The Herald

7th February 2014

By Augustine Hwata Senior Sports Reporter

THE Zimbabwe Cricket leadership concede that they are guiding their ship through turbulent waters — with the baggage of a huge debt weighing down heavily on the game — but they remain bullish they will weather the storm and guard jealously the country’s Test status.
Domestic cricket has just emerged from a boardroom battle between players and the ZC, which paralysed the domestic game on all fronts, with the players going on strike to press for the payment of outstanding salaries that the association had failed to meet.

Yesterday, the ZC leadership appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture to present evidence on the state of the second biggest sporting franchise in the country, with the cricket body represented by its chairman Peter Chingoka, vice-chairman Wilson Manase and managing director, Wilfred Mukondiwa.

The ZC leaders insist that their game has been the sporting victim of the political standoff between Zimbabwe and some Western countries and domestic cricket has accumulated massive losses, running in excess of US$30 million in projected earnings, from box-office tours, involving cricket heavyweights England and Australia, which did not go ahead here as scheduled.

Australia and England national teams have not toured Zimbabwe since 2004, for political reasons, and based on the ICC Future Tours principle of reciprocity, the two heavyweight nations, who come with huge television rights earnings, haven’t been to this country on cricket tours four times each.

With one England incoming tour to Zimbabwe grossing about US$5 million for ZC and an Australian incoming tour generating around US$3 million, it means that England’s failure to tour has cost the local cricket organisation about US$20 million and the Aussie no-show has cost them about US$12 million.

If all tours had gone according to schedule, without falling victim to the politics that have kept England and Australia away from this country, the Zimbabwe Cricket leadership believe they would have earned enough money to cover their operational costs and dissolve their debts, which sit at about US$18 million, with enough remaining in their coffers to fund their development programmes.

Yesterday, the ZC leaders reiterated, during their appearance in parliament, that a shadowy racist underworld force, which has been fighting them since they started spreading a game that used to be an elite sporting discipline for just a few players, was still working at full throttle.

Manase, who is a prominent lawyer, claimed there was a powerful pocket of white people who are were still not happy to see the integration that has taken place in Zimbabwe Cricket and said they could see a number of shadows that were working against their project.

“At the team level, there are youngsters who play cricket and, left to them alone, I do not think that we have a problem,” Manase told the parliamentarians.

“The problem is the unseen hand from the elders who still have the hangover from the past period and now come to interfere in the administration and the players.

“They come in and they want to control the strings from the back, yearning for those years when cricket was predominantly played by white people.

“So it’s not as though the players themselves are racists, but you find the unseen hand of elders, who are refusing to shake off the hangover, are the ones who are stirring the pot of racism and this why we said they should put their hands off cricket.

“There are the ones who demonise the administration and they are happy when a white player says, ‘I am leaving Zimbabwe Cricket and I am going to play county cricket in England.’ They say you will come back when times get better, what better times if you are truly Zimbabwean?”

Manase said the public stand-off between former Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, David Coltart, and ZC convener of selectors, Givemore Makoni, was just an example of the frosty relationship that still exists between black administrators in cricket and some white leaders.

“If you read papers last year, there was a very big debate on the eligibility of Givemore Makoni as the convener of selectors. There was a big argument because the (former) Minister of Sport (David Coltart) had given a directive to the SRC to say that we needed a person who has done this and this,” said Manase.

“That in any way could have guaranteed that a white person would have taken that position.
“We, as Zimbabwe Cricket, have made our choice with Givemore Makoni. That was the first time that I saw the media in Zimbabwe — private and public — coming together to defend a position without coercion and that meant Givemore Makoni remained as the convener of selectors.

“So we are trying to have the people who have experience go into these positions but we are not, in our perception of issues, racist.
“We look at who the coach is, and who the captain should be, on best talent.”

The ZC leaders said they have lived through a storm of repeated allegations that they were abusing funds but, surprisingly, endless audits have been done on their finances, with none showing abuse, and that is why they are still eligible to receive funding from the International Cricket Council.

ZC said they were set to get a tranche of funds that will enable the organisation to pay what it owes to their players and coaching staff by the end of next week.

