BY FARAI MATIASHE

Mining stakeholders have urged government to adopt the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to help promote transparency and curb corruption in the mining industry.

The call comes amid lack of information on dividends paid to local authorities and the government by mining companies.
Speaking at a dialogue on the prospects of adopting and implementing EITI, Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) director Mutuso Dhliwayo said EITI
will empower citizens with information to enable them to seek accountability from authorities on the use of mining dividends.

“EITI aims to identify, collect and publish key information to strengthen governance of oil, mining and gas sectors by increasing transparency over revenues,”
he said.

“When that information is publicised, residents, for instance in Mutare, can then question the local authority on how they are using funds from these mining
companies.”

Dhliwayo said there was a good grounding in the Constitution to adopt EITI.

“The Constitution talks about transparency and that is the objective of EITI. Section 62 also guarantees access to information while Section 9 of the
Constitution fights corruption and EITI seeks to also fight corruption,” he said.

The Zela director added that EITI had a proven track record of promoting transparency and Zimbabwe would benefit from adopting it.

Speaking at the same event Centre for Natural Resource Governance director Farai Maguwu said mining companies should consult communities before establishing
mining activities in their areas.

“We have cases in Chimanimani where people are about to be removed to pave way for a diamond mining activity. These people have been telling us that they have
not been consulted. Then one wonders how these mining licences are being granted. It shows corruption,” he said.

Maguwu said if mining companies declared what they are paying to the government it would help civil society and the Auditor General to track revenues.

“Government should not fear to adopt EITI because it is already part of the Kimberly Process (which has some similar objectives to EITI). It does not override
the role of government to manage its main resources,” Maguwu said.

Mines minister Winston Chitando said the government was considering adopting EITI.

Chamber of Mines chief executive officer Isaac Kwesu said EITI was a lasting solution to the problems currently facing the mining industry.

“We welcome this initiative. We urge all stakeholders including us to support it. However, we must bear in mind that EITI is a system. It has its own
weaknesses and strengths. It does not address all the issues we want. We can also consider other initiatives,” he said.

EITI is a global standard that ensures transparency and accountability on how a country’s natural resources are governed, ranging from how mining rights are
issued, how the resources are monetised and how they benefit citizens and the economy.

EITI, launched in 2002, started as a campaign by civil society organisations for publication of payments made to government by domestic and multinational
companies.

BY CRAIG MOYO

TWO suspected armed robbers have been arraigned before a Bulawayo court on charges of illegal possession of gold worth US$37 338.

Robson Chatikobo (35) and Brezhnev Maposa (37) appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Franklin Mkhwananzi last week and were remanded in custody to July 26.
The court heard that the pair had several pending cases of armed robbery.

The two were apprehended at Highlanders Clubhouse, where they attempted to get a buyer for 889 grammes of gold, valued at US$37 338, without a license.
Prosecutor Nkathozo Dlodlo told the court that on July 10, police officers apprehended the accused at Highlanders Clubhouse, where they were looking for a buyer.

“From Maposa, the detectives recovered 889gr of gold, US$810, R1 000, ZWL$681, while from Chatikobo they recovered US$631, ZWL$142 and two cellphones. The two failed to produce mining documentation for the gold they were carrying,” Dlodlo said.

Dlodlo further told the court that on April 13, Maposa, Witness Hlongwane, and three other unidentified suspects broke into a house in Tshabalala.

He said the five-men gang, which was armed with machetes, knives and pistols, demanded money from the family.

BY CHARLES LAITON

FIVE beneficiaries of the estate of the late national hero, Vitalis Musungwa Gava Zvinavashe’s Trust have petitioned the High Court seeking an order to remove the current Trustees accusing them of failing to distribute dividends to the recipients and also failing to provide accounting details of how the Trust has been administered since January 2017.

The beneficiaries, Thompson, Tapera, Maxwell, Augustine and Desmond Zvinavashe are seeking the removal of Margaret Mutamba and Richard Musungwa Zvinavashe, Shingai Mutumba and Clemency Ruzengwe from administering the Zvinavashe Trust.

In his founding affidavit, Thompson said in the event that the order sought is granted by the court, he together with his co-beneficiaries of the Trust should
be ordered to appoint an interim board of trustees comprising of two professional trustees and three other trustees from the members of the family.

