Herald
23 May 2009

CIVIL servants in Harare took to the streets yesterday, demanding to be paid “real salaries”, warning Government they would embark on industrial action if their grievances are not addressed promptly.

Riot police had to be deployed to stop the placard-waving disgruntled workers from marching to the offices of the ministries of Public Service and Social Welfare.

The civil servants had gathered at the Public Service Association headquarters in the morning and were en route to the offices of Minister of Labour and Social Welfare Paurina Mpariwa and Minister of Public Service Eliphas Mukonoweshuro to air their grievances when police stopped them.

Both ministers are MDC-T secondments to Cabinet.

Read some of the placards: “We are working for salaries and not allowances”, “US$100 is not enough” and “Bills are more than our allowances”.

Riot police advised them to open dialogue with the relevant ministries, after which one officer accompanied the PSA leadership to Minister Mukonoweshuro’s office.

However, they did not have the meeting they desired as the minister was said to be out of office.

In an interview later, PSA executive secretary Mr Emmanuel Tichareva said civil servants were not satisfied with the allowances they were getting.

“We would like to meet the minister as soon as possible because what is happening on the ground is not conducive. Civil servants are agitated and will down tools if they do not see anything meaningful coming next week. We are going to take action,” he said.

The disgruntled civil servants feel that they are being sidelined in negotiation processes.

“Education Minister Senator David Coltart has been talking to teachers and promising them packages. Nurses have been promised packages. We also want to meet our minister and have dialogue,” Mr Tichareva said.

The association said it would consult its members after yesterday’s demonstration flopped.

The PSA issued Government with a 14-day ultimatum, which expires on June 8, to address its members’ grievances. Efforts to get a comment from Ministers Mpariwa and Mukonoweshuro were fruitless yesterday.

Affiliate members of the PSA who wanted to demonstrate yesterday comprised the Government Workers’ Association, Civil Service Employees’ Association, Professional and Technical Officers’ Association, Government Officers’ Association, and Administrative and Executive Officers’ Association.

Civil servants who spoke to The Herald expressed displeasure at the slow pace which the inclusive Government was addressing their working conditions.

“We have been getting these allowances for too many months now. All we keep getting are promises from the inclusive Government that they are addressing our plight, but we are not seeing the progress,” one of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said.

Another said: “The allowances we are getting are not even from the inclusive Government. That means the inclusive Government has not yet done anything to address our working conditions even though it was formed way back in February.”

The US$100 that is being paid to civil servants was awarded by then Acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa before the formation of the inclusive Government comprising Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC.

Since then, a number of Government officials, including Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti, have implored workers to be patient with them as they work to improve working conditions.

Newsnet
Saturday 23 May 2009

Government has called on the private sector to partner it in the rehabilitation of school’s infrastructure.

Government has called on the private sector to partner it in the rehabilitation of school’s infrastructure.

Speaking after officiating at the launch of a programme meant to restore confidence in country’s education system, the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture Senator David Coltart said the education sector is faced with a lot of challenges that are huge for the government to solve on its on.

Focusing on sports Senator Coltart said, he will soon engage most sporting associations in order to assist them as some national teams were not doing well on the international scene.

Coltart was mostly concerned about Zimbabwe Cricket and soccer with the former no longer playing test cricket matches and the latter not taking part in World Cup to be hosted by South Africa.

The Chronicle
By Mduduzi Moyo
23 May 2009

The first trimester — the first ten of the scheduled 30 games — of the Premiership has come and gone yet the Premier Soccer League is still to find a sponsor for this year’s league championship.

The traditional season opening Charity Shield has been repeatedly postponed and it is still unclear if the league will ever find a sponsor for even a single knockout tournament.

So confusing and deafening is the silence on the progress or lack thereof in the negotiations — if ever there are any that are taking place at the moment — that every ardent soccer lover has been forced to ask the question: “Just where is the current set-up likely to leave us as a soccer loving nation?”

