BY SILAS NKALA

A FORMER Zanu PF top official has warned government against the eviction of illegal settlers across the country, saying the move will make the ruling party and government unpopular.

Jabulani Phetshu Sibanda, a former Zanu PF Matabeleland South secretary for lands and a Zipra war veteran, said illegal land occupations were rising due to the economic crisis in the country which has resulted in urban-to-rural migration.

Sibanda’s remarks come at a time when over 5 000 villagers, who illegally settled themselves at Ensangu and Lochard farms in Shangani, Insiza district, are facing eviction as the government seeks to address the issue of chaotic settlements.

Over 2 000 families who settled at Lochard Farm were in 2015 declared as land invaders and directed by government to move out of the farm, but have defied the order.
Around 3 000, settled at Ensangu Farm, also face eviction.

Almost 2 000 families from both farms have since received notices from the Lands ministry to vacate the farms.

Insiza Rural district administrator Sibusiso Maphosa recently said the evictions were a national programme and meant to address land anomalies.

Sibanda, who is one of the pioneers of the farm occupations in Matabeleland provinces, warned that the government’s new land evictions would render it unpopular and strengthen the opposition.

“The economic situation is forcing people out of towns. The whole country is affected by the exodus of people from urban areas (as people) go to look for cheaper land in rural areas.

Now, if we start evicting them, where do we want them to go? These evictions will give advantage to the opposition even though it will also not do anything about it,” he said
“People are looking up to this government and the party to address the problems and if they ignore dealing with the problem, the situation will deteriorate.”

MDC leader Nelson Chamisa (left) and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Peter Mutasa chat at yesterday’s Workers Day commemorations held at Dzivarasekwa Stadium in Harare

BY OBEY MANAYITI / RUVIMBO MUCHENJE

MDC leader Nelson Chamisa yesterday warned that poverty and the worsening economic crisis will push people onto the streets to demonstrate against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration.

He was addressing thousands of people who had gathered at the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)-organised Workers Day celebrations in Dzivaresekwa.

He said since time immemorial, protests by the labour unions were an early warning system to the incumbent government.

The MDC leader said proper dialogue was the only solution to the country’s seemingly insurmountable problems, which the present government was failing to solve.
“The working class agenda is still the centre of the agenda,” Chamisa said.

“ZCTU is organising people, MDC is mobilising people, civil society is co-ordinating people. We don’t need any money from the British. Our co-ordinator is poverty, our mobiliser is unemployment.”

Chamisa said when the opposition eventually calls for the next demonstrations against the depressing economic situation, they will surpass the January fuel price hike protests organised by by the ZCTU.

The protests turned violent, with State security agents killing 20 people in suppressing the protests, arrested 1 000 people, while nearly 200 were left nursing gunshot wounds.

He accused Mnangagwa’s government of being blanketed by corruption and has shown no clear agenda to revive the economy.

He also indicated that the so-called reforms were bringing untold suffering on the people.

“The crisis in the present administration of Mnangagwa is that their core business is not to plan, but to plot,” Chamisa said, while accusing government of stocking up State armouries to deal with dissent, but failing to arrest the worsening economic situation.

Chamisa demanded that workers be paid in United States dollars.

He said an MDC government would introduce an unemployed benefit fund from the vast country’s resources.

He also took a swipe at Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga for allegedly failing to articulate issues in the country at public fora.

Chamisa insisted that last year’s elections were rigged and that Mnangagwa would find it difficult to rule.

“There won’t be a way forward in this country before we dialogue. We must agree that elections were stolen. Yes, the court finished the legal dispute, but there is a political dispute. Courts do not adjudicate political disputes, we need to dialogue about the future of this country.”

Chamisa said there was need for genuine political and electoral reforms, peace-building and nation-building where the aggressors ask for forgiveness from those that were wronged.

He called for productivity and discipline within the economy, saying the Mnangagwa administration had no capacity to deal with corruption because of immunity and impunity, hence the need for new leadership.

ZCTU leader Peter Mutasa said demonstrations would be the way to go if things fail to change and that soon, they would announce their programmes.

