CHIREDZI – Two Chiredzi Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers have appeared before Chiredzi magistrate Geraldine Mutsotso facing charges of corruption after allegedly taking US$302 in bribes from the driver of a Mercedes Benz sprinter.
The complainant is Samuel Moyo who resides in Dulibadzimu, Beitbridge.
The accused, who were represented by Norman Mugiya, argued that the complainant should also be charged for corruption as he has admitted to paying the alleged bribe.
According to the State papers, Tenson Chipembere and Cleopas Nhamburo, who both reside in the Chiredzi ZRP police camp, stopped the motor vehicle which was carrying various grocery items at Chisase business centre.
The incident happened on October 30, 2016 along the Ngundu – Chiredzi Road.
They requested the driver, Doge Patsikwa, to produce declaration papers but were not satisfied, leading them to demand that the vehicle be driven by a police officer to Chiredzi Police Station for further ‘investigations’.
The complainant revealed that he had previously been made to deposit money into EcoCash accounts of the accused persons who had consistently been impounding his vehicle to force him to pay bribes.
He went on to supply account numbers where he was previously made to deposit the money
The court also heard that a warrant for search and seizure was done and forwarded to Econet Wireless Zimbabwe for a printout of the transactions that totaled some US$302.
The two were remanded out of custody and will make another appearance on November 27 for continuation of trial.
Chiedza Muhwandawake appeared for the State.local

Prince Danda

MBERENGWA – Two brothers have appeared in court over an inheritance dispute which is happening three decades after the death of their father.
Innocent Mthethwa (47) and Rodger Mthethwa (58) from Mazvihwa, appeared before Zvishavane magistrate Shephard Munjanja to settle their dispute over the distribution of their father’s cattle.
Innocent claimed that his brother has been selling cattle for the past 30 years without involving him and he appealed for all the remaining cattle to be given to him.
Their father passed away in 1987 and all his properties was given to his two sons, who have separate mothers.
Magistrate Munjanja told Innocent to re-file his case categorising it as an estate case as it requires redistribution of property of a deceased person.
Mthethwa is expected to file an estate case against his brother next week and start a fresh court case.local

CHIREDZI – The Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association (CHIRRA) together with the United Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association (UCHIRRA) has expressed concern over what they called is an unfair rates regime.
The residents’ organisations say there should be a clear cut difference in rate charges for ordinary people and the business community since the latter are heavy users of council services particularly water.
CHIRRA chairperson Jonathan Muusha said there was gross inequality in the way council is charging residents for water as those who enjoy uninterrupted supplies are charged similarly as those who receive rationed supplies.
“It is very unfair for the resident who receives water for 30 minutes a day to be charged the same as those who enjoy uninterrupted services. You find that the business community and parastatals do not pay their rates and owe council large amounts of money.
“The ordinary folk is paying for the water which is being used by those people who do not pay for the service. This has to stop. The people who receive rationed water should pay less and those who receive the water more often should pay more,” said Muusha.
UCHIRRA secretary general Bernard Dhachi said council should make use of a performing budget which will cater for all Chiredzi residents.
“Council should work on a performing budget which will cater for all Chiredzi residents as others are unhappy with the below average service delivery levels,” said Dhachi.
Chiredzi Town Council has approved a US$4. 5 million budget for the year 2018.local

CHIREDZI – Chiredzi South Member of Parliament Rtd Brig Kallisto Gwanetsa said his efforts to facilitate the upgrading of Chilong Bridge across Runder River have been frustrated by the Ministry Transport and Infrastructural Development which seems unconcerned.
The long-mooted plans to upgrade the bridge remain empty talk with yet another rainy season approaching yet nothing has been done on the ground despite numerous pledges by politicians.
“I had a meeting with the Minister and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development about the issue in 2015 and I keep on reminding them on the issue but nothing has changed.
“I understand we are facing economic hardships in the country but it seems our area is being neglected. Bridges in other areas which were damaged after Chipinda Bridge were constructed but they all bear the same value to the communities.
 “We are now waiting for the rain and hopes for the construction of Chilonga Bridge this year are fading. Runde River will soon be flooded and this will cost more lives of villagers who cross using homemade canoes and even vehicles,” said Gwanetsa.
After the washing away of Chipinda Bridge by Cyclone Eline back in 2000, people who live across the river have had trouble getting to Chiredzi in the wet season.
Ever since, an average of five people have been swept by the river while trying to cross Runde using the dilapidated and low-lying Chilonga Bridge or makeshift boats.
People who live to the south of the river have to travel to Chiredzi town to access banks, the District Administrator (DA)’s offices, Chiredzi General Hospital, district education offices and the Registrar General’s office among other services.local

