News Day

By Daniel Nhakaniso, Sports Reporter

28 September 2012

The Indepdent

By Elias Mam

28 September 2012

ZIMBABWE’S education system was once among the best in Africa — with the country at one time having the highest literacy rate on the continent before dropping to number two after Tunisia — but now standards are declining due to a combination of factors.

Some of the reasons why Zimbabwe’s education system is deteriorating include economic and funding problems, dumbing down of learning and examination standards, mushrooming of poor private schools and colleges, growing number of low-class universities,lack of commitment by teachers and students and corruption in terms of entrance requirements, studies and examinations. The country’s education system consists of seven years of primary school, four years of secondary and two years of high school before students can enter colleges and universities. Before starting school, children go to kindergarten and pre-school.

When the country gained independence in 1980, the new government introduced a policy of free education in a bid to educate the majority of the population sidelined through colonial discrimination and inequalities. Education was declared a basic human right in Zimbabwe and a non-racial system was pursued, allowing black students to enter formerly whites-only schools. After inheriting a good education system base and infrastructure at all levels, the new government expanded the facilities to offer mainly poor students an opportunity to get at least basic education.Many children from poor backgrounds got a chance to learn and rescue themselves from poverty.

However, since the late 1980s, government steadily introduced or increased school fees and other demands making it increasingly difficult for poor children to get education. Apart from school fees, students started paying charges like development levies. The situation got worse at the beginning of 1991 when government adopted austerity measures under the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, which encouraged reducing the budget deficit and ensuring a leaner government. Subsidies on many things, including education, were removed. When the economic meltdown set in after 2000, the situation got worse.  Schools and colleges started losing teachers and lecturers while students dropped out en masse.

Besides the economic crisis and funding problems, there were problems of localising examinations which led to corruption and cheating through the opening and selling of exam papers, deterioration of learning and examination standards and mushrooming of private schools, colleges and universities offering poor quality education. Although the political turmoil and economic collapse made headlines worldwide over the past 12 years, the decline of the country’s once well-regarded education system has largely been ignored. owered academic standards, traceable to the mid-1990s, have unfortunately coincided with the growth of a knowledge-based economy requiring workers with higher levels of qualifications. This poses a challenge for Zimbabwe. Since government scrapped the Zimbabwe Junior Certificate exams and localised ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level examinations in the mid-1990s, education standards have been plummeting. Education departments have been lowering basic entry requirements to enrol  more students, while there is a perception that exams have become easier, resulting in lower quality graduates.

Decaying infrastructure and onslaught on schools and tertiary institutions’ autonomy through undue political interference have had a telling effect on the quality of the country’s education, which needs a major policy shift and robust funding in order to get back on the rails.

At the height of the country’s socio-economic crisis, Zimbabwe lost the entire 2007 and part of the 2008 academic years as teachers and lecturers concentrated on meeting basic survival needs through alternative means. Unicef asserts 94% of rural schools, serving the majority of the population, were closed by 2009, with attendance plunging from over 80% to 20%. Years of serious underfunding have forced the country’s tertiary institutions to operate under the principles of economic rationalism, rather than principles of education. In colleges and universities, students quality is secondary to ability to pay.

Naturally, Zimbabweans are deeply concerned about declining academic standards at all levels of education and have questioned preferential college and university admissions and relaxed standards of curriculum, teaching, grading and marking. Education minister David Coltart places the decline in quality of education on government’s misplaced priorities. “Zimbabwe’s investment in education has drastically declined in the past two decades due to misplaced priorities and the sector still remains in a state of crisis,” Coltart said. “The inclusive government is spending three times more money on globetrotting compared to education and this has compromised the quality of education.”

Private colleges have mushroomed across the country’s urban areas as proprietors seek to make a quick buck, raising fears that the colleges, once frequented by those who had initially failed their public exams, were compromising education standards. But Coltart dismissed the fears, saying the advent of private institutions had not compromised the quality of education because students still write the same examinations. “It is the funding that is needed to maintain our standards,” he said. However, Coltart’s view was contradicted by remarks carried in a state-run daily this week in which Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (Zimsec) public relations manager Ezekiel Pasipamire said they had withheld ‘O’ Level results for a private college in order to maintain quality. “To maintain the credibility of our examination system, Zimsec has adopted a zero tolerance to malpractices particularly by private centres,” said Pasipamire. “Those are the ones that give us a headache every time there are examinations by not adhering to the standard examination procedures.” Pasipamire warned Zimsec would de-register such centres to maintain good examination standards.

