BY HENRY MHARA

WHAT started as a simple WhatsApp banter between boxing superstar Charles “Busy Bee” Manyuchi and former champion Mordecai “Big Fish” Donga could end up being one of the biggest fights on the local scene with the two, regarded as some of the finest boxers to ever emerge from the country, set to clash in a grudge fight later this month.

It all began on a WhatsApp group of local boxers when retired Donga (40), launched a scathing attack on Manyuchi’s fighting style, and claimed that even at his advanced stage, he could easily beat up the former World Boxing Council (WBC) silver welterweight champion.

Donga, a former lightweight and middleweight champion, said he was ready to come out of retirement so that he could “teach Manyuchi one or two things on how to box properly.”

The attack ignited a fierce debate on the platform, with supporters of the two camps throwing verbal jabs at each other.

Manyuchi, 10 years younger than Donga, was initially reluctant to take up the fight, which he claimed would not add any value to his career.

But pressure from his supporters and teasing from the rival camp saw him accepting the challenge.

Boxing promoter Clyde Musonda of Deltaforce Academy immediately sprang into action and in no time the date of the big fight and the proposed list of supporting bouts were announced.

Dubbed the Judgment Night, the super middleweight fight is scheduled for December 21 at the Rajiv Gandhi Hall at the Showgrounds, Harare, and will be the main bout on a night that will see the country’s other top and emerging boxers trading leather.

Donga has been the more vocal of the two and is very active on social media, where he takes every opportunity to sting Manyuchi.

Until this week when he described Donga as a “useless old man”, Manyuchi had been quiet, choosing to concentrate on his preparations for the fight.

So determined to win the fight and silence his opponent, Manyuchi took his preparations to Zambia where he has been camped for almost a month before returning to Harare at the weekend.
Donga has taken Manyuchi’s intense training regime to be a sign of panicking.

He told NewsDay yesterday that: “I’m the only person in the country who has beaten Manyuchi before, and that brings enough confidence for me.”

“On both occasions when I met him (Manyuchi), I had not trained because I was very busy at work then. I’m so confident that I’m going to beat him because I know he is so confused. That is why he had to leave the country for Zambia. That is a very big sign that the man is panicking. His camp is disintegrating, he left his coach in Zimbabwe and went alone to Zambia, so it’s a sign that he is disoriented and disturbed because for the first time in his career he is meeting a good challenger. His training routines are so confused. He doesn’t even know how to train because this man has beaten him before. I have been inactive so he does not know what to prepare for. He can’t even watch any video of me to see my fighting style.”

The two have met before, with Donga getting the better of the then young Manyuchi in the formative years of the Busy Bees’ career.

Manyuchi returned the favour in 2011, handing Donga his last defeat which sent him into retirement.

While Donga retired from the sport after the fight, Manyuchi went on to become a boxing superstar – winning the WBC silver welterweight title, in a career that has given him so much fame and fortune.

“When I retired from boxing, I told Charles that he should go on and win the world title. I didn’t say he should go and become a silver champion. I wanted him to become a world champion, but he failed. He failed the task I gave him, so I’m going to punish him for that,” Donga teased Manyuchi.

“He was supposed to go out there and beat the (Floyd) Mayweathers and the Pacmans (Manny Pacquiao) of this world, but he failed dismally. He also lost to that guy in Singapore. It was embarrassing and that’s when people came to me and said ‘Donga, did this person really beat you?’ I said no, he didn’t beat me. The Manyuchi that I fought back then was young and vibrant. This one is old and worn out. I’m going to teach him a lesson.”

Manyuchi, whose record currently stands at 24 wins, including 15 knockouts against only four losses and a draw, is the current World Boxing Federation middleweight champion.

Donga on the other hand, has 22 fights under his belt, which consists of 13 wins and 9 losses.

