New Zimbabwe.com

31 January 2016

OPPOSITION parties have dismissed President Robert Mugabe’s rant aimed at western nations particularly the United Nations Security Council composition, saying the veteran leader had better look at himself in the mirror first.

Addressing the 26th African Union summit in Ethiopia at the weekend, Mugabe lashed out at the west, saying African states were not going to hesitate walking out of the UN if efforts to democratise the global body continued to be frustrated.

Mugabe said Africans’ “hollow speeches” at the UN were yielding no results. “We have asked and asked and asked for Security Council reform,” he said. To applause he said: “If the UN is to survive, we [Africa] must be equal members of it.”

True to form, Mugabe addressed the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon personally.

“We are supposed to be free and independent Mr Ban-Ki Moon,” said Mugabe.

“You’re a good man, Mr Ban Ki Moon, but we can’t make you a fighter. That’s not what your mission was. But we shall fight for our own identity and personality as Africans.”

Mugabe told the UN boss to let it known to member states that Africans “are also human, not ghosts. Tell them, that we also belong to the world”.

But observers said Mugabe’s comments were both hypocritical and hollow because his record on the domestic front was not in keeping with his rhetoric.

Hollow speech? … President Mugabe adressing UN Assembly

“Mugabe’s call for the UN to open up is correct but it is hypocritical in the extreme to call for that when Zimbabwe itself remains a closed society,” wrote David Coltart on his Facebook page. The former education minister and human rights lawyer further reminded Mugabe that “charity begins at home”.

From South Africa, Makgobe Molomo tweeted: “I cannot listen to Bob or take anything he says seriously. Go to Zimbabwe and see why. Go to Matabeleland, talk to them and know why”.

MDC-T said it was “absurd” for Mugabe to threaten a UN pull-out. “Mugabe pulled Zimbabwe out the Commonwealth and what did we benefit from such an emotional, selfish and angry decision?

“History has proved that Mugabe’s combative, populist and megaphone diplomacy doesn’t bring tangible benefits to Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general,” said Gutu.

He added: “Of course the UN must be reformed bust this cannot be achieved by pulling out of that important world body. Africans should simply ignore and laugh off Mugabe’s bizarre proposal of moving out of the UN.”

ZAPU spokesperson Mjobisa Nko said Mugabe’s suggestion should be dismissed as an “absurd” statement from a “deranged and selfish president who believes he is the Messiah of the world”.

People’s Democratic Party’s Jacob Mafume said it was “embarrassing” for Mugabe to willingly play the “village clown at important gatherings”.

According to observers, Mugabe is not fit to complain of prejudice and discrimination because of his record at home. Last year, Mugabe publicly said Kalanga people were “uneducated, petty criminals” committing crime in South Africa.

The veteran leader has, since the early 2000s, used international events to lash out at opponents and western leaders whom he has accused of having “bloody hands” and of being “gay gangsters”.

But at home many have no kind words for him as he has been at the helm for the past 36 years. He has been accused of masterminding the 1980s Matebeleland massacres which claimed 20 000 lives and of instigating violence against the MDC supporters and commercial farmers.

News24 Wire

26 January 2016

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested four men, including two soldiers, on charges of plotting to bomb President Robert Mugabe’s dairy outside Harare, according to reports on Tuesday.

The four appeared under heavy police guard at the Harare Magistrates’ Court on Monday on charges of “possession of weaponry for sabotage and money laundering for terrorism purposes,” the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

The Herald reported the four were members of a “fringe political party” called the Zimbabwe People’s Front (ZPF).

The men allegedly planned to detonate four petrol bombs at the Gushungo Dairy processing plant in Mazowe, north of Harare, on Friday.

Mugabe and his wife Grace own the multi-million-dollar dairy and processing plant where they produce milk, ice cream, chocolate and other products. Detectives reportedly got wind of the men’s plans and arrested them on Friday morning.

They were allegedly found in possession of four 750ml brandy bottles containing petrol, ammonium nitrate, nails, and sand.