Zimbabwean academic Brian Raftopoulos, a senior research mentor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, said the country’s education system continues to decline in the wake of insufficient efforts from the coalition government to resuscitate it.
“After 2000, in the context of the more general political crisis, a whole series of highly-politicised problems emerged in the educational sphere,” said Raftopoulos. “These problems have centred around the disciplining of teachers for their support for the MDC, the militarisation of youth centres, politicisation of the university entrance system as well as the struggle over the curriculum —
in particular the teaching of history,” he said. There is also a problem of political interference where army commanders, ministers, politicians and other influential people now enter colleges and universities through the back door, compromising standards.

Former University of Zimbabwe vice-chancellor Graham Hill was forced to resign in 2002 following revelations he had facilitated the enrolment of Zanu PF Manicaland governor Chris Mushowe for a post-graduate programme in 1995 when he did not qualify. The localisation of setting and marking of exams caused serious leakages of exam papers, mix-ups and errors in question papers and certificates. The late Edmund Garwe resigned as Education minister in 1996 after his daughter was found in possession of exam papers she had accessed after he had taken them home. However, University of Zimbabwe (UZ) vice-chancellor Levi Nyagura, widely  criticised for presiding over the UZ’s decline, is optimistic the education system would return to its former glory. The UZ has now been enrolling students who do not have ‘A’ Level English, but have 15 points with passes in subjects like Shona, Ndebele, Divinity and Geography.“Zimbabwe’s education is on the rise again and we want to safeguard society by providing quality students who will be effective in industry,” said Nyagura. “At this institution, we aim to bring back our former glory and for the first time, we have enrolled female law students with 14 points and have As in ‘O’ Level English, as well as 61 first-year female faculty of medicine students.”

Higher and Tertiary Education minister Stan Mudenge said the quality of education remained high despite years of deterioration.“We are now number two in Africa according to UN literacy levels and we want to maintain those high levels,” said Mudenge. The survey shows Zimbabwe has a 92% literacy rate while Tunisia tops with  98%, although the reality is that the quality of the education system has  been compromised.

The Chronicle

Goodwill Zunidza

27 September 2012

ZIFA, stung by mounting public demand for a swift close of the Asiagate chapter, are now at loggerheads with their own Independent Ethics Commission for failing to release findings of their probe a year after they were constituted for the exercise.

The two parties exchanged heated words on Wednesday evening soon after the well-attended football indaba held at the instigation of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart and co-ordinated by the Sport and Recreation Commission at Pandhari Lodge in the capital.

Cuthbert Dube, the Zifa president, clashed with Emmanuel Chimwanda, a key official in the Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) that the football mother body set up in October last year to bring to finality investigations into the suspected match-fixing ring that saw almost 100 players sanctioned from national duty and five elected officials suspended from the Zifa board.

The association’s senior board member (finance), Elliot Kasu, and Morgan Dube, Zifa’s Southern Region chairman, also tore into Chimwanda accusing him of withholding the report to sabotage the probe.
Chimwanda, from the Anti-Corruption Commission, has become the leading figure in the committee tasked to deal with the Asiagate  saga following the unexplained departure of Justice Ahmed Ebrahim who had been appointed chairman when the IEC was set up in October last year.

Ebrahim is understood to be now domiciled in the United States of America and Chimwanda has since taken over his duties.

Confronted by Zifa officials, who also included the association’s chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze and Eastern Region chairman Fungai Chihuri, Chimwanda reportedly told the football bosses that the report was now at printing stage.

Dube last night confirmed that Zifa have demanded that the Asiagate report be released without any further delay, not only to pacify a restive nation but also to clear players who might have been found not guilty and are needed for the senior national team’s final 2013 Africa Cup of Nations second leg qualifier against Angola next month.

The Zifa boss said he was concerned with the time it had taken to put a lid on the long-running issue.
“We really don’t know, they are saying it is with the printers but we are wondering how long it takes to print a report. We are getting worried now, we told them that the nation is anxiously waiting, and even the government would like to give a comment.

“We are saying, what is the point of all this delay? And you see some statements that were put out by stakeholders in (Wednesday’s) meeting were that it is probably blackmail, in terms of these people wanting to be paid before they release the report because they have given us so many deadlines and nothing has come out,” said Dube.
According to the Zifa boss, the committee had last promised to hand over their findings at the beginning of this month.