Judgment Night proposed bout card
Main bout: Super middleweight (12 rounds)
Charles Manyuchi v Mordecai Donga
Main supporting bout: National welterweight title (12 rounds)
Freeman “Bvongwez” Mabvongwe v Thembani Mhlanga
Super bantamweight title (12 rounds)
Tinashe “Chairman” Madziwana v Hassan “Starboy” Milanzi
Light welterweight (10 rounds)
Brandon “Boika” Dennes v Tawanda Chigwida
Super bantamweight female (8 rounds)
Zvikomborero Danzwa v Patience “Master” Mastara
Lightweight (8 rounds)
Evans “Vanso” Husavihwevhu v Ndodana Ncube
Bantamweight (8 rounds)
Bongani “Spannerboy” Makorova v Tinashe “The little Bee” Majoni
Light welterweight (8 rounds)
Trust Zihove v Philip “MadCobra” Musariri

BETWEEN THE LINES:Phillip Chidavaenzi

TAFATAONA Mahoso does not ordinarily strike one as a hopeless romantic. But give him a pen and paper and allow the poet in him to surface, you will get such a heartfelt outpouring from deep within, with poetry that is both simple and sophisticated such that ordinary, everyday objects take on deeper meanings.

This is what one gets in the former Zimbabwe Media Commission executive chairman’s publication, Rupise: Poetry of Love, Separation and Reunion (1977-2017).

Published in 2017, the collection is Mahoso’s second literary offering after Footprints About the Bantustan (1989), described by Mahoso himself as “the poetry of a public intellectual who occasionally concerns himself with love, lovers and personal matters” (ppvi).

There is an awareness of how love and friendship enable the individual to survive, thrive and excel.

Published by Samwasika Heritage Poetry, the book is a collection of 56 poems that, according to Mahoso’s preface, “records and celebrates the power of a woman’s presence in a man’s life” (ppv). The woman figure is an enduring image in African literature, recurrently used as a symbol of earth.

Although in a literal sense Rupise simply means “hot spring” or “geyser”, beyond the surface — as demonstrated through the poems collected here — hot spring is a metaphor for a woman.

It speaks to her unique capacity to attract, to love and to help a young boy through the ritual pathways into manhood.

Rupise, therefore, ceases to be just a spring of water and, at a deeper level, of life, to become that “smoking hot woman” who provokes a man into spirals of intoxicating romance.

In Mahoso’s worldview, informed by African philosophy, the earth ceases to be just a physical space to become a living organism that embeds the creator’s grace and generosity.

It is symbolic of a woman (mother) and enables one to bask “in the wonderful revelation that the woman I love is a real place of depth; not just because as infants we emerge from her like wet mushrooms out of the earth; but because she commands the presence, power and depth on which true civilisation may thrive…” beyond the narrow, superficial Western portrayals of “woman as a mere face, skin and shape” sold under capitalism.

The collection is divided into five broad categories — Unlit Lanterns, Separation, Rupise: Where, When Does Love Stay? Lifefolds and Gleanings.

The opening poem, Before You Appeared in my Life, celebrates the sense of awareness that a woman brings to a young man. Beyond love and passion, the poem acknowledges the real value and strength of a woman who is not just about a pretty face and deep curves, but has a sharp mind and “feisty intellect” (pp3), something that for years has escaped society’s interpretation of women.

In Unlit Lanterns, the persona addresses a woman he is waiting for, and one gets the sense here that a woman is a life-giving force that, once she appears, will renew the man’s youth.

Here, Mahoso uses the biblical allusion of The Ten Virgins (one of the stories about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ) — not so much for its spiritual meaning and significance, but to demonstrate the man’s uncertainty concerning the return of his woman.

There is a fascinating interplay of biblical allusions and traditional African ethos in the poem.

Such biblical allusions run through the collection like an endless string of beads, giving the poems a greater dimension beyond their literal meanings.

Such allusions, which are familiar to many readers, enable them to have a deeper understanding of the poems because of the common and everyday references, which are also universal regardless of the user’s religious background.

Several of the poems collected here, including Fire and Ice and Spirit Level, show Mahoso as an intellectual poet given his choice of diction and allusions. In Fire and Ice, for instance, libido is described as “a monumental iceberg” that broke off, rebelling “against its Northern glacier ancestor” (pp5). On the other hand, scientific images of “blizzards”, “satellites”, “mercury”, “icecles” and “crystal” are scattered throughout the poem, Spirit Level.