“The application and order sought is based on the following; non-payment of dividends to the beneficiaries in contravention of clause 16 of the Trust Deed.
Current beneficiaries have the right to distributions as set forth in the trust document. It is respectively averred that since January 2017, applicants were
not favoured with their share of Trust dividends,” he said.

“That failure, in my view, directly offends the spirit of the Trust Deed particularly clause 6,3 of the Trust Deed which is sacrosanct. Respondents are not
giving information to the beneficiaries pertaining to all Trust property held in the Trust Deed as communicated in clause 5 of the Trust Deed.”

Thompson also said, alternatively, if their order is not granted in terms of how they have suggested, the court should appoint an interim board of trustees it
deems fit and proper in terms of clause 4 of the Trust Deed.

Thompson further said the court should also order Mutumba and Ruzengwe to deliver all professional reports of the Trust and all records pertaining to their
duties as trustees and all documents in their possession or control to the interim board appointed by the five beneficiaries, who are applicants in the matter,
or by the court.

“Respondents are not keeping proper set of accounts in respect of their transaction and no auditing has been done with regards to the financial dealings of the
Trust. That conduct is contrary to clause 9 of the Trust Deed,” he said.

“Furthermore, respondents are not making information available to the applicants pertaining to the Trust. Applicants, being beneficiaries are entitled to
accounting records. An accounting is a detailed report of all income, expenses and distributions from the Trust. Respondents are required to provide an
accounting annually, and this has not been done and if it were done, the applicants were never made aware of the same.”

Just last month, High Court judge Justice Sylvia Chirawu-Mugomba lamented the absence of an alternative dispute resolution in the same estate where Margaret
and Richard have been at each other’s throat ever since Zvinavashe was interred at the National Heroes Acre.

Justice Chirawu-Mugomba presided over an application in which Margaret approached the court seeking a court order to bar Richard from entering stand number 730
Cowie Road, Tynwald in Harare because he has been disturbing her peace.

According to court papers, Margaret and Richard have been embroiled in bitter fights over Zvinavashe’s estate and at some point the said fights landed Richard
in the dock after he allegedly chased Margaret out of the premises despite her having been granted lifetime usufruct over the Tynwald property by the late army
general.

The current application is pending.

MDC leader Nelson Chamisa yesterday said he was barred from seeing incarcerated party deputy national chairperson, Job Sikhala, charging that the situation in the country will now drive people into taking action against the rule of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

BY TATENDA CHITAGU

Sikhala is facing subversion charges and was remanded in custody in Masvingo to July 24 after being dramatically whisked out of Harare where party supporters had gathered at the courts to protest his detention.

Chamisa, who was addressing a rally at a packed 10 000-seater Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo, said he was barred from seeing Sikhala and that police were deployed to make sure that he doesn’t get into the prison.

“I wanted to see my brother Job Sikhala, so I went to Masvingo remand and was told he is at Mutimurefu,
so I drove there and I was told he is at Masvingo Remand, so I went back again. At Masvingo Remand, they barred me from seeing him. It is very unfortunate,” he said.

“The prison guards said they were given instructions to first call their seniors. They then called their superiors and told me ‘we will be fired if we let you in’. I waited for 30 minutes as they called their seniors in Harare.

Maybe their seniors were calling ED. I kept on waiting till they said they do not know what to do.

“Later, riot police and the Dispol came, they said they wanted to check the situation as they feared there maybe commotion. But even though I am the president of the MDC, I am also a lawyer by profession. Again, arrested people still have their rights. So I told them I will no longer bother you, will take other measures,” Chamisa said to thunderous calls for immediate demonstrations.

The MDC leader also called on Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo’s wife, Loyce Matanda-Moyo, who heads the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zaac) to investigate and arrest deputy Defence minister
Victor Matemadanda and Health minister Obadiah Moyo for participating in electoral fraud.

This follows a letter that Matemadanda wrote to the Health minister asking him to provide drugs to health institutions in Lupane ahead of a by-election so that Zanu PF wins.

The letter signed by the Health minister, addressed to Matemadanda and copied to NatPharm managing director Flora Sifeku, permanent secretary Agnes Mahomva and director of pharmacy R Hove was titled: Request for assistance in respect of the Lupane East by-election campaign.

