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Exiled former cabinet Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo on Sunday extended an invitation to Saviour Kasukuwere to join him in the fight against ZANU PF in defence of Nelson Chamisa’s claim that he was rigged of [...]

Source: US 'very enthusiastic' about ED  govt, want more action on reforms | Daily News

AMERICA’S Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said on Friday that Washington was “very enthusiastic” about the new Harare government, but wanted to see more action on reform.
“We are very enthusiastic and pleased by the new government, the promises that it has made, we want to see more action to implement those promises for reform,” Sullivan told a briefing with journalists.

The briefing came in the wake of the launch of a report on Zimbabwe Human Rights Practices for 2018 citing several specific areas in which the government has dismally fallen short in upholding human rights and dealing with corruption in the country.

In the report, the human rights issues included arbitrary killings, government-targeted abductions, and arbitrary arrests; torture; harsh prison conditions; criminal libel; censorship; restrictions on freedoms; government corruption; ineffective government response towards violence against women, among others.

The report, which was published under the US department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour unit, forages into President Donald Trump’s extension of sanctions on Zimbabwe earlier this month.

According to the report, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration last year dismally failed to deal with corruption and lacked transparency in accounting for the country’s resources.
“Police frequently arrested citizens for low-level corruption while ignoring reports implicating high-level businesspersons and politicians”, read the Zimbabwe Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2018.

In May last year, Mnangagwa created an anti-corruption body within the Office of the President to carryout investigations, bypassing the constitutionally-mandated Zimbabwe Anticorruption Commission.
“The administration has since recorded one conviction related to corruption while most of those arrested were released on relaxed bail conditions,” said the report.

Coupled with this, the country’s former Transport minister from 2016 to 2018 was alleged to have faced accusations of embezzlement and passing out improper tenders procuring “$70 million of Boeing airplanes from Malaysia for State-owned airlines without consulting the board or management, and $2.7 billion in improper 2016 tenders for the Chirundu-Beitbridge highway, for which construction had not begun by year’s end.”

On the part of land, the US report said landowners connected to Zanu PF routinely sold land to citizens but refused to transfer ownership officially or to develop the land as agreed upon in contracts.
At the same time, “implementation of the government’s redistribution of expropriated white-owned commercial farms often favoured the Zanu PF elite and continued to lack transparency high-level Zanu PF officials selected numerous farms and registered them in the names of family members to evade the government’s policy of one farm per official.

“The government continued to allow individuals aligned with top officials to seize land not designated for acquisition”, added the report.
While Finance minister Mthuli Ncube last year announced government’s intention to reduce the civil service wage bill, the report stated that unqualified persons still remain on the State payroll list.

“According to the most recent audit, illicit salary payments were made to large numbers of persons who were retired, deceased, or otherwise absent from their place of employment.

“Duplicate personally identifiable information in files indicated some persons received multiple salaries,” the damning report said.

The post US ‘very enthusiastic’ about ED  govt, want more action on reforms appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

THERE are real fears that both the ruling party and the country could be entering a new phase of significant political turmoil leading to the 2023 national elections, this publication can report. This comes after former Cabinet minister and Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, warned at the weekend that he may soon return to […]

Source: Dry spell cripples cotton production | Daily News

COTTON farmers in Gokwe North are left counting their loss due to the prolonged dry spell that the country has faced in the 2018-2019 rainy season, which drastically affected the crop hence reducing the crop output.

In the past season Gokwe recorded a staggering amount of 31 million kilograms of cotton, retaining its long known glory of being the top cotton producer in the country, a milestone which is now under threat due to excessive heat and below average rainfall.
Speaking to the Daily News, one cotton farmer who is also a chairperson of Nenyunka Cottco depot, Tobias Mpofu said their produce was greatly affected by the dry spell and they have lost hope harvesting anything meaningful.

“What happened this farming season is a great disaster, we have lost our cotton to this severe heat and this will greatly impact our livelihoods as the population in this area survive on cotton farming,” Mpofu said.
He added that this year he expects nothing more than a handful of 50kgs sacks of cotton as the crop were severely damaged excessive heat.

Mpofu said this year’s produce will be far lesser than what Cottco received in the last season.
“We used to get 1 700 bags of cotton from Nenyunka district alone and this time around our expectations were thwarted by the low rainfalls,” he said.

Other cotton farmers also sign posted difficult times ahead as cotton is the commercial hub of Gokwe.
Gokwe Kabuyuni Member of Parliament Leonard Chikomba who is also into cotton farming business said the dry spell has killed Gokwe’s commercial industry as the populace farm for commercial purposes.

“We cannot talk of industry without talking about farming, cotton farming has been Gokwe’s commercial basket for a long time and the current situation is very worrisome.

“The government will have to intervene to save people from the oncoming hunger,” Chikomba said.
Gokwe, according to experts was built from scratch through the revenues from cotton and has grown to contribute to 50 percent of the national cotton output, significantly contributing to the economy of Zimbabwe through foreign currency retention.

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