Category: News Feeds

The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority has increased the price of fuel with effect from today (Monday).

‘The budget has set aside resources for research and development programmes, including the launch of a space satellite. I repeat, including the launch of a space satellite,’ Ncube announced.

Then we began to suspect an empty space between the ears of the wizard economist who has returned Zimbabwe to hyperinflation, poverty and starvation but wants to play with rockets.

Some at the Vigil remembered when a Zambian would-be astronaut only got as far as the upper branches of a nearby tree. Zimbabweans sniggered then. We are not sniggering now.

This space breakthrough promises to be as important as the discovery of diesel flowing from the rocks in Chinoyi which took in a gaggle of credulous Mugabe ministers. Perhaps we have been wasting our time on industry and agriculture and stuff like that and have now found our destiny: a small step for mankind but a giant leap for Zimbabwe.

Why should we spend all day queueing for a few of the new Zimbabwean dollar notes when they can hardly buy anything – and when the new currency can easily be obtained from black market dealers who mysteriously have loads of it.

When he came down to earth, spaceman Ncube had some useful advice for the ordinary starving Zimbabwean, quoting Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen: ‘Human development is about expansions of citizens’ capabilities to fend for themselves.

In other words, look after yourself. The government doesn’t have space for you.

Other points

• Thanks for further contributions to the purchase of a gazebo to shelter the Vigil from rain from: Miriam Gasho, Simbarashe Jingo, Josephine Jombe, Jane Kaphuwa, Joyce Mbairatsunga, Benjamin Molife, Lucia Mudzimu, Fungisai Mupandira and Beverly Mupandiro.
• Thanks to those who came early to help set up the front table and put up the banners: Delice Gavazah, Rosemary Maponga, Washington Mugari, Esther Munyira, Tapiwa Muskwe and Kevin Wheeldon. Thanks to Rosemary and Delice for looking after the front table, to Patience Chmba and Tendai Chigariro for handing out flyers, Mary Muteyerwa, Margaret Munenge and Delice for drumming and to Jonathan Kariwo for photos.
• For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimb88abwevigil/. Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website.

FOR THE RECORD: 19 signed the register.

EVENTS AND NOTICES:

• ROHR Reading Christmas Party Fundraiser. Saturday 30^th November from 6.30 – 11 pm. Venue: The Spice Oven Buffet Restaurant, 2 – 4 Church Street, Reading RG4 8AT. Theme: to restore dignity to the suffering people of Zimbabwe. Tickets: £20 per adult, free entry for children under 5 years. For more information, contact: Deborah Harry 07578894896, Nicodimus Muganhu 07877386792, Joshua Kahari 07877246251, Josephine Jombe 07455166668.
• ROHR fundraising dinner dance in aid of women living with HIV/AIDS in rural Zimbabwe. Saturday 7^th December from 7 pm till late. Venue: Lee Chapel South Community Centre, The Knares, Basildon SS16 5SA. Formal dress code. Tickets £30. Contact organisers: Esther Munyira 07492058109, Simbarashi Jingo 07722998848, Rangarirai Chivaviro 07378429599 and Patience Chimba 07896496379.
• The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organization based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organization on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/. Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way represents us.
• The Vigil’s book ‘Zimbabwe Emergency’ is based on our weekly diaries. It records how events in Zimbabwe have unfolded as seen by the diaspora in the UK. It chronicles the economic disintegration, violence, growing oppression and political manoeuvring – and the tragic human cost involved. It is available at the Vigil. All proceeds go to the Vigil and our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’s work in Zimbabwe. The book is also available from Amazon.
• Facebook pages:
  Vigil: https://www.facebook.com/zimbabwevigil
  ROHR: https://www.facebook.com/Restoration-of-Human-Rights-ROHR-Zimbabwe-International-370825706588551/
  ZAF: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zimbabwe-Action-Forum-ZAF/490257051027515

Post published in: Featured

The New Ministerial Line-up

On Friday 8th November the Office of the President and Cabinet announced changes made by President Mnangagwa to his Ministerial line-up with immediate effect. The following tables show the complete Ministerial line-up including the changes, in alphabetical order by name of Ministry.

