Socialite and businessman Genius Kadungure, popularly known as Ginimbi, was yesterday detained over the importation of his US$200 000 Bentley vehicle after handing himself over to the police Anti-Corruption Unit.

BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE

Kadungure, who was accompanied by his lawyer Jonathan Samukange, is expected to appear in court today.

Samkange confirmed to NewsDay that he had accompanied his client to the CID Anti-Corruption Unit.

“Yes, my client has been arrested and detained by the police CID Anti-Corruption Unit for fraud after they suspected that his Bentley vehicle was undervalued to misrepresent on the payment of duty,” he said.

Samkange said the allegations are that on December 22 last year, Kadungure connived with a clearing agent and manufactured a purchase invoice which they tendered to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra).

Kadungure allegedly undervalued the cost of the vehicle so that he pays less duty.

The businessman was last year ordered to pay an additional US$58 655,09 duty on top of another US$81 469 already paid to Zimra for his recently imported Bentley Continental GT vehicle.

According to the court papers, filed before the High Court, the vehicle in question is valued at R1,9 million.
Last week, Kadungure shared on his Instagram account a video of himself buying a two-seater Ferrari 488 Spider sports car for US$350 000.

He already has a large collection of supercars at his mansion in Domboshava and his fleet includes two Rolls-Royce, three Bentleys, two Range Rovers and one Mercedes-Benz 2018 G63, among many others.
Kadungure also has a pending case on money-laundering which is yet to go for trial.

INTWASA Arts Festival koBulawayo and its partners will on Saturday host Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry minister, Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu at a dialogue on issues affecting arts industry in Bulawayo.

BY SHARON SIBINDI

The dialogue, dubbed Masiyephambili Series, will be moderated by Patience Phiri under the theme Creative Interface with the Ministry Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo.

Intwasa director Raisedon Baya confirmed the developments to NewsDay Life & Style yesterday.

“We are introducing a new dialogue series and Patience Phiri is leading it. She is the face and brains of the project. We are providing technical and moral support,” he said.

“Mostly the dialogue is about interfacing with policy makers and influencers and seeing where the arts can plug in and utilise opportunities.”

Baya said they were interested in seeking opportunities within that ministry that the creative sector could plug in for profitability.

“It’s strictly by invite and we invited people and organisation we think add value to the dialogue,” he said.

Intwasa organisers recently held a consultative meeting in preparation for this year’s festival slated to run from September 20 to 27.

BY WINSTONE ANTONIO
TOP comedian Victor “Doc Vikela” Mpofu (pictured) yesterday said Simuka Comedy would be on the road this year, starting in Harare on February 13 before heading for Masvingo the following day as part of a campaign to take comedy across the country.

The award-winning comedian yesterday told NewsDay Life & Style that stand-up comedy was steadily growing in the country.

“We have set the precedence that comedy will never be the same again as there will be something different this year on the comedy front. We have created a comedy circuit which has become a weekly programme from Tuesday to Saturday were comedians both seasoned and up-and-coming will be showcasing their talents,” he said.

“The comedy circuit encompasses performances across the country connecting with new audiences as well as servicing our existing audiences in a different environment, instead of using just one venue now and again. As we will be moving around spreading the gospel of comedy, on February 13 we will be in Harare and on Valentine’s Day we will be in Masvingo.”

Doc Vikela said this year they will be hosting a comedy festival as part of Simuka’s vision to grow comedy in the country.

“I have moved from the past were I used to do the Doc Vikela tours, but my drive now with Simuka Comedy is to grow the industry. The more we grow the comedy industry the more relevance of comedy and the more people begin to appreciate it,” he said.

“We have different MoUs in most major towns of the country to do shows. We also have MoUs with Night of Laughter, Zambia and Botswana guys to make sure that we create a comedy circuit were comedians go on the road, which is not mainly inspired by money, but for comedians to get experience and establish their brands.”

Doc Vikela said gone were the days when they had to wait for someone to come and promote comedy for the locals. He said he was working with up-and-coming comedians including Ian, Patrick, Upepe and Psycho Crisis.

He said 2019 was a good year as they branded Simuka Comedy and set up four departments — the comedy club, talent agency, consultancy and academy.

“With the academy we do free lessons to anyone who wants to do comedy every Friday and will later take the people to the stage,” he said.

Doc Vikela said they had started doing skits as a way of utilising and growing their talents and the skits would be available on the Simuka Comedy YouTube channel.