Mutasa, who has a case before the courts for allegedly trying to overthrow the government over the January protests, said arbitrary arrests would not solve the problem, while accusing government of failing to craft solutions for the economy.

“If the government continues to ignore the pleas of the suffering workers and citizens, the ZCTU will be left with no option than to mobilise workers for peaceful pickets, demonstrations, general strikes and other such actions provided for in the Constitution of Zimbabwe and our labour laws,” Mutasa said.

He said it was shameful that Mnangagwa’s government was doing worse than that of ex-leader Robert Mugabe, who was deposed in a coup in November 2017.

The MDC leader said his party will be in Buhera for the memorial of the opposition party’s founding president, Morgan Tsvangirai, whose resolve for fighting for change and transformation will be reignited.

Several MDC officials, among them Elias Mudzuri, Tendai Biti, Paurina Mupariwa, Harare mayor Herbert Gomba and some legislators, attended the celebrations.

Meanwhile, the acting director for labour and administration in the Labour ministry, Langton Ngorima, was booed for the larger part of his speech, with workers saying the government had shown no commitment to deal with their plight.

The speech was delivered on behalf of Labour minister Sekai Nzenza.

BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is negotiating fresh lines of credit worth US$500 million to help industry import raw materials and produce cheaper goods, a cabinet minister has said.

“There are lines of credit that the RBZ is working on and I think it’s at advanced stages to get those. It is somewhere up to around US$500 million, but it will be between the individual companies and the Reserve Bank. In terms of how much is accessed, it will be on a business to business basis,” Minister of Industry and Commerce Mangaliso Ndlovu told NewsDay in a telephone interview yesterday.

A pressing foreign currency shortage has seen prices of basic goods rise regularly as industry resorts to the parallel market to source money to import raw materials.

RBZ governor John Mangudya confirmed the arrangement to NewsDay.

“Yes government, through the Reserve Bank, is putting in place a US$500 million facility to underpin the interbank bank forex market on a willing-buyer-willing seller basis. It’s coming from a regional Pan African Bank,” he said.

Mangudya did not specify the name of the bank, but the source of the funding is most likely the Africa Import and Export Bank (Afrexim).

The governor, who is a former employee of the bank, has over the years used his relationship to secure funding for Zimbabwe at a time no other international financial institution is willing to do so.

“But, we are also working with South Africa because they have said if we have companies that are procuring raw materials from them and also those who export to South Africa, but mainly those who are procuring, ‘we are working on a facility for them to be able to access trade credit or lines of credit for purposes of trade, which will then graduate for purposes of retooling’. The minister of Finance (Mthuli Ncube) is working on that,” Ndlovu said.

He added that talks were also underway to secure a trade credit facility from Botswana in two to three months from the inaugural Zimbabwe-Botswana Bi-National Commission held in February.

“Get it from me that was agreed at a higher level. I really don’t want to comment much about it as it (because) actually the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa), who worked on that one. I think in the fullness of time it will be well published,” Ndlovu said.

However, industry has complained that suppliers now want upfront payments and were no longer giving out fresh lines of credit due to companies defaulting on paying them resulting in legacy debt running into the hundreds of millions.

Ndlovu said: “You have to be careful what role government plays. We do not want to overcommit, especially to individual transactions. Yes, there is a bit of a confidence issue at the moment and also the exchange rate is weighing in.”

BY HENRY MHARA

ZIMBABWE’s Warriors have secured a date with one of the continent’s football powerhouses, Nigeria, for a friendly match next month and the Warriors technical team might be forced to overlook the Cosafa Cup tournament which will run at the same time.

As first reported by NewsDay on April 2, the Sunday Chidzambga-coached side will play the Super Eagles on June 8 at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba, Nigeria, as part of their Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals preparations.

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) confirmed the pre-Afcon match yesterday.

“We have sealed the matches with the Warriors of Zimbabwe and the Lions of Teranga and these are two matches we are really looking forward to,” NFF president Amaju Pinnick said in a press statement.

Zifa spokesperson Xolisani Gwesela also confirmed the match.