In Lighting the Lanterns, the first stanza opens with a bride decrying the groom’s lack of discernment that the woman in his life is much more than the body he can see with his physical eyes.

She has far much more to offer him: “The bridegroom paid no attention/To my intellectual lantern/Full to the brim/…It was my body that excited him.” (pp8).

Experience has a tendency to enrich the scope of one’s capacity to express what they have gone through.

We see this in the poem There Was No Room, in which the persona recounts his experience of innocent, carefree love away from home.

The Love that Went Unclaimed for Thirty Years is the longing for lost love whose tide, marriage, family and career have failed to stem. Here is a love that ended abruptly, and the lack of closure makes the persona continually yearn for what was lost, and what could have been.

The soul tie remains unbroken, thus the haunting memories continue despite having moved on, in a sense.

What keeps this love so strong through the passage of time is its accompanying secrecy: “Dark secrets we could not articulate to ourselves/Or squeal and ventilate to mother or brother or spouse” (pp15).

Mahoso’s skill as a writer is more pronounced in the piece, First Supper 1977. While describing a dinner encounter with a loved one, the poet skilfully selects words to put across his message in a subtle way, while at the same time leaving it open-ended, perhaps to allow for various interpretations.

He wraps up the poem: “There is no ice left to break; what remains is hot soup and dark roast; but you and I prefer more time, more care, to bite, to chew, to consider more serious beef with spice so hot we are forced to retreat, go slow, or eat cake first, since there is no ice left to break.” (pp37).

The reader is left to muse: is this just about dinner and food? Or is it about passion and sex?

The collection could also be about the women that have given the poet sleepless nights, captured between the stanzas of poems including My Love, My Beauty, Muchadziya “the soft-spoken daughter of Sathiya” whose libido remains “a low-hormone-low-calorie brew” (pp39) and Tonhorai.

Mahoso has such a command of creative language uncommon among intellectuals more at home in dissecting theory and formulae.

He writes in a sweet cadence that lures the reader to continue and enjoy the beauty of language even beyond the meaning of the poems.

Mahoso predominantly uses blank verse in his poetry, doing away with the more traditional forms of poetry anchored on rhyme. Here one can argue there is rhythm derived from the meanings of the poems rather than the arrangements of the words.

guest column:Tsepang T Nare

An attitude is like a flat tyre, with it everything remains stagnant and out of touch but change in behaviour results in a phenomenal way of doing things. It is at that point that one begins to view things differently than the way one used to. At that instance, foresight begins to eliminate hindsight.

The advent of the Disabled Persons Act of 1992 saw Zimbabwe being elevated to a higher status as the Act was a first of its kind on the African continent. What made the document a touchstone was that it addressed pertinent issues to do with discrimination, equality, accessibility among many other issues.

Its primary objective being to ensure that a person with a disability lives a life of dignity, and gets to enjoy and perform at an equal level with those without a disability.

It carried hopes and values of the People Living With Disability (PLWD) community and once fully implemented it would go a long way. Being the touchstone that it was, it became a model to be copied by other countries. Unfortunately it was not anticipated that 27 years later the prestige would have turned to paltriness.

Various legislative frameworks have been put in place including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) ratified in 2013, which further strengthens and ensures recognition and upholding of human rights but lives continue to be reduced to nothing.

Continued violation of human rights and other counter-productive models have been the order of the day. The society has continuously adopted the charity model, where PLWDs are a product of sympathy and it is considered a noble act if citizens do something about disability which is viewed as a tragedy. The best practice being to make use of resources. Such has become the ideology of disability.

Whereas the social model of disability is viewed as a societal construct rather than a medical impairment, it is a collective issue caused by the physical environment, inappropriate or inaccessible services and attitudes, and lack of understanding.

Often times it is little things taken for granted that are disablers and a hindrance to progressive realisation of individual as well as collective abilities.

As we commemorate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities running under the theme: Promoting the Participation of Persons with Disabilities and Their Leadership, taking action on the 2030 development agenda, there is need to refocus, restrategise and look into adopting a transformative approach so as to create a gender non-conforming society whose values are premised upon equality, participation and inclusivity.

