CHAOS reigned supreme at the late Mugodhi Apostolic sect leader Tandewu Mugodhi’s burial in Wedza on Saturday after two factions clashed over the burial site and the appointment of his son as heir apparent.

BY JAIROS SAUNYAMA

Three police officers, who were at the site, had a torrid time quelling the chaos as sect members exchanged harsh words, while some shouted unprintable words as the leadership wrangle within one of the biggest apostolic sects in the country escalated.

A faction opposed to the elevation of Mugodhi’s son Washington was left seething with anger after he was ordained sect leader against a High Court ruling which recognised vice-bishop Tonnie Sigauke as the bona fide successor.

High Court judge Justice Owen Tagu made the determination on September 4, 2019, after sect members petitioned the court, seeking an order to interdict Tandewu from appointing Washington the acting vice-bishop and to act on his behalf.

Justice Tagu further said Tandewu’s move was a breach of the sect’s constitution.

In his ruling, Justice Tagu said: “The first respondent (Tandewu) be and is hereby interdicted from carrying out his duties until he has been cleansed in terms of the applicant’s constitution.

“The first, second, third and fourth respondents (Tandewu, Washington, Innocent and Enock Mugodhi) together with their families be and are hereby interdicted from interfering in the operations of the applicant (Sigauke).

“The pronouncement by the first respondent that the second respondent is now the acting vice-bishop be and is hereby declared unlawful. The vice-bishop Tonnie Sigauke be and is hereby confirmed as acting bishop.”

There were also frantic efforts to bar Tandewu from being buried at the sect’s headquarters.
The disgruntled sect members tried to use traditional leadership in the area to stop the burial without success.

Tandewu was buried at the sect headquarters where his father Elijah Mugodhi, who died in 1971 is buried.

Giving a speech during the burial ceremony, one of the leaders revealed that all was not well within the sect as some members were jostling for top posts.

A family member, who preferred anonymity, told NewsDay that there had been efforts by the anti-Tandewu faction to take over the leadership long before his death.

“There have been efforts to seize leadership from the Mugodhi family. This is why there was chaos at the funeral wake. They tried to bar him from being buried at the sect headquarters despite other bishops being buried there. Some of the members feel that the family should not be involved in the church leadership, which is wrong. They are against the elevation of Washington and it is not looking good. When Tandewu was no longer feeling well, some of his enemies changed the constitution without his knowledge as they were trying to stage a coup,” the family member said.

Tandewu died last week after a long battle with cancer.

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association (ZHDA) yesterday said it had set up a crowd-funding platform through their affiliate associations to ease financial problems faced by its members, particularly those who did not receive their salaries last week.

By Phyllis Mbanje/Desmond Chingarande

The doctors, who also claim they are receiving indirect threats to force them to abandon their nearly two months’ strike, said the non-payment of salaries had further impoverished them.

“The most recent assault has been the withholding of October salaries for all doctors who have not been reporting to work due to the very fact that they are financially liquidated,” ZHDA representative Tawanda Zvakada said.

Health Services Board chairperson Paulinus Sikosana has, however, denied reports that government suspended salaries for the striking doctors, claiming that some doctors details were omitted by mistake.

“The HSB receives consolidated information from registers compiled by individual hospitals. For senior doctors, this is based on an on-call roster and as such if the doctor on-call was called to attend to patients and did not come, they were considered to be absent from work,” he said.
Addressing the media at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals yesterday, Zvakada, who was flanked by other members of the ZHDA executive, said while they acknowledged attempts by government in addressing their pleas, the offers fell short of their expectations.

Although their employer dragged them to court which ordered them to go back to work, the doctors have said they remain incapacitated to go back to work.

“While the willingness to comply with the ruling is there, we maintain that we remain physically and materially incapacitated,” Zvakada said.

Of concern to doctors is the fact that they have received threats.

“We as the ZHDA leadership, we feel there are indirect threats that have been made towards us. We condemn such actions if indeed they were directed to us or if there is anyone planning to do so,” they said.

The threats come three weeks after ZHDA president Peter Magombeyi was allegedly abducted and tortured by suspected State security agents and had to be flown to South Africa to receive further treatment.

Meanwhile, suspected Zanu PF members took to social media yesterday describing the doctors’ strike as a political move being sponsored by the United States government.

This followed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s remarks last week that there was a third force behind the doctors’ strike. He alleged that his government had discovered that there were four or five leaders who went to meetings at night and came back to influence others not to return to work.

