A MATABELELAND South youth advocacy group has called for a 30% youth quota instead of 10 parliamentary seats allocated to the youth for the 2023 elections in proposed constitutional amendments.

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

Government recently approved constitutional amendments that will see the creation of 10 parliamentary seats for the youth, extension of women’s quota by another 10 years and scrapping of the running mate concept on Presidential elections.

“On the youth quota, the proposal is to increase our seats by 10 and have each province get one youth representative, so parties will submit the names of candidates and depending on the votes in the province, the party with the majority will have its candidate in Parliament, so we are not cutting down on anything,” acting Information minister Amon Murwira announced after a recent Cabinet meeting.

The Community Youth for Development Trust (CYDT), a Matabeleland South youth advocacy group, however, said the proposal was not enough and instead suggested a 30% quota for the youth in the next elections.

“While we do acknowledge that this is a positive step, we believe that reserving only one seat per (province) is not enough considering that young people constitute the majority of the Zimbabwean population,” the CYDT said in a statement yesterday.

“As CYDT, we call upon the government to introduce a proper and well-defined quota system that comes as a stand-alone in the Constitution. As CYDT, our proposition is that there should be 30% youth parliamentary representation as from the 2023 elections.”

The adoption of women and youth’s quotas is seen as key to the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the promotion of democracy through inclusive institutions.

Also, the adoption of electoral quotas for politically under-represented groups has become a prominent policy worldwide.

“Youth representation should be at political party levels and, therefore, we challenge political parties in Zimbabwe to start developing and implementing strategies that will ensure that their candidates in the 2023 candidates have a clear and balanced representation of both women and youth,” the CYDT added.

A MIDLANDS State University (MSU) student was this week spared jail time for smashing a Trip Trans bus’ windows with burning logs in a fit of rage at an accident scene in Chipinge.

BY RICHARD MUPONDE

Denford Semwayo (25) of Clear Water Chipinge, who is an MSU student, was convicted on his own plea of guilty to malicious damage to property when he appeared before Chipinge magistrate, Joshua Nembaware.

He was sentenced to eight months in prison of which five months were conditionally suspended. The remainder was suspended on condition he pays $400 damages to the bus company.

In mitigation, Semwayo said he damaged the bus after being assaulted by passengers from the bus.

“I was angry because I had been assaulted by people who had disembarked from the bus. I ask for forgiveness and for the State to exercise leniency when arriving on its sentence since I am still a student who is in the middle of his studies at MSU,” Semwayo said.

Prosecutor, Shamiso Ncube told the court that on September 6, Semwayo was a passenger on a Honda Fit vehicle which was driving towards Chipinge when it was side-swiped by a Trip Trans bus going in the opposite direction.

As the bus driver, Fila Machona, was negotiating with the Honda Fit driver, Semwayo fetched two burning logs from a nearby homestead and threw them at the bus.

Machona made a police report, leading to Semwayo’s arrest.

FILMMAKER Shem Zemura’s dream to see his village stories receive recognition on international platforms came true with the triple award nomination for the film, Kushata KweMoyo, at the annual Lake International PanAfrican Film Festival (LIPFF) slated for November 7 to 10 in Kenya.

BY TAFADZWA KACHIKO

Kushata KweMoyo, a 92-minute feature film, was nominated for the Best Feature Film, Best Actress and Best Editor awards at the festival.

Zemura — the film’s producer and director — will leave for Kenya with Best Actor nominee Gamuchirai Duve , who plays the character of Chiedza. He described the nominations as a great milestone.

“I am very excited that our talent is being recognised outside Zimbabwe on a Pan African platform. Being nominated is a big milestone for Rain Media, Mirazvo Productions, the cast and the crew of the film,” he said, adding that the film’s success was the result of collaborative effort.
He cited the Mirazvo crew and cast of Duve, Kudzai Musingo, Tinotenda Sataande, Charles Mzemba, Amanda Ranganawa and Ashley Savanhu.

Duve said she was excited about the nomination, her first outside Zimbabwe.

“I was happy when I heard the news… It’s a great achievement since it’s my first time to be nominated outside Zimbabwe. It’s so encouraging and made me believe in myself,” she said.