Party documents, including the ZPF manifesto and constitution were also seized.

Media analyst and blogger Zim Media Review said: “So these guys went to bomb Gushungo Dairy while also carrying their party manifesto and constitution?”

The four were named as ZPF president Owen Kuchata, Borman Ngwenya, Solomon Makumbe, and Silas Pfupa.

Ngwenya was reportedly a member of the Zimbabwe National Army’s 1 Field Regiment, and Makumbe a member of the Zimbabwe Intelligence Corps.

Harare Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe postponed the case to February 8. Opposition politician and veteran rights lawyer, David Coltart said the story smacked of the “pseudo-activity” witnessed in Zimbabwe from time to time in the past 40 years.

“One questions whether there is any political motive behind this,” Coltart told News24 in a telephone interview.

Similar activities were used as a pretext to crack down on the MDC in the past. The latest alleged plot could be linked to power struggles within Zanu-PF, he said.

“It’s far too early, with any confidence, to point fingers at any political faction (being behind it),” he said

The Herald is overwhelmingly loyal to Mugabe, but not to every senior Zanu-PF official.

The Standard

By Nqobani Ndlovu and Mthandazo Nyoni

24 January 2016

SIBUSISIWE Dube from Nyamandlovu in Matabeleland North becomes animated when she talks about the effects of the El Niño-induced drought ravaging the usually food sufficient area near Bulawayo.

Dube, from Ward 6, believes she is not only a victim of the devastating weather phenomenon, but the country’s crooked politics as well.
“I have five school-going children and I am struggling to feed them. They usually go to school on empty stomachs.,” Dube said.

“Yesterday [Wednesday last week] I ended up buying them maputi (popcorn) to keep them going. It’s painful and unbearable.

“What makes matters worse is that food distribution has been heavily politicised. If you don’t belong to Zanu PF then you are in danger of starving to death.”

Dube said her children were now frequently skipping lessons due to hunger and there was nothing she could do.

She urged government to stop politicising food distribution because the effects of the latest drought to hit Zimbabwe could be deadly.

“We are all human beings and equal before God,” she said.

“Why are they discriminating against others because they support another political party?

“This must stop forthwith and I want to inform donors that their food is being politicised by Zanu PF,” Dube said.
She is not alone in her predicament as reports indicate that schoolchildren in the province are now dropping out of school in numbers because of hunger.

Although figures of the exact number of drop-outs could not be independently verified, villagers said teachers in Nyamandlovu were now conducting lessons in near-empty classrooms as students stayed away, fearing they could faint in class due to hunger.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education late last year reportedly allowed schools in Matabeleland North to knock off early in view of the evident hunger among students.

According to the second crop assessment results carried out recently, Matabeleland North requires nearly 46 000 tonnes of grain to avoid widespread hunger-induced deaths.

A snap survey revealed that school-going children in Nyamandlovu were indeed skipping lessons due to hunger.

Some children have resorted to scavenging for food in garbage bins at shopping centres.

Nyamandlovu businessman, Stanes Wolfenden, who runs a restaurant, said children as young as seven years often came to his place to pick left-overs from garbage bins.

“They come here daily to pick left-overs. From what I gather, these children pretend as if they are picking those left-overs for dogs but in actual fact, they are taking them for themselves,” he said.

“The situation is bad here and the government and international community need to intervene.”

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing an El Niño-stimulated dry spell, characterised by extremely hot and dry weather conditions, which have left people and livestock in Matabeleland North Province in dire straits.

The national deficit of 700 000 tonnes of maize is being addressed through importation of grain from a number of countries by both the government and the private sector.

So critical has the situation become that communities are already calling for food aid, as their reserves have dried up.
Nyamandlovu Primary School development committee chairman, Edward Sibanda confirmed hunger was affecting pupils, but argued “it was not that bad”.

“For now it’s not that bad, but we are expecting that [children dropping out of school] because the situation is very bad,” Sibanda said.

