MASVINGO – The Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Students Executive Council (SEC) last week visited Alpha Cottages children’s home to donate clothes and basic commodities.
SEC vice president Jennifer Chitanda, who coordinated the charity project, said the students’ body had seen it necessary to contribute to the well-being of children at the shelter.
“We aim to reach out to Masvingo as a whole because it is our community and, as students, we appreciate the city and the people who live in it. This is part of our efforts to show that we seek not only to improve ourselves academically but to reach out to the less fortunate as well,” said Chitanda.
The students took time to tour the facility as well as to interact and play with the children.
The donations were made under the theme ‘building a generational consensus through reaching out to the needy’.
Chitanda said this was one of the many activities that her team had planned to do in order to make a change in the community.
Some of the SEC leaders who took part in the programme were minister of sports Duncan Mpaso, minister of information Tawanda Mukwazhe and deputy minister of clubs and properties Fortunate Paradza.
Last semester the students conducted another clean-up campaign and pothole-filling exercise in conjunction with the city council.local

MASVINGO – Fourth-year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) students from the Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and their lecturers last weekend embarked on a clean-up campaign in the Central Business District (CBD) in what they said was an exercise to ensure cleaner surroundings.
The campaign, which was conducted in partnership with City of Masvingo, The Environmental Management Agency (Ema), Great Zimbabwe Realtors (GZR) and other partners, ran under the theme ‘Education for Sustainable Development’.
Professor Shumirai Nyota, a senior lecturer in the faculty who led the students, said it was the desire of the team to help move the country towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include Sustainable Cities and Communities.
“Unesco believes sustainable development begins with teachers, so we have seen it fit to prepare our students by cleaning the streets. We want them to pass the knowledge to the classes that they too will teach in the future,” said Prof Nyota.
She said the focus was on Unesco’s three Rs; Reuse, Reduce and Recycle, plus Ema’s own addition ‘Rethink’.
“For the mean time, we are concentrating on reducing littering in the environment because we do not have resources to recycle or reuse,” she said.
City of Masvingo mayor Hubert Fidze also took part in the cleaning and said he was pleased by the students’ strong desire for cleaner streets.
“Don’t clean only the CBD where people see you. Let’s do it everywhere in Masvingo including at our campuses and hostels. We need to make Masvingo the cleanliest town in Zimbabwe for it carries the name of this country,” said Fidze.
He went on to urge women to go for breast cancer screening and men to be aware of prostate cancer.
He also urged students to go and register to vote.local

…your problems have a political solution

Upenyu Chaota

The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC-T says informal traders need to fight back against President Robert Mugabe’s recent order for a crackdown against them by registering to vote in large numbers.
Vendors are facing sustained pressure from a strong combination of municipal and riot police to leave the streets.
The opposition party emphasised that the crackdown against vendors can only be defeated if all vendors registered to vote, saying it was Mugabe’s problem that he failed to deliver on his 2013 promise to create 2.2 million jobs.
MDC-T national youth boss Happymore Chidziva said the people of Zimbabwe are a hardworking lot trying hard to make ends meet through honest means.
“Mugabe created a vending nation because he failed to deliver on his election promises. Right now, we have Zimbabwean in every corner of the world running away from him.
“Those that choose to stay in the country are mostly unemployed and they end up selling various items on the streets because there are no jobs. Mugabe promised them jobs but he did not deliver on that promise and now he wants to rob them of their only means of survival,” said Chidziva.
He said if Mugabe really wanted vendors off the streets, he had to create employment because most of the vendors are educated people with no choice.
“The problem we are facing as a country today has a political solution. Vendors should register to vote in their numbers and remove a regime which has robbed them of their future.
“We have been stripped of all human dignity by Mugabe and I say register to vote, go vote and defend your vote. Mugabe has failed to offer solutions to the high levels of unemployment bedevilling the county so people should exercise their constitutional right to vote,” said Chidziva.local

…mocks Chinamasa’s new ministry

MASHAVA – Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Tafataona Mahoso, whom many have dubbed the media hangman, last week dismissed claims that he was one of the chief architects of the hated Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) but was quick to defend the piece of legislation as useful.
Delivering a lecture on cyber security to media students at Great Zimbabwe University (GZU)’s Simon Muzenda School of Culture and Heritage Studies, Dr Mahoso said he did not take part in the crafting of what is widely regarded as a repressive piece of legislation, but insisted the law was there for a good reason.
“People are saying I and Professor Jonathan Moyo masterminded AIPPA. The answer is we didn’t. AIIPA was not even put in place by President Mugabe. It is a law which was put in place by the government for security reasons and it is there for the good of the country. Many people are saying it’s a bad law, it’s a draconian law, and it’s there to suppress media freedom and do many more bad things. People have to read it (AIPPA) better to understand it,” Dr Mahoso said.
He also mocked the newly-created Ministry of Cyber Security, Threat Detection and Mitigation which is headed by Patrick Chinamasa, arguing it defied logic to try and control something which was already out of hand.
He said what was needed was to properly educate the young generation on the dangers of abusing social media rather than try to muzzle the platform altogether.
“Munhu akavhara danga mombe dzapaza tingati anepfungwa here? That is the same as trying to regulate social media when it is already out of hand. What is needed is for the institutions to impart the rightful education to the students,” Dr Mahoso said.local

