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Namibia’s US$5.4 billion transport hub se to be biggest in SADC

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Walvis Bay, Namibia – Namibia’s US$5.4 billion transport logistical hub in Walvis Bay is set to be the largest in the region.

To date, the Namibian government together with the China Harbour Engineering Company have managed to expand the Walvis Bay container terminal becoming the biggest infrastructure project completed by Namibia since it attained its independence.

“The Walvis Bay new container terminal has contributed to an increased handling capacity at the ports and these developments together with the construction of the ongoing road such as the Swakopmund-Walvis Bay dual carriageway are among the developments directly leading to Namibia becoming a logistical hub for SADC and beyond.

On the infrastructure front, major developments have been recorded in the transport and logistics sector as characterized by the roads network connection of more than 47 000 km, providing access to the various parts of the country,” said Obeth Kandjoze, Director General of the National Planning Commission.

Once fully completed, the Walvis Bay transport logistical hub is expected to aid in stimulating the country’s General Domestic Product and also increase logistical relations between SADC and the rest of the continent.

Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions in limbo

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions are causing a lot of contentions on whether or not they should remain opened.

However, with the surge in COVID-19 cases some members of the civic society have felt the need for the learning institutions to be closed.

“We recognize the need to fulfill and rescue the 2020 academic calendar but we are also conscious of the fact that we can only learn if we are alive. Recently we have heard of an unconfirmed COVID-19 case at Chinhoyi University of Technology.

In the absence of standard protective clothing provided by the government and institutions, it is only noble that institutions of higher learning pause accepting more classes on campus to avoid putting students and staff at risk. We can rescue the academic calendar but not lost lives.

However, the alternative would be to replace contact learning with online learning. That would however pose the same problems we faced at the beginning of the lockdown. Online learning excludes many students because of data prices. Institutions would have to provide data for students or make online learning sites accessible at zero rate.

Government has been promising a lot while forgetting to deliver. The Ministry agreed to a deal that offered cheaper data bundles to students. We had hoped government had a plan before the lockdown but unfortunately there was no coherent strategy,” said Tapiwanashe Chiriga, Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU)’s secretary general.

However, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)’s chairperson, Dr. Takavafira Zhou said opening up tertiary institutions would help the government in finding innovative ways of curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I certainly don’t see anything wrong in institutions of higher learning remaining open provided they meet WHO standards with respect to testing of all lecturers, students, and ancillary staff before opening. There is also need to clean and disinfect all institutions that were used as quarantine centres. In essence, students in institutions of higher learning are Majors in terms of the law who can in particular reason in a rational manner in terms of procedures and standards to abate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I however, hope government will invest more resources in order to abate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

However, we certainly need to look into the possibility of existing in a world infested with COVID-19 and opening tertiary institutions is a way of finding mitigating measures of  copying with the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s however possible to suspend learning and resort to e-learning but the challenge is that our resources and connectivity are pathetic. We however need to be innovative and dynamic and find ways to teach students during this COVID-19 pandemic particularly the use of class and subject WhatsApp groups,” said Dr. Zhou

Teachers Union calls for better wages

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)’s chairperson, Dr. Takavafira Zhou is calling upon the government to review teachers’ salaries.

Teachers in the southern African country are currently earning an average salary of US$30 a month.

“A considerable number of teachers turned to agony, anguish and wailing after receiving their starvation wages last week. Our view as PTUZ is that there is no need to regret for being a teacher, and teachers must never mentally resign although they physically remain teachers in Zimbabwe. The situation where 99 percent of teachers have mentally resigned although they physically remain as teachers is not enviable for the profession.

Rather teachers across the country must get organised and force their leaders to collectively unite and seek for an explanation from government as it is within the purview of trade unionism to do so. There is also need for unity in our diversity in clamouring for the restoration of our October 2018 salaries pegged at US$550. The restoration of our purchasing power parity is a dispute of right that must unite teachers across the union and non-union divide. There is no need to try to politicise such a clear labour issue. As long as our politics is non partisan but focused on creating a credible education system in Zimbabwe there is nothing to fear except fear itself.