“Your letter of 2 July 2019 requesting for medicines for Lupaka, Gomoza, St Paul, Lake Alice, Lusulu and Lupanda clinics refers. I have instructed the permanent secretary Dr Mahomva to activate Natpharm to supply the clinics mentioned with medicines,” reads the letter signed by Moyo.

Chamisa said: “The problem with our country is corruption, corruption, corruption. I was reading today about Lupane where there is a by-election. Matemadanda writes to the Health minister seeking drugs so that Zanu PF wins and Moyo replies saying he will provide drugs so that (they) win.

“It’s abuse of political public office. Immediately, he must resign and step aside for investigations by Zaac, even though we do not recognise them.

“That level of corruption is serious. Such a minister should immediately step aside for investigation and Zaac must investigate and arrest that person. My brother ED will just be talking about zero tolerance to corruption, but that is one case of corruption. Doesn’t he see that?” Chamisa said.

He said MDC will be embarking on a programme to pile pressure on Mnangagwa.

“We are starting a programme to bring pressure in this country and diplomatic pressure.”

Chamisa told his supporters to mobilise and brace for more demonstrations to pile political pressure on Mnangagwa to resolve the political crisis facing the country following disputed elections held in June last year.
“We are saying be prepared. We plan our things together. The Constitution allows for demonstrations. If I say those not happy to rise up, will you rise up? Will you answer to the call? I want to see those that are ready to respond if we make the call,” Chamisa said.

“Now I have heard that you are ready, we need to do it peacefully in a non-violent, constitutional manner. The day is coming, the time is coming, in the not so distant future, you should give us support. Not so long.

“Zimbabweans have to be free and Zanu PF must go. We do not want those that backtrack, we want you to give us support. We have been quiet for too long as Mnangagwa destroys our livelihoods,” he added.

Chamisa also said he was disturbed by Vice-President Chiwenga’s long absence from public appearance.

“I am really worried about my brother Chiwenga, really worried. Where is he?”

Chamisa also noted: “We have learnt, yes, [that] individuals must go, but the fundamental thing that must go is the system. A system that represents darkness, a system that represents bad governance, a system that celebrates corruption and a system that is responsible for your hunger.” The youthful leader then accused Mnangagwa of reading a book of dictatorship that was previously used by his predecessor Robert Mugabe.

AFRO-FUSION song bird Hope Masike who recently staged a show with Korean outfit — Beautiful Mind Charity — said collaborations across cultures were important because they helped artistes to understand and appreciate each other more.

BY FREEMAN MAKOPA

The Kwira Gomo hit maker told Newsday Life & Style that learning music culture from other countries helped broaden artiste’s creativity.

“The Korean outfit I collaborated with is called Beautiful Mind Charity, a charitable band of highly professional, world class musicians. We were introduced to each other by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea. Music-wise, collaborations such as these expand a musician’s knowledge by exposing them to different world music. The Orient has a music style that is quite significantly different from ours here in southern Africa. Learning more music from other music cultures broadens our tool boxes,” she said.

Masike — who is set to launch her fourth album titled Exorcism of a Spinster on July 26 — said collaborations were important in that they enhanced the musicians and listeners of each other’s culture.

“Collaborations always help us in the cultural diplomacy sense, as with this particular concert that was even themed The Friendship Concert in celebration of 25 years of diplomatic relations between Zimbabwe and the Republic of Korea. Collaborations across cultures or countries help us — the musicians plus our audiences — understand and appreciate each other more, despite our differences,” she said.

Masike said over the past seven years, she had been building her career and the investment of time will reflect in her forthcoming album.

“Throughout my career, I have never stopped creative output of one kind or the other. I am as much a touring artiste as I am a recording artiste, which means for significant parts of the year, I am on the road. Within the past six years, while investing in producing a good quality album, I was touring the world quite a lot and these experiences have contributed to the sound and feel of Exorcism of a Spinster,” she said

Masike has previously released the albums Mbira Love and Chocolate (2009) and the self-titled Hope (2012).

I DO not know what we have to say or do to get those in authority here to understand that if they do nothing, Zimbabwe is headed for a political storm which could change everything or even sink the ship. I am regarded as a perpetual optimist, I am not really as I think quite rationally, but I always try to put forward a solution or way forward that I believe is in the national interest.