With the match coming on the same day that the Cosafa Cup tournament will be concluding in South Africa, Gwesela hinted that Zimbabwe is likely to send a Warriors second string team to the regional tournament.

Reports suggest that Zifa will send the national Under-23 side to the tournament, which will run from May 21 to June 8 in Durban.

“We might have to send another team for the Cosafa Cup tournament. We will give details of the teams that will participate in the tournament,” Gwesela said.

A meeting between the Zifa top brass and the Warriors technical team is scheduled for today, where they will discuss the way forward, with indications that Zimbabwe might also play another friendly match against a high-profile side before the start of the tournament.

“There are some countries we are still negotiating with. We will advise,” Gwesela said.

A source yesterday claimed Zifa are considering Ivory Coast, while South Africa remains another possibility.

Zimbabwe failed to adequately prepare for the previous Afcon edition, playing only one friendly match against Cameroon en-route to the finals in Gabon, where the team failed to go beyond the group stages, while the Indomitable Lions went on to win the title.

If the match against Nigeria and another powerhouse materialise, it would be good preparations for Chidzambga and his men, who have been given a target of reaching the quarter-final stage by Zifa.

Zimbabwe are in Group A, which also comprises hosts Egypt, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Warriors will open their campaign with what appears a tough match against hosts in the tournament opener on June 21, before playing Uganda five days later.

They will conclude their group matches with a tricky match against the DRC on June 30. The two teams met in the Afcon qualifiers, with Zimbabwe picking four points and will start the match as favourites, although the DRC remain a formidable challenge and will be out for revenge.

This year’s edition has been expanded from 16 to 24 teams and with the top two teams of each group, along with the best four third-placed teams advancing to the round of 16, the Warriors will fancy their chances of progressing to the next stage for the first time in four attempts.

Meanwhile, Zifa has escaped a ban from Cosafa for their failure to honour an agreement to host this year’s Cosafa Cup.

The regional body yesterday announced that they had handed Zifa a conditional suspension and Zimbabwe will be allowed to participate in this year’s edition.

Zifa didn’t walk scot-free though because they will have to pay a US$50 000 fine and crucially, accept to host the tournament next year – failure which Zimbabwe will be banned from participating in future Cosafa tournaments.

A statement issued by Cosafa yesterday read: “Zifa has received a conditional suspension from Cosafa, but can remedy the situation within two months if they confirm the country as hosts of the 2020 Cosafa Cup and provide the already signed guarantees from the Zimbabwe government to this effect.

“Failure to do so will see the association suspended, though the two-month grace period will allow the national team to compete in the 2019 Cosafa Cup in Durban, South Africa from May 25-June 8. Zifa have also been fined US$50 000, with a further amount of US$150 000 suspended until the above condition, over the 2020 hosting, has been met.”

The draw for this year’s edition will be held tonight, without Madagascar, who declined an invitation to participate. They have been replaced by Afcon-bound Uganda, who will compete as a guest nation.

The format for the competition will be the same as in previous years, with the eight lowest-ranked sides to be drawn into two pools each containing four sides.

The top two teams in those pools will advance to the quarter-finals, where they will meet the six higher-ranked nations. The six-seeded sides are Botswana, Lesotho, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia and defending champions Zimbabwe.

The four quarter-final winners advance to the semi-finals, while the losing teams will drop into the plate competition, which provides extra matches for those teams.

guest colum newZWire

WHEN Godfrey Huggins was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia between 1933 and 1953, he made sure black workers would not be allowed to organise as unions.

His reasons: “The European in this country can be likened to an island of white in a sea of black. Is the native to be allowed to erode away the shores and gradually attack the highlands? To permit this would mean that the leaven of civilisation would be removed from the country…”

The unions did eventually provide the breeding ground for nationalists that, indeed, attacked Huggins’ white “highlands”, led by the likes of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo and Benjamin Burombo. Decades later, unions were to be a nursery for those that would oppose the post-Independence government.

Today, the modern union is nowhere near those levels; starved of membership by rising employment and showing none of the independent ideological clarity of its early luminaries.