“From that talent agency we also provide comedians for corporate events who will be suitable for the function,” he said.

He founded Simuka Comedy alongside fellow jester Simba “The Comic King” Kakora in 2011.

From US Republicans’ effort to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roev Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion, to Poland’s increased restrictions on access to emergency contraception, to Brazil’s clampdown on sexual health education, this is a difficult time for women.

But if the global feminist movement has proved anything over the years, it is that it can overcome powerful resistance to defend the rights of marginalised groups. In 2020, it will do so again.

The challenge is formidable. An inevitable corollary of the authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, and xenophobia embraced by political leaders in many countries — in particular, Brazil, Hungary, India, Turkey and the United States — is the perpetuation of regressive gender norms.

According to “strongman” leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and India’s Narendra Modi, women are born to be wives and mothers; immigrants and racial, religious and ethnic minorities are dangerous and inferior; and LGBTQI+ persons deserve ostracism, detention, or even death.

These leaders have emboldened people who share their views to engage in discrimination and violent attacks against racial or other minorities, migrants, women and other marginalised groups.

Through measures like restrictions on abortion and contraception and the removal of protections for LGBTQI+ people, these leaders sought to control people’s bodies, sexuality, and reproduction, and punish those who defy their outdated beliefs.

For example, immediately upon entering the White House, US President Donald Trump reinstated the “global gag rule,” which, by barring US aid to any international organisation that provides, refers, or advocates for abortion care, is deadly for women.

Yet, as president of the International Women’s Health Coalition and a longtime women’s rights advocate, I have seen firsthand what the feminist movement can do. Consider Argentine feminists’ fight against highly restrictive abortion laws.

Twenty years ago, at the United Nations, Argentinian diplomats refused even to acknowledge sexual health or reproductive rights. But in 2005, Argentine feminists launched the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, beginning a gruelling uphill battle against powerful adversaries.

In 2018, hundreds of thousands of activists took to the streets across the country wearing green handkerchiefs (now a global symbol of the fight for abortion rights) to demand that the Senate pass a Bill legalising abortion. They lost, but only narrowly — an outcome that would have seemed impossible just a couple of decades earlier. And they kept fighting. Last month, Argentina inaugurated a president, Alberto Fernández, who has vowed to legalise abortion.

Achieving social change to protect marginalised groups is never an easy process. There are no quick victories over weak opposition. But, as feminists have proved time and again, with sustained commitment, changes that once seemed impossible can later seem inevitable.

In the last year alone, there have been numerous examples of such changes. The Mexican state of Oaxaca and the Australian state of New South Wales decriminalised abortion as did Northern Ireland, while others liberalised their laws, expanding the circumstances in which women can access safe, legal abortion services. In April, South Korea’s Supreme Court struck down the country’s abortion law as unconstitutional, setting the stage for decriminalisation this year.

Beyond abortion, Austria, Ecuador, Northern Ireland, and Taiwan all legalised same-sex marriage in 2019. Moreover, in a striking shift of political power, Finland elected Sanna Marin, a 34-year-old woman, as prime minister. Women now lead all five political parties comprising the country’s governing coalition, and four of them are under the age of 40.

Advocates for women’s rights are committed to making 2020 at least an important year in the global fight for equality, not only for women and girls, but for all people.

In India, for example, women are leading protests against a new citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims.
Particularly inspiring are the young female and non-binary activists who are leading movements for transformative change. For example, Emma González is demanding gun reform in the US; Bertha Zúñiga is defending the land rights of Honduras’ indigenous people; and Jamie Margolin and Greta Thunberg have emerged as leading climate activists.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which recognised women’s rights as human rights and established gender equality’s place on the global agenda.

Since the platform’s creation, activists have used it to hold governments to their commitments on a wide range of issues, including maternal mortality, child marriage, gender-based violence, political participation and reproductive rights.

Feminist activists will continue this work at the Beijing+25 Generation Equality Forum, convened by Mexico and France in Mexico City in May and Paris in July. There, they will call for bold new commitments to address crosscutting challenges like climate change and the refugee crisis.

This broader perspective is vital. In fact, feminists must strengthen their alliances with other progressive movements, especially those fighting for environmental sustainability, racial justice, and LGBTQI+ rights.

Only by mobilising together and supporting one another’s agendas can we overcome white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal and exploitative forces to build a more just, equitable and sustainable world.

