Perpetua Murungweni

Parents in Masvingo who attended the curriculum review consultations organized by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) have rejected the implementation of Continuous Assessment of Learning Activities (CALAs) demanding that government should provide enough resources in schools for kids to do partake in the programme.
CALAs are part of a revolution from the old knowledge-based final examinations model to a competence-based exit profile evaluation for Grade Seven, Ordinary Level and Advanced Level learners introduced in 2015.
During the curriculum review consultations held on May 23 and 24, 2023, parents and guardians at Mucheke High school said CALAs were poorly implemented by government as parents cannot afford resources required for the learning activities.
“As parents, we do not want CALAs in schools because we cannot afford the resources that are needed for the programmes to be done. We can only accept CALAs if government provides resources in schools.
“If government does not issue resources in every school what it means is the CALA is exclusive to learners from little income families who could not afford it, contrary to its principle of inclusivity,” said Fungai Taruberekera.
Another parent at Don Bosco Primary School said that parents don’t want cala because it’s very expensive to parents and guardians, who have to pay money for every cala project that the kids are doing.
“After paying school fees we have to pay money for every Cala project that our children are doing because, we don’t have the resources at home and its very expensive,” said Brighton Shava.
Shava also said that most of the learners are benefiting nothing from the cala because most is the work is being done by the parents due to lack of resources.
“We don’t want the cala as most of our kids are not benefiting from it due to lack of resources, in most cases we end doing the research on behalf of our kids maybe at work where we can access the internet or at our friends’ home,”

…262 schools yet to be registered

Beverly Bizeki

The Human Capital Development department with Masvingo Provincial Development Committee (PDC) has revealed that the province registered seven schools during the first quarter of the year 2023 with 90 percent of the 262 satellite schools in the province yet to be registered.
This was revealed by the committee chairperson Provincial Education Director Shylet Mhike Acting during a PDC meeting held at Civic Centre Hall in Masvingo on May 23, 2023.
“For the first quarter of 2023, we were only able to register seven schools all of which are private schools. We have 262 satellite schools of which 90percent do not meet registration requirements,” said Mhike.
Mhike also urged members of the PDC to engage parents in acquiring enough structures for the schools so as to qualify for the registration.
“We appeal to you to mobilize parents so that they can get enough structures so that we register these schools,” said Mhike.
Mhike also revealed that the department has failed to fulfill its school feeding programme as the ministry has not had grains required for it.
The department has also surpassed its targets in increasing the number of schools offering Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Grade 7 schools with the department enrolling 350 000 grade 7 learners surpassing the 300 000 target for the year.
Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Ezra Chadzamira who chaired the meeting urged the committee to focus on important projects and ensure that projects are completed before embarking on new ones.
Government through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) last embarked on a crackdown of illegally operating schools mainly in urban areas with some being closed for offering lessons without proper or no registration.