CHIREDZI – The Vahlengwe people in Sengwe communal lands have managed to put social media to good use through a WhatsApp group which allows ordinary community members to interact with their elected and traditional leaders.
The group was created by the Community Initiatives for Sustainable Development (Cifosud) trust which has been credited for facilitating rural development through social media.
Key to this idea is the linkage that has been created between community leaders and the people they represent.
The WhatsApp group allows members to express themselves feely and honestly without any fear.
Cifosud director Auspicious Ndlovu said WhatsApp was chosen because it is one of the most efficient and cheapest mode of communication which brings many people together in an instant.
“The purpose of the Cifosud WhatsApp group is to give ordinary people vital knowledge on their rights in order to influence decision-making processes while encouraging them to participate in development,” said Ndlovu.
Ndlovu said many underperforming elected officials have now seen the seriousness of the idea as the group exposes incompetence wherever it exists.
“Some leaders are resisting as they feel exposed but we are happy with Rtd Brig-Gen (Kallisto) Gwanetsa our MP because of his interaction with the community. He is taking a lot of developmental issues we raise in the group to parliament and some positive results are being seen,” Ndlovu said.
Ndlovu said their community has been marginalised for quite a long time but due to advocacy and lobbying through the group, something is now happening on the ground.
“The Makambe – Malipati highway was no longer a road as it was last graded 20 years ago. Due to our advocacy and lobbying, the road is being re-gravelled right now. Voices of people are being heard and that was one of our major objectives when we created this group in 2016,” said Ndlovu.local