The effects of these efforts will be shaped by decisions made by citizens and policymakers. The US presidential election in November will be particularly consequential. For better or worse, the US has an outsize impact on how the rest of the world addresses issues ranging from climate action and foreign aid to diplomacy and human rights.

If Trump loses the election, the US could again set a positive example, reviving multilateral co-operation, renewing support for UN agencies working on health and human rights, and ensuring that key government and judicial posts are once more occupied by qualified individuals who support human rights and the rule of law.

But, whatever happens, one thing is certain: the feminist movement and its progressive allies will not give up.
— Project Syndicate

 Françoise Girard is president of the International Women’s Health Coalition

THE ruling Zanu PF party members have been giving Zimbabweans comic relief in the past few months, making the right noises about transparency and accountability in government and the economy, but questions will always linger about the seriousness of those making the damning allegations. Is it factional fights for supremacy or a fight about who controls what?

The party’s youth leaders Lewis Matutu and Godfrey Tsenengamu on Monday took some bizarre decision to attack what they called leaders of cartels in the economy, people accused of making Zimbabweans suffer because they want to create and maintain their political fortunes using their proximity to power.

Matutu and Tsenengamu had a list of names among them were the “usual suspects” Kuda Tagwireyi, Tafadzwa Musarara, Billy Rautenbach, central bank officials, police and the judiciary. It is noteworthy that this is not the first time the youth leaders have made such damning allegations against businesspersons or fellow party members.

Last year, the same youths labelled Zanu PF secretary of administration, Obert Mpofu, a corrupt leader, triggering a $10 million defamation suit that is still before the courts. And like the last time, the youths this time around followed the same script of holding a Press conference away from Zanu PF headquarters even when they have offices there.

Let us for a moment examine the names thrown into the limelight. Tagwireyi is a business mogul whose interests stretch from real estate, fuel supply and mining, among other things. He is a significant shareholder in Sakunda Holdings, a subsidiary of Trafigura, a company that has control in excess of 35% of the fuel market.

Tagwireyi has mining interests that include his recent acquisition of Freda Rebecca Mine and Bindura Nickel Corporation and a touted 30% stake as a partner in the Russian Darwendale Platinum project. He is the main benefactor of Command Agriculture that gobbled a staggering US$3 billion in the past agriculture season, but the country is reeling from massive food insecurity.

Tagwireyi has also featured prominently in the ongoing Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga’s messy divorce at the High Court. It is revealed in court papers that Tagwireyi bought the former army general a Lexus Suv to monitor Command Agriculture and a Mercedes Benz salon car to ferry the VP’s children to school.

It is the same Tagwireyi who is a member of the elite presidential advisory council formed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa after he won the 2018 presidential elections, albeit in a controversial pattern. He has travelled with Mnangagwa to Eastern Europe and for good measure bought an infamous signed scarf at an auction for a staggering US$250 000.

Musarara is the chairman of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe, an organisation at the centre of providing subsidised mealie-meal. He is not new to working with the regime. Musarara has twice failed to become a Member of Parliament for Mazowe, but was a prominent member of the Kimberley Process (KP) during Obert Mpofu’s tenure at the mining ministry. The KP certifies the sale of diamonds at the Anterwep Diamond market, Belgium.

Rautenbach is a shady character after he was deported from three African countries for tax evasion or illicit trading in minerals. He had some of his properties attached for evading tax in South Africa and Botswana. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rautenbach was deported by Laurent Kabila after some unsavoury acts at State-controlled mining firm Gecamines. Rautenbach was the only Zimbabwean not a politician or military officer of the seven blacklisted persons by the United Nations for plundering DRC diamonds.

Rautenbach leases more than 20 000 hectares of land from the Zimbabwean government, which he uses to produce sugarcane for ethanol production. His company, Green Fuels, has an exclusive agreement with government to be the only company that supplies ethanol used for the mandatory blending of petrol in the country. Rautenbach has a fleet of haulage trucks that operate in the Sadc region and will soon be expanding his sugarcane production as the government has given him a new lease at Nuanetsi Ranch.

Rautenbach, like Tagwireyi, has a close relationship with Mnangagwa since the infamous Tsholotsho Declaration in 2004. Rautenbach’s name featured prominently as one of Mnangagwa’s funders at the time when he sought to be the late former President Robert Mugabe’s number two.