The ZC also say they are battling to bring down their operational costs from as high as US$900 000 a month to about US$300 000 a month.

ZC chairman Chingoka told the MPs that lack of resources had been their major setback.
“Our dream as Zimbabwe Cricket was to see every potential player being able to play the game of cricket but funding has been a major constrain,” said Chingoka.

“The equipment is sometimes expensive but you have heard of players like Tendai Chatara and Brian Vitori who are now professionals and they came through these programmes.”

ZC also appealed to MPs to look into the issue of duty on sporting equipment as well as creating a Sport Fund through the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Lotto licences.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, Temba Mliswa, challenged ZC to prove that racism still existed in the sport yet the entire ZC leadership was made of black people.

“Stephen Mangongo has been the deputy national coach for how long? It’s either he is not good enough to be the national coach and you find someone else to be deputy who will then take over since there is going to be some transition,” said Mliswa.

“The last time you went and took a coach from England and the black coach (Mangongo) was under studying and you still bring another coach and this black coach is still constantly understudying.

“It’s 34 years after Independence yet we still talk of racism, yet we have transformed the administration from white to being black. Blacks are now in control and who can we talk of racism now?”

SW Radio Africa

By Mthulisi Mathuthu

6th February 2014

The education of children with disabilities is in jeopardy after government suspended a special scheme that entitles them to free primary school education.

Reports Thursday said the secretary for the Social Welfare ministry, Ngoni Masoka, recently told his primary and secondary education colleagues of the development.

Called the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), the programme assists children from poor backgrounds with school fees. According to the department of social services there are one million children in the programme.

Last month director of social services, Sydney Mhishi, told parliament that his ministry received only $15 million for the special programme even though they had asked for a budget allocation of $73 million.

Mishi also revealed that Zimbabwe had approached the British government for help, a development which the Department for International Development confirmed.

But around the same time former education minister David Coltart raised concern over the lack of transparency and the partisan way in which the BEAM programme is managed.

Head of the Council of Social Workers, Philip Manyanye, said the government should ‘go down to basics’ and ensure that more funding goes towards children. He said if the government has no money it should be ‘honorable enough to revise its politics and approach the many organizations that are willing to help.’

Manyanye said he was ‘not surprised’ by lack of support for BEAM because the government has ‘no relationship with many institutions that could support the scheme.’

Manyanye, a senior social worker himself, said the effect of the suspension of the BEAM scheme stands to cause more social problems such as street children and child labour.

The decision by government to discontinue the BEAM scheme comes at a time when parliament is trying to tackle the broader problems of people living with disabilities. A Thursday NewsDay report said senators last week introduced a motion urging government to institute a national special needs policy and a law to deal with children with special needs.

New Zimbabwe

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/

28th January 2014

HARARE City football club chairman Leslie Gwindi has been found guilty on charges of bringing the game into disrepute by Zifa’s disciplinary committee.

Gwindi appeared before the committee on 20 December last year over allegations he verbally attacked Zifa, the Premier Soccer League (PSL), Delta Beverages who sponsor the league through their Castle Lager brand.

He is also said to have attacked former Warriors coach Klaus Dieter Pagels from Germany as well as the then minister of education, sports arts and culture David Coltart while addressing a Bulawayo Press Club last March.

The Harare City football club chair, who is also seeking to challenge incumbent Zifa president Cuthbert Dube in next month’s plebiscite, has however been found guilty of bringing the game of football into disrepute.

Gwindi, who had brought in former Zifa president Leo Mugabe and vice president Vincent Pamire and Motor Action Football club director Eric Rosen as witnesses admitted uttering the alleged comments but stressed that they were merely an expression of an opinion given in the spirit of trying to help improve the game.

He said the utterances complained of by Zifa were in line with the right conferred on him by the constitution of Zimbabwe to express an opinion, which opinion constituted a fair comment in light of the fact that Zifa, Delta, Pagels and Coltart were not sacred cows.

He argued they should accept criticism.

Phiri said he was eventually summoned to Delta where he was asked by the marketing director Max Karombo if PSL still wanted the Delta Sponsorship following the comments by Gwindi.

He stated that he had told the Delta executive that they still wanted the sponsorship and had apologized. He further stated that Delta wanted to know what action the PSL would take.

