Emkambo
Although rural communities in Africa may not directly push-back donor support, murmurings of dissatisfaction with some development interventions are getting louder.

Such concerns are being expressed when farmers meet in markets and farming areas.

Some community leaders are mustering the courage to loudly reflect on how long they will continue relying on food aid when what they really need is support to unlock value from their local natural resources like underground water, fertile soils and rich biodiversity.

For development agencies and private companies that have been taking farmers for granted through predatory and extractive models, it seems such practices have reached their ceiling.

News of farmers dumping milk and food on the streets in protest over poor prices have often come from other parts of the world like Europe and Asia.

Such ways of revolting against economic injustice are slowly finding their way to Africa.

Tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe have been on the receiving end of poor marketing prices for decades.

This year, for the first time in decades, smallholder farmers withdrew 98 percent of their crop from the auction floor in protest over poor prices.

A video of a widow screaming and cursing the auction system went viral. These are telling signs that change is in the air. The days of economic injustice are numbered.

 Turning socio-economic wounds into wisdom

While anger has been simmering for years, many poor communities are now mustering the courage to share their nasty experiences with contracting companies, financial institutions, donors, NGOs and other proponents of external socio-economic solutions.

Poor communities are finding ways of questioning the reluctance by development agencies to integrate grassroots experiences and wisdom into development interventions.

Rather than continue to craft development interventions from the top, communities now expect funders to tap into wisdom from farmers, traders, rural artisans and rural agro-dealers who fully understand the micro-economic situation in local contexts where they remain quiet change agents.

Just as financial institutions and development agencies use many ways to gather information about communities and individual farmers, there is now an expectation for external agencies and investors to share their full profiles for the benefit of grassroots communities.

This will assist communities and local economic actors to make sense of investors flowing into Africa, some of who are fly-by-night and briefcase investors.

Instead of looking at everyone from outside as an investor and give him/her all the attention and information, farmers and SMEs need a mechanism for assessing so-called ‘investors’ so that they don’t waste time on speculators and predators.

Investor profiling will address many challenges and expose scenarios where financial institutions have been very dishonest in their dealings in ways that have impoverished communities and irrigation schemes.

African institutions and individuals continue to waste a lot of resources responding to calls for proposals and most of this effort is misappropriated by outsiders.

Several farmers narrate stories of how they have  been persuaded to grow export crops like baby corn, gooseberry and serenade chilly, only for the so-called exporters to change goal-posts and start hiding once the commodity is ready.

When are development agencies going to stop hijacking Government departments?

This is another question being debated by farmers who have seen government extension services losing their mandate to NGOs in Africa.

A fresh example is the Zimbabwe Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Services (ZAKIS), which is being driven by NGOs when it should be the mandate of the ministry of agriculture and farmer unions.

In a knowledge economy and a rapidly changing climate, agricultural knowledge and innovation are becoming national security issues just like food.

That is why in developed countries agricultural knowledge and innovation is a fundamental government policy issue.

Conversely, instead of empowering government departments and farmer unions to productively handle agricultural knowledge and innovation, Western funders are channelling resources to NGOs whose presence in rural communities for decades has not changed lives.

Where Government departments are involved in such projects, their role is merely cosmetic and meant to open and close workshops as opposed to be in the driving seat.

How can a whole ministry with a permanent secretary and experienced directors allow agricultural knowledge and innovation to be hijacked and projectised by a string of NGOs merely because these NGOs have privileged access to western donor funding?  For how long will African governments continue allowing funders to set their agricultural and development agenda?

The post When poor communities start asking searching questions! appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Gweru in typhoid scare | Newsday (News)

BY BRENNA MATENDERE/STEPHEN CHADENGA

A TYPHOID fever scare has rattled the densely-populated Mkoba suburb in Gweru, with 19 new suspected cases reported at health centres in the city, council has confirmed.
Mkoba was hit by a typhoid outbreak last year, which killed 11 people and left thousands hospitalised.

Sam Sekenhamo, Gweru City Council health services director said the suspected cases were detected from people who were attending a funeral in Mkoba 19.

“The city’s health department received information of some suspected typhoid cases in Mkoba 19, from a household where there was a funeral,” he said. “Our rapid response team carried out some investigations and took stool samples from the affected members of the family. We are awaiting laboratory results, which should be out soon. We are still looking for the addresses of people where residents have been taken to hospital to enable us to quickly investigate and institute informed medical interventions,” Sekenhamo added.

He also revealed that council will begin surveillance at health institutions in order to pick and test people showing symptoms of typhoid.

“We are having our disease surveillance meeting where all health institutions report on the disease statistics at their centres. That way, we will know how to react rapidly to combat any outbreak of typhoid,” he said.

Residents in the affected area told Southern Eye that about 19 people were ferried by ambulances to various clinics and hospital in the city, in what seems to be a repeat of the last year’s typhoid outbreak.

“I stay a few metres from the house which had a funeral. We saw several people being taken by two ambulances to clinics and probably Gweru Provincial Hospital at different intervals. This happened from Saturday and up to now there are still people who are complaining of diarrhoea, headaches and vomiting, symptoms exhibited by people who died of typhoid last year,” Mkoba resident Tafara Zviripai said.

When Southern Eye visited the area yesterday morning, residents urged the authorities to urgently intervene.

“The problem is that like last time, the authorities respond more seriously when the outbreak has claimed lives, this is a matter of urgency which needs serious attention. We cannot imagine starting to dig graves again after people have died of typhoid,” said another resident, Nomore Wurayayi.

Midlands provincial medical director, Simon Nyadundu confirmed that his office had received reports of the suspected typhoid cases and said the city was now on high alert.

“Tests we conducted on Monday did not reveal typhoid. Eight patients were investigated and tests were negative for typhoid,” said the PMD.

But briefing journalists later in the day, Sekenhamo said the mourners had diarrhoea after consuming contaminated food.

“What was circulated on social media emanated from a case of diarrhoea where a family in Mkoba 19 ate leftovers that had been put in aluminum containers for two days,” he said.
He urged residents not to panic saying there were no typhoid cases in Gweru after the eight of the 19 sick mourners tested negative for typhoid.

“There is no typhoid in Gweru and let us send the correct messages to the people,” he said.

Typhoid, caused by the bacterium salmonella typhi, is usually spread through contaminated food or water. Gweru is facing chronic water shortages attributed to ageing infrastructure. Residents are relying on water from boreholes, which were previously condemned and were blamed for last year’s typhoid outbreak.

The post Gweru in typhoid scare appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.

The post Gweru in typhoid scare appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

SUSPECTED fresh xenophobic attacks in South Africa have resurfaced in some parts of Limpopo province and Durban in KwaZulu Natal, leaving three people dead and several houses burnt to ashes. The Durban attacks come barely a day after the South African government launched a national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and ethnic […]