Kushata KweMoyo is about a woman who is forced to deal with her dark past when her step sister pays an unexpected visit. It won the Best Feature and Best Actor awards at the National Arts and Merit Awards in 2018 and got an official selection at the ZIFF-2018.

BLACK RHINOS..(0)2
TELONE……..(1)1

BLACK Rhinos yesterday came from behind to beat TelOne in a top-flight league match at the National Sports Stadium, condemning the visitors further into the relegation quagmire.

BY HENRY MHARA

King Nadolo’s wonder goal on the 24th minute looked to be enough to give TelOne maximum points, but Rhinos rallied late with a goal from Allan Gahadzikwa five minutes from the end before substitute Osborne Mukuradare completed the come back on the 90th minute.

With the victory, the home side moved into fifth position on the log with 42 points.

Black Rhinos are now nine points behind log leaders, Caps United with six games remaining, and their coach Herbert Maruwa believes his side can nick the title.

“This is a good result. With the leading teams dropping points you never know what is going to happen. We still have six games to play and we still fancy our chances (of winning the title),” Maruwa said.

TelOne coach Rahman Gumbo refused to talk to the media after the match. His side remained in the relegation zone, sitting on 16th position with 29 points. They will need to pick up points if they harbour any chances of avoiding an immediate return to the second-tier league.

The match started 25 minutes late after a fracas between the two teams’ security officials, with the away team accusing the home side of denying them entry into the stadium.

When the match started, there were no real chances created in the initial stage, with action being concentrated in the middle of the park. But Nadolo would light up the atmosphere with a cracker that will contend for the goal of the season award.

The winger first killed off a high ball before firing a dipping volley on the turn from outside the box to beat a bamboozled Rhinos goalkeeper Ashley Reyners.

His effort was probably the only highlight of the first half, with his goal the only shot on target registered by the two teams in that stanza.

That pattern of play continued in the second half, with the two teams failing to hit shots on target. That was until Gahadzikwa arrived from the blind side to score Rhinos’ first shot on target.

Five minutes later, the army side completed their comeback with their second shot on target when Mukuradare headed in a cross.

Teams

Black Rhinos: A Reyners, J Mukombwe, T Jaravani, F Banda, A Tandi, M Mukumba, E Chigiji (M Mekiwa, 46′), A Gahadzikwa, M Demera (G Saunyama, 60′), W Taderera, W Mutasa (O Mukuradare, 69′)

TelOne: R Pitisi, C Mutero, M Chigumira, S Phiri, T Nyabinde, I Zambezi, E Zinyama, J Jam, T Sibanda (M Moyo, 72′), K Nadolo, E Mandiranga (J Muzokomba, 54′)

Businesses operating in Marondera central business district (CBD) yesterday petitioned the Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company (ZETDC) complaining that they have not been getting electricity during the day for several months now.

BY JAIROS SAUNYAMA

The petition was signed by 97 business people in the farming town.

“We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens who urge our leaders to act now to ensure that the Marondera CBD, especially the other part of town (from Chicken Inn to OK Supermarket) and areas bordering the same, are also supplied with electricity during working hours. The other Marondera CBD, including areas around local Zesa and the municipality offices, are always favoured and powered,” the petition read.

ZETDC was also accused of providing power in low-density areas, where top government officials and politicians stay.

“The nearby residential suburbs like Cherutombo and Paradise Park are most favoured and supplied with power during the day. Surely, the CBD area should be getting priority during the day to support business entities and ensure less interruption to services. We feel we are the forgotten and treated unfairly and like second class citizens in our own town,” the petition further read.

The petition was also copied to Energy minister Fortune Chasi, Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs minister Aplonia Munzverengi and Marondera Central legislator Caston Matewo, among others.

Efforts to get a comment from Zesa officials in Marondera were fruitless, with their top engineer reportedly in Chinhoyi.

However, Chasi tweeted that he would look into the matter.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa should immediately set up a team of tacticians to come up with sanctions-busting strategies aimed at ameliorating the suffering of Zimbabweans due to the effects of restrictive measures, Zanu PF-linked cleric Obadiah Msindo has said.