Zimbabwean soccer has in the past been the envy of the neighbourhood but the current decline in standards seems to threaten to blight this record as sports administrators seem determined to outdo each other in running the game into the ground.

In the past, the Zimbabwean Premiership attracted top players from Malawi and Zambia with the likes of the late Derby Mankinka, Kelvin Kaindu, Ian Bakala, Haji Tambala and Joseph Kamwendo — who is turning out for the Malawi national team.

So powerful was the appeal that it attracted even players from the American league like Andrew Shoe and Kirk Fredrick.

But the current trend has seen a reverse pattern where the most prolific of our players have crisscrossed the sub-region in search of more sanely run football entities.

Needless to say that some of these sons of the soil have been ejected by poor management of the local game that they have virtually flung themselves into the footballing wilderness with reckless regard for the development of their game. One can only but painfully come to terms with the hasty and seemingly ill-informed departure of prolific goal poacher Edward Sadomba to the virtually unknown Mozambican league which to the average Zimbabwean has produced no better team than Ferroviario de Nampula.

Evans Gwekwerere also frustratedly threw himself into the arms of the lilliputan Swazi league only to reconsider and wind up with South African teams.

So! Where exactly are we going wrong with our football? From its formation in 1993 the Premier Soccer League of the modern era looked set to deliver soccer to the proverbial Canaan. Football administrators and players hailed this grand unveiling as the final tonic to the ills that had afflicted the game.

The impetus behind the formation of the league was that clubs felt that ZIFA was messing up their affairs and therefore there was a need to break away and form an independent league that would prioritise the welfare and interests of the clubs, among other developmental issues.

The inaugural leadership led by Morrison Sifelani and Chris Sibanda committed themselves to promises which 16 years down the line, remain just that — promises.

Sifelani and Sibanda assured the nation that the National Premier Soccer League, as it was known then, “shall always be regarded as a shining beacon of professionalism and transparency”. They promised clubs that viability problems and lack of sponsorship would be a thing of the past.
Even when the promises were hard to deliver, the clubs clung on to them.

A lot of people have come and gone at the PSL but it seems nothing has changed. Instead, it appears as if the clubs are actually worse off than they were then.

Many clubs have either sold their franchises in frustration or have totally collapsed. Others are soldiering on but with extreme difficulties and the reason why some clubs still exist today is simply because the powers that be at those clubs love football and therefore they are prepared to make losses in other businesses just for the love of the game.

Sponsors might give the obvious reason of viability problems in the economy in general but the most important reason is that they are shying away from the madness that has taken over football administration in this country. In other words the game has totally lost its corporate appeal and has degenerated to levels lower than a boozers’ league.

Sponsors are reluctant to risk associating of their brands with Zimbabwean soccer. Soccer has endeared itself to controversy in the way moths are drawn to a flame. Even the national team — if ever it still merits such a title — has been reduced to a basket case that patiently sits with a begging bowl for Asiatic football unknowns to dangle free packages for ineffective friendly matches that have plunged the team to the lowest rankings ever.

At the worst, the team has been devalued to a lot in a betting syndicate as our national association gets more and more addicted to these syndicates. The prize for this — a freefall on the FIFA rankings.
The side effect of all this will be suddenly felt when our “national team” is shunned by teams coming for the Confederations Cup and the World Cup as a viable warm-up partner because of its low rankings which have come about as a result of fielding ad-hoc selects against these unknown entities. I am quite certain Brazil — whom we appear to be amourously courting these days — will not be all too willing to warm-up against a team on the wrong side of 100 on the FIFA rankings.

On the domestic front, the PSL is not painting an encouraging portrait of the game either — the current committee led by Tapuwa Matangaidze is yet to achieve anything except losing out on a viable sponsorship from Econet and failing to sustain the sponsorship of CBZ.