“Having gone through the evidence adduced in this matter, I am convinced that (Gwindi) used bad language likely to bring the game of football into disrepute. Accordingly, I find the respondent guilty as charged,” read part of the ruling by Wilbert Mandinde.

“They were a direct attack on the current Zifa board to which we heard evidence that the respondent contested in the last elections and lost. The next elections are due in March 2014.

“There is nothing we find in the press releases which was calculated to promote football. It is an insult to publish in a newspaper or newspapers that a coach who Zifa fortuitously found available to assist the national team would be labelled ‘a tourist who had come to Zimbabwe to enjoy the Victoria Falls’.

“That with respect is an insult and cannot qualify as a ‘fair comment’ because Pagels did not come to Zimbabwe as a tourist at all. And to suggest that the Zifa board has ‘no brains’ cannot be a ‘fair comment’.

“That is an insult directed at the mother body of football in this country. And that coming from a football administrator seeking glory through the press cannot be condoned. I agree that the utterances did or were likely to bring the game of football into disrepute.”

Newsday

28th January 2014

By Phillip Chidavaenzi

Senior Features Reporter

THE pricing out of school of almost a million pupils following international donors’ withdrawal of funding to the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam) speaks eloquently to how the programme has played a key role in turning around the fortunes of children from poor backgrounds.

The Zimbabwe government would only be able to support the education of 83 000 secondary school pupils after Beam was allocated just $15 million in the 2014 national budget.

Government had initially intended to fund 750 000 primary and 250 000 secondary school pupils this year and with the scarcity of resources, the targeted
167 000 secondary school pupils are going to miss out unless additional funding is secured.

Beam was conceived as part of the Enhanced Social Protection Project (ESPP), launched by the government in 2000 in response to “worsening social conditions in the country that were causing the poor to suffer deepening multiple shocks”, according to Nelson Marongwe of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences Trust in his 2007 report on the programme.

The “shocks” included escalating basic commodity prices, retrenchments and high unemployment rates, high drop outs of school children and high interest and inflation rates.

Labour and Social Welfare ministry Social Services director Sydney Mhishi recently told a parliamentary committee that the ministry had asked for a budget allocation of $73 million to cover Beam, but only received $15 million, just enough to pay for 83 000 children in need.

“We used to have a basket funding where (European Union) countries pooled resources and gave it to Unicef which would interface with our schools,” Mhishi said. “That fell off two years ago. Their argument was that primary education must be free and compulsory. The current circumstance is that there will be no free primary education.

“We still think DfID (Britain’s Department for International Development) might come again. If they don’t come, it means Government will have to look for the money.”

The module is a national programme implemented in the country’s 61 districts in both urban and rural areas. According to Marongwe: “Its main focus is the provision of educational assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children aged between 6-19 years. In brief, Beam targets children in school, but failing to pay fees, children who have dropped out of school and children who have never been to school. Its main support is in the form of payment of tuition fees, examination fees, building fund and school levies.”

In recent years, however, there have been calls for the overhaul of Beam owing to its failure to fulfill its objective, spelt out in the policy document as “to reduce the number of children dropping out, and reach out to children who have never been to school due to economic hardships . . . to prevent irreversible welfare losses for poor households who resort to perverse coping mechanisms, like withdrawing children from school in response to increasing poverty”.

On paper, the module remains a well-established framework implemented through community participation but has not been spared the devastation wrought by economic decline in the country and withdrawal of key funders.

Education Coalition of Zimbabwe national co-ordinator Maxwell Rafamoyo believes that the rate at which Beam is falling apart demands the need to implement the new constitutional provision of free primary education.

“The fact that there are a million children under Beam shows the extent of the need and right now, Beam is falling apart so there is need to look at other ways, such as free education. In terms of education, we are asking government to come in and make at least basic education accessible to all,” he said.

Statistics from the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare show that between 2002 and 2005, a total of 2 738 903 pupils benefited from the programme. Out of these, 1 384 298 were boys while 1 354 605 were girls.