What am I talking about? Right now we have fuel queues like I have never seen before, we have electricity outages for 18 hours a day. Last week I learned of massive corruption at the Grain Marketing Board which has revealed that the maize stocks are simply not there and furthermore, what is there is unfit even for livestock consumption. A real panic is on to get maize here and fast. But at the same time, prices of everything are being set at an exchange rate of 8 or 12 to 1 or even more. The rapid rise in prices had halted temporally following the rash of measures adopted 10 days ago with SI 142, but there is every sign that we are going to see it decline still further — the difference being that the so called interbank rate is now leading rather than the informal exchange rate markets.

Add to that shortages of key foods such as bread and cooking oil, both essentials in our national diets, and you have the making of a perfect political storm. Choose your basis for a decent riot and will a dispirited police and army be able to handle the subsequent events, I very much doubt it, that is why the army was used both in 2018 and 2019, in January, with disastrous results.

In the past two weeks, I have been saying to anyone who will care to listen that action across a broad front is needed to get markets operating properly and to get prices down to a more reasonable level and to fix the shortages. Sounds like a tall order, but it’s not.

The key is the interbank market for foreign exchange. Under pressure from the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has announced the formation of a Monetary Policy Committee and an interbank market operating on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis. The former was announced as far back as December 2018, the latter in February this year — seven and five months ago. Nothing has been done to bring them into existence. I said at a meeting last week, attended by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe that no such market exists. The RBZ responded that the banks published an exchange rate every day — there must be a market. But there is nothing of the sort. No electronic platform and no open, transparent, physical market where buyers and sellers of foreign exchange can operate and clear demand on a daily basis. There is no formal market. Banks continue to trade on their own with what resources they individually control.

Let me repeat what I have been saying for months — we are on the right track policy wise, our macro-economic fundamentals are fine, we have a fiscal surplus and are holding down government expenditure and we now have a foreign exchange surplus. So why the crisis?

There should be no crisis, our foreign exchange earnings come from three main sources — exports of goods and services, income from tourism and what we call “invisibles” or net transfers and remittances from the diaspora. Last year, exports were US$4,3 billion, the other income about US$1,6 and the diaspora — who knows? What I know is that we have five million or more adult Zimbabweans living and working outside the country; three million in South Africa, the rest overseas.

Money transfer agencies have millions of Zimbabwean clients, and none report transfers on average below US$50 per month. US$50 x 5 million is US$3 billion per annum. Mukuru reported average transfers in 2018 of US$78 per transfer. In my view diaspora remittances are not less than US$3 billion. Look around you — queues of people collecting money, house building worth billions every year — three million tonnes of cement, school fees, groceries and chema payments. If this is the case, we have about US$9 billion in forex available to meet our needs for imports and other things. Our imports have declined nearly 25% because of low domestic demand at crazy prices.

These inflows of foreign currency are being managed by three institutional sectors — the banks, the Reserve Bank and the open market money traders. In each sector, they are motivated, not by determining the real market price on a willing seller/buyer basis, but by getting the highest return for the dollar — the banks are chasing their tails driven by their clients and the money changers make money on every turn and their clients want top dollar. So the exchange rate runs.

The major impact of the de-dollarisation and SI 142 was to bring the foreign exchange in the informal market more into the banks and this is what has reduced the exchange rate in the past 10 days from 15 to 1 to 8 to 12 to 1.
But the Reserve Bank remains at the centre of this brewing storm in its inexplicable reluctance to implement stated policy. Over the past two weeks they were supposed to have put half their retentions from exports onto the interbank market for trading purposes. That is nearly US$1,5 billion a year or US$6 million a day — a considerable sum. Banks report no such activity.

I can understand why, because we continue to see the Reserve Bank doing crazy things — they are issuing letters of credit to support purchases of fuel and electricity and raw materials for the food industry — all good you say. But if we are selling fuel at half the landed cost of the stuff, maize at 30% of its real value, wheat at the same rate and electricity at US 2 cents a KwH — we are going broke rapidly. When we give government US$21 million to buy luxury cars from Croco Motors at 1 to 1, we have bought that foreign exchange at 8 or 9 to one — the entire loss of US$150 million goes into the RBZ overdraft — the most inflationary form of borrowing that is available.
Despite denials, I see new bond notes in the market — still smelling of printer’s ink. What are they doing with that? They are buying gold and then using the gold to settle the banks external liabilities. It is months since we saw any significant statistics on anything from the bank. What are they hiding? The truth is the RBZ is totally out of control.

