…As reluctant parents/guardians take children for piece works on farms

Beatific Gumbwanda

CHIREDZI-Sugarcane Farmer Associations recently expressed dissatisfaction with farmers who are still contracting piece work jobs to passersby rather than employing permanent workers which they believe is slowly spearheading child labour on sugarcane farms.
Some reluctant parents/guardians are accused of bringing on board children to help them work on the fields.
In an interview Commercial Sugarcane Farmers Association of Zimbabwe’s (CSFAZ) outspoken chairperson Addmore Hwarare said they have employed stiffer measures to deal with farmers who are facilitating child labour in farms as close to eight people have been covertly employed to monitor operations in Mkwasine, Hippo Valley and Triangle.
“We are working hand in glove with Tongaat Huletts in order to maintain a free child labour environment from the out grower farmers. Anyone found breaching that will never ever deliver his/her produce to the miller (Tongaat Huletts) as we will immediately report that farmer to the police.
“We used to have challenges from villagers in the surrounding communities who come with children in guise that they will be playing alone but end up being given a small portion to weed,” said Hwarare.
He also indicated that the complexity of the industry requires farmers to have permanent employees who will get used to the matrix of sugarcane production than just giving a passerby work to do on the farm.
“The sugar industry is complicated in a way that it requires skilled people to be handling day to day field work including weeding, irrigating and spraying of herbicides, so we always encourage farmers to have permanent employees on site. We also have agents, about eight of them who are moving around monitoring, in covert, on where children might be working in the fields,” he added.
Zimbabwe Sugarcane Development Association of Zimbabwe (ZSDA) chairperson Elisha Tamirepi also expressed the same sentiments that they are working flat out in encouraging farmers to desist on relying from child labour.
“We are telling them at every meeting about that. But on the same vein, there is a challenge that mothers are taking children to do piece jobs on sugarcane farms, where you find children playing with extra hoes,” said Tamirepi.
Coalition Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe (CACLAZ) National Director Pascal Masocha indicated that they are planning on engagements with farmers in order to conscientise them on the negative effects of child labour.
“We are planning on meetings to have joint awareness campaigns to conscientise farming communities on the negative effects of child labor,” said Masocha.
Retired Colonel Dennis Masomere, former chairperson of Mkwasine Sugarcane Farmers Association said they worked flat out against the practice during his time at the association to the extent of printing T-shirts as part of advocacy.
“The subject was very much alive during my time to the extent of printing T-shirts as a campaign strategy,” said Masomere.
Though many sugarcane farmers benefitted from the Land Reform Programme some decades ago, they are still failing to transform farming into a business in order to maximize yields through having permanently recognized farm workers but rather hire villagers from surrounding areas with piece works which end up spearheading child labour.
With more than 51 400 hectares of land in the Lowveld under sugarcane farming, Tongaat Hulett currently holds an approximate of 26 986 hectares and close to 15 000 permanent employees who work on its fields as well as sugarcane mills, while approximately 1 200 small holder farmers operate around 20 414 hectares and employing less than 2 000 permanent employees as they mostly rely on piece job seekers who they pay with sugar and a few dollars.

Dr. Najib SOMOUE (Financial analyst and economic expert)