CABINET MINISTERS & THEIR DEPUTIES

[pale shading indicates where there have been changes and an * indicates Minister from outside Parliament]

Endnotes

1. The Ministry gains the function of ”Climate Change” and an appropriate addition to its new name.
2. Mangaliso Ndlovu – reassignment from Industry and Commerce to the renamed Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry.  He has been acting Minister since the dismissal of former Minister Prisca Mupfumira in August.
3. Newly appointed Deputy Ministers [there were 7 altogether].
4. Kazembe Kazembe – reassignment from Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services to Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage.
5. Sekesai Nzenza – reassignment from Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to Industry and Commerce.
6. Jenfan Muswere – promoted from Deputy Minister to Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services.
7. July Moyo’s former Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing is split in two.  He loses the National Housing function to the new Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities [see next note], and is now the Minister of Local Government and Public Works.
8. Daniel Garwe, MP for Murehwa North, is appointed Minister of the new Ministry of nathsa National Housing and Social Amenities.
9. Yeukai Simbanegavi – reassignment from Deputy Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation to Deputy Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities
10. Cain Mathema – reassignment from Home Affairs to Primary and Secondary Education.
11. Paul Mavima– reassignment from Primary and Secondary Education to Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.

MINISTERS OF STATE IN THE OFFICES OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS

MINISTERS OF STATE FOR PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS

[in alphabetical order by name of the province]

Post published in: Featured

With the current economic crisis, it’s bad for inmates.

I saw men eating from the ground because they don’t have plates.

I saw people eating from patched lunchboxes, how bad can it be to patch an old ice cream lunch box.
😭😭😭

Because of the water crisis, everyone gets a bucket of greywater to drink, bath, and use the bathroom per day, the poor ones have no shoes, no descent uniforms and no soap.

To not do something would be criminal, please help us raise 4000 lunchboxes and slippers to donate to these inmates.

Lunchboxes come in handy because they get their supper before their locked up in their cells at 3, so they use them as storage to eat later.

Please help with used ice cream lunchboxes and slippers.

For more info contact 0738 135 849 or 0773 728 388

Post published in: Featured

Two years ago, Linos Mutepera was among hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans who celebrated the toppling of long-time ruler Robert Mugabe with tears of joy.

Today, he looks back at that time with bitterness, his hope of a better life dashed on the rocks of poverty and joblessness.

“We were all there — the young, the old, the rich, the poor, blacks, whites and mixed race — waving the Zimbabwean flag, holding banners, hoisting placards, singing, dancing, praying together, holding each other’s arms and hugging,” he reminisced.

“We thought it was an end at last of an era that had been marked by poverty, joblessness, shortages, army and police brutality,” the 33-year-old unemployed engineering graduate told AFP.

Popular protests helped end the iron-fisted rule of Robert Mugabe, who steered Zimbabwe since its 1980 independence Photo: AFP / MUJAHID SAFODIEN

“How wrong we were.”

Mutepera, sitting beside a friend hawking clothes at a Harare flea market, pointed bleakly to the promises made by Mugabe’s successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to rebuild Zimbabwe’s shattered economy.

“We were used,” he said. “I feel so let down, so betrayed. But at least I am wiser.”

Mugabe came to power in 1980, surfing on his reputation as the guerrilla leader who had steered colonial-era Rhodesia to independence, ending white-minority rule.

Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa won disputed elections with pledges to lure foreign investment and create jobs Photo: AFP / Jekesai NJIKIZANA

By November 2018, the smell of corruption and cronyism that infected his regime prompted the military to take over — a coup code-named Operation Restore Legacy.

He was replaced as president by Mnangagwa, his former deputy, whom he had fired weeks earlier. The military supremo and face of the coup, General Constantino Chiwenga, became one of his deputies.

Inflation runs into triple digits Photo: AFP / Jekesai NJIKIZANA

The following July, Mnangagwa won disputed elections on pledges to lure foreign investment, create jobs and turn the country into a middle-income economy by 2030.

But Zimbabwe’s nightmares returned within months, as shoppers battled daily shortages of basics such as fuel, cooking oil, sugar and bread.

Unemployment today is over 90 percent while the size of the economy has more than halved since 2000, when Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms crippled Zimbabwean agriculture.

Inflation runs into triple digits, electricity is available for just six hours a day and in many urban areas, the taps are dry.

Disgruntled Zimbabwean civil servants march while carrying protest banners rejecting current salary payments Photo: AFP / Jekesai NJIKIZANA

“Things have basically got worse,” Professor Tony Hawkins of the University of Zimbabwe’s School of Economics told AFP.

“People are getting poorer and thousands are losing jobs,” he said.

“The economy has got worse and politically, nothing has changed except that the military are much more visible and much more powerful.

“Basically, it’s back to square one, with a change of driver but the same bus or taxi.”

Alex Magaisa, a lecturer at the University of Kent in England, said Mnangagwa’s promise of a new dawn had become “nothing more than a mirage.”

A spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Daniel Molokele, said Zimbabweans had mistakenly believed Mugabe’s removal would end the country’s woes.

“The euphoria that we saw in 2017 was not for the ascendancy of Mnangagwa but for the fall of Mugabe — and people also thought it meant the fall of the entire system created by Mugabe,” he said.

“Two years later there is hopelessness, there is despondency, there is disappointment.

“People would rather go back to 2017 not because Mugabe was better but because people are much more poorer. There is more corruption with cartels running sections of the economy. It’s a classic case of jumping from the frying pan into a fire.”

Molokele suggested a dialogue involving Zimbabweans “from all walks of life… so that the people can determine the Zimbabwe they want.”

Public fury at the state of the economy was an important factor in Mugabe’s downfall.

That anger flared anew in January, when Mnangagwa more than doubled fuel prices, sparking protests that left at least 17 people dead and scores of injured.

Harare-based political analyst Alexander Rusero told AFP the November 2018 takeover had “never been for the good of the people.

“It’s all about the political elite in (the ruling) ZANU-PF (party) and the preservation of their wealth,” he said.

“The moment you have soldiers closing the barracks and joining politics, nothing good comes out of it.”

Post published in: Featured

Distributed Power Africa (DPA), a subsidiary of mobile phone provider Econet Global, has over the last year begun installing solar panels and Tesla-supplied battery packs on 65 of its telecommunications towers across Zimbabwe.

The batteries replace the use of polluting diesel generators to provide backup power when grid electricity is cut, said Divyajeet Mahajan, DPA’s CEO.

The systems are drawing growing interest from businesses and industry in other sub-Saharan countries as well, from South Africa to Kenya, he said.

Mahajan called the switch to solar panels with battery power storage “a major development in improving energy security for critical users”.

But the switch has faced a range of obstacles, from the still substantial price tag to theft of the batteries.

Both South Africa and Zimbabwe have seen a growing rate of battery theft, said Kezito Makuni, Econet’s chief operating officer.

“For Tesla lithium-ion battery installations at our base station and sites, we have contracted our own technicians to install these batteries with the specific reason to avoid issues of theft of these batteries,” he said in a telephone interview.

In October, thieves stole 24 of the batteries from one Econet facility, though the men were arrested and the batteries recovered, Zimbabwe’s police service said.

Still, battery systems are increasingly seen as key to ensuring a reliable power supply in southern Africa, both as countries slowly adopt more solar power – available only during the day without storage systems – and as frequent droughts hit the hydropower production the region relies on, said Man’arai Ndovorwi, a renewable energy engineer with the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority.

COSTS – AND JOBS

So far, the systems are used mainly for industry as they remain too expensive for many households, said Washington Zhakata, the director of Zimbabwe’s Climate Change Management Department.

“Lithium-ion batteries can alleviate power shortages even at individual level, but the cost might be high,” he said. But commercial power providers also can use the systems to feed backup power into the main grid to serve homes, he said.

A battery system capable of running a telecom tower for up to 10 hours costs $13,000, Mahajan said.

To help companies afford the batteries, Mahajan’s company offers leasing options as well as selling the equipment, he said.

Shepherd Chawira, president of the Matabeleland chapter of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, said many industries and businesses in the country have been forced to turn to diesel generators as the power supply becomes unreliable as a result of drought.

“Industry is faced with crippling levels of insufficient energy, coupled by unsustainable power tariffs and inflation. These factors lead to increased costs of doing business and this affects the output,” he said.

“It is also costly for industry to run for more than 10 hours on diesel, considering that fuel prices are also going up,” he said.

Chawira said companies without backup power have been forced to scale down operations or close shop, leading to job losses.

Zimbabwe’s government, which sees a switch to more renewable energy as a way to curb the problems, in July removed import duties on solar-power equipment and accessories.

Tendai Marowa, an energy management consultant who works with the government on climate change issues, said he was hopeful that as use of battery storage systems rises around the world, the costs of the equipment would fall.

“I think with time, because of commitments and investments going into that technology by private companies across the globe… we should have batteries that are more user friendly and they should also be affordable,” he said.

Post published in: Featured

Cramming for the CCPA

Cramming for the CCPA

Axiom & Above the Law

According to the Princeton Review’s 2020 law school rankings, which law school has the most “competitive” students?

Hint: The ranking is based upon student survey responses asking about the number of hours respondents study outside of class each day, the number of hours they think their fellow students study outside of class each day, and the degree of competitiveness among students at their school.

See the answer on the next page.