Herald

By Felix Share

26 September 2011

EDUCATION, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart will tomorrow hold a crisis meeting with the three teachers’  unions to strike a “common ground” over the payment of incentives.

Confirming the meeting yesterday, the minister dismissed claims by teachers’ unions that the incentive scheme was not a Public Service Commission policy, but came as a result of his “insistence”.

He said the policy was already in existence before he took office in February 2009.

“I am meeting them (unions) Tuesday afternoon as there has been a lot of debate in the media,” he said.

“I have to get their views because I have no problem ending the incentives overnight, but I cannot just terminate them without an agreement.

“If they tell me formally that they do not want them (incentives), then they will have to assist me in policing the teachers lest we criminalise the education sector.”

Minister Coltart shifted the blame to his predecessors, saying they were the ones who introduced incentives.

“When I took office in 2009, the policy was already there and there was a circular from the permanent secretary (Mr Stephen Mahere) that had legalised everything,” he said.

“I only continued with the policy and structured it to ensure implementation equitability so that it would be implemented. It is my desire to end them quickly, but a common ground has to be found.”

Teachers’ unions last week blamed Minister Coltart for the incentives, saying it was a “serious miscalculation” while others said the policy was “poorly crafted” in terms of sustainability.

This comes as teachers in some parts of the country are striking against school authorities’ decision to slash the incentives.

In Harare, teachers at Rugare Primary School went on strike last Wednesday after authorities slashed incentives by US$30.

Teachers at Prince Edward High School also downed tools last Friday protesting against, among other things, a decision to reduce their incentives from US$300 to about US$50.

The unions were against the payment of the incentives from the start, arguing that the long-term solution was to increase salaries and improve conditions of service.

Government increased salaries and allowances for its workers in July this year, resulting in teachers earning an average of US$300.

But it has been difficult for Minister Coltart to effect the scrapping of the incentives after the salary increment.

Instead, disputes between teachers and school authorities have erupted at most schools in Harare and Bulawayo over the incentives.

• If all our players had the lion heart of Tatenda Taibu we would be world beaters – took us within a whisker of beating Pakistan today #
• Methinks that Jonathan Moyo doth protest too much – about Wikileaks that is…what is said is said; what is done is done- just live with it #
• In Windhoek Namibia attending SADC Education Ministers conference – always amazes me how the German influence here was so profound – tidy! #
• University of Cape Town / Newsroom & publications / Daily news http://t.co/byNoU6sX via @AddToAny Dean's merit list includes Douglas Coltart #
• I am very distressed by the execution of Troy Davis – death penalty should never be imposed if there is any doubt whatsoever #

The Sunday Independent, South Africa

By Peta Thornycroft

25 September 2011

When Tendai Biti quipped that he was finance minister without any “finance”, his audience in a church hall in Harare smiled knowingly.

They knew that when Biti went into the treasury for the first time as finance minister in 2009, he found his Zanu-PF predecessor had left him little more than petty cash to run the country and about R50 billion in foreign debt.

In the audience, labourers, clerks, domestic workers, vendors, activists, artisans, a handful of mostly middle-aged shabby whites and many unemployed people understood Biti’s joke because they too were demolished by hyper-inflation, the trademark of Zanu-PF’s mismanagement prior to the unity government with the MDC.

Like Biti, ordinary Zimbabweans have no “finance”.

Biti was reporting back to his constituency last week. For months beforehand he had been unable to get police permission to hold the meeting. So he went ahead anyway but without advance publicity. The audience was quite small, more intimate town hall conversation than grandstand report-back.

He described for the first time some of the hazards of being in a government with Zanu-PF, why he and cabinet colleagues found it so difficult to get the country moving again.

Biti told the meeting his party, the main MDC faction, “saved” Zimbabwe by going into the inclusive government with Zanu-PF which it had defeated in elections a year earlier.

He told his constituents that during negotiations, he had opposed MDC joining an inclusive government. But he added that now, 31 months later, he believed it had been the right decision because it gave Zimbabweans “time out, time out (to recover from Zanu-PF violence) as we were being scorched.”

Biti said the MDC now understood “the levers of power in government. And now we know the myths too.”

The levers of power Biti says are not held by policymakers such as he but by the bureaucrats.