Workers started unionising early in the 1900s, but it was not until the 1920s that the first organised structures began to take shape. The Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), led by Robert Sambo, was set up in 1927 by migrant workers encouraged by the powerful unions of South Africa. When the depression hit in the 1930s, the union was decimated as workers lost jobs, just as has happened in Zimbabwe over the past two decades.

The 1945 railway workers’ strike and the general strikes of 1948 forced Huggins to climb down and finally allow black workers to organise. The Bulawayo Federation of African Workers’ Union and the African Workers’ Voice Association were key unions in the 1940s.

Among those early unionists was Benjamin Burombo, a tall shop owner in the railway compound renowned for his radical oratory. Burombo founded the British African National Voice Association, teaching himself labour law despite having had no real formal education.

Burombo, with the likes of Tennyson Hlabangana and Thomson Samkange, led strikes in 1948 that forced the settler regime to buckle on low wages under the Native Labour Board. Burombo also challenged clauses in the Native Land Husbandry Bill, used by “native commissioners” against blacks.

He overcame resistance by those for whom he fought, famously despairing: “Each time I want to fight for African rights I use only one hand – because the other hand is busy trying to keep away Africans who are fighting me.”

In 1954, the Southern Rhodesia Trade Union Congress was formed, paving way for the formation of one of the earliest nationalist movement in Rhodesia, the African National Congress. Its leaders, among them Nkomo, were drawn from the unions.

1980: Independent, troublesome workers

Within months Independence in 1980, workers became restless, making Robert Mugabe’s first year as Prime Minister a nightmare.

Over 16 000 workers in 46 companies went on strike, demanding better pay. Between March and June 1980, at least 172 000 working days were lost to strikes, according to an ILO paper. There were up to 200 strikes between 1980 and 1981.

Frustrated, the new government lashed out. In May 1980, the then Minister of Labour, Kumbirai Kangai, sent in the police to break up striking transport workers. He warned: “I will crack my whip if they do not go back to work.”

Mugabe said the workers were abusing independence, saying: “Democracy is never mob rule.”

In October 1981, striking teachers and nurses in Harare were detained; 200 were suspended and 80 teachers fired.

If we can’t beat them, let them join us

The Mugabe administration decided the best way was to co-opt the unions. Unions were divided, and this provided a chance. The government forged a united federation out of various unions. Calling it the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Mugabe stuffed it with party loyalists. Among them were Albert Mugabe, Mugabe’s own half-brother and Alfred Makwarimba, who was to lead an openly pro-Zanu-PF federation decades later.

ZCTU helped government quell unrest. A Press article that year quoted the ZCTU’s Albert Mugabe as saying: “This country needs a disciplined work force to encourage development. Strikes do more harm than good. There are some bad eggs in the union movement. We will watch them closely.”
That way, unions helped government suppress workers’ rights.

From 1985: Tsvangirai’s new labour

This cosy arrangement between unions and the government began to unravel years after a new crop of leaders emerged in the late 1980s. Among them was Morgan Tsvangirai from the Associated Mineworkers of Zimbabwe and Gibson Sibanda from the Railways Union.

The ZCTU had remained loyal to the government, with Mugabe sitting side-by-side with labour leaders at Workers’ Day celebrations. However, the unions became disillusioned with how government turned to free market policies, which included labour laws that made it easier for employers to fire workers.

By the 1990s, the divisions were wide as the government veered right towards the IMF and the World Bank. On May Day 1991, workers unfurled banners reading: “Employers liberated, workers sacrificed” and “Are we going to make 1991 the Year of the World Bank Storm?”

In 1989, Tsvangirai was detained for supporting student protests.

The 1990s stand-off

The 1990s saw more strikes as workers protested the effects of government’s free market policies, such as the IMF-backed Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP), which cut social spending and caused price hikes.

A three-week strike by over 200 000 civil servants in 1996 showed the broken relations between labour and government. There were over 230 separate strikes in 1997 alone.
The year 1997 was a major turning point.

The government, cornered by war veterans, announced a new tax to raise gratuities for the over 50 000 ex-fighters. The ZCTU rallied nationwide protests on December 9, forcing government to drop the tax.