By Precious Chida

In an interview with NewsDay yesterday, a week after Mnangagwa led a Sadc solidarity anti-sanctions march in Harare, Msindo also urged the President to quickly deal with people in his government and the party had imposed internal sanctions on the country.

The cleric said the Western sanctions were being reinforced by self-imposed internal sanctions by those pushing factional agendas, not supporting the vision of the President and giving a half-hearted commitment to their work while advancing selfish interests.

“The President should set up a team to find ways of circumventing the effects of the sanctions because as it appears, the Western countries are not willing to remove them despite the call from the whole continent,” Msindo said.

“Apart from setting up the team, the President should also identify and deal with various people in government and party whose actions are a threat to his vision. Their actions are an indirect way of imposing internal sanctions on the President and the country.”

Msindo’s call comes after Mnangagwa last week indicated that sanctions were hurting all sectors of the economy, leading to the economic meltdown now chewing right into the livelihoods of the ordinary people.

The US, which imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2001 through the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, has repeatedly denied that their sanctions were hurting ordinary people, insisting they were simply targeted restrictions on certain individuals and entities linked to the State.

But Msindo said people around Mnangagwa should not wait for the West to remove the sanctions on the country, but find ways that can enable the country to survive.

“We need a team that can think outside the box, that is why the President appointed them,” he said.

The controversial cleric said it was sad that the country was under sanctions because it had reclaimed its land, but equally saddening was that the beneficiaries of the land reform were not utilising the resource, resulting in food insecurity in the country.

“Those who got land and are not using it, are imposing internal sanctions on the people and the President should deal with such saboteurs. The issue of production on the farms should be compulsory,” he said.

“With production on the land, Zimbabwe could be food secure and generating enough foreign currency. We have huge international markets for farm produce such as soyabeans, tobacco and other cash crops.”

Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy and prior to the land reform, was the breadbasket of the Sadc region.

However, the country turned into a basket case after the land reform programme, after most beneficiaries grabbed land for speculative reasons.

“There should be a deliberate policy to enforce production on the farms as this can be a way of busting the embargoes,” Msindo said.

The cleric said the billions of dollars sought by the country from America and other international funding institutions could actually be generated from maximising production on farms.

By 2050 an estimated 2,5 billion more people will be added to urban areas, with 90% of this growth taking place in Africa and Asia. According to Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Romer, this will mean the building of more urban areas in the next 100 years than exist today. If managed effectively, Africa’s cities will drive the continent’s economic growth, and thereby help reduce poverty. To date, however, Africa has yet to realise the positive gains of rapid urbanisation experienced elsewhere. Instead, increasingly concentrated populations have become a major stress on the limited infrastructure and services, such as housing, employment, health, education, and safety. Retrofitting cities, where cities already exist, can be up to three times more expensive than planning for infrastructure in advance of settlement. Therefore, some leaders see the construction of whole new cities as the overall solution to overcome the pressures on existing ones.

The idea of constructing new cities to solve urbanisation challenges is not new. In Africa, for example, the first post-independence wave came with some governments deciding to move their capital cities. The motivations for this varied. In the case of Yamoussoukro, which was declared the capital of Côte d’Ivoire in 1983, the move reflected the desire of the then president Houphouët-Boigny to have the capital located in his home town.
Nigeria, on the other hand, Abuja became the new capital in 1991 to relieve population pressures in Lagos. The choice of the site for Abuja was motivated by the fact that it was located in the centre of the country. It is also more ethnically neutral as it is located between the country’s northern, majority Muslim population and southern, largely Christian population. The creation of the city of Abuja, therefore, was also to help bridge the divisions in the country in terms of politics as well as economic opportunity.

The fortunes of Yamoussoukro and Abuja offer important lessons for current planners of new cities — 120 are being built in 40 countries. Although some people were attracted to Yamoussoukro by the prospect of a newly constructed international airport, and even the world’s largest church, most stayed away. While it continues to be the country’s administrative capital, most government institutions remain in Abidjan. On top of this, Abidjan is still the vastly more popular city. It is the economic hub of the country, with an estimated population of close to four million. Yamoussoukro’s population is approximately 200 000, making it only the sixth largest city in the country. Any new city takes time to grow. Abuja, though still much smaller than Lagos, which remains Nigeria’s economic hub, has, however, already experienced rapid population growth since it was founded. In 1987 its population was only about 15 000 people.

