Zimbabwe’s Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Cain Mathema, blamed sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries, corona virus and striking teachers for this year’s poor Grade 7 examination results. How typical, blame everyone else except the principal culprit - the Zanu PF government itself.
"During this period (2009 to 2014) like in 2020, teachers were involved in industrial action (strikes) or were claiming incapacitation to carry out their work. There was no meaningful teaching in some schools. These are the factors that affect pass rates in any country in the world," said Minister Mathema.
Zimbabwe’s education services has been in decline for decades for two main reasons:
- It is no secrete that Mugabe’s rapid expansion of the education sector was about quantity at the expense of quality suffered.
- As the country’s economic meltdown started in earnest in the late 1990s, it was education, health and other services affecting the ordinary people that were sacrificed. Decades of poor funding have resulted in the exodus of qualified staff and those left behind were “incapacitated”!
Yes the corona virus lockdowns have caused serious disruption but this was adding another layer of problems on top a system that was already failing to cope. Even if the corona virus challenges were addressed by vaccinating the 10 million to reach head-immunity targets, the country will still have to deal with the problem of incapacitated teachers, nurses, etc.
President Mnangagwa claims there are signs of economic recovery and the country will achieve the target of middle income by 2030, vision 2030. This is just a pie in the sky!
A recent nationwide skilled personal survey showed that Zimbabwe has 12% or less engineers, doctors, farmers and teachers than what the country will need to achieve any meaningful single digit economic growth targets, much less the 20% plus growth rate demanded by vision 2030. Indeed, the country is even failing to gainfully employ the few skilled professionals in the country.
To revive our education and health service we must first revive the country’s comatose economy. And to revive the comatose economy we must first end the curse of corruption and bad governance; we must first end the curse of rigged elections by implementing the democratic reforms - the prerequisite for free, fair and credible elections.
As much as Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies do not want to hear anything about reforms and free, fair and credible elections; it is nonetheless the grime reality that, without reforms, this country is doom.
Ever since the country’s 1980 independence elections, Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the elections and denied the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The failure to remove a corrupt and incompetent government is the root cause our economic and political crisis. Zanu PF has held the nation to ransom for decades and this must now end. The people’s right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country must be restored as a matter of course and the nation’s survival.
Zimbabwe must implement the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections BEFORE the coming 2023 elections. If the elections go ahead with no reforms implemented; the signs are Zanu PF will not implement any reforms and the opportunistic opposition, the usual suspect, will participate regardless; then the plebiscite MUST be declared null and void!
After 40 years and counting of rigged elections, we must break this vicious cycle by refusing to give legitimacy to a flawed and illegal election process. How can an election be free, fair and credible when ZEC cannot produce something as basic as a verified voters roll!
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Scientists are raising concerns over a new coronavirus variant that has been identified in California.
Two studies due to come out soon suggest the variant, which the virologists call B.1.427/B.1.429, might not only be more contagious, but may also cause more severe disease.
A team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), tested virus samples from recent outbreaks across the state and found the new variant was becoming far more common. It wasn't seen in any samples from September but by the end of January it was found in half of them.
The need to contain the corona virus as quickly as possible is in the interest of us all, those in the developed countries as well as those in the developing ones! The longer the virus is allowed to exist the greater the chances it will mutate and come back to bite us all.
JAPAN has given Zimbabwe US$8,6 million in emergency funding to support vulnerable people who have been most affected by the humanitarian crisis in the country.
In a statement yesterday, the Asian country said the support is targeting close to six million citizens affected by hunger.
"There are currently an estimated 5,6 million people who are severely food insecure, both in rural and urban areas as a result of consecutive droughts and a dire economic situation which has been exacerbated by COVID-19," part of the statement read.
The assistance will be channelled through the World Food Programme ( WFP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef ), and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The funding seeks to address the basic needs of the most vulnerable.
Once upon a time Zimbabwe not only produced enough to feed her own people but with surplus to be the breadbasket of the region. Today we are the basket case of a failed state!
