INTERVIEW BLESSED MHLANGA

The Harare City Council is struggling to supply potable water to its ratepayers owing to high levels of pollution, obsolete water treatment infrastructure and a sharp increase in the cost of treatment chemicals.

NewsDay (ND) senior reporter Blessed Mhlanga caught up with town clerk Hosiah Chisango (HC) to understand the challenges. Below are excerpts from the interview:

ND: How much is your budget every month for water treatment and how much are you collecting?

HC: Our budget for water treatment is sitting at about US$2,5 million and it is now being rated (in US dollars) because our suppliers require United States dollars so we would have to pay using the prevailing RTGS rate to US$. This means we are spending about ZWL$10 million.
Our collections stand at an average of about ZWL$14 million per month for all operations in the city.

What has been happening since February is that our debt has been increasing to the suppliers, but we have put in measures to try and exploit all the other revenue sources we have, like our markets and leases and also business licences so that we get more money.

ND: How much should you be collecting optimally?

HC: For our rates and taxes we are sitting at about ZWL$22 million, but we are collecting only about $14 million. We want to try and come up with the supplementary budget so that we can ramp up those figures.

ND: What is your salary burden per month?

HC: Our cost of employment per month is about ZWL$11 million, so our net salaries go down to ZWL$5,8 million every month. We are talking about roughly ZWL$10 million in terms of water supply, adding the $5,8 million and obligations for the costs. Clearly, the figures are not tallying and that is why we owe a lot of our suppliers.

ND: How much do you owe in salaries and to suppliers?

HC: For salaries, we owe for a period of three months and for major suppliers, we owe them about ZWL$4 million.

ND: What can alleviate your problems?

HC: The first thing is, if we go on a supplementary budget, we are expected to be able to pay. We are also talking to government to say can we be exempted from duties for chemicals and fuels so that we can pay less money in those areas.

ND: So are you actually paying duties?

HC: We buy fuel at the market price. When we started the year, on fuel, we were spending between $700 000 to $800 000 per month, but since the hike in the price of fuel, our budget has shot up to close to $3 million.
We want to engage the government to see if those areas can be looked at, not only for Harare, but for all local authorities across the country in order to reduce the cost of services to the residents.

ND: How is the fuel crisis affecting your operations?

HC: It affects us in terms of our refuse collection schedules and even our maintenance issues because we do not have a special source of fuel. We also face challenges in refuse collection, an area of high demand from the residents.

ND: You said your chemicals are rated, do you pay this money in RTGS or in foreign currency.

HC: We pay in RTGS, but before that the Reserve Bank was making available foreign currency to our suppliers. The suppliers now have to go on the open market to source foreign currency. So we pay at the prevailing bank rate for that particular day.

ND: There is a general belief that the city council is overpaying its employees and that its wage bill is too heavy, do you ascribe to that?

HC: I will tell you that we are actually failing to get certain skills in our workforce and of late our nurses have been resigning in large numbers joining government and also fire fighters, so you can see that there are issues there in terms of remuneration.Government has also been increasing and cushioning their employees which we have not been able to do. We are no longer an employer of choice due to the situation on the ground.

ND: A supplementary budget has been resisted, even by government, how are you dealing with that?

HC: Government has allowed us to go for a supplementary budget. We have even discussed this with civic organisations; we are only left to engage the business sector on that issue.

ND: Given that you are supposed to be collecting ZWL$22 million and you are only getting ZWL$14 million, if you then increase those charges, will it not create further problems?

HC: Basically, the issue is to try to remind people of their obligations because that is what has been lacking from the side of the stakeholders. Once that has been driven from this level, we should be sure to collect the required funds.

ND: There are leakages and I am sure that you suffer from illegal connections and similar issues, to what extent have you been exposed to those issues?

HC: There have been issues of leakages of both water and financials. We are, however, tightening up our systems to deal with that.
This issue of illegal settlements, which has also led to illegal connections, is what we are currently discussing with government to see who should be removed from certain areas and who should continue living where they are so that we regularise our issues and cut away all the leakages.

ND: Do you see the vision 2030 being realised if these issues are addressed?