However, Nganda Primary School development committee chairperson, Bernard Sibanda, said the situation needed urgent attention from government and the international community.

Sibanda appealed to the government to chip in with food hand-outs so that children could be fed at school.

Last week former Education minister David Coltart, who has been campaigning for the government to declare a national emergency to enable easier mobilisation of food aid, shared reports on Facebook from his followers that are concerned about the food situation in Nyamandlovu.

“I was out doing a rural school visit in Nyamandlovu last week, the situation is just dire. One child collapsed on the way to school, hunger. The poor headmaster is beside himself,” read one of the posts shared by Coltart.

He said a headmaster at one school revealed children were complaining of stomach pains.

“In a school that has no resources, where the fence posts to their nutrition garden were burnt in a bush fire allowing the goats to come in and eat everything, where teachers cannot afford to support their own families, what can the school do?” asked the concerned Coltart follower.

“These children are doomed to never reach their potential as their nutritional status is affecting their intellectual development. It is a cruel and tragic time in Zimbabwe.”

Coltart said it seemed to him that many in government were either ignorant of how serious the situation was, or simply did not care. “I have received many reports that people are starving now. It is time for government and the international community to wake up. It is no good saying that food has been ordered and is on the seas (which I doubt in any case) —there is an urgent need for food to be supplied to the rural communities of Matabeleland now,” the former minister said.

“Wake up government! Wake up the international community!”

According to the National Youth Development Trust (NYDT), a youth civic organisation, government must urgently roll out a schools based feeding programme in Matabeleland North to allow students to enjoy their constitutional right to food and education.

“By virtue of students dropping out of school due to hunger, their constitutional rights to food and education have been violated,” NYDT said.

“The government of Zimbabwe has a duty to respect, protect and fulfil all her citizen’s constitutional rights.

Chief Deli Usher Mabhena said people were now surviving on food hand-outs.

“Hunger is there and people are starving while livestock is succumbing to drought. It’s bad,” he said.

“The situation is compounded by the fact that there is no water. Dams have dried up.”

Mgoma Village head, Sabatha Bigboy Mvundla said crops hadwilted and farmers in outlying areas had lost hope of salvaging anything from the 2015/2016 farming season.

“We got 50kg of grain each from GMB on Wednesday but it’s not enough. It won’t last us even a month. I have a child who is supposed to be going to Early Childhood Development [Grade Zero] but I am failing to do that because I cannot raise $32,” he said.

“The little money I am getting, I use it for our upkeep. We are now living in fear because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” he added.

Last week the government said it had secured $200 million in lines of credit to import grain, but analysts fear it will not be enough to feed the whole country as prospects of a decent harvest this year continue to diminish.

Radio VOP

21 January 2016

By Professor Matodzi

Harare, January 21, 2016 – Human rights campaigners have described as revolutionary and bold, Wednesday’s ban on early child marriages imposed by the country’s Constitutional Court.
The apex court outlawed the marriage of children below 18 and ruled that Section 22 (1) of the Marriage Act Chapter (5:11) was inconsistent with Section 78 (1) of the Constitution which sets 18 years as the minimum age of marriage in Zimbabwe.

The ConCourt, established in 2013, ordered that “no person in Zimbabwe may enter into any marriage, including an unregistered customary law union or any other union, including one arising out of religion or a religious rite, before attaining the age of 18”.

The ruling came after two former child brides Loveness Mudzuru aged 19 and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi (18), in 2014 challenged the constitutionality of rampant child marriages.
They cited as respondents, Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, then Women’s Affairs and Gender Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, and the Attorney General.
The two argued, through Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) practitioner Tendai Biti, that since the country’s supreme law which came into force May 2013, pegs childhood at below 18, no child therefore can lawfully marry.
The Irene Petras-led ZLHR described the landmark ruling as prudent.

“ZLHR welcomes this judicious judgment outlawing the practice of subjecting girl children to early marriages and having their fundamental rights infringed upon,” said the group, which has firmly stood for rights victims for two decades.