The current growing season has been one of the best in a generation but it will come as little surprise that 30% or more of the farm produce will be lost to rats, moths, rot, etc. The Grain Marketing Board that bought and store the excess grain will have no money to buy the grain and has nowhere to store it because most of the solos are in a sorry state after decades of neglect. What a criminal waste! What a nightmare!
"Like what oil is to Nigeria, gold is to Zimbabwe. The precious mineral alone has the potential to turn around the country's fortunes," Mangudya said.
The yellow metal is Zimbabwe's single largest foreign currency earner. However, unfavourable policies such as delay in payment for deliveries and the retention thresholds have fuelled the growth of the parallel market. It is estimated that Zimbabwe loses about US$1.2bn annually in gold leakages.
The RBZ chief said Zimbabwe has got 13 million tonnes of proven gold reserves but has extracted 600 tonnes since 1980.
According to official data obtained from the RBZ, gold has remained one of Zimbabwe's major exports, raking in as much as US$13bn between 1980 and 2020
No one can ever doubt Zimbabwe’s economic potential given the country’s vast mineral wealth. We are like DRC, our mineral wealth have become a curse and not a blessing. The vast wealth from the wholesale looting of diamonds, gold and other resources have bankrolled the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut. Zanu PF owns everything and everybody including the opposition!
Mugabe saw to it that everyone in the MDC was kept happy throughout the five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU when the country had its best chance ever to implement the democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship.
However there is no hope of Zimbabwe ever using its vast wealth to bankroll the country’s economic recovery. The ruling elite will never allow that to happen, they want the wealth kept for their exclusive selfish use!
I totally agree, we can and, indeed, must break this vicious cycle of Zanu PF rigging elections and staying on to rig the next elections by refusing to participate in the flawed and illegal election and give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Whilst there is little we can do to stop the MDC and the rest of the corrupt and incompetent opposition participating, we can at least make sure the whole world knows these politicians are sell-outs.
We can educate the braindead opposition supporters on the sheer futility of participating in these flawed and illegal election processes. Of course, the MDC supporters are brain dead, how else can one explain why anyone would believe all this MDC nonsense of Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies even after 40 years of rigged elections!
Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, Job Sikhala, Noah Manyika and all the other opposition politicians will be gearing to participate in the 2023 elections in pursuit of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering as bait.
It would be infinitely easier to declare the 2023 elections null and void if the ordinary Zimbabweans did refuse to participate in the flawed and illegal elections. Getting someone to understand the need for verified voters’ roll should be easily because it is common sense but to the brain dead and common sense is as incomprehensible as rocket science.
Part 1 of 2
In a recent report titled Running in Circles, the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab – which investigates digital espionage against civil society – details how 25 governments around the world are using tools developed by the Israeli telecoms company Circles. Its technology is sold to nation-states only. It intercepts data from 3G networks, allowing the infiltrator to read messages, emails, and listen in on phone calls as they occur. Using only a telephone number, a Circles platform can also identify the location of a phone anywhere in the world within seconds without a warrant.
Circles is affiliated with the notorious NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware has been widely used to spy on human rights defenders and journalists. Unlike that technology, however, Circles' tools does not require targets to click on a malicious link. It works by exploiting flaws in Signalling System No.7 (SS7), the set of protocols that allows networks to exchange calls and text messages between each other. SS7 is predominantly used in 2G and 3G systems, which in 2019 became the leading mobile technology in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for over 45% of all connections.
With the faster and possibly more secure 4G networks years away from becoming the standard for mobile connectivity in Africa, Circles technology is ideal for power-hungry African leaders looking to spy on critics. Indeed, of the 25 countries identified as likely to be using Circles' tools, seven are on the continent.
Three Circles platforms were detected in Zimbabwe. The use of one dates back to 2013, while another was activated in March 2018. The Zimbabwean government has long targeted its critics and opponents. Last year, investigative journalist Hopewell Chin'ono and opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume were detained ahead of anti-government protests. Circles technology may be facilitating this repression.