Though policies have been enacted and there is an effort to review the Disabled Persons Act of 1992 that has been taken over by events, little practical steps have been taken to robustly push for disability empowerment which will culminate in full inclusion and meaningful participation.

Physical environmental barriers, inaccessibility to services and attitudes are a cause for concern as they continue to hinder PLWDs from fully participating in the society or public spaces on an equal level with other people. Inaccessibility is a push factor to exclusion while the issue of attitude is a by-product of inequality.

The human rights-based approach as a developmental aspect of ensuring that human rights are promoted and there is fulfilment towards progressive realisation is sustainable as it looks at the symptoms of a greater malaise.

It is for such reasons that State actors and non-State actors should make significant strides towards promoting and intensifying participation as well as inclusion of PLWDs at all levels and in all circumstances where issues and decisions are to be made with an aim to make the development agenda a success.

PLWDs have a major role to play, but often times they have received a “piece of cake” when it comes to addressing their issues, resulting in disability being a struggle for resilience in an effort to get rights observed and implementation mechanisms to provisions set adhered to.

However, they ought to receive their full share. Collective efforts channelled towards a desirable outcome bring much-needed results. Therefore, there is need to open up space to allow self-representation in order to champion for change as that brings tangible results that drastically transform the face of disability, leading to social influence.

It is not about physical differences whose negative factors are attitudes, misconceptions and inequality, but is about those individual and collective capabilities being exhibited, thereby combating social injustices.

BY LIFE & STYLE REPORTER

EMERGING author Ruth Shoriwa-Shumbayaonda says she was overwhelmed on Saturday night when her friend and business colleague purchased a copy of her debut publication — Chandisatindaona — for
$24 000 during an auction held during the book launch.

Besides the $24 000 paid by Latoya Duke, other bidders got the book for between $1 000 and $12 000.

Musician and author Kireni Zulu, who was the guest of honour at the launch, saluted Shoriwa-Shumbayaonda for her resilience and focus.

“Writing publishable stuff is not for everyone although many can write. It takes a lot of character, dedication and focus,” he said.

“I really salute Ruth for this feat given the long nights and hours we would spend giving direction to her manuscripts. I am happy she has made it and I encourage all aspiring authors to take a leaf from her achievement.”

Speaking to NewsDay Life & Style on the sidelines of the highly-subscribed book launch, Shoriwa-Shumbayaonda said she was overwhelmed by the support she received.

“Writing is a passion that I have always had since childhood and I am really blown away by the support from family, friends and book lovers in general,” she said.

“Launching the book was just to celebrate this milestone given that publishing is a dream I harboured for long, but having the book bought at such encouraging amounts really humbled me.”

The launch, which was organised by Esteem Communications, also saw dendera crooner Tryson Chimbetu mesmerising the close to 200 people at the gathering.

Esteem Communications spokesperson Florence Mapindu said they were happy with their publishing programmes to date.

“We find joy in helping our clients achieve their milestones and we are happy that Ruth has published her first book in style,” she said.

guest column:Emmanuel Zvada

It is not concealed that wherever the employees and employers go to the table to negotiate salaries, there is a vital logical point that gets raised nearly all the time by the employees and the question will be, “What about cost of living?”

The difference between “cost of living” and “cost of labour” is an absolutely critical one, particularly when it comes to compensation philosophy and compensation in organisations.

There is an increasingly significant disconnect between what Zimbabwean workers expect from their employers and what corporations are reasonably able to provide in a challenging economic environment.

What is cost of living and cost of labour
Cost of living refers to the amount of money required to maintain a standard of living, accounting for basics like housing, food, clothing, utilities, taxes and healthcare.

Increases or decreases in the price of these necessities affect the cost of maintaining your lifestyle, and this, in turn, shapes how well your income will support you and your dependants.

In other ways, the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living is what we call cost of living.

When the wages you pay keep up with living expenses, employees are not forced to look elsewhere for higher paying work.

Cost of labour reflects what a particular geographic market offers as compensation for a specific type of work. This in usually termed salary.

In some instances, “Cost of labour” refers to the difference in pay or labour market for a job from one location to another.