The suspected Zanu PF members went on Twitter, accusing human rights lawyer Doug Coltart of handing over US$19 300 to ZHDA spokesperson Masimba Ndoro at Fishmonger Belgravia to cushion doctors who failed to receive their salaries.

But Coltart refuted the allegations, accusing Zanu PF of making desperate allegations to divert attention from the strike.

Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University pro-vice chancellor Gift Mugano has said Zimbabwe risks going back to dollarisation in the first quarter of 2020 due to failure by the local currency to boost public confidence.

BY RUTENDO MATANHIKE

Presenting at a pre-budget briefing seminar in Harare yesterday, Mugano blamed government for putting in place reactionary policies to deal with the high levels of inflation without looking at their impact on the people, which he said had further plummeted public confidence in the local currency.

“Statutory instruments (SI) are a reactionary way of dealing with the situation; it just lessens the confidence in the currency by local people,” Mugano said.

“We cannot burn the house to deal with a rat, but we have to set traps to deal with it. In order to stop the black market, there is need to set traps to deal with them without necessarily affecting everyone else.”

He added: “We end up having an economy that is speculative than productive because of this form of reactionary policies that want to deal with problems. The policies are formed from a good basis, but they are affecting everyone even those who are not trading in foreign currency on the black market. We run the risk of going full dollarisation in the first quarter of 2020, which is not a good thing for Zimbabwe.”

Zimbabwe banned the 10-year multi-currency system in June this year after government workers demanded salaries in United States dollars which government could not afford. Since then, the country has been in a hyperinflation mode; with prices skyrocketing against stagnant salaries, a feat that has forced citizens to the wall.

Mugano said the recently introduced policies, including the SI 142 that introduced the Zimdollar, caused businesses to act in ways that protected their business investments.

Also presenting before MPs, economist Persistence Gwanyanya said: “Our major problem is that Zimbabwe is not producing. We are a consumptive economy which consumes up to 80% of our gross domestic product. We are eating into the country’s future. Currently, people have to buy their own hard-earned money, so we really cannot establish confidence in our local currency.”

HARARE magistrate Learmore Mapiye yesterday granted $100 bail to each of the 10 informal traders, who were severely assaulted by the police in an incident which later led to the passing on of one of them while in prison custody.

BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA/ NHAU MANGIRAZI

Hilton Tamangani, a 29-year-old Chitungwiza resident passed on last Friday while at Harare Central Prison after he was arrested by police on October 12 and linked to the over 200 police helmets recovered from a city building.

Besides Tamangani, police also arrested Evans Chinyanga (39), Tichaona Mazia (22), Petros Kayesa (44), Adoration Tafadzwa Madziwa (23), Lovemore Chitengo (42), Robson Mutseta (31), Hillary Nyawasha (29), Wambo Denford (41), Blessing Chirodza (41) and David Tawanda Tekere aged 35, accusing them of assaulting a law enforcement agent and fleeing into the basement of a city building where the helmets were allegedly recovered from.

The 10 were granted before police again clamped down on MDC youths and campaigners who were singing at the court in solidarity with the arrested vendors.

There was drama at the courts as armed police shoved and dived arresting those who had come to show solidarity with the arrested vendors.

Denford Ngadziore, the councillor for ward 16 in Harare’s Mabelreign suburb, Makomborero Haruzivishe, a pro-democracy campaigner and John Matoratora, who are represented by Gift Mtisi of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, were detained at Harare Central Police Station over disorderly conduct.

Tamangani, who was in prison pending the determination of his bail application by Mapiye, died after the Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services (ZPCS) officials allegedly denied him permission to be attended to by a private doctor of his choice.

The refusal by ZPCS came after Tamangani’s lawyers Marufu Mandevere and Kudzayi Kadzere of ZLHR wrote to the officer-in-charge at Harare Remand Prison seeking his release as he had developed a fatal infection.

Tamangani’s lawyers also filed an application before Mapiye, seeking an order to allow his body to be examined by an independent pathologist so as to ascertain the cause of death.

In court, Chamunora Kuvheya of ZPCS said prison authorities were yet to get a notice of death from the prison doctor.

Meanwhile, Vendors Initiative for Social Transformation (Viset) have given notice to stage a march against police heavy-handedness following Tamangani’s death. The march has been slated for Monday next week.

Viset executive director Samuel Wadzai said they will hand over petitions to the Clerk of Parliament and police officer commanding Harare district, Home Affairs ministry and ZPCS.

ZANU PF supporters who snubbed President Emmerson Mnangagwa and First Lady Auxillia separate rallies in Bindura recently said they could not go to rallies on empty stomachs.