HC: Definitely, the 2030 vision can be achieved because it is just a matter of everybody coming on board. If people know their obligations and pay for services, we would be able to achieve vision 2030.

echoes CONWAY TUTANI

Two inter-related issues — highlighted in two feedbacks I have received over the past six months — should be addressed as a matter of priority and urgency.

The first one is do with what one mobile money transfer platform has given rise to or morphed into — a replica or clone of the Old Mutual-implied interbank rate.

Tinashe Chifamba emailed me as follows way back on January 11, 2019 as feedback: “To add on to why the country is facing such protracted price and market distortions, currently in the business sector — particularly retailers, manufactures, and banks, including those EcoCash agents — they are in the unacceptable business of selling bond notes and coins at different rates. Up to now, I don’t know who is the mastermind behind these satanic exchange rates.”

Continued Chifamba: “As we are aware, EcoCash at law is not obligated to charge premiums on customers since the agent would get the proceeds through commission. But it is the reverse logic in downtown Harare right now, and these guys are bloodsuckers and vampires. They make cashouts of notes at 20% or more.

To make matters worse, they do make orders through transfers from the manufacturers, not in hard currency which they have demanded in the first place. They are making two-fold profits, which is unethical and unacceptable in business. So in our economy, there is continuous disintermediation which hurts business to its core, and the Finance minister once alluded to that fact.”

Six months down the line, nothing has changed. If anything, it’s much worse now. Last week, I received feedback from Watseni waMaungwe, pointing out the damaging effects of this disintemediation.

WaMaungwe noted: “Will the government ever be able to collect enough revenue from cartels for it to sustain its operations and support the vulnerable people through effective and efficient safety nets? Cartels close all gaps in the supply value chain, and value-addition and beneficiation for themselves and remit taxes from or for one industry, thereby reducing government’s tax base. With cartels, there is no downstream or upstream industry benefiting from their business as they suffocate these downstream and upstream industries by having their fingerprints imprinted all over the show.”

This disintermediation — reduction in the use of intermediaries between producers and consumers bypassing the normal retail outlets — hits the poor majority hardest.

Noted waMaungwe: “Come to retailing of FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) and household goods, it’s OK and TM. Where did our Lucky 7, Mutomba Supermarket and Jarzin go? I am from Mabvuku and we had our Lucky 7 shop paKamunhu (at Kamunhu shopping centre). Unless and until the Competition and Tariffs Commission sobers up, beomes professional and ethical, more and more vicious and sophisticated cartels are on their way to destroy us. With cartels running the show, it will be dog-eat-dog regardless of who sits on the throne.”

Those are the facts. So people should not be persuaded or swayed otherwise. Economic turnaround does not hinge on the overhyped political reform or so-called national dialogue.

WaMaungwe rightly observes: “Can our economy prosper if we remain with cartels? Can our kids graduate then find or make jobs in the midst of cartels? Can the SMEs [small and medium enterprises] blossom beyond SMEs in the midst of cartels? As such, we must not be led into believing that small businesses will graduate — it is a fallacy in the midst of cartels.”

All with eyes to see will notice that Finance minister Mthuli Ncube is doing the ultimate thankless job: applying shock treatment — or sudden and drastic measures taken to solve an intractable problem, which the Zimbabwean economy had become.

Ncube found an economy in decay — like a tree rotting from inside — but the smell was being covered by crispy US dollars. There were mind-numbing debt figures, record interest payments, spending was up and revenue was bleeding, there were record deficits, growth was lagging, the jobless figures were rising — the list
is long.

But the astute Chifamba notes: “A lot of people are being misled to think that government is failing its citizens yet the citizens are failing other citizens and government as well. Yes, the burden is on the shoulders of the authorities, but citizens must be sober to determine the extent of the blame on the authorities. All those who appear to be opportunists must be called to order; it would have been better had they provided alternative solutions rather to destructively criticise what others are doing to drive the nation out of the mess. Vampires and suckers are making lives of citizenry horrendous and unlivable.”

While the interbank market is still being fine-tuned by the government, some producers are already accessing forex from that official market, but go on to peg prices on the basis of the parallel market rates.

Unfortunately, there is this cynical view that the surest way to get ahead in the world is to lie and cheat whenever you can get away with it. What’s more, as they say, everyone else does it, so you better join in and get your share.