The difference between the cost of labour and cost of living can mean many different things to many people.

In total rewards, it is important to address how cost of labour and cost of living are applied in our profession and business.

The current situation

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat), the poverty datum line represents the cost of a given standard of living that must be attained if a person is deemed not to be poor’.

The poverty line is obtained by specifying a consumption bundle considered adequate for basic consumption needs and then estimate the cost of these basic needs.

The poverty line may, therefore, be defined of as the minimum expenditure required by an individual to fulfil his or her basic food and non-food needs.

Runaway inflation has driven the majority of Zimbabweans below the PDL as many of those formally employed are earning less than $1 500 per month.

The total consumption poverty line (TCPL) for an average of five persons stood at $3 159,52 in October 2019.

This means that an average household required that much to purchase both food and non-food items for them not to be deemed poor, of which they cannot afford.

Inflation causes cost of living expenses to regularly increase. As the price of everyday items such as food, housing, gas, clothing, and utilities rises, your employees spend more.

To remain in a consistent financial situation, employee wages must go up as living expenses go up.

Cost of labour overtaken by the minimum cost of living

The current situation is dire and everyone knows that most employees and some employers as well are severely incapacitated and we are facing an existential crisis, a real crisis of existence.

It is very crucial to highlight that currently the cost of labour seems to be unfair as it is lagging behind the cost of living.

In actual fact, when normal cost of living has overtaken the cost of labour, employees are affected more as they will be left incapacitated.

Expectations vs reality

There is a widening gap between employee expectations and the reality of what organisations can reasonably offer them, which could prove toxic to companies if left unaddressed.

Zimbabwean employers need to make the connection between actions, outcomes and rewards clear in the context of business performance.

Organisations must put their communication strategies around pay to ensure they are having the desired impact.

It is important that employees are rewarded for their hard work and loyalty.

Restructure the wage system

A cost-of-living raise is an increase in pay that is intended to keep the buying power of an employee’s salary the same during a period of inflation.

Without a cost-of-living raise, the declining value of the dollar would leave workers with less real money in their pockets.

Employee remuneration has been eroded. It is known that at this stage most employees are struggling to make ends meet given the devaluation of their salaries and rising inflation.

The increase in inflation has impacted on how employers structure their remuneration.

To tackle cost of living pressures and maintain sustainability of remuneration, it may be necessary to look at the following options.

Linking wages to productivity

By directly linking wages with productivity, the employee is continuously rewarded for hard work, which drives him to produce more profits for the business.

The relationship between productivity and wages is a central issue for fair distribution between labour and capital.

Productivity can be defined as the amount of goods and services (output) produced in the economy for every unit of labour.

For example, output per worker and output per hour of work are both productivity measures.

When output per worker increases, workers’ contributions to the firm’s revenue increases causing demand for workers to increase also.

NEC pay structures to be continuously reviewed

The institutional wage negotiation setting in the private sector (NECs) through overall good, their role has been relegated to once-off wage negotiations.

It is critical that the role of the NECs be realigned so that they also consider their main role of representing the workers.

Key business decisions may occasionally require consideration of both cost of labour and cost of living in the analysis.

If companies haven’t effectively realigned employee expectations around compensation, workers will harbour bad feelings about how they are recognised and rewarded.

They may simply choose to “quit in seat”.

When they decide to quit in seat it means they will be coming to work, but disengaged and that has a great danger of compromising the performance of the organisation.

guest column:Learnmore Zuze

THE term rogue State is largely a curious one in political science, with grave connotations on how a country is perceived by other progressive nations. There is no State that formalises and prides itself in being termed a rogue State, but this term is earned through conduct.

The ideal governance of a country should stress political tolerance and place the interests of a nation first. To the contrary, the hallmark of a rogue State is repression and intolerance of political dissent. It is against this backdrop that it should be emphasised boldly that the needless State security heavy-handedness against the opposition MDC each time it congregates is a massive dent on Zimbabwe, a country so desperately in need of being embraced by the progressive world.

Could it be that no one is realising the palpable irony in expending thousands of scarce United States dollars in air travel in engagement efforts while our country reeks with an acrid smell of an abhorrent human rights record?