“The outlawing of this primitive practice is in line with international, regional and national efforts to end child marriages.”
The top legal defence group further lamented the potential risk child marriages posed on the affairs of young Zimbabweans, particularly girls, who elbowed off the country’s developmental prospects.
ZLHR challenged Zimbabwean authorities to develop strategies and action plans to raise awareness of and address the harmful impact of child marriages.
“Although the ruling is a victory and the fact that the practice of child marriages has been recognised and outlawed, a lot needs to be done in implementing it and educating Zimbabweans about the legal position so that everyone is aware of this position,” ZLHR said.

Real Open Opportunities for Transformation and Support (ROOTS), a non-profit making organisation which focuses on economic justice for young people, described the ConCourt ruling as groundbreaking.
“ROOTS welcomes this judgement which comes as a milestone in the campaign to end child marriages and the protection of the rights of children, specifically young girls who remain the main victims of this scourge in society,” ROOTS said in a statement.

Not to be missed were several other rights lawyers, among them David Coltart and Arnold Tsunga, both former MPs, commended Biti for the “excellent victory”.

Tsunga, who is Africa Regional Programme of the International Commission of Jurists director, said is the ruling was “another layer of progressive jurisprudence” emerging from Zimbabwean courts since the May 2013 adoption of a new governance charter.

Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust executive director, Gladys Hlatshwayo, said the ban on child brides was a “significant victory”.

Biti, on his part, said the ruling was revolutionary. “It’s an amazing judgment. The court has passed a revolutionary judgment for women, girls and children. The court should be congratulated for that,” said Biti, who is also opposition PDP leader.

“I am very pleased to be part of this great history. Parliament should have done this 36 years ago. It has taken a bold decision by a bold court. Marriages before 18 years are no longer possible. This is a revolutionary ruling since the birth of the Constitutional Court in 2013.”

The application was jointly sponsored by ZLHR and Veritas, a local NGO with interest on legal issues.

The Zimbabwe Mail

12 January 2016

Harare – Twenty police officers were taken in for questioning last week in cash-starved Zimbabwe for complaining over WhatsApp that they hadn’t been paid, it was reported Monday.
whatsapp

The state-controlled Chronicle and Herald newspapers said three officers were still assisting police with investigations.

The officers, from Bindura in northern Zimbabwe, were detained on Wednesday after comments were allegedly posted to their WhatsApp chat group about the delay in payments.

The comments made were “in bad taste” and were meant to undermine President Robert Mugabe’s government and possibly incite unrest among civil servants, the Chronicle said.

Mugabe’s government struggled to pay its tens of thousands of civil servants last month, paying teachers late and only depositing salaries for nurses and doctors in early January.

For the first time, public sector workers did not get additional 13th month cheques or “bonuses”, as has been the custom for many years.

The longtime president, who turns 92 next month, insisted last year that the bonuses would be paid, contradicting an announcement from his finance minister Patrick Chinamasa in April.

Chinamasa now appears to have accurately predicted the challenges the authorities would face in raising the cash.

Many private companies in Zimbabwe did not pay bonuses in 2015.

Treasury uses most of the revenue it collects to pay civil servants. But revenues have steadily shrunk on the back of company closures and the lack of desperately-needed foreign direct investment.

Critics and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change say a black economic empowerment law — known in Zimbabwe as the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act — scares away investors in the wake of Mugabe’s land reforms, which saw up to 4,000 white farmers forced to leave farms.

Chinamasa tried to water down the regulations late in December, but his efforts were spectacularly nullified a few days later by Mugabe’s nephew, Indigenisation Minister Patrick Zhuwao, who instead announced a toughening up of the laws.

The police officers appear to have been shipped by other members of the Whatsapp chat group, as often happens in politically-divided Zimbabwe.

The three who are “still assisting with investigations” are being seen as the ringleaders of the group and could be charged under Zimbabwe’s Police Act, the newspapers said.

There is a suggestion they could lose their jobs.