However, we also note that deferment must have been followed by engagement between Ministry officials and union leaders over what should be done when and how? Sadly, we hear that government has already penciled ‘O’ and ‘A’  examinations for January 2021 without consulting those nearer to pupils, viz, teachers. Nothing is also planned in terms of establishing a robust Task Force comprising trade unions, health and education officials in order to carry a COVID-19 risk assessment and advice accordingly, when and how schools can open. The general assumption that intelligence resides in big offices at Head Office as if knowledge comes through osmosis by virtue of occupying a big office is not only puzzling but vogue and vacuous. The best way of introducing reforms in the education system is to engage teachers and proceed through consensus.

Command Education will never give best results. There is urgent need to motivate teachers so that they find dynamic ways of helping their students even during this COVID-19 lockdown, particularly through class and subject WhatsApp groups that also ordinarily include sending work to and from students through parents’ phones as well as feedback. Sadly, the Ministry engaged in radio and television lessons without serious engagement with unions with the consequent failure to smoothly take off as in essence more than 75 percent of students have no access to radio and television frequencies.

As PTUZ, we urge the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to mellow down to a more constructive approach of meaningful engagement with union leaders, logical disputation rather than seeking rubber stamping of weird programs by teachers.

Moreover, teachers brim with and exude best intentions to assist their students and must be taken seriously by officials, rather than to be taken as if they are of no account. Teaching is the mother of all professions, yet in Zimbabwe teachers have fallen from grace to grass with monotonous regularity. Guarantee our health, safety and welfare and allow us our professional space to assist students during lockdown and after. Our intellect and acumen are at the disposal of government in order to ensure sustainable development of the nation but our best can never be realised when our health, safety and welfare are not a government priority.

Invest in our safety, health, welfare and quality public education and see how we will become a vital cog of a skills revolution and national development. We are everything, yet we now count for nothing. We manage the world’s best asset, viz, students, and must be respected together with the asset we manage in order to foster development,” said Dr. Zhou.

South Africa’s funeral parlours running out of space

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Staff reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – The COVID-19 pandemic is beginning to have a significant toll on South Africa’s funeral parlours.

With over 5 000 COVID-19 related deaths and an average mortality rate of 100 per day many funeral parlours have had to procure containers to use as makeshift mortuaries.

“COVID-19 has had a significant impact on our funeral parlours. It’s now getting difficult to cope, we are now using containers to add up to our already existing mortuaries.

Another problem, post mortem results are taking between two to five days before they arrive, so the problem is when a body comes it’s not definite whether the cause of death is COVID-19 related or not.

With that in mind, sometimes we unknowingly mix the non COVID-19 corpses with those with COVID-19 which is a very difficult scenario especially when the post mortem results come in.

Moreso, our undertakers have been contracting COVID-19 primarily because of the issue of post mortem results.

The way you treat a COVID-19 corpse and a non COVID-19 one is very different it’s a different process altogether,” said South Africa Funeral Practitioners Association president, Libo Mnisi.

South Africa schools in a tug of war

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – Contentions are mounting in South Africa’s Education sector on whether schools should remain open or not.

Last month, after a lot of intense consultative meetings with various stakeholders the Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga reopened schools for grade 7 and grade 12 learners.

However, barely a month later after the reopening of schools scores of pupils and teachers have tested positive for COVID-19 with some succumbing to the virus which has now resulted in many teachers’ unions calling for the immediate suspension of all schools.

“We are now amongst the top 6 countries with the highest COVID-19 cases in the world, let’s close schools until the peak has ended,” said the National Teachers Union (NATU).

However, Noncedo Madubedube the General Secretary of Equal Education said closing all schools was not in the best interest of the learners.

“There are 9 million children who rely on the school nutrition program and for most of them that’s the only meal they receive.

Moreso, we did our own survey which showed us that 80 percent of learners want schools to remain open, we can’t have learners sitting idle at home.