The grapevine has it that the same Matangaidze regime that presided over the ouster of Econet by flirting with its rival NetOne three seasons ago, is now feverishly assailing Econet who look poised to be the heir-apparent to the truant CBZ. It is understood from well placed sources that the mobile communications giant has rolled out one unequivocal demand — that the entire management committee at PSL should resign.

As obvious as the sun will rise tomorrow, they will not do this! And while it remains to be seen who will blink first between the two, the soccer loving nation will continue to watch a mediocre display of what looks like football as clubs trudge on under these difficult times, waiting and hoping for a brighter day. But for how long, we wonder.

We call upon the honourable Minister David Coltart to intervene and save soccer from this seemingly irremediable calamity. Clubs have patiently taken enough of a battering.

Al Jazeera
By Haru Mutasa, Al Jazeera’s southern Africa correspondent
22 May 2009

It has been 100 days since Morgan Tsvangirai joined his old rival Robert Mugabe in the formation of a new coalition government for Zimbabwe.

With Tsvangirai taking the office of prime minister and Mugabe as president the hope was to try and revive the ruined southern African country whose economy had been crippled by record-breaking hyper inflation and years of bad economic policies.

It has been a century of days fraught with mistrust.

However, on Thursday Tsvangirai said most disagreements within Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government had been resolved. The only sticking points were the posts of central bank governor and attorney general.

Gideon Gono, the current governor of the central bank and a close Mugabe ally, has been under pressure to resign after members of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change accused him of being responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic decline.

The country needs just over US$8bn – close to US$2bn has already come in from African banks and governments, but much more is needed.

Economic reforms

The IMF and World Bank have also pledged support, but they want Mugabe and Tsvangirai to develop a credible programme to rebuild the country’s economy and implement reforms before they hand out massive amounts of cash.

On the streets, life seems a little easier for Zimbabweans – better than it was three months ago. Supermarket shelves are once again stocked with goods – and prices of basic commodities are slowly coming down.

Teachers and civil servants are being paid a monthly allowance of US$100. Not nearly enough to live on, but it’s better than the Zimbabwean dollar they used to earn – which had become so devalued they could not buy anything with it.

This allowance has given some incentives for civil servants to return to work. Most public schools are open, as teachers begin to return to the classroom.

Mugabe [left] and Tsvangirai finally agreed on appointees to a joint cabinet in February, 2009 [EPA]
It has been 100 days since Morgan Tsvangirai joined his old rival Robert Mugabe in the formation of a new coalition government for Zimbabwe.

With Tsvangirai taking the office of prime minister and Mugabe as president the hope was to try and revive the ruined southern African country whose economy had been crippled by record-breaking hyper inflation and years of bad economic policies.

It has been a century of days fraught with mistrust.

However, on Thursday Tsvangirai said most disagreements within Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government had been resolved. The only sticking points were the posts of central bank governor and attorney general.

Gideon Gono, the current governor of the central bank and a close Mugabe ally, has been under pressure to resign after members of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change accused him of being responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic decline.

The country needs just over US$8bn – close to US$2bn has already come in from African banks and governments, but much more is needed.

Economic reforms

The IMF and World Bank have also pledged support, but they want Mugabe and Tsvangirai to develop a credible programme to rebuild the country’s economy and implement reforms before they hand out massive amounts of cash.

On the streets, life seems a little easier for Zimbabweans – better than it was three months ago. Supermarket shelves are once again stocked with goods – and prices of basic commodities are slowly coming down.

Teachers and civil servants are being paid a monthly allowance of US$100. Not nearly enough to live on, but it’s better than the Zimbabwean dollar they used to earn – which had become so devalued they could not buy anything with it.

This allowance has given some incentives for civil servants to return to work. Most public schools are open, as teachers begin to return to the classroom.

Headteacher Augustine Kudzange blames the government for poor teaching resources. In the last two years, 20,000 teachers left the country – unable to get by on a monthly salary of US$3. At St Vincent Secondary school in rural Goromonzi, 60km from Harare, school principal Augustine Kudzange is struggling to make ends meet.He points the finger of blame at the country’s politicians.