Wrote William Damon and Anne Colby, professors at Stanford University in the United States: “It need not be this way. The cycle of dishonesty can be broken by any person who refuses to go along with distortions of the truth in the workplace, the media, or the public sphere. This is our hope for the future: truth is robust, and anyone who stands up for it can bring it back to life.”

Honesty, like all virtues, requires cultivation. The rule of thumb in cultivating honesty is to resist life’s frequent temptations to gain advantage through deception, including political deception.

Discerning Zimbabweans should by now know what some of those detractors are really up to. When the government started the progressive monthly National Clean-Up Day (which is also held in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda), it was roundly criticised by some political elements in the habit of attacking anything and everything done by the government.

Now it has been posted on social media that their own political formation will be holding their own clean-up day in Mbare. This hypocrisy shows that most of their criticism of government policies is totally baseless, hollow, and even malicious and spiteful.

Write Damon and Colby: “This is exactly the wrong kind of reinforcement, shaping behaviour away from, rather than toward, trustworthiness. And untrustworthiness reproduces itself: When one person gives up on dealing honestly with others, that person joins the ranks of the untrustworthy, influencing others to abandon their own commitments to the truth. Mistrust can spread throughout an entire society. This becomes a problem beyond poor personal relationships: Any democracy requires a minimum level of shared trust to function. We may be approaching that minimum level right now.”

Need it be mentioned that the society-wide criminal dishonesty driving the current price madness is now the biggest threat to democracy in Zimbabwe as we could be now approaching that minimum level of shared trust to function?

BY RUTENDO MATANHIKE

GOVERNMENT has disbursed  ZWL$10 million to higher and tertiary institutions across the country to promote research that helps with solutions on issues affecting he country, Higher Education permanent secretary Fanuel Tagwira has said.

“Government gave ZWL$10 million to the ministry, which is supposed to go towards research in universities and tertiary institutions. What is happening now is that universities are stepping out to do research and find mitigation strategies for national development,” he said.

A recent research by the World Bank, in collaboration with the ministry, revealed that the country once contributed 3% on innovation on the continent, but now lags behind, contributing only 1,2% towards all researches taking place in Africa.

Tagwira said the decline in the number of research publications made by Zimbabwe was caused by the brain drain at universities as well as the country’s lack of development in universities and other higher and tertiary education institutions.

“What causes the declines has more to do with the quality of academic staff over the years due to a variety of reasons, (for) example, migration of a lot of intellectuals from universities. It is also because universities in other countries have improved, while we continued to go down. Therefore, our percentage contribution keeps going down,” he said.

He also said an area of importance was that of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, revealing that the numbers of students enrolling for the scientific subjects were continuously dropping because of the underdeveloped infrastructure in the different institutions.

“The investment made by government directed at the ministry is for all subjects. However, it also speaks to understanding that STEM subjects need more takers,” Tagwira said.

“While the ministry is looking in all educational sectors, a lot of emphasis is directed at STEM education because that is where we are most affected. The number of students venturing into STEM subject at higher and tertiary education institutions is very low. Our infrastructure in STEM subjects is also very poor.”

He added that the money given to the ministry by government would be distributed to universities through an independent body which will determine research areas affecting the country.

“The government has got what we call research priority areas where our universities are doing research. In Chimanimani, for example, the research would try to come up with disaster mitigation strategies that would help map safe spaces in case of another disaster,” the permanent secretary said.

By Farai Matiashe

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s much-hyped rehabilitation of Mbare flats is proving to be hot air after the company contracted by government and the Harare City Council to do the rehabilitation, FCG Singapore, ceased operations a month ago, NewsDay has learnt.

The contractor is embroiled in a war with its workers who claim exploitation and that the company was deceiving government and Harare City Council that work was in progress, when everything was at a standstill.

Mnangagwa recently commissioned a newly-repainted block at Matapi Flats.

But the workers claim they are owed money by the contractor and work has since ceased soon after Mnangagwa’s visit amid pomp and fanfare.

“We ceased painting in mid-May, there is no any activity here. There are no buckets of paint for us to use. The government is being deceived. Officials are sitting there in their offices thinking work is going on, but we are spending the whole day seated. There is no progress,” one of the employees said.