Champion Mudavanhu—Own Correspondent

Policy changes to promote innovation, public convenience, and build public trust in the local financial system have been highlighted as the much-needed panacea, particularly in countering the vibrant hawala-based informal money transfer system to channel more remittances revenue to the fiscus.
In simple terms, Hawala is a money exchange system that allows for an informal transfer of funds from one person to another without the actual movement of money, permitting anonymity as it requires no documentation.
An article published by this paper earlier this month proved how government is losing out on potential revenue in the form of both direct and indirect taxes through the operations of unregistered therefore unregulated money transfer companies that have established offices in all the country’s major cities and towns and in some growth points.
Several economic and financial luminaries reacted to the story, with policy change recommendations seemingly being the common ground in their arguments.
Local entrepreneur and CEO of Fresh-in-a-box, Kuda Musasiwa, argues that there is no practical way to stop the unregulated Hawala system.
“They can`t. as long as there is arbitrage and incentive to go around the system.” By definition, arbitrage is the practice of profiting from price discrepancies across marketplaces, where traders purchase the less expensive form of a currency, commodity, or assets that are valued differently on two different marketplaces,” Musasiwa said.
Financial expert and Chartered Accountant, Kudakwashe Mugova, who is based in South Africa, buttresses Musasiwa`s position and said these transactions are hard to control.
“I think cross border transactions are hard for us to control especially with the US$ as the medium of exchange in our economy,” Mugova said.
The same view is held by Great Zimbabwe University Munhumutapa School of Commerce Economics lecturer, Dr Talknice Saungweme, who highlighted the need for the government to make the formal financial transfer system more accessible and convenient.
“The first thing is to make the formal system more convenient. Any general person should be able to access the facilities, even in the rural areas. For the meantime, it is really difficult for a person in the rural areas to access it (money transfers), but if it`s done through the informal agencies, they will make sure the person gets their money,” Dr Saungweme said.
Dr Saungweme further suggested that government should make accommodations to be able to tap into the revenue stream of the informal money transfer sector.
“The government can avail facilities through the banking system, or maybe even through the retailers (look at the South African system) where retailers have a part to play in the disbursement or in ensuring that the public have access to their monies. It is also important for the government to be as flexible as possible, to have as many players as options for people, and then just tie-up the loose ends, making sure that every cent that comes into the system is accounted for,” he added.
This view was seconded by Mugova who added that Zimbabwe does not have enough control due to lacking of banking infrastructure.
“We don’t have enough banking infrastructure to control it. It`s not like in SA where the regulator has strong institutional controls,” he added.
Dr Saungweme added that the current interest and tax regimes need to be reviewed and aligned with reality if the formal system is to gain any market share controlled by the informal sector which charges below the formal 10percent.
He argues that the government needed to work with the law of numbers to try and attract as many people as possible so that even if it charges little amounts they still turn out substantial because of the numbers.
South African based economic and political analyst, Kudzai Mtisi, said that it is difficult to regulate the operations of the unregistered money transfer agents, or to prosecute the perpetrators using the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Act [22:15], the National Payment Systems (NPS) Act [22:43], and the Exchange Control (EC) Act [22:05].
“The major challenge is the corruption of the law enforcers. These people unregistered money transfer operators are known,” he said.
Mtisi said the government needs to consider why the people who use the informal system do so in order to come up with a meaningful position.
“The starting point is knowing why individuals choose these folks (unregistered agents) over the registered one. That will help in addressing the issue.”
“It should be more of an information campaign rather than a law enforcement blitz. It’s about discouraging people from using unregistered agencies. In many countries, government departments run adverts warning people about using unregistered agencies. At least with registered agencies, you are guaranteed that your money is safe. We need to be a nation that provides information in ways that provide easy access. A simple google search should give a list of registered agencies. We should warn people through marketing campaigns. No hardball approach,”Mutisi said.
Dr Saungweme was however tentative on being asked if he would recommend regularizing the Hawala system as an issue of policy.
“When we talk of policy, it`s not something that the government can just use opinions, it should be tested. There is need for a thorough investigation into the system before we can then say we are going to adopt it and use it. It depends with our structure, the depth of our financial system and other supporting systems that can then make it function efficiently. I recommend we study the system first,” Dr Saungweme said.
The RBZ public relations department did not respond despite asking for questions in writing. Follow-up phone calls were made to the PR department, and they indicated that they were waiting for response and clearance from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Exchange Control Unit, and then ended up not picking up calls.
Similarly, ZIMRA PR were responsive initially and asked for a formal email request which was sent. They indicated that they were waiting for an appropriate response from the relevant department that deals with revenue collection in the case of financial institutions.

(This story was written with support from the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) Investigative Journalism fund.)

TellZim Reporter

Civil Society Organization Adolescent Girls and Women Rights Forum has embarked on a drive to combat misinformation and spreading of rumours that have taken centre stage following the recent spike in Cholera cases in Masvingo province.
AGWRF director Priscilla Mafa confirmed the news adding that the organization has been doing rounds gathering information regarding false narratives pointing to Cholera in mining areas around Masvingo district with the aim of correcting the problem.
“AGWRF has been moving around gathering information (rumours) surrounding Cholera in Masvingo district with the objective of combating misinformation through dissemination of facts about the disease.
“The organization through Internews’ Rooted in Trust (2.0) local acceleration project is moving in mining communities around the district conducting community listening meetings on misinformation around the disease and other topical health issues,” said Mafa.
She also added that the implementation of the programmes would be done through both online and physical sessions with online having commenced last week while physical are set for May 29 onwards.
“We conduct focus group discussions with women and adolescent girls
in Masvingo Urban and mining communities which include Mashava, KwaSteven and Bhuka. The implementation commenced last week (online) and will be continued from May 29 (physically).
“The main idea behind the project is curbing misinformation trough gathering rumours around Cholera and other health issues before creating content which we will share on various platforms. On the content, we identify the rumour and provide the fact while we will also do films on the activities,” added Mafa.
Misinformation has been a major undoing fuelling the spread of diseases in the country especially in times pandemics like Cholera, Covid-19, HIV and AIDS among other diseases as rumour mongering takes centre stage making it difficult in some cases to handle and control the spread of the diseases.