If there is one common sad feature that has stood head and shoulder above others on the downside of human rights this year, it has been the glaring State intolerance of opposition political gatherings.

Very few of any MDC gatherings have taken place with the smoothness expected in democratic States. It has been constantly a cat and mouse game.

One certain thing is that the opposition will continue getting some imaginary excuses from authorities should they want to have political gatherings. The clashes have always ended up violent and it is quite revealing that the same cannot be said of ruling party gatherings where the police have often been seen beefing up security ensuring no skirmishes break out.

However, an MDC political gathering has always ended up with maimed and teargassed people. The new low is the reported weekend shooting by alleged police at MDC leader Nelson Chamisa in Marondera at a tree planting event.

A plethora of theories have emerged in light of this incident given that it defeats all logic that an assassination attempt would be done in such a brazen manner.

The rational question to ask is; what would be achieved by shooting Chamisa except more chaos and more alienation of the country? Of course, there have been persistent denials by authorities each time such incidents occur.

Imaginary forces have been singled out for carrying out savage acts against critics of the government. Even going by the Marondera police narrative that the gathering was illegal, the question still bounces back at the nature of force used. Legally, the police are well within the confines of the law to use what is described as “proportional force”.

But, as it were, one can try to dig into all the infamous clashes between police and MDC this year and one thing sticks out. The force being used by the police in quelling MDC protests and gatherings is clearly disproportionate.

There is no point in firing teargas into a crowd standing still, which is not threatening any property or human interest. Violence is only unleashed where a crowd gets violent and is attempting to commit a physical crime.

A recent case in point would be what the world witnessed as Chamisa tried to present his Hope of the Nation Address (Hona) just some two weeks ago at Morgan Tsvangirai House. The police descended ruthlessly on every human being, whether a vendor or passerby with diabolical gusto. It must be fully understood that the brutality on the opposition and the shutting of all democratic space means more alienation for Zimbabwe. The crushing of dissent and brutal tactics can only mean more hunger and de-recognition of Zimbabwe as a country.

It is now a widely-held perception that probably there are some people bent on painting the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led government as an unrepentant fascist State. It is not difficult to understand why this theory has somewhat gained currency.

It is pure lack of rationale and the absurd manner with which the opposition is being targeted for attack. What makes the case worse is the unintelligible denial of things which take place in the full glare of the public.

Zimbabwe will remain ostracised from countries with good governance as long as brutal ways of addressing the opposition are employed.

The police reaction to the MDC is now very predictable; it is as if to say the MDC must not exist as a party. The MDC has, in a way, been “illegalised” to the extent that it cannot freely carry out business in Zimbabwe.

Even during the time of the late ex-President Robert Mugabe, the level of repression was not as brazen as we witness today. At the end of it all, it must be noted that the greatest losers as a result of such suppressive acts are the people of Zimbabwe.

The country will continue to deteriorate economically and skills flight and hunger will persist. The image of the country is being soiled.

BY BLESSED MHLANGA

MAIN opposition MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has failed God by not accepting the 2018 presidential election results and the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruling, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said yesterday.

Mnangagwa lampooned Chamisa for refusing to accept the 2018 presidential results, saying God was a God of order and, therefore, the refusal by the MDC and its leadership to accept the results, which were reaffirmed by the ConCourt, was a clear act of defiance against God.

The Zanu PF leader, whose victory in the July 30, 2018 poll has been disputed by the MDC, was addressing leaders of local Christian denominations at State House, at a meeting meant to find a home-grown solution to the
country’s deteriorating political and economic crises.

“For structures to work, those of us who put them should respect them, especially when they pass a ruling. I am now going to politics: We had our elections, after those elections, you don’t tell yourself that you have won. Other people are the ones who name the winner. If you enter a race … and you run the race and you get to the finish line, you don’t go there and say it’s me who won, there are other people who announce the winner … these are the institutions that regulate how people live in the country. Now when you can’t listen to the institutions, you will have disobeyed God, because he is a God of order,” Mnangagwa said.