Beam, however, has always been problematic, as noted by Marongwe who said: “Despite the existence of Beam and other educational initiatives, most of the pupils attending primary and secondary education remain self financing in terms of paying school fees, implying that their parents pay for their educational costs.

Thus in 2003 for instance, about 87% and 84% of primary and secondary schools were self-financing respectively.” He further noted that Beam was a national programme conceptualised with donor support as an important pillar for its successful implementation.

Former Education Minister David Coltart said it was clear that government had failed to provide basic education and Beam-related challenges were symptomatic of a bigger problem.

“The government is allocating insufficient funds to education and if we are to ensure that children at least get a primary education, this has to improve significantly. Beam is a symptom of a bigger problem,” Coltart said.

“It is underfunded and was devised a decade ago for a much stronger economy when there were far more people in formal employment than the current situation where a lot of people are poverty-stricken and can’t pay fees. The scheme simply can’t cope, and compounding the crisis is that donors have pulled out.”

The withdrawal of donors has consequently forced the government to fund the programme through public funds channeled through the national fiscus, but budgetary limitations have crippled its effective implementation.

From as far back as 2006, the number of children in need of educational support through Beam was on the ascent, exceeding the number that could be catered for by the programme. Studies have shown that there is no evidence of linkages between government’s implementation of Beam and various interventions supporting children to attend school spearheaded by non-governmental organisations.

Rafamoyo argued that Zimbabwe was endowed with precious minerals some of whose proceeds could be chanelled to funding education. “We are endowed with a lot of natural resources like diamonds. We can say for every carat sold a certain percentage goes to education,” he said.

“At the moment, over 90% of the budget allocation to education goes to salaries so we need to find other initiatives,” he said.

Coltart recommended that government re-aligns its budget allocations through cutting expenditure by reducing Cabinet size and reducing military spending and re-examining Beam’s administration to make it more transparent and effective.

SW Radio Africa

27 January 2014

By Nomalanga Moyo

The ZANU PF government has asked Britain to pay school fees for one million poor children who are on social welfare, according to British newspaper The Telegraph.

The request was submitted to Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), on the same week that schools re-opened for the new term.

A fortnight ago Sydney Mhishi, the director of social services, told legislators that the State had failed to pay fees for 750,000 poor children who are eligible under the Basic Education Assistance Model (BEAM) scheme.

Under the scheme, the State is supposed to pay fees for primary school children from poor families. Free primary education is also a constitutional right.

Mhishi said unless donors resumed funding the education sector, as they used to until last year, many children will miss out.

“We still think DFID might come again,” Mhishi said.

A DFID official has confirmed receiving the funding request from Zimbabwe.

“We received an initial request from the Zimbabwean Government and we are considering our response,” a DFID spokesman told the UK Telegraph on Friday.

Britain is among other western donors that have kept Zimbabwe’s social service institutions functioning since ZANU PF embarked on its ruinous policies in 1999.

To date, donors have provided 13 million textbooks, with Britain paying school fees for more than 300,000 poor children.

In November, former education minister David Coltart said at least 380,000 disadvantaged children were turned away from the BEAM scheme due to a shortage of funds.

Speaking to SW Radio Africa two weeks ago, Coltart also raised concerns over the lack of transparency and the partisan way in which the BEAM has been managed.

“If government commits itself to free basic education then we don’t need that bureaucracy because every child will be able to get a free education,” he added.

Coltart has on many occasions criticised the government’s lack of commitment to adequately fund the education sector in the last two decades.

This year, the ministry asked Treasury for $73 million to cover BEAM but only received $15 million.

Tuition fee for each disadvantaged child is $8 a term, which translates to $28 million for the 750,000 pupils.

The government says it has no money, despite stupendous salaries being paid to civil servants at the country’s parastatals.

Last week, the State-owned Herald newspaper reported that Cuthbert Dube, head of the Public Service Medical Aid Society earns $250,000 per month.

Dube’s salary is enough to pay fees for one term for 31,250 primary school pupils.

Head of the Harare-based Council of Social Workers Philip Manyanye, a social worker, said the government was showing itself to be inefficient and unable to protect children.

“Many of these children end up on the streets and this exposes them to exploitation. Some end up being accommodated at homes where they are abused.