Memory Rasa

“It was on June 9, 2002 around 21:00 hrs; I still vividly remember the day because I escaped death by a whisker. Though I escaped, I couldn’t help seeing my fellow colleagues and students dying in an inferno after our bus collided with a truck just after Shashe River along Masvingo – Harare highway. 
“I could hear burnt human bodies bursting; voices of students crying for help but to no avail. Since then my life became horrible as I often have nightmares hearing students calling my name screaming for help. I have tried to forget the whole incident but it’s so traumatic,” said Davidson Mugodzwa, one of the Mhunga bus crush survivors where about 40 Masvingo Teachers College students perished in 2002.
Mugodzwa was a lecturer at the college when the accident occurred and he suffered so much trauma that he could not continue with his job.
The day started just like any other for Masvingo Teachers’ College students and lecturers who had gone for national ball games competitions held at Belvedere Teachers College in Harare. After the games, the team was supposed to go back to Masvingo, but they decided to first go and watch a high profile Premier Soccer League (PSL) match against bitter rivals Highlanders and Dynamos at the National Sports Stadium.
After the match at around 17:00 hrs, the students were back in the Mhunga bus so that they could proceed with their journey back to Masvingo.
However, other students who had come on their own from Masvingo also boarded the bus and the passengers became 120 from the initial 90.
When they were less than 80km to Masvingo just after Shashe River, Mugodzwa who was sitting in the front next to the driver, said he saw an oncoming truck with flashing lights encroaching into their lane as they approached a sharp blind curve.
Mugodzwa said the driver of the bus swerved to the extreme left of the road in order to avoid a head-on but the truck continued coming to their direction and side-swiped the bus. The Mhunga bus driver then tried to control the bus, but in vein, and it landed on its side. Maize bags that were in the truck fell onto the bus and on top of some of the distraught students.
“I saw the truck coming straight encroaching our lane and I remained calm. What happened next I don’t know because I heard a loud burst and lost consciousness. I later regained my consciousness but I was already outside the bus and I realised that I had been thrown out through the broken windscreen and hit the tar mark.
“I heard students calling my name for assistance as fire engulfed the bus. I was totally confused and I ran barefoot away from the accident scene for about 5km. I was only spotted the following morning as I was shouting for help while in a forest. Some students were severely burnt, they could not be recognised and their bodies were taken to South Africa for DNA identification,” said Mugodzwa.
Phainos Makwarimba, a former Masvingo Teachers’ College student who survived the accident said June 9, 2002, is the day he would want to quickly forget.
He said although it is now close to two decades after the horrific accident, he is yet to come to terms with the reality of losing dear friends and classmates as well as failure to get any form of compensation or assistance from government.
“It was so painful to see friends being burnt beyond recognition. I remember a wife of one of the students had to be called and managed to identify her dead husband through identifying the colour of the underwear he was wearing.
“Friends like Godfrey Mururu and Nyengeterai Mweneziko all perished. Godfrey’s mother also collapsed at the scene of the accident soon after she identified the body of her son,” said Makwarimba.
“We were at the back seat and I miraculously managed to escape unhurt. I started to assist other students to get out of the bus. We had to remove the maize bags that had piled on some students but we could not rescue them all because the bus immediately caught fire. I saw the driver, Mhofu whom we had rescued and was lying on the roadside being engulfed by fire and he died shouting ‘vana vevanhu’,” Makwarimba said.
He said the crash was so traumatising that he spent over a decade having nightmares.  He said June 9, 2002 is the day he would want to fast remove from his memory as the pain of losing dear friends and relatives continue to haunt him every day.
“I was scared; I vividly remember seeing bodies being heaped at Masvingo General Hospital because the mortuary was full. Can you imagine, even my father came and went straight to the mortuary looking for my body because he had been told everyone had died.
“Even when we got back to the college, I could not sleep properly. I had nightmares almost every night hearing colleagues screaming for help. As I went to the bathroom, it was unbearable passing through empty rooms that were once occupied by friends who were now gone,” Makwarimba said.
What was more painful, perhaps, was that some injured students who were pulled from the wreckage later died as a result of the explosion, with the fierce conflagration scorching others to near-ashes. Even more painful though, according to Mugodzwa and Makwarimba, the accident was declared a national disaster and the families of the deceased were given burial assistance but nothing was given to assist the survivors.
Mugodzwa said there were students who later died from the injuries sustained in the accident because they failed to raise money for proper medical treatment.
“The accident was declared national disaster but we did not receive any assistance from government as survivors of the accident.  I only remember that President Robert Mugabe donated Z$10 million which he said was supposed to be shared among the survivors but what happened to that money no one knows. Some of the students later died because they could not access better medical facilities,” said Mugodzwa.
“Even the trauma we went through was so agonising that the situation could have been better if we had trauma centres where survivors of such horrific accidents would go for counselling,” he added.
Makwarimba concurred, saying there is need for government to think about those who survive accidents instead of only assisting families of those who would have died.
“I did not receive even a single cent from government or even the insurance companies up to today. Government should improve the road infrastructure so that we minimise accidents. It is also critical that government assists victims of road carnage by paying for medical bills the same way they provide burial assistance for the deceased,” said Makwarimba.
The Beitbridge – Harare highway has since become a death trap with an average of five fatal accidents taking place every week. There highway is taking many lives and is now deadlier than some battle fields.
President Mugabe official conducted a ground breaking ceremony for the dualisation of Beitbridge – Chirundu highway at Chaka Business Centre in May but nothing is happening on the ground.
Contacted for comment Transport Minister Dr Jorum Gumbo said there was progress on the dualisation project and real work on the ground would begin soon.
“I understand the company awarded the tender has started technical work and soon they will be on the ground. The project is big therefore, it will take a bit of time to put everything in place but I can assure you that work will start soon,” said Dr Gumbo.
Road Motor Transportation and Vehicle Registration in Zimbabwe in partnership with the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe have been pushing for the establishment of a road accident compensation fund which aims to assist those affected by road carnages.
Allowance Sango the director of Road Motor Transportation and Vehicle Registration in Zimbabwe said they are still waiting for government approval to establish the fund.
“The road accident compensation fund is still a blueprint and we hope that government will soon approve it so that it goes to Parliament for debate.  We also plan to have trauma or rehabilitation centres in future but our focus at the moment is to have the road accident compensation fund work,” said Sango.
“Once we have the fund, it would be then easy to have other policies like establishing rehabilitation centres in various cities in the country,” he added.
Research shows that many-a-times accidents completely change people’s lives for the worse as victims fail to access better medical facilities due to lack of money.  Mugodzwa said some students dropped out of college after the accident.
“Other students dropped out of school as they could not afford medical bills, some suffered mental health as a result of inhaling smoke from the dead bodies and some as a result of trauma. I was forced to resign from Masvingo Teachers’ College and went abroad to seek better medical facilities after I spent six months at a local private clinic,” said Mugodzwa.
“The government should create rehabilitation centres for accident victims and assist them through healing systems, it is very traumatising to see flesh of your colleagues burning and not have any counselling after that,” he added.
In morden day, trauma or rehabilitation centres are essential for any government not only because of accidents victims but for counselling on various issues like stress-associated illness.  In Zimbabwe we have these centres mainly in Harare and Bulawayo hence there is need to decentralise the services to other provinces and cities.local