BY SIMBARASHE SITHOLE

Mnangagwa was supposed to address a rally in Bindura before officiating at a graduation ceremony at Bindura University of Science Education while the First Lady was hosting a family fun day at Chipadze Stadium, which residents snubbed.

“Things are very difficult these days so we will be busy hustling to have food on the table, we cannot go to rallies on empty bellies,” a party supporter who preferred anonymity said.

According to provincial social welfare offices, 70 080 people in all the Mashonaland Central’s eight districts are in need of food aid following last season’s poor harvests.

The opposition MDC claimed that the snub was a sign people in the Zanu PF stronghold were fed up with the ruling party, which has presided over a failing economy.

Zanu PF scooped all the 18 parliamentary seats in the province in the 2018 polls.

MDC provincial chairperson George Gwarada said the snub on Mnangagwa and First Lady was telling.
“People in the province are tired of the Mnangagwa regime. This is clearly shown by poor attendance at their functions, despite trying to bus people from all the districts. In short, Mash Central is just fed up with Zanu PF,” he said.

Gwarada implored Mnangagwa to save himself further humiliation by accepting dialogue with MDC leader Nelson Chamisa.

“There is only one way to save Mnangagwa from further humiliation, that is dialogue with Chamisa, but he (Mnangagwa) has to be sincere in saving the people of Zimbabwe, not selfish gains.”

The First Family’s programmes allegedly flopped because of factionalism rocking the Zanu PF provincial leadership ahead of the district co-ordinating committee elections.

Zanu PF politburo member and Bindura North legislator Kenneth Musanhi, who had organised the flopped rally, said Zanu PF was still solid and people were just trying to portray a picture of a divided provincial leadership, but on the ground, the leadership was
united.

“The province is solidly behind President Mnangagwa and the reports of factionalism are just being spread to tarnish the provincial leadership,” Musanhi said.

FORMER National Social Security Authority (NSSA) board chair Robin Vela has reported auditors BDO Zimbabwe to their parent company in Belgium over what he said was an “evidently biased, politically-motivated and incompetent and incomplete forensic audit”.

BY EVERSON MUSHAVA

BDO Zimbabwe implicated Vela in a forensic report that reveals plunder of NSSA funds to the tune of US$95 million in a corruption case that has resulted in the arrest of former Tourism minister Priscah Mupfumira.

Vela was accused of prevailing upon NSSA management to authorise a US$16 million payment to a property development company, Housing Corporation Zimbabwe (HCZ), owned by Adam Molai.

The former NSSA boss has since taken the audit firm to the High Court challenging its results and what Vela described as biased and unprofessional conduct.

On October 16, Vela’s lawyers, Rubaya and Chatambudza, wrote to BDO International’s global office in Belgium threatening to engage international lawyers to sue the parent company for £5 million over biased and unprofessional work.
Vela’s lawyers demanded a response by October 31.

“BDO International is being liable on the basis that its international brand has lent professional credibility to the shenanigans of BDO Zimbabwe,” the letter read.

“Our client is aggrieved by an evidently biased, politically-motivated, incompetent and incomplete ‘sham forensic report’ produced by BDO Zimbabwe (The Report).

“It is the BDO International brand that lends the report any professional credibility. It is in this respect that we write to you in this first instance.”

The lawyers said Vela was concerned about how BDO Zimbabwe conducted itself during the purported forensic audit exercise, claiming the audit firm failed to prove it was qualified to conduct such an audit, an obvious requisite.

“It is our client’s considered view that BDO Zimbabwe partner, who signed off the report and the persons who compiled the report are neither qualified nor accredited forensic investigators by any institution,” the lawyers said.

He said BDO Zimbabwe investigators were incompetent, resulting in a shambolic audit report which is neither based on documentary evidence nor supported by any proven facts. Vela alleged that the auditors were biased against him after they gave him a questionnaire which contained biased questions.

He said he then provided three dossiers containing documentary evidence on the issues, but the evidence was completely ignored.

FORMER model Melgin Tafirenyika’s decision to quit modelling and pursue acting and film has paid off, as he continues to shine while raising the country’s flag high following the adoption of two of his films to be showcased at the Afro-Chinese Arts and Folklore Festival in Egypt later this month.

BY WINSTONE ANTONIO

Tafirenyika is currently reaping the fruits of his creativity, which has seen him frequently rubbing shoulders with the glitterati of filmmaking at several festivals across the world, after his productions — Are We Strangers and 5th Anniversary — were adopted for screening at the fiesta.

The two films will also be featured in the festival’s official catalogue.