Why is this important? What has it got to do with the perfect storm? Everything. If we had an interbank market — say a daily gathering of traders of foreign exchange in the basement of the RBZ building in Harare; if all foreign exchange from all sources was placed on that table every morning at, say, 10am; if all banks came to the market with their client’s needs — a price would emerge from that table which would reflect real supply and demand. If I am right about the supply and demand of hard currency in Zimbabwe, the rate would come down immediately. My colleagues on the Economists Round Table, a local think tank, agree; it would fall below 4 to 1. We need to maintain a relatively weak local currency and if that happened we would recommend the Reserve Bank buys foreign exchange to keep the rate at, say, 4 to 1.

This would immediately send a clear signal to all other markets — prices would fall, inflation would be down to marginal levels in months, income earnings of all Zimbabweans would strengthen and we could bring all imported commodities, including electricity and fuel into free supply. We would then have to sort out the Reserve Bank and its liabilities, but at least it will no longer be able to poison the water that we all have to drink.

As for all imports — let’s use our powerful and effective private sector to sort out and undertake imports and distribution. Take the corrupt State-controlled institutions out of the equation.

Use the interbank market as the single source of hard currency for all users and we can all get back to work instead of sleeping in fuel queues or waiting for power for our machines.

 Eddie Cross is an economist. This article was first published on his blog eddiecross.africanherd.com

LIVERPOOL — Zimbabwe won an absolutely thrilling Group A tie against Northern Ireland this afternoon, edging out their opponents to win 51-49.

In the battle to decide who would finish second to Australia in the group, the tussle went right down to the wire, with the lead changing hands multiple times before the Zim Gems held their nerve to edge over the line and spark wild celebrations in the crowd.

Northern Ireland started brightly, briskly taking a 5-1 lead in an opening period which gave no indication of the seesaw nature of the rest of the contest which was about to unfold.

As Zimbabwe clawed their way back into the game, captain Caroline O’Hanlon dictated play for Northern Ireland, working tirelessly to provide opportunities for Noleen Armstrong and Emma Magee. At the other end, Joice Takaidza was keeping the scoreboard ticking over for Zimbabwe, although her attacking partner Ursula Ndlovu was struggling to find space in the shooting circle, and Northern Ireland finished the quarter 15-12 up.

Zimbabwe’s defence tightened in the second quarter, with Armstrong less clinical – she missed two opportunities as Zimbabwe reduced the deficit to just a single goal.

The atmosphere – already electric — continued to build as the two sides traded blows in what was becoming one of the best games of the tournament so far.

Despite the rising pressure though, Takaidza was a calming, composed presence in the Zimbabwean attack, as the Zim Gems edged in front for the first time in the contest shortly before half time. They ended the second quarter by reversing the score of the first, meaning that for the first game in the tournament half time was reached with the scores level – 27-27.

The spine-tingling atmosphere continued into the second half of the contest, but it was Northern Ireland who settled to their task better, pulling away by three goals in the third quarter.

The evenly-matched nature of the two teams ensured that the lead didn’t last long though, and thanks in the main to the accuracy of Takaidza, Zimbabwe clawed their way back to even the scores again.

In the final minute of the quarter, the Zim Gems edged ahead again through substitute Sharon Bwanali, only for Magee to level proceedings at 39-39 going into the final quarter.

The back-and-forth nature of an absorbing contest continued deep into the final quarter, with Zimbabwe getting themselves just in front as the closing minutes approached.

With five minutes to go, Takaidza took their lead back out to two, and followed that up with a fantastic one-handed take and composed finish to ensure that the pressure mounted on Northern Ireland.

Magee responded by drawing the Warriors level at 49-49, but they couldn’t capitalise on having the next centre pass, giving away a foul for offensive contact as they approached the Zimbabwean circle. — nwc

Quality education is viewed as a dynamic concept, which evolves with time, while it is also subject to social, economic and environmental conditions. In this regard, the goal of achieving universal primary education (UPE) has been on the international agenda since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed in 1948, that, elementary education was to be made freely and compulsorily available for all children in all nations. That was then and if it was today, maybe the communique could have included climate change education, because it is the most topical and life-oriented issues of our time.

