Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: Kereke, prison bosses embroiled in chicken scandal | The Standard (Local News)

BY CHARLES LAITON

Three senior Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services (ZPCS) officers have been arrested on charges of engaging in a chicken project with jailed rapist and former senior Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe official Munyaradzi Kereke.

The trio are being charged for their links with Humanity Earth Trust founded by Kereke.

Senior sssistant commissioner Norbert Chomurenga, chief correctional officer Cephas Chiparausha and assistant commissioner Tonderai Mutiwaringa were all not asked to plead when they appeared before Harare magistrate Learnmore Mapiye last Friday, facing charges of criminal abuse of duty as public officers.

They were all remanded out of custody on $100 bail each.

Prosecutors said the three men also gave preferential treatment to Kereke in the form of allowing unscheduled visits from his relatives, enjoying extra free time compared to other prisoners and not allowing him to carry out any manual work in terms of set-out procedures.

Allegations against Chomurenga (58), Chiparausha (43) and Mutiwaringa (56) are that during the period extending from September 25 to August 2018, Chomurenga was the officer-in-charge at Chikurubi Maximum Prison being deputised by Mutiwaringa, while Chiparausha was the head of security.

After Kereke was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in July 2016, he was committed to Chikurubi Maximum Prison under prison number 594/16 where he then met the three top prison officers.

On September 25, 2017, it is alleged Chomurenga and Chiparausha, who were acting in connivance with Mutiwaringa, in their personal capacities, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Humanity Earth Trust.

Prosecutors said the manner in which the contract was signed was inconsistent with how ZPCS enters into contracts and it was unknown to ZPCS commissioner-general Paradzai Zimondi.

They said during the period extending from September 25, 2017 to August 2018, Humanity Earth Trust provided a total of 3 000 birds, feed, medication and other sanitary requirements for the chicken-rearing project.

The three accused, as part of the agreement, provided space and labour in the form of prisoners, but for their personal benefit.

When the chickens were being sold, the customers paid money into Chiparausha’s EcoCash number 0773 834 712 and in the end his account was credited with a total of $8 282.

In December 2017, Mutiwaringa, who took over as officer-in-charge after the promotion and transfer of Chomurenga, received $2 252 from Chiparausha through his EcoCash number 0772812662 being project proceeds.

The post Kereke, prison bosses embroiled in chicken scandal appeared first on The Standard.

The post Kereke, prison bosses embroiled in chicken scandal appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: ED’s anti-graft unit probes PSMAS | The Standard (Local News)

BY XOLISANI NCUBE

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s special unit on anti-corruption is investigating alleged rampant abuse of funds at the government-owned Premier Services Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) amid claims that top executives bought luxury cars at a time the health insurer was struggling to provide basic services.

According to insiders, a whistleblower submitted detailed information to the unit led by Tabani Mpofu on how executives were allegedly siphoning money out of Premier Service Medical Investments, a subsidiary of PSMAS.

Mpofu yesterday confirmed the investigation, but said he was not in a position to provide further details as he was out of town.

However, the “dossier” seen by this publication shows how the top managers including PSMI CEO Farai Muchena were allegedly looting from the insurer that mainly services civil servants.

Board members are also accused of abetting the alleged corruption by involving themselves in the day-to-day running of the insurer.

“The PSMI system is shamefully entrenched in corruption,” reads part of the report before the investigators.

“We are not in the transport industry, but surely this is pathetic to have a huge fleet of 250 cars for a company yet pharmacies are empty, no chemicals, it is just pathetic.

“In 2017 the company decided to buy brand new cars from suppliers (and the) selection of suppliers was not advertised, but cars were purchased.

“When the cars came, there was no clear allocation. Instead of the human resources department conducting the issuing of vehicles, board members decided to do it.”

PSMAS is a public health insurance agency with the bulk of its members being civil servants and, through PSMI, it runs medical centres across the country.

The “dossier” details how at least $15 million meant for medical aid claims was allegedly being siphoned out of PSMAS through PSMI and externalised by executives.

PSMI employees were allegedly not happy that millions were being spent on luxury vehicles for executives while the ambulance fleet was not being replenished.

The post ED’s anti-graft unit probes PSMAS appeared first on The Standard.

The post ED’s anti-graft unit probes PSMAS appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: I will be tougher for Zanu PF, says Mwonzora – The Standard March 3, 2019

The big interview BY OBEY MANAYITI

After MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa announced that the party will hold its congress between May 24 and 26 to choose the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s successor, interest in who will be the next leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party has ballooned.

Chamisa, who took over from Tsvangirai under controversial circumstances following the former prime minister’s death in February last year, went on to give President Emmerson Mnangagwa a good run for his money in the disputed July 30, 2018 elections.