A month later, a bread price hike sparked riots. The army was deployed and at least eight people were shot and killed.

In 1998, the ZCTU held “stay-aways” against high taxes and the rising prices. However, big companies, who had initially given quiet approval to the action, became uneasy over the impact of the strikes on their businesses.

A workers’ party?

As Tsvangirai gave his speech at a Workers’ Day rally at Rufaro Stadium in 1997, a group led by Munyaradzi Gwisai, then head of the local chapter of the International Socialist Organisation, loudly chanted: “Workers’ party now! Workers’ party now!”

In February 1999, the ZCTU held a “National Working People’s Convention”, which led to the formation of the MDC that September.

However, for leftist radicals like Gwisai, this was not the party they really wanted. They had hoped for a left-leaning movement. Gwisai was expelled in 2002 for supporting the Zanu PF-led land reform and accusing party leaders of selling out to “neo-liberals” and big business.

“Educated civic elites, supported by the white farmers, NGOs and governments, used their money and expertise to hijack MDC, even if a few trade union leaders remained at the top,” Gwisai was to later write.

But the MDC continued to organise around the poor urban worker, who continues to provide the base of its support.

Labour’s decline

By the mid-2000s, the economic crisis under Zanu PF rule had decimated the formal workforce on which the unions depended for membership. The unions were also worn down by years of attacks and disruption by security forces.

Internally, power struggles made things even worse. In 2016, the ZCTU was crippled by divisions as Lovemore Matombo and George Nkiwane fought for control. A year earlier, the ZCTU had lost credibility after a feeble response to a court ruling that made over 6 000 jobless.

In January 2019, the ZCTU found its voice and called for protests over fuel price hikes, drawing a brutal military crackdown in which many were shot and killed by the army. Union leaders are currently facing charges over the protests.

However, with the bulk of workers now self-employed, and bogged down by power struggles, today’s unions are nowhere near the movements that gave us Burombo, Nkomo or Tsvangirai.
In a 2002 paper on the state of the unions, Gwisai wrote: “The roar of the 1997 lion had, by March 2002, been reduced to less than a kitten’s meow”.—newZWire

guest column Takura Zhangazha

Zimbabwe’s biggest labour federation the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has given the theme for the 2019 Workers Day commemorations as: We are at a Crossroads! Unite, Fight Neo-liberalism and Austerity. This is a radical theme to say the least.

It is also directly ideological in that it immediately challenges the free market economic reform policy trajectory of Mnangagwa’s government, even if by assertion of intent.

While we wait to hear in their May Day and after addresses what the leaders of ZCTU will outline as an alternative, it is, however, an important departure point. Not that there has been no previous outline of alternatives from labour or human rights civil society.

There are a couple that come to mind. These are, for example, the 1999 resolutions of the ‘National Working People’s Convention’, which apart from tasking ZCTU to form a working people’s party, also outlined social democratic values as the panacea to resolving the country’s economic challenges.

There is also the Zimbabwe People’s Charter which distinctly sought to give a holistic and ideological outline of how the country should be governed on the basis of democratic leftist ideological values. These are, but a few examples and there are others, though these may have been less political-economic in outlook.

These would have confirmed neo-liberalism and austerity in the same way as is being pursued by the current government, but with a specific focus on seeking a change of implementers of the same free market ideological template in order to suit the interests of global financialised capital.

They could also follow post-cold war assumptions of an ‘end of history’ and falsely believe capitalism as being beyond defeat by the working class and poor.

But this is not to say that capitalism as represented in the contemporary by globalised neo-liberalism is down on its knees in anticipation of annihilation.

On the contrary, it is sometimes when it appears at its weakest that it turns around and reinvents itself. The global financial crises of 2008 being a case in point, either with false populism or with the direct use of force (in a majority of cases- ditto the re-emergence of political roles for the military via coups-no-coups).

Even if. theoretically, we would still be wont to argue in Marxian terms that it remains confronted by its own contradictions. So when the ZCTU boldly asks the people of Zimbabwe to unite against austerity, it is not a simple matter. It is a serious indictment on the broad economic policies being undertaken by the government.