Today, it has a population of over three million. Although not without its own challenges, there were two major advantages of Abuja. Firstly, at the time of its conception, the Nigerian government had a large amount of petrodollars. This meant that major investments in its infrastructure, such as water lines, could largely be made in advance of people settling. In addition, unlike Yamoussoukro, major government institutions were moved to Abuja. This spurred initial population movement, as the government civil service had an incentive to move there.

The myth of smart cities

The current wave of new city building is largely focused on leap-frogging economic development and moving Africa’s cities directly into the age of futuristic, technologically advanced, so-called smart cities. Plans for these types of cities are sprouting up across the continent; from Kenya, Mauritius and Senegal. Leading the way is Nigeria with five current on-going new city projects, which, when completed, are set to cover a landmass of 25 million square metres. The agenda of new city building is not only being pushed by governments, but by a vast array of construction, real estate and technology companies, who stand to profit from the city construction boom, as well. Yet these new cities will want to avoid pitfalls of places like Cyberjaya, Malaysia. Cyberjaya was the Malaysian government’s attempt to emulate Silicon Valley and pioneer such a hub in Asia.

Cyberjaya was built on 2 800 hectares of undeveloped land, 40km south of Kuala Lumpur. The idea behind the city was to create a space where intelligent minds from across the globe could reside comfortably and just concentrate on innovation. Malaysia hoped that its first mover advantage in the smart city arena would attract investors. They also believed that Cyberjaya could be a model for the city of the future. Yet Cyberjaya has failed to live up to its reputation. In particular, a fundamental design flaw was the lack of understanding that people move to cities not only for the infrastructure but also the amenities, as well as to build networks and to integrate into existing networks. In conceptualising Cyberjaya, the Malaysian government largely ignored this.
Rather the city was envisaged only for the highly educated elite, who, it was assumed, did not require many further amenities outside a suitable work environment. As a result of the failure to understand the human aspect of cities, many parts of Cyberjaya have remained vacant to date.
Many of Africa’s upcoming smart cities exhibit similar conceptualisation flaws. Senegal’s futuristic city Diamniadio, a core part of President Macky Sall’s 2035 plan, is meant to be a city of knowledge. It will comprise an industrial park with entertainment facilities and residential areas. However, when the city is completed, which is intended to be by 2035, it is unlikely that the majority of Senegalese will be able to afford to live there. An estimated US$100bn is being invested in new city projects across Africa; Diamniadio alone will cost the Senegalese government an estimated US$2bn. The assumption is that these investments will pay off. The logic is that these cities will attract the best and the brightest.

In turn this should drive productivity increases that ultimately will repay the large loans.
In addition, as the new city of Eko Atlantic City in Nigeria has shown, land prices may increase substantially. So, if the government can capture these through land based taxes, this can help recoup costs too.

But failure invariably comes with large debt bills that African countries cannot afford, and may leave large, unfinished ghost cities in its wake.

Not easy

As the case of Cyberjaya and other failed new city projects globally demonstrate, successfully designing new cities from scratch is not easy. Cities are complex systems. They require the necessary infrastructure to function. Silicon Valley has been successful as the infrastructure and regulatory environment has meant firms have clustered and learned from each other, spurring innovation.

But none of this matters without people being willing to live there. And what attracts people into cities are opportunities for social interaction and the socio-economic networks. In the case of Silicon Valley’s success, for example, it’s clear that the entrepreneurs employed by the firms themselves care about the business environment as well as the quality of life for themselves and their families.

Building new smart cities, in the hope people will follow, may be a higher-risk gamble that most African governments cannot afford. A surer bet is to study where people are already moving, which means where future urbanisation is likely to happen. Laying the foundations for this urbanisation to happen in an orderly and well-managed fashion, such as delineating basic road systems and investing in basic infrastructure before settlement takes place, as was done in Abuja, will go a long way to harness the potential of Africa’s urbanisation. – The Conversation

 Astrid Haas is a senior country economist for Cities and Manager of the Cities that Work Initiative, based in Kampala, Uganda

Enact reforms quicker. Execute faster policies. Prioritise growth and resilience building that includes women, girls and youth in national budget allocations — no room for mistakes.