The post-Covid 19 world economic order will be characterized by the need to establish a solid and sustainable international cooperation framework.
The most successful economic development strategies will be those based on co-development and investment in regional value chains to accelerate the processes of economic wealth creation and restoration of growth parameters in key sectors of each economy.
Within this framework, Morocco has launched an economic recovery strategy, focused on the investment of more than US$12.3 and the creation of the Mohamed VI fund for strategic investment which aims to contribute to the financing of major investment projects and accompany them, at national and territorial levels, in partnerships with the private sector, and contribute through sectoral or thematic funds, to the capital of small and medium-sized enterprises.
According to Law No. 76-20, this fund will be responsible for supporting investment projects in areas deemed priorities by the Fund, through pragmatic and highly technical financial engineering in terms of monitoring and due diligence. In this same dynamic, Morocco has launched one of the best continental strategies for social protection. This program includes several components namely the generalization of compulsory health insurance, family allowances during the years 2023 and 2024, expansion of the membership base of pension schemes to include about five million people who are employed and do not receive any pension by 2025, and generalization of compensation for loss of employment during the year 2025 to cover anyone with a stable job.
These initiatives give an idea of the gigantic dimensions of Morocco’s new development framework and the will of his majesty King Mohamed VI to transform the mechanisms of economic growth and human development to ensure ascension of our country in the club of emerging countries and place our economy in the top 30 by 2035.
Morocco has a strategic vision to play an important role in the dynamics of free trade area on the African continent and aims to invest and strengthen logistic platforms especially in the southern regions of the country and the development of a diversified energy supply.
These orientations will allow the country to be an economic bridge between the African, European and American dynamics and to link the Chinese Silk Road project with a market of 1.3 billion consumers. This means that Morocco would be the strategic key to the Mediterranean value chain, and this position would be strengthened by the construction of the tunnel between Europe and Tangier in the north of Morocco.
The American recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara and the opening of an American consulate in Dakhla (southern Morocco), are a sign of confidence on the part of the world’s largest economic power. And in this framework, the United States is committed to invest US$5 billion in the Sahara region with a possibility of funding up to US$ 500 million for each American company that aims to position itself in the Sahara dynamics. This process will have positive effects on the economic performance of the region and will allow the development of several sectors of activity such as the Smart Cars sector, the metallization of “crypto-currency”, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), agro-industry, solar and maritime renewable energies, the maritime industry, biotechnology and several sectors of very high added value.
And to address the economic challenges of the Sahara region, Morocco launched in 2016 the Southern Provinces Development Model, which resulted in the strengthening of the regional business climate with investments that exceeded US$ 8 billion. The projects of this development model have allowed, for example to strengthen the road logistics axis from Stockholm-Abuja via El-Guergarate, develop the national mapping of ports with the launch of the construction of the port of Dakhla-Atlantic, diversify the provision of academic and vocational training in the region and the overall transformation of economic and social performance of the southern provinces.
The traditional partners of the kingdom, especially France, must be clear in their positions in relation to the sacred causes of Morocco, including the cause of the Sahara as his majesty said “the Sahara issue is the lens through which Morocco looks at the world”. In this sense, it should be recalled that the formula for success of the economic recovery processes in European countries lie in the regional and continental economic dynamics that the Kingdom of Morocco creates, especially in terms of positioning in new African markets, the fourth industrial revolution, the global economic agenda of the post-oil era, the new regional value chains and the logistical and commercial axes Sao Paolo – Istanbul and London – Cape Town.

TellZim Reporter

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) on Tuesday arrested Bikita Rural District Council (RDC) Chief Executive Officer over allegations of corruption emanating from the purchase of seven vehicles using council funds in 2022.
Reports coming from Bikita are that Peter Chibhi spent Tuesday night (February 28) in police cells after which he made an initial court appearance in before Bikita magistrate Takura Mugabe on March 1 (today).
Magistrate Mugabe is said to have granted Chibhi ZW$ 50 000 bail, asked the accused not to interfere with State witnesses and reporting to police once a week.
ZACC also reportedly took keys to the seven vehicles which include six Toyota Hilux GD6 bought for Head of Departments (HoDs) and the seventh a Prado Land Cruiser meant for the CEO and some reports are that the vehicles are supposed to be driven to ZACC offices in Masvingo (though yet to be verified).
Registration books to the vehicles were reportedly taken by ZACC late last year during the investigations into the allegations.
The said vehicles were bought after the RDC sought for a loan and went on to purchase the vehicles without the approval or knowledge of Minister of Local Government and Public Works July Moyo.
Contacted for comment resident lobby group Bikita Residents and Ratepayers Association (BIRRA) spokesperson Mark Mutengani said they welcome the move by ZACC and feel that will ensure sanity in the area.
“We really appreciate the action by ZACC to our council and arrest the CEO over misuse of public funds. We raised the issue last year when they bought GD6 vehicles in the name of managers. We hope justice and restitution will take course at the end of the day.
“We are expecting ZACC to dig further in search of more rot in our local authority. As residents, this is just but one of the many issues we raised the flag about,” said Mutengani.
TellZim News was one of the first media outlets to report on the corruption allegations after publishing a story titled ‘Bikita residents petition authorities over poor service delivery’ on April 30, 2022 before pursuing the story with another article titled ‘Government investigates Bikita RDC car scandal on May 9, 2022.
Other follow up articles were done including ‘Local government finally visits Bikita RDC’ on July 20, 2022, Bikita RDC vehicle purchase scandal-ZACC yet to act (July 23, 2022), Bikita RDC scandal needs parliamentary debate-MP Musakwa (June 11, 2022), Bikita RDC-residents on collision course (October 10, 2022) and lastly Bikita RDC squanders US$ 36 000 on four boreholes (June 4, 2022).