MWENEZI – A married woman who allegedly had an extra marital fling with Nicholas Siziva, a married man from Musindo Farm village under Chief Mazetese, has eloped to his homestead and is refusing to vacate unless she is ‘compensated’, TellZim News has learnt.
In an interview, Siziva denied he ever dated Rosemary Shoko and accused her of framing him.
“The matter started some time in 2016 when Shoko’s husband accused me of having an adulterous affair with his wife. That is when the matter was brought before Headman Claudius Masukume who ordered me to pay Shoko’s husband 16 goats and one beast. I refused to comply with the judgement because I know nothing about the affair.
“On October 24, Rosemary Shoko came to my homestead and she is insisting that she will not leave unless I compensate her for the said adulterous affair. I no longer have peace at my homestead. At times she spits on cooking utensils, threatening to commit suicide at my homestead,” said Siziva.
He also accused headman Masukume of mishandling his case but efforts to get a comment form the headman were fruitless.
Siziva has sought for an eviction order from the court. His case was due to be heard at the Mwenezi Magistrate court by the time of going to print.local

….husband demands seven cattle

GUTU – A man from Gondwi is demanding seven head of cattle from a village taxi operator who allegedly slept with his wife on several occasions, TellZim News can reveal.
At the centre of the controversy is Jubilee Litha Gonese, a teacher at Gondwi Primary School, who admitted before the courts that she slept with Vengai Zivavose many times when her own husband Ranganai Madhuro was away in Harare where he works.
Madhuro now wants Zivavose to compensate him because he allegedly invaded his bedroom and dipped his hand into the forbidden cookie jar.
The case was initially heard by Chief Gutu’s court where Zivavose was found guilty and ordered to pay five cattle but he instead chose to appeal the judgement with a higher court.
The matter is now recorded under Case Number CC7/17 at the Gutu Magistrate Court where Edwin Marecha is expected to make his ruling on November 17.
Madhuro, however, is no longer prepared to accept five cattle that Chief Gutu had awarded him, but is now demanding seven because his wife has made more graphic confessions of her sexual escapades with Zivavose.
The matter began some day last year when Zivavose sent a late night ‘ndeipi, zviri sei’ greeting message to Gonese via WhatsApp.
The following morning, a suspicious Madhuro confronted Zivavose saying he was now sure that Madhuro was seeing his wife, just as some people had told him before, but Zivavose denied the accusations.
Madhuro then went to Chatsworth police station to state his domestic problems and the police later called Gonese who admitted sleeping with Zivavose once in the bush after she had boarded his taxi from Mpandawana.
The police then advised Madhuro to report his case to Chief Gutu who ordered Zivavose to pay five beasts.
At the magistrate’s court, Madhuro brought his wife and their daughter Blessing as witnesses, with Gonese, during cross-examination, making even more stunning revelations that she had slept with Zivavose not once but several times. She also claimed that Zivavose had been frequenting her home in the absence of Madhuro.
Zivavose, who is being represented by Collen Maboke of Ruvengo, Maboke and Company, maintained that he has never been in a relationship with Gonese. He also argued that on the day that Gonese claims to have met him for the first time, it was his employee George Muzariri who was driving the taxi.
It was also stated that it was not Zivavose who frequented the couple’s house but Muzariri who is Blessing’s boyfriend and with whom she has now eloped.
Zivavose also claimed that it was all a matter of sour grapes because he had rejected Madhuro’s demands that he pay US$100 so that the matter could be put to rest.local