This was a resounding call throughout for seven days from October 14 to 20, 2019, at the World Bank Group (WBG) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2019 fall annual meetings in Washington, DC.

Also, that week, Parliament of Zimbabwe’s Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Economic Development was having a pre-budget consultative meeting with the Finance and Economic Development ministry. Finance minister Mthuli Ncube had recently released his 2020 pre-budget strategy paper aimed at facilitating discussions on policy direction for the 2020 national budget.

The main highlight of the IMF-WBG annual meetings — the World Economic Outlook — was presented by Gita Gopinath, IMF economic counsellor who said, “The global economy is in a synchronised slowdown,” adding that the IMF is once again down grading global GDP growth for 2019 to 3% — it’s slowest pace since the global financial crisis. For sustainable growth, she said, “It’s important that countries undertake structural reforms to boost productivity, improve resilience and lower inequality. These reforms are always more effective when good governance is already in place.”

“To summarise: the global economic outlook remains precarious with a synchornised slowdown and an uncertain recovery. At 3% growth, there is no room for policy mistakes and there is an urgent need for policy-makers to support growth,” she added.

The Opportunities

Since Independence, the government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) has always wanted to urbanise, but in the countryside, it looks the same as four decades ago, for the most part; same roads — or lack of new roads — or no new roads, little infrastructure, long distances travelled to receive child healthcare and not modified for vulnerable groups such as girls. A fast, downward spiral in quality of life has been exacerbated by the current drought and food insecurity across the country.

Against this backdrop, structural reforms, resilience and poverty reduction efforts through inclusion of women, girls and job creation for a booming youth population had a substantial allocation to the IMF-WBG annual meetings agenda in a consistent and central way. Fiscal policy plays a crucial role in planning development agendas and for “downside risks, contributing to financial stability, financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and finally, in addressing climate change, “ IMF director of the Fiscal Affairs Department, Victor Gasper said in Washington, adding that climate change “is the topic of the fiscal monitor this time”— the October 2019 edition of the fiscal monitor focuses on the design of fiscal policies for climate mitigation at the domestic and international levels to advise policymakers to follow prudent fiscal policies.

Priority considerations

Political will to quickly act while urgently putting in place a whole suite of public policy measures is a need to be taken up while recognising the culture and traditions of Zimbabwe.

• Quicker structural reforms — will go a long way in fighting corruption; the abuse of public office for private gain. Among economic experts at these meetings, there was broad agreement on the economic benefits of structural reforms; they often carry short-term costs while most of the economic gains from reforms only materialise over the longer term.

It was against this background that high-ranking experts discussed the political ramifications a country might face from not swiftly implementing a structural reform agenda. IMF says its “research shows that a major broad-based reform push in the area of governance, trade, finance product and labour market could raise output by as much as 7% over six years, providing a big boost to jobs and economic growth at a time when the global economy is slowing down,” but was quick to raise for discussion, “ if it was possible to implement far-reaching reforms without paying a price at the ballot box.

The public can access information that answers this question in an IMF staff discussion paper on The Political Costs of Reforms: Fear of Reality that states, “The political economy of reform is, however, less settled for two reasons. First, reforms may generate gains only in the longer term while distributional effects may be sizable in the short term. Second, governments may lack the political capital needed to confront vocal interest groups, wherein politicians may hold back on reforms, fearing they will be penalised at the ballot box (IMF 2009, 2016, and 2019).

There is much to ponder here, as Zimbabwe undergoes austerity measures and is classed as a “fragile, low-income country.”

• Faster resilience — a must in national budget allocations

In launching the IMF Sub-Saharan Africa Regional African Economic Outlook report, Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF African Department, laid out that, “policies we feel are needed to facilitate stronger growth.” He stated, “Cyclone Idai followed quickly by Cyclone Kenneth. So, we are trying to provide support to countries as they are being impacted by these shocks as quickly as we possibly can. So, that’s one way in which we are dealing with the somewhat uncertain climate. Right now, of course, we have a drought in southern Africa. We are trying to assess the impact of that in countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique and giving policy advice and support there.”