“The English they speak in parliament and whatever professions they have – pass through my hands. Why can’t they respect that?” he asks angrily.

“If they are to respect the future of the child then the one who produces the child – education-wise – must be respected. There’s no other way.”

He may be back in the classroom teaching but conditions are far from desirable.

In some schools in the country, 15 children share one text book. In others there are simply no books at all.

‘Fragile situation’

The country’s education minister, David Coltart, says he needs millions of dollars to revive the education sector – which a decade ago used to be one of the best in Africa and the world.
But he admits 100 days in office is too short to make any real changes to education policy and educational reform.

“I can’t really point to any major achievements,” he says.

“Some would say the reopening of schools and getting teachers back on board is an achievement. But I know it’s a very fragile situation. I fear teachers may go on strike within a month or so. So I’m pleased but I believe we still have major challenges ahead.”

Some of those challenges facing the new prime minister include keeping the government of national unity together.

Press freedom and alleged human rights violations dominate Zimbabwe’s political life.

Several journalists, lawyers and human rights activists complain of being harassed by state police.
Farm invasions are still continuing in some parts of the country – threatening food security.

Issues like educating the future generation come, for the moment, a poor second.

Zimbabwe Times
May 21, 2009
By Our Correspondent

HARARE – The government will start releasing results for last year’s Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) examinations, beginning this Friday.

The government has also committed itself to proceeding with this year’s mid-year public examinations, ending months of uncertainty over its capacity to manage any public examination before it could release last year’s results.

David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Arts, Sports and Culture told journalists on Wednesday that the June and November 2008 Advanced Level results were to be announced this Friday.
He said this would be followed by the release of the June and November 2008 Ordinary Level results which should be expected by June 5.

The release of the Grade 7 results, which, normally, are first to be released, is scheduled for June 26.
Coltart said US$352 000 had been sourced from the treasury to fund the 2009 mid-year ZIMSEC examinations.

Examination fees for the examinations commencing on July 6, 2009 and ending on July 27, 2009, had been pegged at US$10 per subject for both O’ Level and A’ Level students.

Candidates wishing to sit for the examinations are to register with their respective examinations centres on or before June 12.

Due to the delay in publishing the results for last year, some schools used the 2008 mid-year internal examinations to determine the suitability of students seeking enrolment to advance to Forms One and Forms Five.

But the minister said such students would be made to terminate any tuition already in progress if it turns out they did not qualify when their results were eventually released.

Coltart also reiterated that no student shall be barred from attending classes for failure to pay fees.
He urged schools to turn to the courts to sue individual parents unable to pay fees for their children.
He said fees announced two weeks ago shall remain operational for the second term until the government reviewed them next term.

The government pegged US$5 as the fees for high-density primary schools while low-density government schools would demand US$10 from each pupil. Rural schools are not supposed to charge any tuition fees at primary level.

Rural secondary schools are supposed to charge US$5 per student, while US$10 and US$20 shall be paid by students attending high-density and low-density government schools in urban areas.

The minister also said any schools charging groceries as supplementary fees would be disciplined.
He also pleaded with Zimbabwean teachers to be patient with his ministry while it tried to source for more money from both the treasury and donor agencies.

Coltart said school levies could only be fixed after “there have been compliance with the relevant regulations that apply.

“Those include the necessity for school development committees to call meetings of parents,” he said.
“There needs to be a quorum of 20 percent of the parent body and there needs to be a majority vote in favour of the levies proposed.

“Once those levies have been approached by those parents in those meetings, the proposed levies are to be referred to the permanent secretary (of education) for his approval.”

Out of the levies deposited, Coltart said, a 10 percent quota should be given to repairs; sports and culture; administration; teachers’ incentives; and support staff while a 15 percent quota should go towards educational materials.