“When I left for the Caf meeting in Seychelles they promised me that by the time I came back the report would be out. But still it’s not there, and now Fifa are saying anything that is done after September 30, they will not pay for. They will only pay up to September 30, which is this weekend.”
Neither Chimwanda nor any of the other members of the IEC, which is comprised mainly of legal practitioners, could be reached for comment at the time of going to print.

The commission has largely operated outside the public view, with their work shrouded in further mystery since Ebrahim left, apparently early last month, for the US and putting the process into likely jeopardy.

Dube highlighted the importance of the upcoming decisive tie in Luanda, saying he wanted at least a hint on which players might have been cleared by the commission.

“(Tapiwa) Kapini is out injured, Chinyengetere is not going to make it so what we are saying is dai vanga vatipa some indication yekuti who of those suspended players has been exonerated, if any.

If they are there, they must be released like what they did with the first lot so that the technical team can see which other players to consider for the game against Angola.”
Warriors coach Rahman Gumbo has since named a squad bereft of the mainstream players still implicated in the seemingly endless Asiagate saga that has left him with a depleted pool of players to select from.

The Zimbabwean

27 September 2012

Officials at the Natural History Museum need more than $ 1 million to refurbish the world-renowned structure, according to Museum Director, Dr Moira FitzPatrick.

She said that while they had received some donations to upgrade parts of the museum, they faced a shortfall to finish the exercise.

“The solution to the problem is going to be costly, and estimated at well over a $1 million, and therefore we will need help from overseas,” FitzPatrick told The Zimbabwean.

She added that the museum had approached Arts, Culture and Sports Minister, David Coltart to raise the necessary money.

“Failing to raise the required amount would be a disaster for the museum as ultimately it could face collapse,” she said.

The Museum of Natural History, which houses over 75 000 specimens, is the largest museum in the southern hemisphere.

The Herald

By Godknows Matarutse, Sports Reporter

26 September 2012

ZIFA will today get a rare opportunity to try and con­vince both the Government and the private sector to provide fund­ing for the association in order to take local football to bet­ter levels. The soccer mother body will come face to face with all the major stakeholders at the football indaba scheduled to begin at Pandhari Lodge this morning. Vice-President, John Nkomo, is expected to set the tone for the indaba when he gives a keynote address before the participants go into a day-long closed session.

The Sport and Recreation Commis­sion who are co-ordinating the indaba, indicated that Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart, and Zifa president Cuthbert Dube, will then hold a joint press conference at the end of the proceedings this evening.

Tirivashe Nheweyembwa, who is the Sports Commission corporate commu­nications officer, said the meeting would look mostly at issues on how football in the country can be devel­oped: “They will seek to identify the key issues that merit interventions to achieve sustainable football develop­ment,” said Nheweyembwa.

The indaba will also look to develop consensus on strategies to develop grassroots football, and to mobilise stakeholders support for investment in football development pro­grammes and national teams efforts. Another objective of the indaba is to develop a suitable fund mobilisation and manage­ment model to maximise resource availability for football development pro­grammes.

The Chronicle

25 September 2012

COULD today’s Football Indaba in Harare be the first step in turning around the fortunes of Zimbabwean soccer?

The Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture together with the Sports and Recreation Commission and the Zimbabwe Football Association are today meeting football stakeholders and the meeting is aimed at finding lasting solutions to the perennial problems dogging the country’s biggest sport.

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, David Coltart yesterday tweeted that he was getting ready for today’s meeting.

“Preparing for Football Indaba with Zifa to be held tomorrow Wednesday 26th September in Harare. Time to sort our Zimbabwe football,” said Coltart.

The major challenge that Zifa faces is lack of funding which has in the past seen national teams failing to adequately prepare for international matches.

Last month Zifa failed to send the national Under-20 men’s team for the return leg of the African Youth Championships qualifier against Angola in Luanda due to lack of resources.

At the weekend, the national Under-17 boys’ team almost failed to travel to Maputo for the return leg of the African Youth Championship qualifier against Mozambique who they beat 2-0 to advance to the next stage on a 4-2 aggregate scoreline. The Young Warriors made the trip after Zifa secured a bus at the 11th hour.

On numerous occasions, the national team has almost failed to fulfill their away games forcing Zifa president Cuthbert Dube to use his personal money to foot the team’s costs. Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources Limited are some of the companies that have at times helped the cash-strapped football mother body.