Chamisa has refused to recognise Mnangagwa’s presidency, with his party legislators also walking out on the Zanu PF leader each time he enters Parliament Building.

The youthful opposition leader claims his victory was stolen by Mnangagwa in connivance with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) and the ConCourt.

The MDC has insisted that Mnangagwa’s illegitimacy was behind the country’s political and economic mess, saying only genuine dialogue between Chamisa and the Zanu PF leader would unlock the current political logjam.

Several church groups have offered to broker talks between the two protagonists, but the Indigenous Interdenominational Council of Churches, led by Andrew Wutaunashe, have shot down the efforts and warned Mnangagwa against entering into negotiations centred around his legitimacy.

“We seek a dialogue that begins from the recognition that our State, our nation of Zimbabwe, and all its institutions must be preserved and they must be respected. To this end, we, as the indigenous church leaders, are also saying there cannot be real genuine dialogue based on trying to determine whether or not you are the President of Zimbabwe. You are the President of Zimbabwe,” Wutaunashe said.

“You are the President, not because it’s an opinion of Emmerson Mnangagwa alone, but it’s the opinion of the voters and when it was disputed, it was taken to the most important institution that gave a determination. When the ConCourt gave a ruling that you were duly elected, it would be foolhardy to start any dialogue on the basis that we are discussing whether or not you are the President because if we do so, what we are doing is we are destroying our own institutions.”

Wutaunashe then called on Chamisa to publicly accept the ConCourt verdict and begin to treat Mnangagwa as his President.

“We are not being guided as this nation by the opinion of Emmerson Mnangagwa or that of Nelson Chamisa, we are being guided as a nation by the author and law that comes from our institutions … We also call upon the opposition, particularly the MDC … we call upon Nelson Chamisa to recognise the Presidency, to accept the findings of the court as a respect of our courts and our institutions,” he said.

Last week, Mnangagwa met with Catholic bishops, who wanted to discuss the imploding socio-economic crisis in the country, among other issues, but Wutaunashe said it was the local churches who were the real voices of Zimbabweans.

“Patriotic churches, that hold the voice of the churches which actually have their roots in this country and represent overwhelmingly the voice of the majority of the people of this nation, have actually been in a way made voiceless. Statements are being made left, right and centre and being attributed to the church and yet not of these whom you see before you at least have been invited or told of the statements,” he said.

The Zimbabwe Council of Churches, which has been pushing for a lasting dialogue between Mnangagwa and Chamisa, came under attack, with Zion Christian Church leader Nehemiah Mutendi accusing them of trying to disrespect the Constitution.

“They came and said let us put aside elections for seven years. They want us to disrespect the Constitution, to disrespect our laws, yet the Bible tells us to obey the law,” he said.

By SIMBARASHE SITHOLE

ZIMDANCEHALL chanter Emmanuel “Guspy Warrior” Manyeruke (pictured) says he has been busy raising funds and goods to give the elderly at Bumudzo Old People’s Home in Chitungwiza some cheer during this year’s festive season.

Guspy Warrior, who was raised in Chitungwiza as a Salvation Army congregant, said he believed it was time for him to give back to the community.

“This festive season, I am remembering the elderly at Bumudzo in my hood, Chitungwiza, where I grew up and being a member of the Salvation Army, I believe it is high time that I should be seen ploughing back into the community,” he
said.

“I am appealing to fellow Zimbabweans willing to chip in with donations to do so by contacting me through my digital platforms so that we contribute meaningfully to our elderly this festive season.”

Meanwhile, the musician, who released his latest double album, Undisputed, with Dhadza D on October 31 at Aquatic Complex in Chitungwiza, said he usually pushed his music from October in preparation for year-end parties.

Guspy has been frequenting Bindura this year and has since promised to give his fans there a free show in January as a bonus for their overwhelming support.

“I have frequented Bindura because my fans (there) are very welcoming and I have never flopped in that city, so I am actually planning to give them a free show in January as most of us know that in January, people will be broke,” he said.

The son to the legendary gospel musician, Mechanic Manyeruke, will wrap up his Bindura shows this year on Saturday, where he will share the stage with Tocky Vibes.