However, it’s up to the communities on whether their schools should remain open or not,” said Madubedube.

Education expert, Professor Mary Metcalfe also castigated the move of closing all schools.

“We can’t suspend all schooling for the next 18 months. School governing bodies should work with communities in assessing the readiness of schools,” said Professor Mary Metcalfe.

The Basic Education Minister is expected to issue a verdict on the schooling issue after conducting cabinet deliberations anytime from today.

South Africa’s media sheds more jobs

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe

Johannesburg, South Africa – The impacts of COVID-19 are seemingly causing mayhems in South Africa’s media fraternity.

Top media entities such as Caxton, Media24, and SABC have either retrenched their staff or made salary cuts.

Hundreds of journalists have been left without an income which has prompted the South Africa National Editors Forum (SANEF) to issue out R5 000 grants to those in need.

However, with the rate the retrenchments are being issued many are likely not to receive the grant unless more funds are unveiled to towards the initiative.

Yesterday, Primedia became the latest entity to issue out a Section 189 (retrenchment notices) to its employees.

The media entity is home to radio stations such as 702, KFM, 947 and CapeTalk amongst other forms of media.

Although Primedia is yet to confirm the number of those affected, the Section 189 announcement has already been made.

“This decision follows an extensive strategic review process which scrutinised every facet of the business. Various factors, including new entrants in the media sector, have placed significant pressure on media businesses to adapt and evolve, in order to stay relevant.

Moreso, this has been further compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, and South Africa’s national lockdown on our key clients and industries.

Important consideration has been applied to a number of initiatives to reduce the impact of job losses across the group. However, it has become abundantly clear that Primedia cannot successfully pursue the necessary strategic imperatives and ensure sustainability in the long term in its current modality,” said Primedia’s Interim CEO, Phumzile Langeni.

South African Airways’ US$600 million question

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South African Airways’ US$600 million question

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Ekhurhuleni, South Africa – South Africa’s embattled state owned airline, South African Airways (SAA) is expected to get a cash injection of US$600 million in the coming months.

SAA is in a huge financial stress which has since prompted the intervention of a Business Rescue Plan (BRP) which was initiated a few months ago to keep it afloat.

To date, the BRP will result in the restructuring of SAA which will see 2 700 employees losing their jobs.

It is projected that US$600 million will be required to fund the BRP, clean up and stabilise the balance sheet of SAA, restructure the rest of the group’s entities that are not in business rescue, provide working capital for the rest of the group’s entities, and to create a stable and viable platform for a new restructured national airline. 

Although details are still sketchy on where the US$600 million will come from, the Department of Public Enterprise said it welcomed the recommendations of the BRP.

“The Department of Public Enterprise welcomes the attraction of amix of local and international investor groups to provide the new airline with technical, financial, and operational expertise to ensure significant South African ownership whilst diversifying the investor base.

In terms of the business rescue plan that was published by the Business Rescue Practitioners for SAA, government, as the sole shareholder of SAA, is required to provide a letter of support for funding the plan where it results in a viable and sustainable national flag carrier that provides international, regional and domestic services,” read part of the statement issued out by the Department of Public Enterprise.

Mixed feelings over July 31 protests

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Mixed feelings over July 31 protests

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – Various stakeholders both in the political and civil realm have depicted mixed feelings towards the much anticipated July 31st nationwide protests.

The end of month protests have not yet been given the green light by the police but preparations are already at an advanced stage. The protests which are embodied under the Poverty Liberation Movement (PLM) are expected to yield in the resignation of the country’s President, Emmerson Mnangagwa and the removal of the ruling ZANU-PF political party.

However, Linda Masarira of the opposition LEAD political party is urging citizens not to embark on the PLM wagon come July 31st.

“Our stance on the 31 July protests as a party is that we are guided by the LEAD ideology and as such we believe in doing things that yield positive results and transform livelihoods. The nation is facing increasing Coronavirus cases and it is not wise for the people to take to the streets in protest.

It is one thing taking people into the streets, exposing people to COVID-19 and possibly arrests without achieving the main agenda of making transformative impact in regard to dealing with the corruption issue.