Since then, the 41-year-old leader’s stock has been rising and some in the MDC Alliance strongly believe he has no challenger in the race to fill Tsvangirai’s shoes, but party secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora’s name is being mentioned in other quarters as a worthy challenger.

However, Mwonzora (DM) told our senior reporter Obey Manayiti (OM) in an exclusive interview that he was yet to make up his mind on which position he will contest at the congress.

He spoke at length about claims that he is being backed by Zanu PF, which is reportedly desperate to checkmate Chamisa, and allegations that his ambitions have spoiled his relations with the party leader. Below are excerpts from the interview.

OM: Why do you think Zanu PF leaders such as youth deputy secretary Lewis Matutu and others have come out on social media saying you will be a better MDC Alliance leader than Nelson Chamisa?

DM: I had time to study the statements by various Zanu PF officials and members of the public. I haven’t seen where the Zanu PF (officials) said they support me.

The comment I saw was the one by Mr Matutu with his prediction that I was going to win.

Now that is a prediction and not support. I also looked at a follow-up tweet that he made when he was asked and he said he doesn’t like me and he doesn’t like Advocate Chamisa as well, so it is not support.

I am sure the people have now gone into this debate of who will lead the MDC because it is interesting.

I have no support from Zanu PF, I do not want that support as well. I rely on the members of MDC who know me better and who know my history.

OM: Have you made up your mind now on which position you are going to contest at the congress?

DM: I think now my mind is almost made, but I am still consulting within the party.

I am consulting the structures, the districts and I am almost through with the districts now.

I have consulted the provinces and I am through. I have an idea of where they want me to be deployed and I am going to be making an announcement when the time comes, but let me say that as a member of the MDC I have my rights to contest whatever position my party thinks I am suited for.

The best people who know me and know what I am capable of are my colleagues within the party and they are going to deploy me definitely.

OM: Do you think there is a plan by Zanu PF to meddle in MDC affairs and influence the outcome of the party’s internal elections at the congress as reported by some media outlets?

DM: What I know is that Zanu PF people are afraid of my candidature because Zanu PF has dealt with me for quite a long time as a member of the opposition.

This is the party that has detained me for over 34 times, starting with my detention at Whawha in 1990 and another detention in Mutare when I was heading Copac (Constitution Parliamentary Committee).

I am sure as chairperson of Copac I must have given Zanu PF a few sleepless nights.

I have a formula for defeating that party. I defeated Zanu PF first as a member of ZUM (Zimbabwe Unity Movement) and fought against a one-party state and we won.

In 1989-90, we fought against a one-party state and I was a member of the students’ union as well as a member of ZUM, where I was in the executive as presidential spokesperson.

We were able to defeat Zanu PF in its one-party state agenda.

In 1997 I took the government to court over the constitutionality of the Political Parties Finance Act and I successfully challenged it in the Supreme Court, which was the Constitutional Court on that occasion.

I have been a member of the MDC and as a member of Copac we have had our new constitution and it came via the leadership I offered to my colleagues.

So I am not doubtful regarding what I can achieve.

I think I do possess the abilities of strategic thinking and strategic planning. I think I will be more difficult for the Zanu PF people.

OM: Are you not worried that this open support from Zanu PF officials and supporters will harm your reputation in the eyes of MDC Alliance supporters?

DM: Nobody who is fair and sensible will think for a minute that I have anything to do with Zanu PF at all.

This is cheap propaganda that is coming from my detractors, people who cannot fight a fair battle even within the organisation.

Everybody knows I am a loyal member of the opposition and there is no reason why true MDC people must allow themselves to be digressed by what Zanu PF is saying.

We in the MDC say quite a lot of things about the Zanu PF leaders.

We talk about who is more cruel, (Vice-President Constantino) Chiwenga or (Vice-President Kembo) Mohadi or (President Emmerson) Mnangagwa, we say it all the time.

We even say who is a better leader among the three of them. We always say it all the time, but it doesn’t mean that we support them.

In fact, when (Robert) Mugabe was still president there were a lot of Zanu PF people that we thought would be better presidents, but that doesn’t translate to support for that candidate.

I am not a member of Zanu PF and I do not require their support.

When Victor Matemadanda talked about the MDC congress, I issued a statement in which I castigated him.

I do not know why people choose to believe Zanu PF when it comes to me, but I am not very worried because MDC people know the truth.

OM: What is your reaction to people who say Chamisa must not be contested because of his performance in last year’s presidential elections?

DM: Well, there is no doubt that Nelson has done well — not necessarily as president of MDC, but as a leader within the party — his days within the youth assembly, as spokesperson, organising secretary, as vice-president and as president.

So I don’t want to take anything away from him. He is a good man, he is a hard worker.