By Peter Makwanya

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) viewed quality as doing it right when no one is watching. Observing at what is unfolding in the environmental landscapes around the world today, it is critical and fundamental that children around the world, as one of the most important environmental stakeholder and beneficiary, need quality climate change education, first and foremost. Children require guidance on matters concerning climate change education and literacy, so that they are sufficiently empowered to adapt to prevailing climate impacts, come up with climate action plans, solutions and solve environmental problems, affecting their everyday lives.

Children need assistance to come up with the correct world-views and demonstrate how to engage those perspectives in articulating and communicating climate concerns. There shall be a time when children would be gradually weaned off from climate information dependence to information adequacy so that they are sufficiently nurtured into true green ambassadors.

Children’s climate change situations need not to be dramatised or over exaggerated by teachers, advocates or mentors.

These said educators, normally — for reasons best known to themselves, compose scripts for children to read or dramatise at climate change conferences, with borrowed fluency and sharpness, just to suit the occasions. This is not the quality climate education that we are clamouring for. We need quality, creativity and innovations in children’s poetry, drama, songs, stories, online digital stories, videos, documentaries and adaptation communicating activities from their points of view and initiatives, not from the mentors’ deceptive world-views.

Today, a script can be composed by educators or advocates just to fool the world, forgetting that these children need to be prepared for life-long and living skills, which will make them survive in dire climate situations and being able to manage them. Of course, not all children are mentored that way, but the majority have been cultured and poisoned this way.

The seriousness and urgency of climate change doesn’t require any glossing, sugar-coating or grandstanding because it is real and happening. Quality climate change education should prepare children to future climate challenges and impacts, which they would solve emanating from their intrinsic motivations and desires to demonstrate change to a sustainable future. Children should be guided to tell their own stories, depicting what would be impacting on their environment, as this happen or happened, using appropriate and a variety of life-saving communication strategies available and being locally driven.

Effective quality climate change education is not spoon feeding children, they need to develop critical inquiry, innovations and discovery procedures, since the environment is the laboratory of nature. Although climate change is interdisciplinary in nature, it remains highly scientific, uncertain and interpretive, first and foremost.

Children are very important stakeholders in the environmental discourse of climate change, adaptation and mitigation, their participation in communicating climate initiatives and raising awareness, through relevant participatory behaviours and corrective of the human hand, should reflect the quality of education being inculcated. In order to offer quality climate change education to the children, teachers, advocates and mentors, should demonstrate adequate understanding and comprehensive knowledge of the climate change discourse, as per curricula requirements, in order to fill in the existing information and procedural gaps, manifesting themselves in the environmental landscapes.

Although environmental advocacy is an instrumental brand of climate change awareness, the component of quality education provides the most needed quality framework and dimension. Quality climate education is sufficiently empowering, life-orientated and fits well into life-long learning and new-knowledge economy, where ICTs and new-media technologies are competing and interactive milestones in transforming lives by providing goods and services.

What climate change advocates or activists are delivering to children is climate change environmentalism, which is good, but not qualitative enough to sufficiently empower and transform, not only to the environment but in changing lives as well. Environmentalism is assertive in that it influences policy dynamics, while quality climate change education facilitates life-skills and survival strategies, climate action strategies and resilience, adaptation and communication skills representing the children’s world views, heritage and local community landscapes and the physical environment, including how impacts of climate change are felt, managed and addressed.

Yes, it is true that children are risk communicators of climate change, but the aspect of environmentalism should not be seen to be compromising quality climate change education. The best possible way forward is to emphasise on which comes first or how best they can be integrated in the later stages of children’s development.

Environmentalism appears to be mostly articulated from the adult points of view, thereby suppressing the children’s voices, knowledge and initiatives. Children need to be involved in official climate change decision making processes rather than presenting children as an aside to major climate change events. As such, it would be difficult to understand if indeed the children would be abused or not, just brought in to provide entertainment or recite prepared scripts.

This would automatically leave them out of the noble discourse. Any inclusive, interactive and participatory approaches should be in line with the current sustainable development goals (SDGs), number 4 (Quality Education) and 13 (Climate Action). From the influence of the above stated SDGs and the other closely related ones, quality education would contribute to skills and capacity building, resulting from innovative and creative thinking skills for problems solving techniques.

