BY BRENNA MATENDERE

NURSES at the Midlands General Hospital in Gweru on Wednesday declared incapacitation and agreed with authorities that they would now embark on flexi hours, whereby they report for duty twice a week.

Earlier, the nurses had staged a demonstration and marched around the hospital complaining over poor salaries and working conditions.

Robert Chiduku, president of the Zimbabwe Professional Nurses Union confirmed the development.

Chiduku is also a nurse at the Midlands General Hospital in Gweru.

“We held a meeting on Wednesday with the acting medical superintendent, Dr Tendai Chandaengerwa, and we formally informed them that nurses at the hospital would only be reporting to work two days in a week because of incapacitation,” he said.

“We also had representatives from the Zimbabwe Nurses Association in the meeting and we all spoke with one voice.”

The development will come as a major blow because the hospital is the biggest health institution in the province, catering for all emergency cases referred from 28 district hospitals.

“It is not something new in the country that nurses work two days in a week. Since last year, nurses in cities like Harare and Bulawayo have not been working for all days. It is only here where we were still reporting for duty all the days. However, due to incapacitation, we have now been left with no option, but to follow suit,” Chiduku said.

“Our demands are just like those of the other nurses countrywide, where we are saying we want salaries indexed to the interbank rate using those we were getting during the multi-currency era. We also want improved working conditions.”

Hospital spokesperson Clarence Pedzi refused to comment and referred questions to the institution’s medical superintendent, Fabian Mashingaidze.

However, he was said to be out of the country and was not reachable.

Midlands provincial medical director Solomon Nyadundu said: “I am not on the ground to provide finer details. Please get in touch with the hospital’s public relations officer.”

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

MIDLANDS Senator Lillian Timveous (MDC Alliance) is set to appear in court today facing charges of threatening to destroy Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s (Zec) offices in Zvishavane ahead of the July 31, 2018 elections.

Timveous also faces charges of stopping a Zec Zvishavane district election officer, Regressa Dube, from distributing ballot papers to voters who had applied for postal voting on July 15, according to summons.

She also faces two charges of disrupting operations at Zec’s Zvishavane offices, even threatening to use violence, charges that MDC chairperson Thabitha Khumalo dismissed as ludicrous yesterday.

“… at the Zec (offices at) government complex in Zvishavane, Lillian Timveous, being a member of the MDC Alliance, unlawfully obstructed Regressa Dube, who is a Zvishavane district election officer, from issuing postal ballot papers to voters who had applied for postal voting, that is to say Lillian Timveous dispersed the postal ballot voters who were receiving their ballot envelopes containing postal ballot papers from Regressa Dube,” the summons read.

Zanu PF won the elections, but the opposition MDC has refused to recognise the ruling party’s victory, arguing that Zec manipulated the results.

“… Timveous, being a member of the MDC Alliance, unlawfully threatened to damage Zvishavane Zec offices where Regressa Dube, the Zvishavane district election officer, works from that is to say Lillian Timveous uttered that be guarded continuously or else she was going to break into Zvishavane Zec offices,” the second charge reads.

In an interview, the MDC chairperson said this was confirmation enough that the opposition party was under siege.

“It’s just political persecution of the party for daring to tell the truth that they (government) have failed. The charges do not make any sense at all. We are under siege,” Khumalo told NewsDay.

The MDC has complained over State-sponsored persecution of its members, charges government officials have on several occasions denied and, instead, accused the opposition party of wilfully violating the country’s laws.

BY FREEMAN MAKOPA

COMMUNITY Newspapers’ Association of Zimbabwe (CNAZ) chairperson Jasper Maposa has resigned in protest over irregularities and corruption allegedly dogging the organisation.

Maposa tendered his resignation letter on Monday alleging that the association had been marred by serious governance challenges, leading to coffers being turned into the board members’ feeding trough.