When the time comes I will make my decision on whether to challenge him or not and if I am to challenge him, I must offer better leadership. If I think I can offer better leadership, better strategic thinking, then I will be able to offer it, but at no point am I going to take away the achievements that he made.

Neither should people take away the achievement, which I made within the MDC as a member of Copac, as a member of the inter-party dialogue bringing in the code of conduct and dealing with the BVR (biometric voter registration) system.

We were together in the demonstrations that we planned in this country and all those are successes that I share as well.

OM: There are reports that you have aligned yourself with MDC Alliance chairperson Tabitha Khumalo in a bid to capture Matabeleland. Does this mean you have reservations about the return of Welshman Ncube into the fold?

DM: The report is false. I have worked with Tabitha Khumalo since our days in the ZCTU (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions).

As you know, I was legal advisor to the ZCTU and she was a member of the general council, so we come from very far with her.

We were together in the National Constitutional Assembly fighting for the new constitution and we campaigned for the “No Vote” together.

We have been in this democratic struggle together.

I know Tabitha as a person of solid thinking and sometimes I agree with her, but sometimes I don’t.

So there is no plan between the two of us to capture Matabeleland because we don’t want to capture anybody, we want to lead people.

Maybe this is coming from the stance, which Tabitha and I took on the ward 28 by-election (in Bulawayo).

Tabitha and myself said we do not want imposition of candidates, the people in ward 28 have through a primary election to vote for a candidate of their choice and we stand for the sovereignty of the people.

Professor Welshman Ncube is a good constitutional lawyer and no doubt about it and I have no fight with him.

OM: Has your relationship with Chamisa not been affected by the rumours about your alleged bid to challenge him?

DM: First, I don’t suddenly become Zanu PF because we have a congress and, secondly, I am sure people have seen how intolerant some elements within my party can be.

If it is true that I was working with Zanu PF, God knows if I would still be alive and still in the party right now. Why am I not being disciplined, why not be expelled and why am I being allowed to run the party as secretary-general?

This shows that my colleagues know that these rumours are false. Chamisa himself knows that these rumours are false.

Now coming to the issue of competition, Chamisa has always had competition.

This happened when he took over as youth leader, competition when he wanted to be spokesperson, competition when he took over as organising secretary, competition when he tried to be secretary-general. He has always had that competition and it doesn’t, in my view, scare him that there could be competition.

This is the essence of democracy. The relationship between him and me is one of mutual respect.

I am sure he respects me and I respect him as well. I don’t think it has been affected.

The aim of people who have been peddling these lies is to try to affect our relationship and unfortunately we have seen through it.

We have seen also other leaders, maybe trying to cover for their historical misdeeds, calling me half-wit and nincompoop on social media and that is uncalled for.

That is barbaric and it is not something that we expect from mature leaders.

Mature leaders must know that we now have jettisoned the politics of hate, we are now in the politics of rational disputation.

OM: There have been reports about alleged attempts to elbow you out of the party by leaders aligned to Chamisa. What has made you survive this long?

DM: There were spirited attempts last year to get me out of the party. At almost every national executive meeting and national council, there were people who tried to push for the removal of the secretary-general and, of course, it didn’t succeed because I had no case to answer in the first place.

Secondly, the membership of the MDC could not allow that.

So my work speaks for itself and I have discharged my duties well as spokesperson of the party, as its deployee in Copac, as MP and secretary-general.

I will continue to survive because I am loyal to the organisation. I do not backbite people.

OM: In your view, what will it take for the MDC Alliance to win against Zanu PF in the next elections? Do you think the party has the capacity to dislodge the ruling party?

DM: MDC can easily defeat Zanu PF, but it has to make sure that it has strategic alignments.

First, it must set targets for itself. Under president (the late Morgan) Tsvangirai in 2015, I was tasked to do a strategic paper for 2018 and I came to the conclusion that in order to put our victory beyond question, we had to aim at 4,5 million votes.

Once you set yourself a target, then you must work towards that target.

Secondly, the MDC can win if it allows robust internal debate because this is how you get the best ideas.

We must never get to a situation where people get so frightened to contribute because they think the leadership may not want it.

We have to increase democratic debate.

We have also to work with others outside the party, we have to focus less internally and more on the external.

MDC has the capacity to win and win hands down, now what we must limit is hate language, especially from amongst the leaders on social media. That is not helpful to our party.

OM: What would you consider to be the biggest mistakes made by the MDC since its formation in 1999 and what could have the party done differently?

DM: Under the circumstances, the MDC has done very well, but I think we need to do better in areas of selection.

We must remove individual discretion on the issue of candidates.

So we will have to strengthen the institution of primary elections as a primary determinant of candidacy.

We also have to allow democratic debate. One of the mistakes that we made was to go into the government of national unity without having properly negotiated the sharing of the bureaucracy.

We had a situation, therefore, where we had ministers of MDC presiding over Zanu PF bureaucracies.