As, however, is often the riposte from our social and mainstream media commentariat, there will be and already are derisive comments about how Zimbabwe no longer has a ’working class’, let alone the industry to sustain it. These would be fair comments, only if we did not know the ideological context from which they were coming from.

Those that would argue as such are in most cases active sympathizers of free market economic policies and would prefer in most cases a return to the past of either a minority run economy or the disastrous years of economic structural adjustment (ESAP). The latter, in our contemporary case, being what we can now safely refer to as ‘ESAP 2.0′, thanks to government’s commitment to austerity.

And for the purposes of clarity, it is important for us to understand what it means to be a worker in Zimbabwe: The socio-economic (hegemonic) challenges that workers are faced with, and how to strive continuously to overcome these same said obstacles.

To begin with the first, being a worker in Zimbabwe is to be part of what ZCTU has already described as the ‘working peoples of Zimbabwe’. This relates largely to class- namely a working class; that now includes not just the formally employed and unionised worker, civil servants’ associations/unions, but also the peasant farmer, farm worker and those that are regarded to be in informal trade as ‘vendors’.

But in defining workers as broadly as outlined above, it is also significant to understand that at each turn, the free market and its advocates in the form of State actors and private capital have also been working hard to weaken the ability of the working people to organise themselves, either in the form of strong unions and associations; that at least for working people to be able to believe in the importance and utility of collective action.

This is where the second point in relation to the socio-economic challenges faced by the working people of Zimbabwe is significant.

In this, increasingly high levels of individualism and a diminishing understanding of the common public good beyond one’s own pocket has meant that acts and understanding of solidarity have not only become infrequent, but are also expected only to be undertaken by private capital, and only in the most extreme of cases such as natural or man-made disasters. This is also despite what should be the political-economic reality that it is the primary responsibility of the State to look after its citizens.

The final consideration is how to ensure that this new call to challenge austerity and neo-liberalism by ZCTU is not lost to populism. An immediate strategy would be for the working people of Zimbabwe to define the alternative as clearly and in as a people centered a way as possible. Not in a dogmatic way where we insist in an ideologically puritanist framework, but a contextual one that takes into account historical workers’ struggles.

EDITORIAL

WALKING through the streets of Harare’s capital city yesterday, on a day that is internationally set aside to celebrate the working class and all labourers on this planet, scenes of open shops and people busy running around was evidence enough that in Zimbabwe this day has now been reduced to any other day.

This year’s International Labour Day theme: Sustainable Pension for all: The Role of Social Partners speaks volumes to the dire situation the masses of Zimbabwe have been exposed to.

The wages of those still in formal employment are now so paltry that it is a real wonder how they are managing to make it to work every day. And for the second time in a decade, their pensions are being gnawed into insignificance by inflation and governemnt recklessness.

Meanwhile, price hikes, job cuts and fuel scarcity are just some of the many challenges workers are grappling with day-in, day-out. This has effectively drained all the joy that Workers’ Day used to bring.

Many companies, if not all, are struggling to pay wages, let alone a cost of living adjustment to those measly wages. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Peter Mutasa summed it all when he said the future was simply bleak for the Zimbabwean worker.

We were all very hopeful when the Second Republic swept away what we all thought was the reason of our misery: Robert Mugabe and his repressive regime. But, alas, it appears we were happy too soon as we are being told to be a little more patient. But patience for any man or woman nursing an empty stomach can be a major challenge.

It is our considered view that those holding the reins must remain alive to the fact that a restless labour (both public and private) force is the last thing any economy needs.

It is important that issues to do with labour are quickly handled as workers are the backbone of any nation. A weakened labour force is a serious indictment on all recovery efforts any country may undertake.

Our government should remember the country’s labour force and work hard to cater for its needs, if it hopes to achieve meaningful progress in the establishment of a strong Second Republic.

We were gratified to hear that the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) might be revived. This was one of the many avenues that could solve some of the challenges government is struggling to solve, so the earlier the three parties to TNF — government, employers and labour — sit down around a table and discuss pertinent socio-economic issues, the better it will be for our economy.