It is public knowledge these days that Zanu-PF ministers nod off during Tuesday morning’s cabinet meetings and spend only a few hours per week attending to ministry business.

The rest of the time they are either working for Zanu-PF or attending to the formerly white-owned farms they have been given since 2000.

The permanent secretaries (equivalent to South Africa’s director-general) are in jobs-for-life and are as important to Zanu-PF’s political survival as the security forces.

He said these bureaucrats “keep you busy without being busy”, Biti said. Many insiders in government say that Biti’s own permanent secretary is particularly obstructive.

Mugabe has mostly ignored his commitments to joint decision-making with the MDC under the three-year-old multi party political agreement he signed in 2008, and has unilaterally appointed most top civil servants.

Biti surprised some when he said that it no longer mattered to him that Zanu-PF controlled the security ministries.

“I learnt that the secret of good governance is not constitutions, it’s not about the army or the police, it is about love and caring. It is better to run the social ministries.

“It is better to be in charge of health and education than the police.

“We had a vision to democratise our country when the MDC was formed in 1999. We wanted to put an end to 20 years of cruelty, 20 years of theft, of fear, and this has been a long and tortuous road.”

And it is not over yet and the struggle goes on each day, often within the ministries.

David Coltart, education minister in the other, much smaller, MDC, is regularly obstructed by his permanent secretary.

It’s hard to imagine, though, that either Biti or Coltart have it as bad as one key MDC minister – who did not want to be identified for safety reasons – who has more or less given up trying to reform public service employees within the ministry and who is openly defied by the ministry’s permanent secretary.

“He seems my number on his mobile and hits the off button. If I go to his office he comes forward and pushes me back and closes the door in my face.

“So when I am desperate to communicate with him, I try to go to a social event where I know he will be and try to talk to him there, where in front of others he cannot be so rude to me. I don’t think I can make any progress while he remains.”

Biti said: “I turned 45 three or so weeks ago but I feel I am 87 years of age.” That prompted quiet titters from the crowd because, of course, everyone in the hall knows that President Robert Mugabe is 87.

“My life and yours have been compressed with pain and suffering. So even though you may be young in age you are old because of the experiences, the exposures that all of us have gone through at the hands of Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his acolytes in Zanu-PF

“We have been beaten up, we have been tortured, we have been raped, we have been killed.

“They have called us names, dogs, puppets of the West, you name it. I think the only thing we have not yet been accused of is incest.

“Each one of us knows someone killed by Zanu-PF.

“We are not normal. You, we, are candidates for psychiatric treatment. Because we have been traumatised by Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe. We pretend to be normal but this is a society that functions on the culture of impunity.

“If you look in the eyes of Zanu-PF, and I sit with Mugabe often, they have the glassy eyes of a dead person. We grew up in a nice Christian background, we are very spiritual, we don’t need the Bible to tell us it is wrong to kill or rape.

“We are an unbelievable society for the kinds of things we tolerate.

“All my life I have known only one leader, Mugabe. It’s been a long road and people are tired now.”

An evicted white farmer in the audience asked Biti what he would do about compensating the farmers for the loss of their farms.

“We did a rough estimate and your properties should be worth about $3bn (R21bn) but we can’t pay that. But there must be compensation.

He said the debt to white farmers for their homes, businesses, equipment etc would best be solved by becoming part of sovereign debt to be settled one day and jeered at continuing land invasions 11 years after they began and references made by Zanu-PF to “new” farmers years after they took the land.

“So,” Biti said with his landmark giggle, or perhaps it was a snigger, “we have ‘new’ farmers who are 87 years old” alluding to a clutch of at least four prime farms 60km north west of Harare which Mugabe helped himself to and which were, for years, secretly funded by taxpayers’ money.

He said that the journey to democracy in Zimbabwe was not over.

“We are down to the last two stages of the struggle: to ensure power transfer (after the next elections) and to protect the vote,” he said.

Biti, Industry Minister Welshman Ncube from the smaller MDC – who has just persuaded the Indian iron and steel giant Esser to buy the derelict Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (Zisco) – energy minister Elton Mangoma, the MDC’s health and education ministers and perhaps one or two Zanu-PF ministers who now want to rebuild the country they wrecked, have indeed saved Zimbabwe. The country is just hanging together. Without them it would have completely fallen apart.