The workers claim they were made to work without protective clothes and have not been paid their salaries for April and May, adding they work without contracts.

NewsDay understands that FCG Singapore had employed about 20 people on site, 11 of whom are painters, while the rest are assistants.

“We told the manager that we have been in the construction industry for some time and it was a norm to have a contract agreement, which he denied us. We further asked him for our pay day and he promised that we would get our salaries every first day of the month. What we want now is just our money. We have families to look after,” he said.

When NewsDay visited Matapi Flats recently, there was no work going on.

A woman, who was employed to do the cleaning during the preparations for Mnangagwa, who wanted to commission the flats, said she had not been paid her money amounting to ZWL$100.

Another woman, who runs a food outlet in Mbare, told NewsDay that FCG Singapore owed her close to ZWL$300 and she was appealing to the company to pay her.

“I was the one providing meals for these employees. FCG Singapore has not paid me for nearly three weeks now and the money has been eroded by inflation currently ravaging the economy. I used to sell ZWL$3 a plate, but the amount has doubled up now. They have to pay me equivalent to today’s rates,” she said.

FCG Singapore chairperson Gabrielle Arezio told NewsDay that he would follow up with the company’s accounting department.

“I am following up on that matter. We were instructed to work on the plumbing systems. When the President visited Matapi Flats, he told us to repair the toilets and the bathrooms. These are in a bad state. We are currently sourcing materials. After that, we will continue with the exterior and interior paintings.”

FCG managing director Francis Mambo said the employees had not been paid for the month of May only.

“Everyone was paid for all these months, except for one month, which is May. People must also consider that it is charity work that we are doing and some companies do not pay for such, but we are paying,” he said.

“We were directed to concentrate more on the sewer systems. If you visit Matapi you can see that the exterior is beautiful but the sewage system is bad. It is bursting. So, we had to work on that. By next week we should be completing another block.”

BY JAMES MUONWA

THE Chinhoyi Municipality has resolved to kick out all employees occupying council houses who own properties in the town.

The move, council argues, will pave way for disadvantaged workers, who have not yet been allocated land or bought stands, to have decent accommodation.

Councillor Blackmore Nyangairo told a full council meeting held on Tuesday at the Town House that the local authority would, as a matter of urgency, allocate council houses to deserving employees not entitled to any housing stands in Chinhoyi.

“The audit committee recommended that standing contracts on employee housing must be withdrawn and renewed. Houses should be awarded to those not entitled to any housing stands in the system,” Nyangairo said.

According to minutes of the audit committee, propositions reached at a meeting held on May 20, 2019, show that the municipality pushed for the compilation of an updated property inventory, tenants and debtors’ lists to plug financial leakages and corruption.

Council was urged to put in place strategic measures to ensure routine maintenance of its properties, most of which were in a dilapidated state.

The municipality recently resolved to parcel out stands to scores of its workers in lieu of payment of salary arrears dating back to 2011.

This latest development renders many of them ineligible to continue occupying council houses.

Workers who spoke to NewsDay yesterday lamented the prospect of being “condemned” to renting from private individuals, arguing that the move would put them on a collision path with landlords in light of council’s lethargy to pay wages and salaries timeously.

Workers say council was victimising them for demanding their dues.

Meanwhile, the full council resolved to pursue the option of billing some ratepayers in foreign currency for water, sewer reticulation and other ancillary municipal
services.

Chamber secretary Abel Gotora said a nostro bank account had already been opened with a local bank, while council awaits approval from the Local Government ministry to charge forex on service providers who insist council settles its debts in hard currency.

By Farai Matiashe

THE Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation (CCMT) has urged local authorities to give sufficient public notice and to conduct consultations with residents before evicting them to pave way for development.

CCMT’s calls follow a number of cases in the country, where local authorities have evicted residents on short notice under the guise of road projects and town expansions.

Speaking on Wednesday at the launch of a research paper titled Challenges to Relocation and Compensation of Rural Communities Displaced by Development Projects in Zimbabwe by CCMT, Roman Catholic cleric Father Fidelis Mukonori said there was need for the local authorities to properly plan before relocating people to avoid conflicts.