The companies are some of the football partners that are expected to attend the Football Indaba set for Pandhari Lodge. The SRC’s corporate communications officer Tirivashe Nheweyembwa said they have invited a number of stakeholders with a view to addressing problems bedevilling Zimbabwe football.

“All is set for this milestone or landmark meeting and the stakeholders have confirmed their participation. The Mayor of Bulawayo Thaba Moyo and Town Clerk Middleton Nyoni will be here and so will be representatives from Mutare, Masvingo and Harare councils.

“The councils are the owners of stadia and as such they play a big role in our football and we need them to be part of this indaba. We have companies and soccer administrators who will be part of this meeting,” said Nheweyembwa.

The facilitators for today’s meeting are lawyer Canaan Dube and Rejoice Ngwenya. Nheweyembwa said the indaba will also seek to come up with investment models which will help raise funds for national teams and other developmental programmes.

The Asiagate matter is also likely to be among the topics that would come for discussion at the Football Indaba. Zifa will also seek an insight from the corporate world on why they have been shunning the game.

The Chronicle

By Ricky Zililo

24 September 2012

The future is gloom for the Young Warriors who dumped Mozambique out of the African Youth Championships at the weekend as Zifa has not secured funds to enable the team to travel to Congo Brazzaville next month. Zimbabwe beat Mozambique 2-0 in Maputo on Saturday having travelled by road for the game.

In a telephone interview after midday yesterday, the Zifa board member responsible for competitions and national teams, Benedict Moyo, said they were yet to plan for the Young Warriors’ next assignment.

He admitted that the national football motherbody faced financial constraints.

“The truth of the matter is that Zifa does not have any resources and this is why we are still on the road at this hour. We are under resourced and this makes planning difficult for us. It seems as if it is only the Zifa board that is worried about development and we have to undergo these competitions without government or stakeholders’ support.

“Other people do not see the need of developmental competitions and as for now it’s all gloom until we meet. We are happy that Minister David Coltart has called for an all-stakeholders meeting on Wednesday and we hope to get something from there,” said Moyo.

Zifa is hard-pressed to avoid the embarrassment that the national Under-20 men’s team faced after failing to travel to Angola for the return leg of their African Youth Championship qualifier last month.

Moyo said what made planning even more difficult is that many had written off the team having played to a two-all draw a fortnight ago in Gwanzura.

He said the Young Warriors’ friendly matches against Zambia where they lost 1-2 and drew the other game before their departure helped their cause.

The Young Warriors, according to Moyo, travelled without allowances to Mozambique.

“Zifa went deeper into debt due to this trip. The boys went without allowances but they did the nation proud. On our return, we were saved by Good Samaritans in Mutare who bought food for the players.

It is not a secret that Zifa is bankrupt but when you tell people that they don’t believe us,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Zifa board member said they would have to beef up the squad ahead of the Congo Brazzaville game and they would have to get funding to allow coaches to scout for talent throughout the country.

He said the players who will be called for junior national teams will have to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to determine their ages.

Already, there are concerns as to how accurate the MRI is following an incident where a Sobukhazi High School Form Four pupil Brandon Mpala was kicked out of the national team after he was said to have failed the test.

There are fears that Mpala’s results could have been switched to accommodate an over-aged player.

“Everyone has to go through the MRI scan because that is the only scientific way to prove one’s age. In the case of Mpala, we are waiting for the second opinion from his parents and after that we can then go for the third opinion,” said Moyo.

Chronicle sort to get to the bottom of Mpala’s saga with records at Mpilo Central Hospital showing that a baby boy was born to Dorcas Jekwa at 1700 hours on 26 March 1996. His record number is 69606 and the address given at the time of birth is still 2 Masiyephambili Flats in Mzilikazi where Mpala still lives with his family.

A visit to the Rabson Dlamini headed Mzilikazi Primary School revealed that the boy was admitted as a pupil in 2002 and finished his Grade Seven in 2008 and was in Grade 7C and his Zimsec Entry Number for the examination was 0329.

The second opinion disclosed that the player was born on 26 March 1996 and that there was no abnormality in his bone structure.

With the above results, could the scanner have been defective in Harare or somebody played around the bunch of X-rays and accommodated an over-aged player at the expense of the Bulawayo boy.