The ultimate responsibility for using these surveillance technologies lies with the government agencies that pay huge sums for them. However, some campaigners argue that the Israeli government shoulders some responsibility too for allowing questionable tech firms such as Circles to operate and by providing them with export licenses.
Israeli minister Zeev Elkin has refuted this suggestion, insisting that "everyone understands that this is not about the state of Israel". But many disagree.
"The Israeli regime has actively enabled the authoritarianism of Uhuru Kenyatta," says Omar. Mohwasa makes the same argument regarding the government in Botswana which he suggests is increasingly eroding civil rights. "Israel is aiding these dangerous trends," he adds.
Part 2 of 2
In January 2020, Amnesty International filed a lawsuit in Israel calling for the Defence Ministry to ban the export of invasive spying software. In July, a court denied the request.
Of all the democratic nations, Israel is the one country that has again and again never hesitated for a moment to go the extra mile to aid and abet corrupt, oppressive and murderous regimes especially in Africa. Many Zimbabweans know of the Israeli firm NIKUV’s work in helping Zanu PF rig elections and now this.
It is disappointing that in our fight for freedom, human rights and dignity we have some formidable foreign adversaries, buffoons like Mnangagwa are the but their local puppets.
During the slave trade, it was not the foreign slave trader who hunted the men, women and children who were sold into slavery; it was blacks African who did that. Black Africans sold their kith and kin for a handful of beads and a piece of calico cloth!
The Slavery Abolition Law received its Royal Assent on 28th August 1833 marking the end of the trade in human misery in British territory. In Africa the blacks buffoon like Mnangagwa found other ways of selling their fellow blacks to foreigners, the Israelis, Chinese and Russians have been quick to fill the gap left by the slave traders, for a handful of beads and pieces of calico cloth and the trade in human misery has continued to this day!
If Africans are ever to taste freedom and live in dignity we have to fight the buffoon puppets and the puppet masters pulling the strings!
@ V Tsvangirai
“HAVING gone through a lot of Alex Magaisa’s recent articles, it is fair that a response by a Zimbabwean youth is given.
After the disastrous 2013 election the MDC-T family and its president Morgan Tsvangirai woke up to see a picture of Alex Magaisa, Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere and other G40 kingpins at a lodge on the outskirts of Harare.
Immediately, it began to dawn on the over trusting MDC-T that the man whom it had entrusted with the duty of advising its president could actually have been secretly dining with their opponent, the then united, if not a faction of, Zanu PF.
After the coup in November, 2017 it was clear that Dr. Magaisa’s sympathies lay with the Zanu PF element that had been ousted from power.”
Given the historic fact that MDC did the most foolish thing by failing to implement even one meaningful reform in five years of the GNU one cannot deny that Alex Magaisa must have had his own agenda in advising the party to go down this disastrous route. Still the very fact that the whole MDC family failed to see this coming speaks volumes of just how breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent not only Morgan Tsvangirai was but the entire MDC leadership!
DESPITE the fact that Chief Justice Luke Malaba’s judicial reign is coming to an end by operation of law at midnight on 15 May 2021 when he turns 70, President Emmerson Mnangagwa wants him to stay on ahead of the 2023 elections, official sources say.
OWEN GAGARE
Malaba has been Mnangagwa’s long-time ally, including when he was deputising the late former president Robert Mugabe, and also while serving as Justice minister well before the November 2017 coup.
The Chief Justice has been a vital cog in Mnangagwa’s political machinery, helping him to sanitise and legitimise the coup which toppled Mugabe, and thrust him into power.
Malaba has also run the judiciary in a way that has helped Mnangagwa’s regime, government insiders acknowledge.
Crucially also, Malaba delivered the Constitutional Court judgement which confirmed Mnangagwa’s disputed 30 July 2018 presidential election victory, after dismissing an electoral petition by MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
Zimbabwe’s political system is rotten to the core, it is really naive to expect the country to hold free, fair and credible elections as long as those in positions of power and authority remain in office. They will never ever allow meaningful reforms to be implemented. They cannot afford to have free and fair elections and risk losing all their loot and have the many hidden skeletons brought out in the open.
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