“How do you evict other people in a place where you want to develop? The universe is expanding, but the earth is not. Babies are born every day and few people are dying every day,” he said.

“Local authorities need to properly plan, so that they do not violate residents’ rights because people have a right to shelter and they are not supposed to be denied such a God-given right.”

Surveys were conducted in three districts in the Midlands province, namely Shurugwi, Zvishavane and Mberengwa, where residents were relocated to pave way for a platinum mine, town expansion and growth points, respectively.

Speaking at the same event, co-author of the CCMT’s research paper, Shadreck Vengesayi, said the findings were that few people were consulted in the concerned districts.

“In Mberengwa and Zvishavane, 100% of the residents there said they were never consulted. They were just relocated. The study shows how we should map the way forward,” he said.

Vengesayi said the research paper was recommending responsible authorities to consult residents before relocating rural communities.

“Responsible authorities should give sufficient public notice and conduct public consultations and hearings. There is need to negotiate the terms and conditions of the relocation with the affected people or their chosen representatives and any relevant third party,” he said.

Vengesayi urged local authorities to properly plan and compensate relocated residents.

“I recommend the responsible authorities to replace buildings and other improvements based on the principle of equivalence or to provide material support and or financial compensation that enable equivalent replacement. Also, to provide technical and material support and or financial compensation to disruptions, disturbances or other damages reasonably incurred due to the process,” he said.

A Runde Rural District Council official, Gorden Moyo, said they were lacking resources to support the relocated residents.

“As local authorities, we lack resources. There is a lot of travelling involved. About compensation, we have tried our best, but we always fall short due to lack of resources. We know our development plans. We know which areas we want to develop. Therefore, I feel there is need for us as local authorities to plan ahead,” he said.

BY FORTUNE MBELE

HWANGE seek to recover from the slump in form that has seen the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League returnees lose all of their last four matches.

They will attempt to arrest the rot when they host Triangle at the Colliery on Sunday.

Hwange made a blistering start to their campaign this term, but have since lost their mojo and became a punch-bag in their last five matches.

During the five-match run, Hwange have managed to score just a single goal, and have lost to Caps United, Chapungu, Black Rhinos and Harare City.

Their win against Manica Diamonds back in April handed them their last set of maximum points, with the draw against Highlanders the best they have achieved since then.

That decline in form has seen Chipangano drastically drop to position 11 with 13 points and a defeat to Triangle, who have also been struggling of late, could see them further slide
to the relegation zone as TelOne and Highlanders, both on 11 points, are steadily picking up points.

Hwange coach Nation Dube dismissed their poor run as just a bad patch which they will soon
overcome.

“This happens in football. You can go for 11 games winning and start losing like Manchester United. We are trying to motivate the boys, so we can get where we were when the season started,” he said.

“The Triangle match is just like any other. It has been long since we won a game and we have to win to get back our confidence.”

After Triangle, Hwange will be away to Mushowani Stars before hosting basement side Bulawayo Chiefs.

By Sports Reporter

The Manyuchi Boxing Academy, owned by Zimbabwe’s boxing super star Charles Manyuchi, is set to celebrate success in the recently staged Restoration Fight on Africa Day.

Manyuchi triumphed over Rodolfo Pablo Ezequiel Acosta, of Argentina, in the main bout at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) on Africa Day.

He was making a return to the boxing ring after a long lay-off and he has his next fight on August 3 against Ayoub Nefzi in Tunisia, as he takes steps to get back to the main stage of world boxing.

With that win over Acosta, he became the unification GBU/UBC middleweight inter-continental title champion. Before taking to the ring, he watched boxers that he is grooming at his academy also shining bright.

Hassam Milanzi was crowned the UBC champion after defeating his Zambian counterpart, Philimon Hara, by unanimous decision following 12 rounds.

On the ladies front, Kudakwashe Chivandire took away the WIBA bantamweight title from Zambia’s Joyce Chileshe.

Brendon Denese and Evans Usavihwevhu were also successful against their Zambian opponents.

As a way of motivating the youngsters in his academy, Manyuchi will hold victory celebrations in the small town of Chivhu.