There are some players in the Young Warriors squad who went to Mozambique who have in the past been thrown out of the national Under-15s because they were suspected to be over-aged.

• Looking forward to the Lion Lager National Rugby League final between Hre Sports Club and Matabeleland Warriors. Nice to see NorthSouth duel #
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• Very poor 3 umpiring. How could Taylor be given out in the way he was. Another case of small country players being expendable? #
• Zimbabwe were out of sorts today. I can see the disappointment in Brendan Taylor – so no criticism from me, just encouragement to carry on #
• Thank you @KirstyCoventry for your encouraging comments to Zimbabwean cricket team. They will be gutted because they are better than this #
• Good luck to Bendan Taylor and his men in their do or die clash against South Africa this afternoon in the t20 #cricket world cup. Go #Zim ! #
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• Aside from anything else Zimbabwe has had hardly any international cricket this year. Compare that to the amount of cricket played by SA #
• #Zim really battling against SA. Outplayed but this is their first t20 match under lights in probably 2 years. Have not seen pace of Steyn. #
• If the ICC is truly interested in promoting cricket internationally is has to help Zimbabwe get more cricket. #Zim team is better than this. #
• As is the case with ZIFA we need to choose our best team. This team sorely needs Ballance, Coventry and Williams, Missing Taibu too… #
• Also seems to me that we have a psychological problem. Body language of top order was clearly negative. Irvine looking good though, ++ mind #
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• Well done @ABdeVilliers17 on a great knock. Also appreciated your comments re Zim after toss in the Zim game. Doing us all in Africa proud!! #
• I have a good feeling for SA under @ABdeVilliers17 and Gary Kirsten. Go all the way for Africa lads. Southern Africa's hopes pinned on you. #
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The Standard

By Albert Marufu

23 September 2012

SOUTH Africa’s supreme sports controlling body, Sports and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), have been invited to present a paper on how to lure sponsorship into sport at the football indaba to be held in Harare on Wednesday.

The indaba, where Asiagate and financing local football are expected to top the agenda, was called by Education, Sport, Arts and Culture minister David Coltart.

Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) director-general, Charles Nhemachena said they had invited SRSA, which is their equivalent, to share ideas on how Zimbabwe could lure the corporate world to pour money into sport.

Though talent is abundant in Zimbabwe, the country is in dire need of sponsors,  which is exactly the opposite of what is happening down south where corporates fall over each other to support sport.

“Sport is big business in South Africa with the corporate world playing a huge role. That is the reason we have invited our counterparts, SRSA to share with us on how they do it that side. SRSA will present a paper on the incentives they offer the corporate world and I am sure that will help us in a big way,” he said.

Though sponsors are coming into Zimbabwean sport, with companies such as Mbada Diamonds, Marange Resources, Delta, and other financial institutions chipping in, the rate has been slow.

Only last month, the national Under 20 soccer team failed to fulfill a national assignment owing to lack of resources, while Team Zimbabwe performed dismally at the London 2012 games largely because of poor preparations.

However, it is the Asiagate that is likely to top the indaba’s agenda with the final report expected to be released.

The report was due last month, but the Justice Ahmed Ebrahim-led independent committee doing the investigations decided they had to interview an extra eight witnesses before judgement could be handed down.

The report is expected to clear or impose bans on some of the players and officials fingered in the scandal.

Players who will have been cleared might feature in Zimbabwe’s penultimate 2013 Afcon qualifier against Angola, which is on next month.

The Sunday News

22 September 2012

AS the nation prepares for the completion of the constitution-making process and the subsequent holding of the general elections, the electorate is now faced with a bitter task at hand; that of electing representatives who will lead them and represent them in parliament and in councils.

This will be the time when people sit back and reflect on whether their current legislators did anything for them over the past four years.

However, over this period the media has unfortunately been awash with reports of corruption among these representatives, this bringing to the spotlight the issue of the calibre of legislators political parties fielded during the election. the main question being do we need these Members of Parliament at all? Do they add any value to the nation and the people they represent?

Some legislators, who overnight had been turned from being mere political activists to full-scale decision-makers, took this as an opportunity to make money and and engage in personal enrichment rather than serve the people.

Those who used to rely on bicycles as their only mode of transport were suddenly seen driving all sorts of top-of-the-range vehicles, while others who did not have any accommodation moved to elite suburbs.

Councillors were not to be left out in the wave of self-enrichment as they took the opportunity to illegally acquire residential, industrial and commercial stands.