“The matter [is] being handled by CID Law and Order in Bindura and the three officers are still assisting with investigations,” the Chronicle said.

Analyst Jeffrey Smith of the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights in Washington told News24 the detentions were evidence of “an increasingly paranoid regime.”

“There is deepening dissatisfaction in the country, and authorities are going to unsettling lengths to silence rightful criticism, including the jailing of both state and independent journalists,” he said in an interview.

“This is a self-induced tailspin,” Smith added.

Former education minister David Coltart, who is a member of the opposition, tweeted that the detentions were “signs of panic”.

With Zimbabweans wondering on social media how the government will pay civil servants in the coming months, the government is desperately trying to find ways of raising revenue. Fines for road infractions have been increased five-fold, while travellers have had the amount of goods they’re allowed to bring into Zimbabwe without paying duty cut by a third.

Informal sector workers – small-scale businesspeople, car repairers, used clothes merchants, food sellers and many others – are unhappy with plans to extract taxes from them.

The sector is estimated to employ at least 80 percent of the southern African country’s workers.

State-run media insist that 2016 will be a good year, with the Sunday Mail reporting in its latest edition that it would be a “year of economic boom”.

Government officials still mostly attribute Zimbabwe’s problems to sanctions they say were illegally imposed on Zimbabwe in the wake of the land reform programme.

The Chronicle

11 January 2016

ZIMBABWE – ZANU-PF and war veterans yesterday blasted MDC senior member David Coltart for his “reckless” utterances that President Robert Mugabe must apologise for the Gukurahundi disturbances.
Coltart told the Daily News yesterday that President Mugabe must apologise as Zimbabweans were a forgiving people.

His sentiments torched a storm among those who fought for the country’s liberation.

Zanu-PF national spokesperson Cde Simon Khaya- Moyo said Coltart could be suffering from memory loss as President Mugabe had spoken about the issue in the past. “He (President Mugabe) has made his statement very clear that it was a moment of madness. What more does he want him to do? I don’t understand what he’s speaking about. The President doesn’t have to talk about it. Doesn’t he read English? If so we can provide him with vernacular books maybe he can understand,” said Cde Khaya-Moyo.

War veterans’ council of elders’ member Cde George Mlala took a swipe at Coltart saying the wounds white colonialists inflicted on blacks are still too fresh to forget. Cde Mlala said Coltart was a policeman before independence and was deployed in its anti-terrorism section that was responsible for the indescribable massacres of thousands of blacks. “David Coltart isn’t the right person to ask President Mugabe to ask for forgiveness. He belonged to the British South African police anti-terrorist unit, the notorious police who went around killing innocent people trying to coerce them to denounce freedom fighters,” said Cde Mlala. He said so brutal was Coltart’s unit that it could rip open pregnant women’s bellies just to instil fear among blacks so that they do not support the liberation war.

Cde Mlala said it was an insult to the country to have people like Coltart making noise in matters that do not concern them just to remain politically relevant. He said Coltart pretends to forget yet he should be the one apologising for the untold suffering that he personally, the unit he worked for and the Rhodesian regime he loyally served, caused to thousands of Zimbabweans. “We don’t expect this from a man like him, a lawyer, and a historian to be forgetting this quickly. I find it confusing that it’s 35 years but he has forgotten. I witnessed some of these things. I saw people being massacred. I’m a war veteran. People were being killed for supporting us, they were even killed for giving us food or identifying our footprints,” said Cde Mlala.

Acting President Phelekezela Mphoko recently explained that the disturbances that happened in Matabeleland region and Midlands were a Western engineered conspiracy. He said Zimbabweans were being misinformed on the Gukurahundi narrative to blame their leaders. “Information we have is that the Americans, the British, the South Africans and Rhodesians … (decided) ‘we need to find a solution to contain the situation’. So they came up with a … buffer zone in Mozambique and Angola to stop ANC from both sides; to stop ANC and the Patriotic Front forces on this side. They created — in Mozambique — Renamo, which was heavily supported by South African military intelligence. And they created Unita in Angola,” he said.