“Primary education should by now be free as stipulated by our constitution but yet again they are failing in their duty of care,” Manyanye added.

With many of the country’s social programmes underfunded, it is not surprising that the country will keep going cap in hand to western donors for assistance.

Although ZANU PF government officials continue to aim potshots at the British government and claim the country does not need any western support, the majority of Zimbabweans have survived the past decade thanks to foreign assistance.

The Telegraph

24th January 2014

The Globe and Mail

20th January 2014

By Geoffrey York

It’s the biggest event to hit Zimbabwe in years. Within 10 hours of the announcement that Bryan Adams would be performing in Harare, every ticket was sold out – and at prices that most ordinary Zimbabweans could never afford.

The concert on Friday by the Canadian rock singer – the highest-profile Western star to visit the impoverished African country for many years – is being welcomed eagerly by many Zimbabweans who yearn for an end to their long isolation on the world stage. But some worry that it could also give legitimacy to Robert Mugabe, the autocratic President who has ruled the country for the past 34 years.

he Harper government is among those who might be less than happy with the Adams concert, though it has said little publicly. Last year, it boycotted a United Nations tourism conference in Zimbabwe, after questioning Mr. Mugabe’s latest claim of election victory. It has expressed “profound concerns” over human-rights violations in Zimbabwe and it has maintained sanctions on Mr. Mugabe and his inner circle despite the election results.

Some of Mr. Mugabe’s critics in Zimbabwe’s media and political circles are concerned that the Adams visit could give “comfort” to the Mugabe government. But the star’s handlers are dismissing the criticism.

“Bryan is an international artist with a worldwide audience, whether it is Pakistan or Vietnam or Zimbabwe,” said Bruce Allen, the long-time manager of the Canadian star, in an e-mail on Monday.

“To paraphrase what he has said over the course of his 30-plus year career, ‘Everywhere he goes, kids wanna rock.’ Music will, I hope, always remain a universal language.”

The latest Adams world tour was scheduled to arrive in South Africa this month, and his Zimbabwe show was added for Friday, a day before his first South African gig. All of the nearly 3,500 tickets at the Harare International Conference Centre were quickly snapped up, at prices ranging from $30 (U.S.) to $100.

“Zimbabweans have a real hunger for contact with the outside world,” said Petina Gappah, a Zimbabwean novelist.

International attempts to impose sanctions on the Mugabe government are failing, she said. “Isolation has not worked. I think engagement is the way to go.”

In fact, some governments – including the European Union – have reduced their sanctions on Zimbabwe in recent years. “There’s been a creeping normalization of relations,” said Brian Raftopoulos, a leading analyst of Zimbabwean politics. “There’s a slow movement toward re-engagement with Mugabe and his government.”

But some Zimbabweans are outraged by the Adams concert. “He’s creating a false comfort zone,” said Vince Musewe, a Zimbabwean newspaper columnist who believes the election last year was rigged.

“It’s inappropriate, and it’s not going to help. He could have contributed to transformation by refusing to perform. High-profile people should refuse to go to African countries where ordinary people are fighting their rulers.”

At a time of widespread poverty and unemployment in Zimbabwe, the Adams concert will only benefit the country’s elite, he said.

He compared it to a performance in Angola by American singer Mariah Carey, who was reportedly paid $1-million to perform for Angola’s authoritarian leader, José Eduardo dos Santos.

David Coltart, a human-rights lawyer and opposition leader who served as minister of education, arts and culture in a coalition cabinet in Zimbabwe from 2009 until last year, said he is “of two minds” about the Adams concert.

“On the one hand, it is good that he has come because that opens up political space, but I hope he comes with his eyes open and does not take a superficial view of what is going on,” he said. “There is no doubt that this will be a concert mainly attended by the elite.”

In the past, the Zimbabwean government has brought singers to Harare as “celebrity hosts” to promote tourism, but most were lesser-known performers, including Jamaican reggae singers.

On Monday, in response to the Bryan Adams concert, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said: “We will continue to work with the people of Zimbabwe to foster a more peaceful, democratic and prosperous future for all, one that respects the fundamental human rights of the Zimbabwean people. We hope that would be the goal for all those visiting Zimbabwe.”