One of the parties in the inclusive Government, the MDC-T, recently gave in to corruption allegations and called for the immediate arrest of their own councillors who engaged in corrupt activities.

On the other hand when some of the legislators from Bulawayo were promoted to become Cabinet ministers the feeling was this would certainly bring some form of development to the region, however, this has disappointingly not been the case.

Currently the city is facing a water crisis that has seen households go for at least 72 hours per week without water, ironically the Minister of Water Resources, Management and Development, Mr Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, is a Member of Parliament for Njube-Lobengula constituency.

To add insult to injury Minister Nkomo has been at the forefront of calls upon residents to use water from the heavily contaminated Khami Dam, a suggestion that has been dismissed as ludicrous by residents.

The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, is also from the city but honestly have we benefited from this. yes Senator Coltart found an education sector that was in the doldrums but right now there has been some confusion on the issue of teacher incentives and sending students away for unpaid fees.

Again the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Professor Welshman Ncube, hails from the region while he has been vocal over the deindustrialisation affecting the city, the Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund has been a mere pie in the sky.

Many today have questioned on the actual need of these MPs, furthermore a lot of noise was made when there were a few ministers hailing from the region but have there been any tangible results, can we look back over these past four years and say there has been notable change.

Does the nation really have use for these legislators or they are just mere burdens who want to pamper themselves with more cars, houses and other luxuries.

Many have called for the amendment of the Electoral Act as the current law has been blamed for the alleged corruption levels, lack of basic leadership skills and knowledge of the job at hand.

As we prepare for yet another election, there will be a fresh wave of campaigns from people interested in becoming councillors, Members of the House of Assembly or Senators.

Some parties promised what they termed “real change” but four years on has there been any change at all?

Over these past four years some legislators have been accused of literally disappearing right after being thrust to their respective positions. Others have been accused of focusing on personal enrichment rather than serving their respective constituencies.

Just a few months ago accusations were being thrown around over the manner in which these legislators used their Constituency Development Fund (CDF), this saw government ordering an investigation on all members of the house of assembly to bring to rest allegations that the CDF was grossly abused and had not been used for its intended purpose.

Some of the legislators were arrested on allegations of squandering and misappropiating the fund.

As if this was not enough these legislators were once again the centre of controversy when they demanded new cars from government despite their continuous insistence that the government was broke and their failure to offer civil servants a salary increment citing the unavailability of funds.

With all this considered maybe the major question on everyone’s mouth is does the nation really need these legislators or we can just do away we them and the nation will perform far much better?

Do we really need leaders who will come today campaigning to be voted for and then disappear only to reappear when they want to be voted for again?

Sunday News last week managed to visit various constituencies in the Hwange area and no one was satisfied with the conduct of the MPs there, some even claimed not to know their representatives as they were hardly in the area.

“Right now the area is faced with a severe drought, you would expect that our MP would be here more often to assist those with an urgent need for food aid but honestly we hardly know him, some of us last saw him when he was campaigning for our votes and ever since he has just disappeared into thin air.

“It is so pathetic because we are the very people who voted for them but right now they can’t even stop for us on the road. nothing has changed since 2008, we still have no roads, water and right now we have this severe hunger,’’ said one villager who identified herself as Mrs Loveness Nyoni.

Political analyst and lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology, Dr Lawton Hikwa, said it was unfortunate that the issue of missing Members of Parliament had become a common trend in the country — more of an unwritten culture that had to be done away with.

He said there was a tendency among legislators to focus on self-enrichment and forget what was basically expected of them.

“The electorate should know that they have the right to demand that these legislators report back to them on a more regular basis. we should do away with this unfortunate trend of missing legislators because it is not good for our politics, we need these people to be accountable.

“On the other hand the legislators themselves must be more sincere in their roles. yes we know that they are very much entitled to such benefits as cars but they must be careful because they can’t just give themselves perks when the country’s fiscus doesn’t support this,’’ said Dr Hikwa.

He said in the coming elections the electorate must pay more scrutiny on the representatives they elect as these have a major bearing on their livelihoods for the coming five years.

“Right now we know that the nation is particularly concerned with the economy therefore we need people who will give us a positive blueprint on what they will do for our economy. corruption should not be condoned at all and these people should realise that when they are elected to those offices they are there simply as representatives of the people,’’ said Dr Hikwa.