“Come Zimbabwe becomes independent: South Africans get the same threat now. Zimbabwe is independent; the front is open. So what do they do? They create — from a myth, from nothing: ‘Ah, Zapu wants to overthrow you (the Zanu Government)’. (This was) in order to justify, to create something. So that’s what happened. So the Gukurahundi after the war had nothing to do with (President) Mugabe — nothing! That’s a fact. People can say what they want, but that was a Western conspiracy.”

The Daily News on Sunday

By Jeffrey Muvundusi

10 January 2016

BULAWAYO – President Robert Mugabe has been advised to apologise for the Gukurahundi massacres of the early 1980s that left an estimated 20 000 people dead mainly in Matabeleland and the Midlands.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily News on Sunday at the weekend, respected politician and former education minister in the government of national unity David Coltart said if the increasingly frail nonagenarian did not take this important step, he would never find peace.

Coltart said it was not too late for Mugabe to deal with the emotive issue that had not been addressed for the past three decades, leaving many people angry and bitter.

“The wonderful fact about God’s grace is that God is always prepared to forgive our transgressions if we admit them and ask for forgiveness. The same applies to (Robert) Mugabe and all the perpetrators of the Gukurahundi.

“In addition, I have found that the people of Zimbabwe are remarkably forgiving. The vast majority have forgiven whites for the transgressions of racial discrimination and the horrors of the 1970s war, and I have no doubt that a similar attitude will be demonstrated if Mugabe apologised,” he said.

However, for this to happen, Mugabe needed to ask for forgiveness in a genuine way, a move that Coltart said needed to be accompanied by an attempt to redress the wrongs of the past, in particular the marginalisation of some areas and regions.

“The government must acknowledge that what happened happened, namely that thousands of innocent Zimbabweans were killed unlawfully in cold blood.
“Those responsible for these atrocities should ask for forgiveness from the surviving victims of this sad chapter of our history,” he said.

The closest that Mugabe has come to apologising for the massacres was when he described Gukurahundi as “a moment of madness”, something critics say was not adequate and lacked sincerity.

Coltart said Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF party should also announce programmes to “correct the injustices through communal reparations” that could be repaid “in the form of construction of roads, hospitals, clinics and schools in the affected areas”.

He said measures should also be introduced to ensure that the remains of those still lying in mass graves are exhumed, identified, returned to their families and reburied at government expense.

“The history of what happened should be included in the educational curriculum so that future generations learn about what happened and its lessons so that we never repeat these horrors again.

“Laws should be introduced to ensure that some people, who for example still can’t get birth certificates, should have their rights respected,” he sad.

The former Cabinet minister said the only way for Zimbabwe to have meaningful and everlasting peace was through confronting the past.

“There remains thousands of victims of Gukurahundi whose rights are still denied. The failure to address this blot on our history continues to fester.

“We will never know real reconciliation and peace in our country until we confront our past, not just regarding the Gukurahundi but also the 1970s war.
“It is important that these sad chapters be closed so that the nation moves forward.

“This is not a case of reopening healed wounds, but a case of healing wounds which still rot and fester just below the surface,” he added.

Recently, Zanu PF elder Cephas Msipa penned a book that set the cat among the pigeons within the ruling party and government circles, as it raised questions around Gukurahundi and Mugabe’s reluctance to ask for forgiveness.

In the incisive book titled In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice: A Memoir, Msipa — a close ally of Mugabe — dismissed the official massaging of narratives on the Gukurahundi atrocities as “a moment of madness”, saying as the massacres happened over a period spanning more than five years, and they could not therefore be described as such.

The Standard

By Tatenda Chitagu

3 January 2016

On New Year’s Eve, Regai Mutunhu paced up and down her maize field aimlessly in the scorching heat, looking up to the skies, hoping for a miracle.

Mutunhu has been praying that the rains may fall in the next few days to save her knee-level crop that has succumbed to the prolonged dry spell.
The euphoria that characterised the coming in of 2016 could not lift her spirits.