In the Fiscal Monitor, Gasper said it is important to realise that current pledges under the Paris Agreement are not enough. As concerns continue to mount over the impact of climate change, central banks are taking action in a range of areas within their mandates.

But is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe heeding the negative implications of Cyclones Idai, Kenneth and droughts?

Dealing with the impact will require prioritising fiscal policy measures, but as the IMF has emphasised, “While fiscal tools are first in line, they need to be complemented by financial policy tools such as financial regulation, financial governance, and policies to enhance financial infrastructure and monetary policy.”

Why so much IMF attention to this?

Kristalina Georgieva, IMF managing director, said, “The criticality of addressing climate change for financial stability, for making sure that we can have sustainable growth, is so very clear and proven today that no institution, no individual can step back from the responsibility to act. For the IMF, we always look at risks.

”This is now a category of risk that absolutely has to be front and centre in our work for two reasons: one, because of disaster risks to stability of countries; two, because of transitional risks.

”We have a duty of care to understand these risks, classify them, and most importantly, come up with policies to manage them.” In response, Philip Lane, member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, was emphatic and clarified that for a central bank to deliver on its core mandate it absolutely must be involved in resilience policies and delivering on inflation targets.

Georgieva went on to say there is no way of addressing the fundamentals of the economy without addressing climate implications, therefore IMF will be including it in its work.

It’s not only about predicting inflation, but serious monetary policy — every sector of the economy will be affected; it has to be at the core of central banking. Sabine Mauderer, member of the executive board of the Deutsche Bundesbank was quick to caution that, “ We have to bear in mind that we have a clear distinction between the mandates of central banking and policy-making.

Crystal clear is that central banks do have to deal with the risk of climate change. That is crystal clear. But, they cannot substitute climate policy. Climate policy has to be done quickly.

Central banks ought to integrate climate change and financial stability monitoring into banking supervision.” She asked that policymakers implement reforms that increase disclosure of individual and systemic risk because this information is desperately needed.

Herein lies a clear opportunity for Zimbabwe’s leaders to demonstrate leadership.

• Accelerate Poverty Reduction — how this can be achieved in Africa was central to the meetings.

On October 17, 2019, the WBG introduced, “an ambitious new learning target, which aims to cut by 50% the global rate of ‘learning poverty’ by 2030. Learning poverty is defined as the percentage of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple story.”

How Zimbabwe’s 2020 budget allocation will stack up against these plans will soon unfold as its Minister of Finance is due to reveal his national budget mid-November.

There was a prevailing view among most economists about why the future of rural spaces was key in discussions on a better economy that overcomes the rural hurdles of distance, degradation and climate vulnerability to promote greater economic inclusion and resilience. Perspectives from the public and private sectors were brought to bear on the question of effective rural change. It was generally agreed among the experts present that the need for women’s empowerment to significantly make improvements in the rural space was a must. It was highlighted that farmer cooperatives and local organisations realising economies of scale are another factor of success from The Netherlands to Rwanda. Rural economies are ripe for innovations that deliver better results for people, Zimbabwe and the planet. Additionally, science and digital technology — including SMS and television — are key areas to accelerate this transformation.

Hastening poverty reduction and the cascading effects of an unaddressed, fast-deteriorating healthcare system deficiency should be examined by legislators as they prepare to formulate the 2020 national budgetary policies.

Georgieva talked about how improved gender parity would lead to better economic outcomes. She argued that women must fully participate in the economy on equal terms. On unpaid work, she was adamant the unequal distribution of unpaid work is not only unfair, it is also inefficient since you have high-skilled women doing unskilled work. She concluded by stressing that while political will is needed to take concrete steps, cultures take time to change. In response to a question on what men can do to help, Georgieva said that it is important that men recognise the historical injustice and that IMF is working to correct it.

A failure to heed — the IMF-WBG calls to act quickly — will have far-reaching, long-term consequences for generations to come.

Accelerating reforms, speeding resilience, and lowering inequality and poverty faster is key.

• Pearl Matibe has geographic expertise on US foreign policy, think tank impact, strategy and public policy issues. You may follow her on Twitter: @PearlMatibe