In a letter addressed to the association’s secretary-general Owen Matava, Maposa said: “I have given my resignation careful thought and I am convinced that with my age I have much to gain by leaving CNAZ and focus on other things than hold on to a forlorn dream. Leading an institution like CNAZ replete with open and latent internal contradictions has been for me nothing, but a puerile gesture in discontent.”

Maposa said he had found his job difficult in propelling the organisation to desired levels because of spanners being thrown into his works by people who were also eyeing his position.

“This is also a calculated ploy by those who want to occupy the position of the chairperson by abusing the national co-ordinator (Maggie Mzumara) for their personal gains. I can’t continue with an institution that has no clear separation of roles as conflict has become endemic to our every attempt to bring robust policy directions. I don’t desire to whittle down my chances of doing something better in life by holding on to an institutional carriage creaking on its hinges,” he said.

Maposa said CNAZ has to choose whether they want to have significant support from a broad spectrum of stakeholders or enjoy sustained mediocrity.

“It boggles my mind to see that we have dismally failed to be part of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) and we appear like a nestling terminally incapable of flying. Remaining outside institutions like MAZ is indicative of our failure to match the governance benchmarks expected by such a mother body for the media in Zimbabwe ,” Maposa said
“I have also realised some board members abused donor funds in their other roles and their presence in the board remains a heavy albatross on CNAZ and scares away potential funding partners. The contents of this letter might attract vitriol and deep revulsion, but I stand firm on whatever I have said and I am unapologetic.”

Maposa added that it became increasingly difficult to offer guidance to a national co-ordinator who was also a publisher because of the dual nature of her roles.

Contacted for comment, Matava said: “Wait, let me talk to him (Maposa) because the letter will tarnish the association; I want to talk to your source because he was not supposed to do that because that will affect the association. As we are at our infancy, problems are encountered and the issues that he (Maposa) raised, if we blow them out of proportion we are not building the community media, people will actually celebrate and this will destroy the association.”

Mzumara could not be reached for a comment as her mobile phone went unanswered.

Repeated efforts for a comment failed as she did not respond to WhatsApp messages sent to her mobile phone since Wednesday.

BY Brenna Matendere

Two artisanal miners were confirmed dead, while 20 others were trapped underground following a mineshaft collapse at Globe and Phoenix Mine in Kwekwe yesterday.

Kwekwe district Department of Civil Protection head and district co-ordinator, Fortune Mpungu told NewsDay that the process of retrieving the bodies trapped underground was ongoing.

“I can confirm that a section of the mine collapsed. We are told that a huge boulder collapsed and it trapped the artisanal miners who were inside. So far we have retrieved two bodies and some are still trapped inside,” he said.

The mine is the oldest in Kwekwe having been pegged on the site of ancient gold workings in 1894 by prospectors Edward Thornton Pearson and Joseph Schukala.

It is located a few metres from the central business district westwards.

The mine has not been operating formally, having been shut down in 2017, but illegal miners have been clandestinely finding their way into the shafts during the night.

When NewsDay arrived at the scene yesterday, police and some artisanal miners were busy trying to retrieve the bodies and search for survivors. The bodies that had been retrieved were later ferried to Kwekwe General Hospital mortuary.

Mpungu said those trapped had trespassed into the shafts.

“Yes, no company has been operating at the mine lately, but the artisanal miners have just been sneaking into the underground shafts illegally. At this stage, we are not very sure of the numbers who are trapped in terms of the dead bodies, but we are working to retrieve all the dead bodies,” he said.

“What we have done is to use explosives to blast the huge boulder that is trapping the miners. That process is still ongoing and there is a big cloud of dust underground right now which makes us unable to see anything or count the bodies.”

Sources said the artisanal miners have been blasting the pillars that hold up the mine tunnels, resulting in the entire underground system weakening, which ultimately resulted in the mine collapse.

However, Mbizo MP Settlement Chikwinya (MDC) said some people indicated to him that about 15 people could be trapped underground.

“It is reported that the artisanal miners enter through a pit on the southern side of town and work on the old workings left by the previous mining company. This then weakens the roof of the tunnels resulting in the pillars falling and this is what happened in this case. There are four people confirmed to be under the boulder although the actual total figure is suspected to be about 15,” he said.

BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA

MDC-T legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga (proportional representation) yesterday said the 2018 elections were handled better than previous elections and praised President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a reformer.

Speaking after meeting visiting Norwegian leader of the standing committee of foreign affairs and defence, Anniken Huitfeldt at Parliament Building, Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who was representing the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, said even election observers endorsed the 2018 polls as “better than before”.

“I speak from an opposition point of view and want to say this is the first time I had a peaceful election. In previous elections, I used to go into hiding because the situation was risky,” she said.

The MP, from the Thokozani Khupe-led MDC-T, said even international observers were allowed into the country during the 2018 elections.

However, the legislator said there were post-electoral problems like the August 1, 2018 violence, which resulted in the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry being set up to investigate the shooting to death of six civilians by the
military.

She told Huitfeldt that some of the recommendations by the Motlanthe Commission were that there must be political reforms.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga then praised Mnangagwa as a reformer, adding that people must acknowledge him for the work that he was doing.

“The President is one of the reformers and if he moves in a particular direction and if there is no acknowledgement of the changes that he is making, then we are strengthening the hardliners also. The Foreign Affairs minister (Sibusiso Moyo) is one of the reformists we have and he has pushed for reforms,” she said.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga said the international community was hostile to Zimbabwe because they did not like the late former President Robert Mugabe.

“They had a problem with the individual and not the party,” she said.

Huitfeldt, who is in the country for three days to meet different political players and the European Union, told NewsDay that she wanted to learn more about Zimbabwe’s post-electoral environment after the developments of the 2018 general elections.

BY REX MPHISA

BEITBRIDGE police have nabbed one robber, believed to be part of a dangerous gang of criminals hammering spikes on highways, deflating vehicle tyres to rob travellers.

A firearm is said to have been recovered in a raid at one of the gangsters’ houses when police employed their dog section, the K9 Unit.

Police are also said to have nabbed another suspect, who is part of a gang that allegedly targets solar power installations to steal equipment.

Officer commanding Beitbridge Police District Chief Superintendent Tichaona Nyongo confirmed the arrests and said investigations were ongoing.

“CID [Criminal Investigations Department] is still running around as these are two separate issues: one for (solar) panels, the other for spikes,” he said in an interview.

Acting on a tip-off soon after some spikes were on Wednesday hammered on the Harare-Beitbridge Highway just 15km outside the border town, police immediately intensified their hunt.

They nabbed a suspect, who reportedly led them into arresting two others in the Tshitauze suburb, where a firearm was recovered.

Yesterday, police details with sniffer dogs were also seen at a house in Dulivhadzimo, where they recovered solar panels suspected to have been stolen from the Zezani area in Beitbridge West.

Beitbridge residents applauded the police for their good work, but chastised the government for not giving adequate resources to the police at Zimbabwe’s busiest entry point.

“The police, with minimal resources, have cracked these two puzzles and if they were well resourced, the fight against crime would be tremendous,” a resident, Bright Mateza, said.

Police in Beitbridge have a few vehicles and some of the cars from rural stations are used at the force’s driving school in Bulawayo.

Outreach patrols across the country’s 300-kilometre long border with South Africa, where smuggling and poaching is rife, are far in between.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

SENIOR doctors have told Parliament that US$3,5 million injected by a well-wisher at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals to purchase critical heart equipment had gone missing.

This was raised before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care chaired by Ruth Labode, which had visited Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe Central hospitals in response to a petition by the Senior Hospital Doctors Association (SHDA) to investigate the myriad of problems at public health institutions.

MPs heard sad stories from doctors, among them Parirenyatwa head of paediatrics division, Azzah Mashumba, and SHDA president Shingai Nyaguse, who broke down as they narrated the sorry state of affairs at public hospitals.

The doctors said the well-wisher had provided money to buy a cath-lab, which is essential for diagnostic imaging in order to visualise the arteries of the heart during a heart operation.