“Not this year again,” she said, her face betraying the fear and uncertainty deep down in the mother of three, hailing from Masvingo south communal lands.

“It has been almost 10 years since we last had a bumper harvest,” she said.

“Last year, it was a mixed bag — some got a little from the fields which did not last them to the next farming season, while others like me literally got nothing.

“This time around, we thought our fortunes would change for the better, but with the look of things, it seems we are again headed for disaster because of the erratic rains we have received so far.”

She said they had to contend with having a basic meal once or twice a day because of the food shortages spawned by a ravaging drought in the last farming season.

Regai is not the only communal farmer in such a precarious predicament as hundreds others are staring starvation in the face.

The prolonged dry spell that has hit Masvingo province for the past weeks has led to moisture stress, resulting in most crops wilting.

Most affected areas are Gutu, Chivi, Bikita, Zaka, Chiredzi and Mwenezi.

In Chivi, an arid district which hardly receives good harvests, Grace Murombeni said she had almost given up on rain-fed agriculture as it has failed since time immemorial.

“I had planted well just like others after struggling to raise money to buy maize seed,” she said.

“The germination was not so good and I do not have money to buy another seed. I see that as a waste of money since the crops are almost wilting.”

Department of Agriculture and Rural extension (Arex) provincial agronomist, Sabina Chaduka could not be reached to provide an update on the state of affairs with regards to crops in the province.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation deputy minister, Davies Marapira could also not be reached for a comment as his mobile phone was switched off.

However, an Arex official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said if the rains did not fall in the next week, most crops would be a write-off.

“The situation is not very pleasing. Most crops are experiencing moisture stress and have wilted, although they are not yet a write-off. But if the situation persists for a week, we will be doomed,” he said.

Chief Mudavanhu Mugabe said the situation in his area would be precarious if the rains did not fall soon.

“The crops have not yet wilted as such, but they are succumbing slowly to moisture stress and the rains are needed like yesterday,” he said.

Chief Mawere of Gutu said the crop situation in his area was dire.

“We need the rains soon if we are to have any hopes of a better harvest. Hunger is stalking us again,” he said.

Last year in Save Valley, Chiredzi, villagers said they were surviving on baobab porridge.

Acute food shortages in the province also saw the Tshangani communities in Masvingo Province suspending their annual mass circumcision rites last year. The ceremony is usually performed in winter.

The World Food Programme (WFP) recently announced that about 1, 5 million Zimbabweans needed urgent food aid due to the famine.

In Chiredzi, WFP gave 22 885 families food rations up to December and said it would increase the number in January to March this year, which is the highest food deficit period.

Masvingo province is susceptible to drought and many communal farmers have been facing food shortages for the past decade, making them perennial candidates for food hand-outs.

The drought has been blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon, which results in high temperatures and low rainfall in most parts of Africa.

Zimbabwe is likely to receive below normal rainfall but Masvingo, Matabeleland and Midlands are likely to be the hardest hit.
According to a weather forecast issued by the Meteorological Services Department of Zimbabwe yesterday, the ongoing dry spell is set to stretch beyond mid-January.

Former Education minister David Coltart last week used social media to urge government to put in place measures to mitigate against the potentially devastating drought.

“Since posting yesterday on the drought situation in Matabeleland, I have driven from Bulawayo to Harare, a route which used to be the agricultural heartland of Zimbabwe,” Coltart wrote on Facebook.

“I now feel that the situation is even more desperate than when I wrote yesterday because there are hardly any crops planted along this entire route. In other words, my fears that this is a problem which extends beyond Matabeleland have been realised.”

The MDC secretary for legal affairs expressed disappointment over the death of commercial agriculture, saying it would compound the effects of the drought.

“Even farms which a few years ago had crops are now lying fallow,” he added.

“The huge irrigation farms between Norton and Harare have mere scatterings of crops; the maize crops — at the end of December — which have been planted are generally pathetic.