MASVINGO – The proposed National Peace and Reconciliation Bill (H.B2, 2017) was crafted in a hazy manner, a weakness which leaves a lot of gaps in the country’s efforts to fully account and bring closure to its turbulent past, the National Transitional Justice Working Group (NTJWG) has said.
The group hosted a stakeholder discussion in Masvingo last Friday where it was heard that the bill, which now awaits President Robert Mugabe’s ascension, contained numerous errors of commission and omission that will make ultimate healing difficult.
NTJWG executive director Blessing Gorejena pinpointed what she called the bill’s ‘many blind spots’ that will weaken the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC)’s hand in executing its mandate.
“Most contentious of the bill’s provisions is probably the issue of the Ministerial Certificate which the minister in charge of state security can serve on the commission to interdict it from revealing any information which he/she feels could work against national interest.
“The bill also lacks victim-centredness as it does not at all talk about the victim and the perpetrator such that we are left to guess on that although the logical assumption is that in any post-conflict settlement, there is a victim and there is a perpetrator,” said Gorejena.
She urged people to participate in consultative meetings on the bill and make their opinions known, saying though the bill was vague in many respects, it still offered a critical starting point.
“It’s not one of those bills you would want to celebrate and say, yes, now we have arrived but it offers a starting point nevertheless. It is not perfect but it motivates dialogue,” she said.
The Legal Resources Foundation (LRF)’s Rumbidzai Chivasa concurred, saying the current bill, though not the most ideal, was better than its predecessor the National Peace and Reconciliation Bill (H.B 13, 2015) which was gazetted in 2015 but was withdrawn from parliament in May 2016 after severe criticism by stakeholders.
“The current bill is not the best but it is different from the previous one. We have somewhere to begin and we urge all people to take this process towards national healing seriously by participating in all discussions,” said Chivasa.
Heal Zimbabwe Trust research and policy advocacy officer Edknowledge Mandikwaza said once the NPRC begin to operate, it must take into consideration the different episodes of grievances and victimisation that happened in the past.
Mandikwaza also said not all grievances are political in nature as some of them tend to take a socio-economic dimension as exemplified by such sad chapters as Chingwizi, Chisumbanje and Chiyadzwa as well as the perceived economic marginalisation of certain regions.
“We have also found that people want a public acknowledgement of rights violations that were committed against them, accompanied by employment creation and reparations,” said Mandikwaza.
Once signed into law, the bill will operationalise the NPRC, one of the five independent commissions established by Chapter 12 of the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe.local

TellZim Reporter

MASVINGO – Parents with pupils sitting for their November 2017 Zimbabwe School Examination Council (Zimsec) exams have expressed dissatisfaction over the continued leaking of exams.
Several cases of pupils caught with forbidden material have been reported to the police in Masvingo, with one incident at a local school said to be involving external candidates who smuggled answers into the exam room.
It is said the students had got hold of the mathematics paper they were going to sit for and they had written all the answers on their rulers for easy copying but were bust by alert invigilators who told school authorities before the incident was reported at Masvingo Central Police Station.
Zimbabwe School Examination Council (Zimsec) Masvingo regional director Silvester Dandira professed ignorance of exam leakage cases and referred all questions to the exam body’s head office in Harare.
“I haven’t received any report of leaking examinations. Maybe if you contact the head office, they would be in a position to comment on that matter,” said Dandira.
Efforts to get a comment from the head office proved fruitless as the telephone kept ringing without being answered.local

Memory Rasa

MASVINGO – Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe – Masvingo chapter’s  provincial advocacy committee last week elected its new executive with TellZim News editor Passmore Kuzipa landing the position of chairperson uncontested.
The elections were held under the watchful eye of Misa Zimbabwe programmes officer Nyasha Nyakunu.
Theresa Takafuma landed the secretary general post uncontested while Madodana Nxumalo and Works Gezani, both from Hevoi FM, as well as Hazvinei Mwanaka, a freelance journalist, were elected committee members.
Kuzipa takes on from Golden Maunganidze who recently landed the national chairmanship post uncontested.
Speaking after his election, Kuzipa thanked the people for having faith in him and he promised to work hard to promote access to information.
He also encouraged the new team to work together to further the goal of media freedom in the province.
“As Masvingo, we have to work together as a team and always adhere to media ethics when conducting our duties. I also hope that we will work together in promoting access to information and freedom of expression in the province,” Kuzipa said.
The new team takes over at a critical juncture when the country is approaching elections, a time when tensions usually rise, with journalists facing harder obstacles in doing their work.local

Upenyu Chaota

MASVINGO – Zanu PF and MDC-T were caught off guard when Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) opened and put one of the new high density suburbs Victoria Ranch, which both parties had presumed to be the extension of Ward 3 in Masvingo Urban, to Masvingo West constituency as a new Ward 7B.
Victoria Ranch is yet to be incorporated into Masvingo town and will remain under Masvingo Rural District Council until the delimitation exercise is done in 2022.
Many people staying in Victoria Ranch were formerly residents of Ward 3 and that is where they voted in the 2013 election.
When some residents from there went to register as voters, they were told they now fall under a new ward in Masvingo West.
This prompted the MDC-T Ward 3 executive to organise a meeting to tell their people in Victoria Ranch to register using their previous addresses in Ward 3.
“Those in Victoria Ranch are our people and we need them to vote in Masvingo Urban not Masvingo West as is being said.
“They should register using their previous addresses. You find that some Ward 3 executive members are now residing in Victoria Ranch,” said one member at the MDC-T Ward 3 meeting.
On its side, Zanu PF held elections to choose leadership for the new ward thereby causing a friction with the opposition party which is mobilising the residents to register under Ward 3.
“That is fraud at its best. Zec (Zimbabwe Electoral Commision) should take action because people are giving false information. Those in Victoria Ranch should register under Victoria Ranch which is now Ward 7B in Masvingo West constituency.
“We are looking for the people who are doing that so we can expose them,” said Zanu PF Ward 7B chairperson Benneginna Mudangiranwa.local