A senior surgeon, who preferred anonymity fearing victimisation, said Zimbabwe was the only country in the region which did not have a cath-lab.

The surgeon said surgeons were
currently operating on patients sweating in non-air conditioned theatres.

“I have been at Parirenyatwa for 37 years and I have never seen a hospital coming to rock bottom because the equipment purchased has no service contracts (guarantee for servicing) and there is no accountability in terms of equipment purchased and drugs,” the surgeon said.

“Capital equipment is disappearing because we are not accounting for it. I asked for a cath-lab to be purchased in 2018 and US$3,5 million was availed by a donor for its purchase, and I saw the money, but that cath-lab has not been delivered and the money disappeared.”

Labode said the disappearance of the US$3,5 million was disturbing and Parliament would investigate the matter.

“We will call the hospital administration to tell us what happened to the US$3,5 million and if there is a case, the matter should be before the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission,” Labode later told NewsDay in an interview.

Another senior doctor revealed that intensive care unit (ICU) equipment at Parirenyatwa was bought when the late former President Robert Mugabe’s sister Bridget Mugabe was admitted at the hospital.

“We wrote to Mugabe to get the equipment for the ICU and it was bought because there was his sister. But this is some of the equipment that is now derelict. There are many things happening at Parirenyatwa,” the senior doctor said.

Mashumba and Nyaguse also demanded thorough investigation on the US$600 000 Indian equipment which was delivered at hospital with some parts missing, while other equipment had wrong specifications.

“We (doctors) gave them the correct specifications of the equipment that we needed, but someone went to India and bought the wrong equipment and now we are surprised that they are saying it was us (doctors) who recommended the purchase of that equipment. It’s not fair,” Mashumba told the committee in tears.

She said it took months for the commissioning of the equipment to happen, and when it came and the boxes opened, some pieces were missing.

“We have tried everything and nothing will change because we continue like that. When the tender was awarded, doctors were not consulted,” Mashumba said.

Another surgeon, Edwin Muguti (former Health deputy minister), said due to poor revenue control, hospital pharmacies, X-Ray and radiology services were not functioning properly.

“If a patient has a biopsy for cancer, they wait for three months for results, which is not good for a person who potentially has cancer and yet at private centres, the results are released in three days,” he said.

At Sally Mugabe Central Hospital where the situation was worse than Parirenyatwa, Hwange Central MP Daniel Molokela (MDC Alliance) blasted the hospital administration after the committee found some of the equipment from India, comprising a bubble crap with stands, had been lying idle from October last year after it was delivered defective and doctors refused to use it.

“People are dying like flies every day and yet the equipment was delivered last year in October. You could have returned it and asked for a replacement,” Molokela said to Sally Mugabe Central chief executive officer Tinashe Dhobi.

BY MOSES MATENGA/Blessed Mhlanga

ZANU PF infighting came to a head in Wednesday’s politburo meeting, where two rival camps sought to deal with corruption allegations levelled against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s allies by the party youth league amid indications that all sides were compromised.

Sources who attended the stormy meeting said there were calls from a clique to have youth league deputy secretary Lewis Matutu and his political commissar Godfrey Tsenengamu fired for good from the party.

But a group perceived to be pro-Mnangagwa fought on the side of the youth.

A “remedial” position was taken to have the duo suspended for a year from their positions, but to remain ordinary card-carrying
members, while youth league boss Pupurai Togarepi was stripped of his politburo post.

Politburo member Christopher Mutsvangwa confirmed to NewsDay yesterday that there was, indeed, robust debate on the matter.

“I am glad that debate went on and the politburo moved to a remedial punishment other than a more drastic action that some of my colleagues in the politburo were calling for and I am also happy that even those members who had initially called for a drastic action turned around to a more remedial punishment,” he said.

“Remember, you are talking to someone who has had fingers pointed at by the youths, not only me, but even my wife (Monica), but my point was on principle that vana vadiki vanodzidziswa, even bhaibheri rinoti regai vana vadiki vauye kwandiri (young ones are schooled, even the Bible says let the young ones come to me),” the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association chairman said.