“Most were no more than six inches tall, which equates to drastically reduced yields.

“Agricultural experts teach that maize crops need to be planted by the 25th of November to obtain optimal yields — it is clear that even where there are crops they have been planted well after this date.”

He said most farms seized under President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme were not being utilised.

“What profoundly shocked me is that many of the farms which have been taken over by Zanu PF chefs, and which up until recently were still being farmed, are also now lying fallow,” Coltart said.

“This would appear to indicate that even those who are well-connected have either run out of money or ideas. This is a national crisis of unprecedented proportions.”

Last week, millers said the country only had 240 000 tonnes of maize left for both human and animal consumption.

Zimbabwe needs about 1,8 million tonnes of maize every year and the collapse of the agriculture sector has seen the country relying more on imports.

E-NCA

31 December 2015

HARARE ‑ The Zimbabwean government is battling to pay the bulk of its civil service as the country’s economy continues to flounder.

In the recent past, the civil service could always expect to be paid salaries on time – with even the prospect of a 13th cheque – but that has not been the case this year.

Finance and economic development minister Patrick Chinamasa this week said: “Treasury advises that the December 2015 salary payment date for the education sector is being moved from December 28, 2015 [Monday], to December 29, 2015 [Tuesday].

“Furthermore, Treasury advises that the December 2015 salary payment date for the rest of the public service is also being moved from December 29, 2015, to January 5, 2015.Treasury sincerely regrets all the inconveniences caused.”

Lately, the taxman, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), has been coming down hard on companies to remit taxes on time in a bid to secure money to help pay the civil service bill.

Chinamasa told Senate last week that he had ordered all revenue collecting institutions to open accounts with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by the end of January.

But Zimbabwean teachers have threatened unspecified action in the coming year over the salaries and bonus discords.

The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) secretary-general John Mlilo said following a meeting they had held with stakeholders last week, that teachers would not be responsible for any actions they take in the coming year, with there being talk of industrial action.

He said uncertainty about the December 2015 bonus pay dates and reluctance by the government to uphold and act on the promise made by President Robert Mugabe that all civil servants would get bonuses were some of the contributing factors to their grievances.

Mlilo said a further aggravation was the intention of government to introduce further deductions in the form of national health schemes and maternity schemes on educators’ meagre earnings, “a thing that has been totally rejected, as the existing meagre incomes cannot sustain any more deductions”.

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association (ZHDA) described the situation as “a circus”, saying they were greatly saddened by the latest developments.

“The ZDHA maintains that the ill treatment by the employer through uncertain pay dates and violation of contractual obligations is a violation of the labour laws of this country and is also grossly inhumane and insensitive. The shifting of paydays and bonus payment for health workers . . . is a resemblance of the greatest acceptance of failure by the responsible authorities,” ZHDA said.

The association threatened a nationwide strike if their salaries have not been by December 31, saying “No December salary, no 2015 bonus, no free doctor”.

Former Education minister David Coltart has called for Mugabe to cut short his holiday in the Far East and return home “to sort this mess”.

He said Mugabe could not afford to be on holiday while Zimbabwe was burning, with civil servants unpaid and hunger stalking most communities.

During his Independence Day speech in April, Mugabe declared that civil servants would get their bonuses, this barely a week after Chinamasa had said he had suspended the 13th cheque for 2015 and 2016 owing to a liquidity crunch.

“I want to make it clear that the report which was in the newspapers that bonuses were being withdrawn is not government policy,” Mugabe said back then.

“The Cabinet did not approve that at all and the Presidency was never consulted on the matter. We were never consulted the three of us, that is myself and the two Vice-Presidents [Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko] and we say that is disgusting to us and it will never be implemented at all.”

Chinamasa is now currently under pressure to raise the money.

Reports suggest public service minister Prisca Mupfumira has since clashed with the Treasury chief, following the shifting of payment dates.

Mupfumira has also said there was nothing as yet to brief the Apex Council ‑ the civil service umbrella body ‑ because “the government does not have the money [to pay]”.