In an interview with NewsDay Life &Style yesterday, Tafirenyika said he was humbled by the recognition he continues to receive.

“As Zimbabwean filmmakers, we are growing and we need that recognition as it opens up collaborations with other filmmakers outside Zimbabwe. This continued recognition is testimony that hard work pays,” he said.

“I will be looking forward to travel to Egypt end of October to represent these films. It is not about me or Light Image Productions, but these films are representing the whole nation, so guys I need your full support.”

Tafirenyika saluted the film’s cast and crew — Munashe Chitsiga, Mapfumo Katsaya, Nomupumelelo Tshuma and Mathias Kureva — for their midas touch.

“As the writer and producer of both films, I did not do much, but the crew did the wonders, and other people who supported the project,” he said.

Apart from the latest development, Tafirenyika will be among the esteemed guests that will grace the inaugural King Moshoeshoe Film Festival set for March 2020 in Lesotho, only a few weeks after attending a festival in South Africa.

The film 5th Anniversary appears to be charming the international community as it will be its third screening at an international festival within a space of three months.

Are we Strangers features veteran actor Daniel Tapera as a father who neglected his family for almost 30 years and regrets the failure of staying alone, spending his 70th birthday away from his five children, who are living in the diaspora.

Tafirenyika, who runs Light Image Production Studios, has worked as a writer and film producer, directing several films that include I Will Marry Myself, Sour milk, Love is not Enough and Flowers of Dry Thorns. He has also featured as an actor in The Widow and Had Better Days.

Parliament says structuring next year’s budget presents a serious headache as the imploding economy continues to be saddled by runaway inflation and skyrocketing prices stemming from currency volatility.

BY FIDELITY MHLANGA

Inflation shot to 176% as of June when it was last recorded by ZimStat and has also seen prices of goods shooting through the roof.

Officiating at a pre-budget briefing seminar, Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda said coming up with a budget in this environment was likely to be problematic.

“I was thinking by myself how do you come up with a budget that will not move up and down like a Yoyo? It’s frightening. It’s frightening. It’s a tall order for Parliament and it must be done in consultation with the Executive,” Mudenda said.

“In simple terms, how to come up with a budget so that the price of bread and mealie meal does not continue to rise, rise, rise is a challenge.”

Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce chief executive Chris Mugaga took a swipe at people pontificating that the local currency was one of the strongest currencies in the region judging by the exchange rate.

“At one time we heard the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) saying our currency is one of the strongest in the region, I think we have technocrats misleading the President. You don’t determine the strength of a currency by using the exchange rate. It’s wrong,” Mugaga said.
Economist Gift Mugano bemoaned lack of confidence in the local currency, saying the economy risks full dollarisation by end of the first quarter of 2020.

“The question is: Are we going to have a budget in US dollar or Zimdollar? Zimbabweans are converting their money into US dollars because the local currency does not store value. Workers demand their salaries in US dollars. When that happens this means dollarisation,” Mugano said.

In the wake of the Zimdollar losing traction, Finance Mthuli Ncube announced a $10,8 billion supplementary budget, which was much higher than the initial $8 billion budget.

“In any set up you can’t have a budget surplus and a supplementary budget at the same period. You can’t have a supplementary budget higher than the budget itself,” Mugano observed adding that the hiking of bank interest rates by the central bank to dissuade speculative borrowing was misplaced.

“The interest rate regime is discouraging production. From 15 to 50 to 70% because there was an observation that people were borrowing money to buy forex. We don’t burn the house because there is a rat. We catch the rate. That is the tragedy we are having. We know who is driving the black market. Let’s deal with them,” Mugano added.

Further noting that there was need to put a lid on money supply, elimination of corruption on the exchange market, he opined that there was need to come up with a clear tax mechanism that is not burdensome to business, but encourages compliance.

“We must provide a tax mechanism that is easy to administer. Tax reforms have to kick in all sectors of the economy. In the mining sector we have 15 different taxes.If we continue to raise taxes we continue to lose it. The Vat of tourism must go. We can’t charge Vat on tourism and yet we need forex. We chase away forex to other regions,” Mugano said.

Mugano said it was worrisome that Zimbabwe was spending US$2,2 billion on import goods that can be produced locally.

These are cereals (US$519 million), vegetables (US$200 million), soyabeans (US$250) million, fertilisers (US$150 million), pharmaceuticals (US$250 million), iron and steel (US$300 million), tissues and paper US$105 million.

Another economist Persistence Gwanyanya slated monetary authorities for failing to stem the cash crisis.

“Why do I have to buy my own money? We need to increase the cash in circulation without increasing money supply,” he said.