Although at the end of the education process, it would be up to the individual child to engage in either politics of climate change, climate change activism or quality climate change community of practice, but the critical and fundamental base should be accurate, impartial and inclusive. From these scenarios, researchers can be born and nurtured to be patent researchers, stewards and climate heroes endowed with heritage based skills for the value addition, and the production of goods and services. Above all and everything else, no child should be left behind, directly or indirectly. If we fool the world by indoctrinating the children, then the climate will prove us wrong.

ZIMBABWE plans to set up at least one factory in each of the country’s 63 districts as authorities attempt to improve standards of living for people in economically backward areas.

BY FIDELITY MHLANGA

The recently launched Zimbabwe National Industrial Policy (ZNIDP), spanning 2019-2023, intends to promote decentralisation of industrialisation initiatives in line with devolution that recognises that the majority of Zimbabweans are domiciled in the rural areas.

“Government will promote industrialisation through provision of incentives and targeted financing, policy support and business development services for the establishment of micro, small, medium and large scale manufacturing industries in rural areas in line with available local resources. There shall be a deliberate thrust to develop factories in every district under the one district one factory concept. This will enhance the empowerment of marginalised rural communities,”partly reads the policy.

In the 2019 budget, Treasury allocated $310 million to facilitate the devolution of power to provincial councils following an outcry from marginalised communities.

The policy encourages youths, women and disadvantaged people to participate in projects in the rural areas targeting naturally available products.

Development of rural industries will be facilitated through linkages between higher education institutions and the private sector thereby encouraging research and development in processing and packaging of naturally available products.

According to the policy, provincial and district authorities will be required to come up with local industrialisation and incentive frameworks which are in line with the ZNIDP and the devolution agenda. This will bring government closer to local communities and enhance responsive, accountable and participatory industrial development.

“Industrialisation will also be based on the local resource endowment of specific areas. Processing of traditional agricultural products such as sorghum, rapoko, marula fruits and mopani worms can spur the creation of new factories in source areas. Local flora and fauna can also be used as raw materials in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical and herbal medicines and as such, also offer value addition opportunities,” the policy further reads.

Economist John Robertson, however, said only the right environment would attract manufacturers.

“In fact, any hint that the government believes in central planning and that it might try to make industrialists adapt their ideas to fit in with a central planning policy is enough to discourage most of the world’s industrialists. The Zimbabwe national industrial development policy needed is one that will promise investors that government will do its best to facilitate and assist investors, not dominate or regulate them,” said Robertson.
Zimbabwe once boasted of a well integrated and diversified industrial sector based on strong linkages with agriculture, mining, construction and commerce.

However over the past two decades, the economy has suffered massive de-industrialisation and rapid informalisation.

The High Court of Zimbabwe has delayed the judgment for more than 10 months, allegedly without reason the case of former Information and Communications Technology minister Supa Mandiwanzira, who is being sued US$350 000 by former Rainbow Airline founder Frank Humbe for failing to pay after he acquired the business.

BY STAFF REPORTER

The matter, which is being handled by High Court Judge Justice Clement Phiri started in 2016, but the trial only started in September and finished in October last year. More than 10 months later both parties are still waiting for the judgment to bring the matter to finality, sources close to the matter noted.

After the completion of the trial in October last year Justice Phiri set aside the ruling saying he needed time to prepare and both parties have been waiting without any communication.

Humbe and Mandiwanzira reached a deal for the former minister to buy Rainbow airline in 2015, but the latter failed to honour his side of the deal leading to Humbe cancelling the agreement on February 12, 2017. Mandiwanzira then offered to pay US$50 000 upfront as a compromise.

It is also alleged that Mandiwanzira further offered to pay monthly payments of US$10 000 until the US$355 419 was fully extinguished and Humbe accepted the offer.

However, Mandiwanzira allegedly failed to pay again and refused to honour the agreement, but still took over the business and is now running it solely.

In his defence, Mandiwanzira said he never breached the terms of contract, but that they were still to reach an agreement on the terms of payment.

The airline has since been grounded after making only three flights. Its office at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International now houses Tanzania Airline offices.