Matutu and Tsenengamu are probably barking up the wrong tree. Zanu PF leadership is not about to be held accountable since it trashed the leadership code in the late 1980s. This was an internal party agreement that leaders had to declare their assets and were not permitted to engage in primitive accumulation of wealth like what has become the norm today.

Mnangagwa after the November 2017 coup made the right noises too about transparency and accountability and for a while most Zimbabweans thought we had reached the biblical Canaan. Mnangagwa threatened to relentlessly pursue forex externalisers and have Cabinet ministers declare their assets (of course any of the properties to be declared had to be above US$100 000). One can only wonder what Tsenengamu meant when he said: “If you go to Tagwireyi’s car sales, he has top of the range vehicles he brought under the Command Agriculture scheme. He has done this because leaders have allowed it. Our leaders must now choose whether they want to stand with Tagwireyi or the people.”

Will Mnangagwa “the listening President” come to the party and clampdown on corruption? Or this is another sideshow as Zanu PF internal fights are playing out for public sympathy and pretending that they are with the suffering masses? One thing for certain, Zanu PF will not lose its corruption spots like the leopard.

Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist and writes here in his personal capacity.

THE Zimbabwe Clothing Manufacturers’ Association (Zcma) has urged government to use the clothing industry as a driver of employment and economic growth, just like what other developing countries have done and succeeded.

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

Zcma chairperson Jeremy Youmans told NewsDay Business that there was need for government to fully support the clothing and textile industry which employed over 35 000 people at the turn of the millennium.

Currently, the sector employs about 3 500 people.

“The local textile industry is under extreme distress. They export most of their products. This means that our industry needs to import more and more. We are the biggest value adder in the value chain and so allocations of forex to the clothing sector should have the biggest payback,” Youmans said.

“The value addition from cotton lint to garment is 940 %, which is huge. We need to maximise this as an industry and a country. Most other developing countries succeeded in using the clothing industry as a driver of employment and economic growth, but we are failing to prioritise support in proportion to the payback and benefits that will be created,” he said.

Youmans said there was still no progress on the resolution of Zimbabwe-South Africa Bi-Lateral Trade Agreement (Zim-SA BTA) which was revoked a few years ago.

The 1964 agreement provided Zimbabwe access to SA on similar terms as Comesa, the rest of the African continent, Europe and the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).

“We still have no progress on the resolution of the Zimbabwe-South Africa Bi-Lateral Trade Agreement (BTA). This 1964 agreement provides access to SA on similar terms as Comesa, the rest of the African continent, Europe and the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act,” he said.

“But Sadc rules restrict the ability to trade, and therefore the BTA is essential to our ability to grow, employ, export and provide the country with a core economic driver. We are in regular and multiple contacts with the government but it remains unresolved.”

Youmans said if barriers to industrialization were removed, the industry could grow significantly.

“Getting the same access to SA that we enjoy with effectively the rest of the world, would create multitudes of opportunities and the industry could respond very quickly, as long as allocations of forex are available for raw materials rather than for thousands of consumer goods which are running out of consumers who can afford them,” he said.

The Zcma boss said they could employ and train people quickly and produce garments in very short periods. In such a situation, they would employ over 5 000 people in the short term, and lot of that could be done in 2020.

A LOCAL company, Pusha Maworks will on February 10 hold a skills training workshop under the banner Community Edition Event in Hatcliffe, Harare, to empower local creatives interested in beading.

BY CHELSEA MUSAFARE

The debut community edition will be hosted by expert beader Silas Nyamhandu and is open to young people keen on acquiring income-generating knowledge.

Co-founded by Byron Kabaira (pictured) and Diana Elisha Nheera, the organisation aims to steer development in communities while creating opportunities for developing income means for economically active people through training workshops and business guidance.

The duo said in a statement the “community edition” would cover a vast number of vocational skills.

“As an ongoing quest to foster leadership while steering development in all aspects of life, we hereby launch the community edition where the team seeks to facilitate skills transfer and skills sharing between selected individuals excelling in fields dependent on practical skills. This will cover a large number of vocational skills like beading, carpentry, martial arts, welding, among others,” they said.

Last year, the firm launched an ambitious project promotion campaign for artists and managers, with artists from different disciples, artist managers and businesspeople leading the discussion on how the arts can align with expected business principles to improve their brands.

Pusha Maworks is currently engaged in an ongoing “indie” literacy campaign on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.