Asked about the talk that the fight in the politburo was over control of cartels for self-aggrandisement by some elements, Mutsvangwa responded: “I am not an authority, but I have an opinion on that debate about cartels. I am an economist and I studied finance, so I try to understand how economies operate. I was the first to even put the word cartel in our political debate. I feel strongly that the economy needs to be liberalised to a more equitable system.

“We need foreign direct investment, which comes without seeking favours from political connections. It should be coming into the country on the basis of bid and reward, that is all we need. Otherwise the President’s ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ call is undermined if there is a perception by others that there are companies which are always jumping the queue in Zimbabwe.”

Mutsvangwa added: “We need to level the playing field and that we must do and I am glad some international companies who want to protect their reputations are pulling out; if you saw what Trafigura has done, distancing themselves from underhand dealings.”

On Tuesday, global commodities trader Trafigura said in a statement that it had signed an agreement to take over full control of the Zimbabwean business after buying Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s Sakunda Holdings’ shares.

Trafigura held a minority stake of 49% in Trafigura Zimbabwe, with Tagwirei’s Sakunda, which also operated Puma Energy outlets, holding the controlling interest.
Reports suggest that the move by Trafigura, one of the world’s largest oil and metals brokers, could help it to stave off the likely impact of possible Western sanctions and growing local pressure on Tagwirei.

“The move by Trafigura is an indication that the message against corruption is getting out there,” Mutsvangwa said.

Zanu PF acting spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa said he was not in a position to discuss politburo deliberations, adding his official statement on Wednesday was enough.

But observers said the fight that ensued in the Zanu PF meeting exposed the long-standing deep-rooted divisions in the ruling party as bigwigs fight for control of oil supplies and maize distribution, money-spinning conduits for political leaders.

Tsitsi Muzenda is said to have charged during the meeting that operations of the cartels were affecting party structures amid allegations that political leaders were protecting them.

Vice-President Kembo Mohadi is said to have assured the youths that their suspension was not the end of the world as their actions were not out of the ordinary.

Mohadi claimed he once acted in a similar manner in his youthful days, leading to his suspension in 1978/9.

Some politburo members who argued for the youths’ expulsion from the party yesterday said it was clear the youths were fronts of a powerful political actor in Zanu PF, who did not want to come out in the open.

“They wanted to silence us as if we are in (army) barracks. Hakusi kumabarrack kwaunoda kutinyararidza (We are not at the barracks, so don’t shush us),” a senior official fighting on the side of the youths said.

Business tycoon Billy Rautenbach, who runs Green Fuels, and Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe chairman Tafadzwa Musarara were also named together with Tagwirei as individuals bleeding the country’s economy by allegedly engaging in activities which are having a negative impact on prices of various commodities.

The youths alleged that the cartels were very powerful and had been left to do as they please for a long time, alleging they were boasting of political protection by senior members.

Togarepi said he remained a cadre of the party and would follow the decision of the politburo.

Matutu remained defiant, saying: “Self-sacrifice is the most honourable and selfless thing you can do in your life. Better to die for something than to live for nothing.”

Matutu and Tsenengamu will today address a Press conference in Harare to announce their next course of action.

“We will give leadership tomorrow. That is when we will speak and officially comment on the latest developments,” Matutu said.

Tsenengamu has already said he will not be enrolling at the Zanu PF’s Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, claiming he already knew the party’s ideology, which was now allegedly being hijacked.

“The fact that I was holding a senior position in the party shows you that I know what the party stands for,” he said.

“Only as a lecturer will I go to Chitepo Ideological College for I identified my students yesterday. Chitepo was neither a thief nor a looter.”

Insiders said at the end of debate, Chiwenga was pushing for punitive punishment, demanding that the three be fired from the party.

A highly-placed source said Mnangagwa tried to play a balancing act as he stood on the side of his deputy, who was central in the ousting of late former President Robert Mugabe.