Sunday Mail

By Itai Mazire

25 September 2011

THE Government has launched investigations into the operations and financial affairs of the country’s  three main teachers’ unions following allegations of misappropriation of US$7,6 million collected from teachers in membership fees annually.

Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart last week confirmed the launch of the probe, saying Cabinet had set up the Professional Teachers’ Council (PTC) that would, among other things, monitor operations of teachers’ unions.

Minister Coltart said while there were laws which governed unions, it became a cause for concern when people’s hard- earned money was being abused.

The three major teacher unions at the centre of the investigations are the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta), the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and the Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (TUZ), which are collectively raking in US$640 000 every month in membership fees.

Said Minister Coltart: “Cabinet has agreed on the formation of PTC……..It is unfair for people to take away money from the already suffering teachers. Every teacher is struggling to make ends meet and that is why there should be statutory instruments that protect these professionals (teachers).” Minister Coltart said it was also illegal for unions to continue deducting money from teachers who had ceased to be their members.

“Members are not obliged to join these unions and every member has got a right to terminate their membership.

“It is illegal for someone to continue deducting money from a member without his or her consent,” he said.

Minister Coltart expressed the need for Government to provide teachers with legal education to save them from being fleeced. Zimta collects U$440 000 per month, while the TUZ and PTUZ pocket US$80 000 and US$120 000 respectively. When teachers’ salaries were increased by 50 percent recently, their monthly subscriptions went up by between 60 and 100 percent. Each Zimta member pays US$10 per month, while TUZ — which has close to 10 000 members — collects US$8 subscription fees from each member. PTUZ has around 15 000 members and collects US$8 from each member. Teachers have since accused the unions of failing to press for salaries above the poverty datum line of US$502 per month, yet they were quick to inflate subscription fees.

The teachers also accused the unions of not giving them value for their money. In the past, subscriptions were used to cover legal representation, funeral expenses and soft loans. However, these services have stopped at some of the unions. Teachers are now taking home an average of US$300 per month, though some get more through incentives paid by parents.

The union leaders are accused of granting themselves high monthly allowances without the approval of their constituents. The teacher unions’ leadership, however, insist they were still offering quality services to their members and that no money was being misused. Education Deputy Minister Cde Lazarus Dokora warned teacher unions to be professional, saying that they should stick to laws that govern their operations as organisations.

Herald

23 September 2011

THE introduction of incentives for teachers was a “serious miscalculation” by Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, David Coltart, teachers’ unions have said.

Unions officials yesterday said the incentives were not a Public Service Commission policy, but came as a result of Minister Coltart’s “insistence”.

This comes as teachers in some parts of the country are striking against school authorities’ decision to slash incentives paid by parents.

The unions were against the payment of the incentives from the start, arguing that the long term solution was to increase salaries and improve conditions of service.

In Harare, teachers at Rugare Primary School went on strike on Wednesday after authorities slashed the incentives by US$30.

Teachers at Prince Edward High School also downed tools last Friday protesting against, among other things, a decision to reduce their incentives from US$300 to about US$50.

Senior officials in the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture said Minister Coltart, who had been promised funding by donors, was now bearing the fruits of his “flawed policy”.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association of Zimbabwe chief executive, Mr Sifiso Ndlovu, said Minister Coltart’s policy was “the worst” since independence.

He said the policy was “poorly crafted” in terms of sustainability.

“It’s the Minister who came up with his own policy not the employer (PSC),” he said.

“But this worst policy to ever exist in our country has caused disorder in the education sector.

“It was a divisional tactic, whereby they knew teachers would never speak with one voice on the issue of salaries, but it is now backfiring on him.

“In his process of arresting labour discontentment, the minister has shot himself in the foot.

“He has shifted the employment responsibility to parents, a situation which has never happened in this country.”

Mr Ndlovu said the problem would be solved if Government standardised condition of service for workers.

Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe secretary general, Mr Raymond Majongwe, said Minister Coltart’s miscalculation was “plunging” the education sector into crisis.

“This was a lack of a political tact by him (Minister Coltart) and the chickens have come to roost as a result of flawed planning,” he said.

“We told him from the beginning that it would be a disaster.

“Even when Zanu-PF was struggling economically, it did not come up with such disastrous policies.”