AFP
21 May 2009

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP) — Zimbabwe’s mid-year schools examination had been postponed for a month due to lack of funding by international donors, the education ministry announced Wednesday.

And the results from last year’s exams, which should have been issued in February, would finally be released this Friday, Education Minister David Coltart told reporters.

The exams provide the crucial qualifications for students who want to continue their education at university level.

But Coltart said the government was struggling to raise the 350,000 US dollars needed to finance the administration of the exams.

“I have put a variety of funding applications to donors, but we are still yet to get responses,” he said.
The government was so short of money it had yet to pay markers who handled the 2008 exams. The results from those exams, which should have been released in February, were now due out on Friday, he added.

“I am very sympathetic to the plight of teachers. It’s difficult to come to work on a 100 US dollar salary. We are trying to address that,” Coltart said.

School teachers themselves are paid a flat salary of 100 US dollars, just like any other civil servant.
“We are trying to stabilise the entire education system, we regret that students have been prejudiced by the various problems we are facing,” he said.

The new government formed in February and led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has struggled to find funding.

Major donors have been reluctant to give new aid until the government makes more tangible reforms to break from President Robert Mugabe’s past policies, which are blamed for wrecking the economy and trampling on human rights.

A statement issued by the United Nations Children’s Fund in February urged the new government to drag the education system out of crisis, noting that attendance had plummeted from 80 to 20 percent.
Teachers in urban schools only turned up for classes this year if parents could afford to subsidise their salaries in US dollars, it said.

Herald
21 May 2009

Harare — THE November 2008 Zimsec Advanced Level results will be out tomorrow while Ordinary Level results are expected to be released on June 5 as Government set June examination fees at US$10 per subject for both “O” and “A” Levels.

Education, Sport, Art and Culture Minister David Coltart yesterday said Government had provided money to complete the marking of the examinations.

Addressing a Press conference in Harare, Minister Coltart, who was flanked by his Deputy Lazarus Dokora and Zimsec director Mr Happy Ndanga, said the Grade Seven results should be released on June 26.

Minister Coltart said the “O” and “A” Level June examinations that traditionally commenced during the third week of May would now start on July 6 and end on July 27.

“Due to a number of logistical problems, it was not possible to start and administer the 2009 May/June examinations, as originally scheduled.

“We are glad that Cabinet, particularly the Finance Minister Tendai Biti, was able to provide the US$352 000 required for the exams to get underway.

“Accordingly, candidates who wish to write the 2009 May/June Zimsec examinations are urged to urgently register with their examination centres. The Zimsec deadline for registration of the examinations is June 12 this year,” he said.

Minister Coltart said examination fees have been pegged at US$10 per subject for both “O” and “A” Level.

He said Minister Biti had also undertaken to secure money from Treasury to pay markers if the Education Ministry failed to get funding from other sources.

Turning to school fees, Minister Coltart said there would be no other fees in Government schools save for admission and levies charged by school development committees to help run schools.

While an interim statement had already been made regarding fees in Government schools, it should be noted that Cabinet had agreed that school fees for P1 primary schools (schools in low-density suburbs) were US$10.

Fees at P2 primary schools (schools in high-density suburbs) are US$5 while P3 schools (those in rural areas) will be free, said Minister Coltart.

At S1 secondary schools (in low-density suburbs) pupils will pay US$20, S2 (those in high-density suburbs) US$10 while S3 (those in rural areas) will pay US$5.

Minister Coltart reiterated that no child should be sent home for non-payment of fees and levies urging schools to approach the courts if parents fail to pay.

The minister also warned schools not to charge unapproved school fees or levies.

He said November examination fees would be announced soon.

Zimbabwe Times
20 May 2009
By Our Correspondent

Harare – The Public Service Association, PSA, the umbrella body representing civil servants in the country has applied for police permission to march in protest at failure by the government to address their remuneration concerns.

In the PSA application, which is addressed to the officer commanding Harare Central, and a copy of which we have in our possession, the march is expected to be ‘peaceful’.