However, demonstrating is a Constitutional right enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. It is unfortunate that the past demonstrations that have happened in Zimbabwe were bloody, violent and characterized with looting, destruction of property and police brutality. Considering the political volatility in Zimbabwe, it is not a wise idea to get people in the streets as different disgruntled political camps might use the very noble idea of protesting against corruption to achieve their own personal hidden agenda to try and settle political scores nevertheless, I am not endorsing the marching on the streets,” said Masarira.

Moreso, ZimFirst leader, Dr. Maxwell Shumba Rusike said citizens should not just be roped into demonstrations that don’t have a clear endgame.

“What is the endgame of the planned demonstration?  What are the practical deliverables of the said demonstration?  Empirical evidence has shown that demonstrations in Zimbabwe have been used by some civic society and dubious political characters to nudge fatigued donors towards parting with a few US$s.

ZimFirst is unapologetically against using citizens and their plight to line pockets of a few enterprising political charlatans and villains without any meaningful and material political change. The collateral damage associated with these ill thought out political adventurism gimmicks is just astronomical most of the time.

Citizens were roped in the 2017 protests to push old Mugabe out without a clear picture of the endgame. People were used to sanitise a coup that has landed us in this situation where the military captured hapless and hopeless Mnangagwa has now resorted to shameless looting as his sole function in state affairs.

I call upon all progressive forces to be clear on what is to be achieved,  how it is to be achieved and work out practical modalities on confronting ZANU-PF before exposing citizens to state brutality and hazards of Covid 19. Citizens should not just be asked to demonstrate for the sake of demonstrating but to achieve clear goals. What are their goals?  That is where we stand and can do no other,” said the ZimFirst leader.

However Japhet Moyo, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions said the ability to demonstrate was enshrined in the country’s Constitution.

“Section 57 and 58 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe are very explicit on the rights of citizens. The Constitution is supreme law and we should observe it.

All Zimbabweans including those in the essential service have every right to demonstrate and petition,” said Moyo.

South Africa’s low inflation, more harm than good

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – South Africa’s consumer inflation rate is now at 2.2 percent its lowest since September 2004.

Although this might be good news, a lot of South Africans are bearing the brunt of COVID-19 which has adversely affected their livelihoods regardless of the low consumer inflation rate.

“Prices of basic goods have relatively increased which has caused some financial pressure on many homes, this is despite the fact that the consumer inflation index is at its lowest in 16 years.

Many families are struggling to put food on their tables as they are now jobless, and jobs are not easy to come by especially during this time of COVID-19.

Right now some of Truworths’ customers are owing the clothing retailer R5.5 billion in clothing accounts and most of them have already signalled that they won’t be able to settle their debts,” said Ray Mahlaka, Managing Editor of Mergers and Acquisitions Africa.

Dr. Nic Spaull, a Senior Research Fellow at the Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) group said the current socioeconomic status of the country was worrisome.

“To date, at least 3 million people have lost their jobs and that is from February this year and the number is going to increase.

Moreso, of the 3 million people that lost their jobs, two million were women with a lot of them earning less than R3 000, there is a lot of social inequality in this country, some will have to sell their assets for them to buy food,” said Dr. Spaull.

Hunger knocking on South Africa’s doors

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Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – According to Mthandazo Ndlovu, Oxfam South Africa’s Democracy and Governance Manager many South Africans are likely to go hungry during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Ndlovu has attributed this to loss of income due to massive retrenchments and closure of businesses.

“COVID-19 has caused inequality retrenchments which have created unemployment drought hotspots for hunger.

Just under 50 percent of all South Africans are living below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL).

The government has to maximize the COVID-19 social relief fund to avoid devastating results.

Moreover, there must be a fairer way of distributing food and regulating food prices as well as a basic income grant,” said Ndlovu.

Although South Africa is expecting a bumper food harvest this year, the repercussions of COVID-19 are likely going to see many people failing to procure basic food stuffs due to lack of income.

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