….PAP throws weight behind #AfricaEducatesHer campaign

Brighton Chiseva

MIDRAND – As the effects of Covid -19 pandemic still linger in Africa, its ravaging effects impacted a lot of girls especially on the education front where more than 30 million girls have been forced out school.
The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) has vowed to support the African Union (AU) International Centre for Girls and Women’s Education in Africa (CIEFFA) on its campaign, #AfricaEducatesHer.
PAP declared its support after receiving the shocking statistics by CIEFFA during a day’s workshop which indicated that a total number of 32.6 million girls from both primary and secondary schools were send out of school by the effects of the global pandemic.
The workshop was running under the theme: Contribution of Pan African Parliamentarians for National Implementation of the AfricaEducatesHer Campaign to create legislation to ensure learning opportunities in post Covid-19 for girls.
Giving her presentation at the workshop, the AU CIEFFA Acting Coordinator Simone Yankey-Ouattara said there are 32.6 million girls out of school and close to 10 million are likely not to return to school.
“There are 32.6 million out of school girls both in primary and secondary schools and 9.3 million of them are likely never to set foot in school again,” said Yankey-Ouattara.
PAP Chairperson of the Committee on Education, Amina Abdou Souna said the purpose of the workshop was to give a platform to suggest and implement solutions to the effects of Covid-19 on girl learners.
“This meeting is meant to find lasting solutions to issues affecting young girls and since the pandemic started, girls have been immensely affected. Statistics show that 11 million girls are unable to go to school as a result of this pandemic, so it is our duty as parliamentarians to see to it that we have results,” said Souna.
PAP President Chief Fortune Charumbira said it was the duty of the parliamentarians to make sure that their respective countries are implementing the Dakar Declaration of Education For All (EFA) which is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults.
“It is our duty to oversee that our countries are implementing the Dakar declaration, what member states have done, if they have moved, to what extend. We should pass laws in our national budgets when we pass them; we have to make sure the budgets cater for the education of girls and young women’s education.
“By doing that, we will be promoting the AfricaEducatesHer campaign. We as PAP are happy to say we are part of this campaign in full,” said Charumbira.
He went on to say every parliamentarian will have to introduce the campaign to his own parliament and said as PAP they were modelling a law on gender equality under which #AfricaEducatesHer automatically falls.
“As PAP, I am proud to say that we are currently developing a model law on gender equality which includes #AfricaEducatesHer,” said Charumbira.

…FLOAAI defies High Court order, continues selling undeveloped land
…As Chiredzi Rural District Council moves to nullify development contract with FLOAAI

Beatific Gumbwanda

CHIREDZI-Teachers affiliated to teacher union Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) were recently at loggerheads with Full Life Open Arms Africa Investment (FLOAAI), a land developer in Chiredzi who they accused of illicitly selling tracts of undeveloped land without prior knowledge of the beneficiaries, Chiredzi Town and Rural District Councils.
The sales are allegedly continuing despite Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association’s High Court order to stop them from selling the land.
Last weekend, more than 200 teachers from Zaka, Mwenezi and Gutu stormed FLOAAI offices at Croco Motors here to be shown their stands, which was manually done without proper documentation indicating stand number and name of the bearer, like what local authorities do by giving offer letters.
Chiredzi Rural District Council (CRDC), together with Chiredzi West Member of Parliament Farai Musikavanhu have been at loggerheads with FLOAAI Director Pastor Godfrey Nelson Madanyaya over corruption involving the development and sale of the 750 ha.
Reports are that the local authority has taken a bold stance to terminate contractual agreements with FLOAAI after it breached their Memorandum of Agreement through a resolution passed from the last full council meeting held last week.
On April 27, Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association (CHIRRA) through their lawyers, Chadyiwa and Associates filed a Court Application for an interdict through the High Court of Masvingo to stop FLOAAI from selling the remainder of Buffalo Range unserviced stands.
FLOAAI is the First respondent while Chiredzi Town and Rural District Councils are second and third respondents respectively.
In their founding affidavit, CHIRRA Chairperson, Jonathan Muusha stated that the 1st respondent be interdicted from selling unserviced land on the 750 ha jointly owned by the two councils.
“To have the 1st Respondent interdicted from selling unserviced stands on a piece of land commonly called the 750 ha Buffalo Range project which was given to the 2nd and 3rd respondents by the government.
“I am advised, which advise I take to be correct that in terms of section 39 of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act, it is unlawful to enter into agreements of sale over unsubdivided and unserviced land,” read Muusha’s affidavit.
Emmanuel Matimba, another resident and member of CHIRRA stated in an affidavit that the land should be properly managed by the two local authorities in order to achieve the intended objective.
“I firmly believe that the Buffalo Range project, which has 750 hectares of unserviced land meant for the expansion, growth and development of the two local authorities should be properly managed and utilized so that its intended objective is achieved.
“The selling of unserviced stands on the project is both illegal and counter development. There is no guarantee that once the stands are sold, the developer will proceed to service the stands,” read Matimba’s affidavit.
Desperate Chiredzi home seekers are paying a non-refundable fee of US$ 50 whilst the stands are being sold at US$ 20.61 per m2. A deposit of US$ 1 500 is expected to be paid then the remaining can be paid as instalments.
Madanyaya’s list of beneficiaries have accrued to more than a thousand people, teachers excluded as they are contributing directly through the Governments Salary Service Bureau.
FLOAAI was in 2018 given the tender to do feasibility study and develop 750 hectares of land which is jointly owned by Chiredzi Rural District Council and Chiredzi Town Council earmarked for urban expansion.
This was done during a few months when the local authorities were run by special commissions appointed by Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo after the 2018 harmonized elections.