The application which was signed by Edmore Tichareva, the PSA executive secretary, states: “The procession is intended to show the responsible ministry, the Public Service, the concerns of civil servants which have not been addressed or resolved as the national joint negotiating council faces collapse and negotiations have not taken place since January 2009.”

The civil servants are also riled by the fact that the government, through the Minister of education, Senator David Coltart and the donor community, are giving teachers preferential treatment.

Two weeks ago, Coltart announced that children of government school teachers would no longer pay school fees while all teachers in the civil service would not have to pay bank charges when withdrawing their US$100 monthly allowance.

The PSA had given the government until May 15 to improve their working conditions, failure of which would result in work stoppage.

In a statement issued last week, the PSA said: “We have been patient enough to make this inclusive government work and be able to produce results that will be appreciated by SADC and the world at large but it looks like the government is ignoring the machinery that is supposed to produce results for the inclusive government to work.”

Meanwhile, from Bulawayo our correspondent reports that the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) Secretary General has accused two top Zanu-PF officials of inciting teachers to go back on strike.

Speaking at a Bulawayo Agenda-organized public meeting Majongwe said he was shocked that Didymus Mutasa, the former Security Minister and Jeremiah Bvirindi, a Zanu-PF Budiriro losing candidate in the March 2008 parliamentary elections, were going around the country’s provinces pushing teachers to go back on strike.

He said this was surprising since Zanu-PF was the same party which used to urge the police to arrest and brutalize their members for embarking on strike during the era of President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
“Mutasa and Bvirindi are pushing our members to go back on strike,” said Majongwe. “These are the same people who used to kidnap arrest and torture teachers for embarking on strike. This shows that Zanu-PF wants to destroy the new unity government with the MDC.

“There are not happy to see MDC raising funds to pay teachers and build the economy. They can see MDC is becoming very strong in government by raising funds to rebuild the nation they destroyed.”

Majongwe said, “PTUZ will give the inclusive government a chance and are not going to call for another teachers’ strike soon”

Speaking at the same meeting, Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) president, Clever Bere said there was no democracy in sight as long as President Robert Mugabe was still in government.
“Mugabe is still behaving the same way,” Bere said. “Zimbabweans should not dream of a New Zimbabwe coming soon as long as (Mugabe) is still in government. There are still arrests, torture and detention without trial of MDC activists, journalists and human rights lawyers, but we are saying we have a government of national unity.”

Bere also said “few students from Matabeleland region were currently enrolled at universities and colleges around the country because the former Mugabe regime had not bothered to develop the region and there were few high schools in the region”.

New Zimbabwe.com
By Lebo Nkatazo
20/05/2009

THE government has postponed the Advanced and Ordinary Level June examinations by a month while last year’s delayed examination results would be released starting Friday, Education Minister David Coltart said Wednesday.

Coltart said the government has availed US$352,218,000 to the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (Zimsec) for the running of this year’s mid-year examinations.

“June examinations have traditionally come during the third week of May and continued throughout to the end of June. Due to a number of logistical problems, it was not possible to start and administer the 2009 May/June examinations as originally scheduled,” the minister told reporters in Harare.

He said the examinations will now commence on July 6 and end on July 27. The registration deadline for the delayed exams is June 12.

Coltart said both ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level candidates would pay US$10 per subject as examination fees.
Meanwhile, the long delayed results of the November 2008 ‘A’ Level examination are expected to be released on Friday, while last year’s ‘O’ Level results would come out on June 5, with the 2008 Grade 7 results due on June 27.

On top of the money provided to Zimsec to run the latest examinations, Coltart said: “The government gives an undertaking to provide Zimsec with US$ 1,8 million by the end of June 2009 to pay the outstanding amounts due to markers plus a further US$2 million to pay for the other outstanding dues.”
He added that another US$ 450 000 would be availed at the end of July for the marking of the 2009 mid-year examinations.