Emmanuel Chitsika

Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) in Masvingo has reiterated its commitment to nab cattle rustlers who are on the prowl, rustling and deboning cattle, further reducing the national herd which has been affected by January disease.
The call was made by Assistant Commissioner Fredrick Mbengwa (on behalf of Officer Commanding Masvingo Province Commissioner David Mahoya) when he addressed the media during an engagement organised by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) at Chevron hotel in Masvingo last week.
“We are really at pains looking at the devastation that has been inflicted on our national herd by diseases like January disease and Foot and Mouth and now this deboning thing. “In Masvingo province we have had reports of cattle theft in Gutu in places like Bhasera. We will arrest all those who do deboning without fear or favour. As part of ways of trying to curb the thefts, we have engaged local leadership like chiefs and village heads where we formed committees as a way of trying to find out who the perpetrators are and that is the gap we hope the committees would help close,” said Ass Com Mbengwa.
He appealed to the media to provide information if they come across any from their sources as it is helpful in the fight against crime.
“Like I have earlier said it has so far been difficult that during those wee hours of the day where not all people are allowed to move around serve for the police, there are some people who commit such crimes. We are appealing to the media because you have a lot of sources of information which can help you give us something tangible on the crime. We don’t necessarily need names of people, we just need to know where the deboning is likely or has been done and that will help lead us to the bottom of the matter.
“For us to destroy this menace, we need to destroy the market as well. It is really a cause for concern for ZRP. As leaders of the hierarchy, we sometimes run out of words in case we are asked by our superiors on issues to do with deboning.
“With deboning, it’s different from normal stock theft in the sense that it shows a well-organised criminal activity with ready markets which from reliable sources are sausage, mincemeat makers as well as meat pie processors.
“What happens is the criminals kill the beast, debone it and by early morning, the thieves would be in Harare, Bulawayo or even here in Masvingo because the destination is not yet known for now. We haven’t received any information on the destination but the above-mentioned categories of business people are likely the ones fuelling the thefts and the means of transporting are either buckets like has been the case with drug traffickers. They use the routes which we are yet to identify as law enforcement agents,” he added.
Cases of deboning (where thieves would kill beasts and strip away steak, leaving offals and bones) have been recorded in the province especially in Gutu and in Midlands province as well.

TellZim Reporter

Gweru -Council’s newly appointed Acting Town Clerk Livingstone Churu was involved in a horrific car crash with the local authority’s service vehicle but escaped with no injuries barely a day after assuming the post on February 21.
Council Public Relations Spokesperson Vimbai Chingwaramise confirmed the incident saying Churu was involved in the accident around Norton along Gweru-Harare road in Norton.
Churu was appointed as acting Town Clerk on Monday this week, taking over from Vakai Douglas Chikwekwe who was requested to recuse himself from duty following his recent arrest by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) on allegations of criminal abuse of office.
The US$176 000 Toyota SUV was bought for use by former Town Clerk Elizabeth Gwatipedza in 2019.