While intentions are very good, actions speak louder. Labour is waiting, albeit restlessly.

By Garikai Mafirakureva

MOURNERS attending the funeral of a four-year-old in Chiredzi were left stranded when Chiredzi Town Council employees disconnected water at the house, forcing mourners to resort to using water from unprotected water sources and exposing them to waterborne diseases.

The funeral was being held at one of the 36 single quarters with 12 rooms each, which house over 100 families, including the visually-impaired and people living with disabilities that were given temporary shelter there by the council.

Ward 4 councillor Liberty Macharaga said council employees made a grave mistake when they disconnected water on Sunday.

“I don’t think a voted councillor with people at heart like me or any mere councillor will advocate or even pass a resolution to disconnect water where there is a funeral. Council
workers with low understanding of issues were doing their job, but at times, common sense must prevail,” he said.

“Knowing very well that there was a funeral, they should have spared the house. I should admit that as council, we erred and the blame falls squarely at our feet. I, however, don’t
think it is a big issue now because as soon as I heard the problem, we got it sorted out.”

Chiredzi town secretary Charles Muchatukwa could not be reached for comment as his mobile phone went unanswered.

A committee member of Chiredzi members living with disabilities, Malvern Magodora, said they were disappointed by council’s action.

“As an association, we are bitter with what council has done. People have nowhere to fetch water because the borehole in this ward is broken down. Right now, where do you think people
will wash their hands? This is so inhumane. How can someone disconnect water at a funeral?” he charged.

“We are not surprised with this behaviour because we tried to engage council on several occasions, but to no avail. We were asking them to construct ramps for some of our members, but
they have given us a deaf ear. It is sad that those on wheelchairs are forced to leave them at the door and crawl on all fours into public toilets at the quarters.”

Water supply at the house was only restored after the funeral following the intervention of the United Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association.

Chiredzi Town Council vice-chairperson Ropafadzo Makumire confirmed the incident, but quickly said water was immediately connected when the problem was brought to his attention.

“I admit that council employees made a very big blunder when they disconnected water at a funeral, but the situation was rectified as soon as it was brought to my attention,” he
said.

“As council, we are disconnecting water around Chiredzi, particularly those who did not heed the amnesty. We are disconnecting water in the protected areas, especially in high-density
areas for those owing us over ZWL$100, while in the low-density areas, we are disconnecting water to those owing us over ZWL$250.”

Meanwhile, Chiredzi Town Council is failing to service a ZWL$1,3 million debt it owes Tongaat Hulett for water supplied.

By Stephen Chadenga

GWERU City Council has said residents should prepare for a supplementary budget next month, as the current plan approved by government in February has been eroded by currency distortions and inflation.

Acting finance director Owen Masimba said the $46 million 2019 budget, which has since been passed, is now underfunded by 67% after government departed from its stance that the bond note was trading at par with the United States dollar.

“It will be recalled that government has departed from its long standing position that the exchange rate between the US dollar and the bond note/RTGS [real time gross settlement] is
one is to one,” Masimba said on Monday during the first quarter budget review meeting.

“The volatility of the of the exchange rate now at ZWL$3 to US$1 (on the formal market) means that council will be forking out three times more than budgeted. The effect is that council’s budget is now underfunded by 200% as at the current exchange rate of ZWL$3 to US$1.”

Masimba said given the prevailing economic environment, the local authority was left with two options, to increase tariffs or go for a supplementary budget.

He, however, said council would wait for direction from government although it (government) had encouraged supplementary budgets as a stop-gap measure.

“If we do not do either of the two (increasing tariffs or supplementary budget) council will not be able to provide service delivery,” he said.

“If all the budget income could be availed today the city will be able to meet 33% of its planned expenditures for 2019. Is should also be noted if council is to preserve the budgeted nostro value of a total of $278 975 966 for both the $46 117 800 revenue and $93 370 183 capital expenditure budgets, respectively, it should effect a 200% tariff increase or conveniently rate the charges as enunciated by Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019.”

Recently, mayor Josiah Makombe said council was proposing increasing rates, which he said were no longer sustainable, but residents associations vowed to resist the move.