Mr Majongwe said Minister Coltart should call for an all stakeholders meeting as schools were now “war zones” because of the issue of incentives.

Teachers Union of Zimbabwe chief executive, Mr Manuel Nyawo, said Minister Coltart had brought “mayhem” to the education sector.

“This policy is problematic because it does not apply to all teachers,” he said.

“It is now difficult to stop the incentives and the minister, being the master planner, should be able to deal with that.

“But as far as we are concerned there, is no exit strategy for the minister.”

Senior officials in Minister Coltart’s office said the donor funding he had been promised failed to materialise.

“He thought it would be for a short time since he, together with his party, had been promised a lot of cash, but nothing came forward,” said one official.

“Now, he is failing to find solutions to problems he created.”

Efforts to get a comment from Minister Coltart were fruitless as he was away in Namibia.

But he is on record recently defending the payment of incentives, saying scrapping them would cause chaos.

He said the incentives should be removed after teachers’ salaries were improved.

Government increased salaries and allowances for its workers in July this year, resulting in teachers earning an average of US$300.

But it has been difficult for Minister Coltart to effect the scrapping of the incentives after the salary increment.

Instead, disputes between teachers and school authorities have erupted at most schools in Harare and Bulawayo once a notice is circulated that the incentives would be slashed.

VOA

 22 September 2011

By Violet Gonda

Education Minister David Coltart had encouraged parents to make incentive payments to teachers at a time when the system was still recovering from a deep crisis during the tumultuous 2008 election year.

“I am not going to support a teacher who finds himself fighting the parent because if he fights the parent that means he is no longer fighting the real employer (government) to get better salaries.”

Many Zimbabwean teachers and parents of students are at odds over the reduction of supplementary payments or incentives by the School Development Association, which said it reduced the payments following an increase in state teacher salaries.

Education Minister David Coltart had encouraged parents to make incentive payments to teachers at a time when the system was still recovering from a deep crisis.

The state-run Herald newspaper said teachers at Prince Edward High School walked out this week to protest the reduction of incentives from US$300 to about US$50. Sources said teachers at  Kuwadzana 6 Primary School saw theirs cut to $150 from $200.

Surprisingly, one of the country’s main teachers unions opposes the incentive system.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association Chief Executive Sifiso Ndlovu told VOA reporter Violet Gonda that incentives are divisive. He said teachers are misdirecting their anger.

He said: “In as far as it concerns the development of education it is a policy that you cannot sustain for a long time and is likely to cause this confusion.”

“I am not going to support a teacher who finds himself fighting the parent because if he fights the parent that means he is no longer fighting the real employer (the government) to get better salaries,” Ndlovu said.

Parent Kurauone Chihwayi said he and others were happy to pay the incentives to keep teachers in classrooms and motivate them – but said the program is unsustainable.

He said some teachers are now demanding additional fees on top of the incentives.

Others charged that the incentive system has diverted the attention of teachers so that they give short shrift to pupils regular classes and allocate more time to tutoring.

Financial Gazette

Thursday,22 September 2011 

By Clemence Manyukwe, Political Editor

JUSTICE and Legal Affairs Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, is allegedly critical of the Attorney General (AG)’s Office which he considers as incompetent.

Chinamasa, who was once the country’s AG before he was appointed into cabinet, also believes that it is wrong for the AG, Johannes Tomana, to align himself with ZANU-PF, according to the latest leaked United States cables.

The cable details a meeting between a US official and former deputy justice minister, Jessie Majome, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T).

Majome allegedly described Chinamasa as “frank and open” as well as a proponent of professionalism.

A commentary by the US officials added that during his time as AG, Chinamasa was regarded as a technically competent bureaucrat.

“She (Majome) also told us that Chinamasa held Tomana in low regard because of the clumsy manner and legal incompetence his office often demonstrated,” reads part of the cables.

“Similarly, Attorney General Tomana has openly told her that she is subordinate to him within the ministry because he sits in Cabinet and she does not. Tomana, according to Majome, is arrogant, has a Mercedes and a driver, travels in a two car convoy, and moves on foot with a four-person security detail.”

Majome is alleged to have indicated that at meetings, ministry officials circumvent her by, for example, failing to copy her correspondence within the ministry or notify her of any briefings.