So if we are to have to do power-sharing next time, we have to make sure that we understand where the power lies in the institutions of the state, in the army, in the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) and in the police.

As long as you have a political police, political army, then the negotiations regarding power have to extend to those organs as well.

OM: If you are nominated for the presidency, are you going to accept the nomination?

DM: There are a number of factors to consider such as the number of nominations, the circumstances under which I am nominated, the performance of the other candidate, the interest of the majority of party members.

All those factors I will consider. I am aware that at the last congress I won with one nomination, but I don’t want to have this problem of the burden of past victories.

Past victories mean nothing, we are now in the future and the terrain has changed and people get wiser as well.

So I will really listen to the members of the MDC.

For me at this point in time, I am the slave of the people. I am a slave of the members of the MDC and they will deploy me where they think I am most suited.

The post I will be tougher for Zanu PF, says Mwonzora  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Zanu PF accused of plotting to destroy Chamisa | Daily News

HARARE – A top MDC official has sensationally claimed that party officials, especially those who will be voting in the upcoming congress are being paid large sums of money to vote out Nelson Chamisa from the party’s presidency.

But Zanu PF has angrily dismissed the allegations.

MDC vice president Morgen Komichi told the Daily News on Sunday on Friday that Zanu PF has a budget to influence the outcome of the opposition MDC’s congress with the aim being to remove Chamisa who has refused to capitulate to the ruling party’s whims and caprices.

Chamisa has particularly irked the powers-that-be by refusing to participate in dialogue being initiated from the Office of the President and Cabinet.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year initiated a national dialogue platform involving all those who contested in the July 30, 2018 presidential elections but an obdurate Chamisa refused to play ball much to the embarrassment of the ruling party.

Chamisa, who is the country’s main opposition leader has refused to recognise Mnangagwa’s presidency, describing the Zanu PF strongman as an illegitimate leader who came to power through a rigged election.

This is despite the fact that the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the land, dismissed the MDC Alliance petition to nullify the elections.

In an interview with the Daily News on Sunday, Komichi said Zanu PF wants to destroy Chamisa either by eliminating him before the MDC congress or sponsoring a “pliable candidate”.

“Zanu PF has two options to hurt Chamisa before congress or to sponsor a candidate. The idea is to buy our members in the region of $4 million to $6 million to destroy Chamisa.

Individual MPs have been approached, when they (Zanu PF officials) talk to us they make it clear that we should dump Chamisa for a more responsible leadership, they feel strongly that Chamisa is a stumbling block to their objectives. We are, however, not interested,” said Komichi.

Komichi told the Daily News on Sunday that they have evidence of an operation to ensure that the opposition gets a weaker leader during its congress.

“We will never interfere with Zanu PF processes. They should leave us alone. Zanu PF must not destroy a partner in a constitutional democratic country,” said Komichi.

This comes as the name of the party’s organising secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora has been touted as the one to challenge the hugely popular MDC leader at the forthcoming congress due to be held between the 24th  and 26th of this month.

Mwonzora, who once beat Chamisa in an election, stoked emotions in the opposition party when he said it is his democratic right to contest for any position in a statement that angered the majority of the party faithful.

Contacted for comment, Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo ridiculed suggestions that the ruling party, whose officials have publicly expressed interest in the MDC congress, is interested in meddling in the affairs of its rivals.

“That is nonsense, we have nothing to do, with that we have two-thirds majority in Parliament, we are very strong,” said Khaya Moyo.

However, Zanu PF officials like the party’s secretary for youths Lewis Matutu have openly pronounced themselves on who they prefer to lead the MDC.

In a revealing statement on micro-blogging platform Twitter, Matutu wrote “Mwonzora likely to become the new MDC Alliance president because majority of Chamisa’s hooligans are not in the structures of their party and they don’t form part of the congress delegates”.

Zanu PF is on record saying Chamisa’s refusal to accept Mnangagwa’s legitimacy is mere political posturing that is designed to cement his position ahead of the congress.

Mnangagwa’s spokesperson recently told the Daily News that Chamisa’s stance is informed by the impending congress and not national interests.

“On the part of engagement we finished that with the elections. He should not waste our time. We know he wants to raise his stature ahead of his party congress, if he wants to help resolve the economic problem he should go to work. We will grow the economy through productivity, through putting shoulder to the wheel. He wants ED to help him build his profile, we have no time for that,” said Charamba.

The post Zanu PF accused of plotting to destroy Chamisa appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

MDC Alliance legislator for Zengeza West Job Sikhala who is also a human rights lawyer, torched a storm with his Twitter followers and human rights activists after he tweeted a picture of a woman who alleged party leader Nelson Chamisa had raped her, then captioned the picture with the words: “Who would rape this KIND […]