BY XOLISANI NCUBE

Struggling teachers have petitioned Parliament to deal with their low wages, saying most of them were now unable to report for duty as the economic situation continues to erode their earnings.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) and its sister association Progressive Teachers Union (PTUZ), yesterday handed in their petition to Parliament so that lawmakers could force the Executive to pay them better salaries.

The teachers want government to pay a cushioning allowance in United States dollars to every teacher over and above their soon-to-be reviewed RTGS salaries.

“The petition presented by the teachers’ unions, is seeking for the intervention of legislators in facilitating that teachers’ low salaries and allowances that are paid in RTGS$ should also be reviewed and paid in full, considering of the inter-bank rate because the same salaries were computed on contracts which were consummated before the announcement of the Reserve

Bank (of Zimbabwe) monetary policy which sought to review, the exchange rate,” said a statement issued by the educators.

“Ongoing talks between civil servants who are represented at APEX Council level and the government have been consistently failing to yield results for a period spanning over seven years.

The present scenario in salary negotiations does not provide for sectoral labour bargaining processes, as a result, civil servants negotiate for salary reviews as a collective, and in the process, the unique needs of specialised fields such as teaching are not given prominence at the National Joint Negotiating Forum,” the statement read.

Outlined in the petition was also the fact that the teachers want Parliament in line with its oversight and legislative role of protecting the provisions of the Constitution and national interests, to undertake, insist and ensure that the State promptly reviews, calculates and pay teachers’ salaries in line with the current rate of inflation.

Teachers in Zimbabwe make the largest percentage of the restive civil servants, whose wages and salaries have been wiped by the rising inflation that has hit Zimbabwe for the past several months.

The teachers want Parliament to establish a legislation that allows for sectoral collective bargaining systems, a process that they anticipate to bring relief to ineffective labour bargaining processes.

BY BRENNA MATENDERE

MASHONALAND West province is facing a critical shortage of second line anti-retroviral drugs and antibiotics, putting to risk the lives of HIV-positive people at risk, a health official has confirmed.

Chinhoyi and Kadoma are the worst-hit districts.

A survey conducted by NewsDay revealed that the Integrated TB and HIV Centre in Kadoma, which is the biggest referral centre for people living with HIV in the gold-mining district is only left with three weeks’ supply of Aba-lam, a critical second line ARV.

On the other hand, the centre has completely run out of cotrimoxazole, an antibiotic taken by HIV patients on both first and second line treatment. Patients are sourcing antibiotics from local pharmacies, which are demanding foreign currency.

It is government policy to distribute these drugs for free.

Chinhoyi faces a similar situation, with health centres left with less than a month’s supply of the life-prolonging drugs.

Stella Manyere, head of the Kadoma Integrated TB and HIV Centre said it was the first time that the institution had faced problems.

“When a person living with HIV comes here, we normally give them drugs that can last them up to three months, because most of them are very mobile as they are artisanal miners and cannot afford to keep coming back in a short spaces of time due to the nature of their work. However, our Aba-lam stock can no longer last a month and it is an essential second line drug.

On the other hand, we no longer have Cotri in stock,” she said.

Manyere said the institution had alerted the provincial health office in Chinhoyi and were told that the drugs were unavailable.

“The person whom we phoned is now at Natpharm in Harare, where the drugs come from, revealed that the centre does not have the drugs and is waiting for the next shipment of the medicines. We are not aware as to when that will be. We are now anxious because there will be a serious problem if we run dry on the second line drug,” she said.

A total of 5 102 people living with HIV are on anti-retroviral treatment at the Kadoma Integrated TB and HIV Centre. Out of these, 199 are now on the second line stage.

National Aids Council (NAC) is mandated with purchasing ARVs, using the Aids Levy Fund and hands them over to Natpharm for distribution.

NAC spokesperson Madeline Dube, said her organisation was faced with an acute challenge of foreign currency to acquire the drugs, hence the shortages. She indicated that efforts to jettison relevant authorities to act on the problem including First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa, who is the health ambassador had hit a brick wall as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe continues to fail to provide forex.

Dube also highlighted that the introduction of the interbank market had also created another challenge as it eroded the US$23 million meant for the acquisition of the drugs.