The MDC-T official is said to have cited a press conference where the ministry’s permanent secretary, David Mangota and prisons commissioner, Paradzai Zimondi, announced a general amnesty to cover a thousand prisoners, a development she only read in the newspapers.

Majome is alleged to have added that the prisons system has become militarised, with retiring soldiers assuming jobs intended to be filled by the civilian prison service.

“This has also occurred in the AG’s office where soldiers have replaced technicians and legal aides,” Majome is alleged to have said.

In its commentary, the US embassy said: “Majome’s experience highlights the lack of cooperation occurring at the ministerial level in what purports to be an inclusive government.

“Even in instances where the ministry is led by an MDC minister, such as David Coltart’s Ministry of Education, there is often a struggle between the minister and his Mugabe-appointed permanent secretary.”

The embassy added that the cases present a tremendous hurdle in implementing policy changes that are opposed by ZANU-PF loyalists.

The balance of power within ministries was said to be in favour of ZANU-PF.

Zimbabwean

By Brenna Matendere Munyati

21 September 2011

Technical subjects should be prioritised above subjects such as history because they are more likely to equip students to contribute to the economy, said Deputy Higher Education Minister Senator Lutho Addington Tapela.

Speaking at the graduation of over 600 students from Gweru Polytechnic college over the weekend, Sen Tapela said pupils in the country’s secondary schools should be equipped with skills to earn a living after their studies.

“If you teach children bricklaying, in a short while they can earn a living and contribute to the economy. But with history what do you do?” he asked.

His words come at a time when the Zanu (PF) side of the coalition government has been pushing for history to be made compulsory in schools. The party has also proposed to have the dreaded war veterans teach the subject in secondary schools.

Analysts have labelled the call brainwashing. Education Minister Senator David Coltart condemned the development in parliament saying it violated Government policy.

Starting from next year, Sen Tapela announced that Gweru Polytechnic College would be pouring teachers of technical subjects into secondary schools across the country.

“We want to see technical subjects being made more available to students. It’s good for their survival after school. It reduces poverty and pulls down the unemployment rates,” he said.

Newsday

Editorial Comment 

19 September 2011

Reports that excommunicated Anglican church leader Nolbert Kunonga last week evicted headmasters, teachers and priests for allegedly aligning themselves with the diocese of his arch-rival Chad Gandiya made sad reading.

Especially so after the Zanu PF-aligned church leader left thousands of schoolchildren at Daramombe in Chivhu among others without their shepherds.

The spate of evictions in Chivhu, Murehwa and other areas has unfortunately thrown the name of the Church of England into disrepute.

This however has revealed Kunonga’s insatiable appetite for both power and wealth. Since he lost control of the Anglican Church first to Sebastian Bakare and later to Gandiya, Kunonga, who has ingratiated himself with Zanu PF, has committed acts of atrocities on innocent people as if he was above the law.

Kunonga is the excommunicated Bishop of the Province of the Central Africa Harare Diocese, who now runs a rival church, the Anglican Church Province of Zimbabwe.

Whether he is fighting a good cause or not, it is not for anyone to say, but the public will always ask themselves why Kunonga’s actions have left thousands of disadvantaged children out in the open at the mercy of the weather. In many cases innocent children have found themselves in the crossfire.

Over 100 orphans at Shearly Cripps Children’s Home in Murehwa were recently left stranded when caregivers, including nuns, were chucked out.

A few days later Kunonga was at it again evicting the priest and headmasters of Daramombe primary and secondary schools in Chivhu, leaving the children without a shepherd.

The eviction of headmasters was ill-advised and ill-timed given that some of the children will soon be sitting for their final examinations.

One could not agree more with Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart who on Friday unequivocally condemned the ejection of headmasters saying it was not in the interest of the schoolchildren. The school authorities could not just be changed like that at this time.

Coltart is right that changing headmasters is detrimental to the students, especially when this happens in the third term with public examinations about to start in the coming weeks.

Kunonga’s actions are despite last Thursday’s High Court decision to defer ruling on the wrangle in which Gandiya’s diocese is seeking a stay of ejectment from church properties.

The ruling is set for September 23.

In that vein, one would question why Kunonga is subverting the law.

He should be made aware that the time of reckoning is just around the corner for anyone flouting the law of the land regardless of how well-connected he might be.