HARARE – Old Mutual’s mortgage lending unit Central African Building Society (Cabs) has secured $70 million offshore credit lines. The funds are targeted at boosting the institution’s housing loans in Zimbabwe. Kevin Terry, Cabs managing director, yesterday said the group will access at least $50 million by end of July 2014. “…and another $20 million…
HARARE – If there is one rallying purpose protagonists of the agrarian reform trot out more than any other, it is to prove that the indigenous people are as competent and adept in agricultural production as the erstwhile owners of farmland they dispossessed. Cabinet ministers have often retailed the notion that the land reform programme…
HARARE – Late mbira star Chiwoniso Maraire will be the first artiste to be inducted into the Book Café Hall of Fame tonight. Chiwoniso’s posthumous honour, which comes exactly a year after her death at the age of 37, has been made possible by the Book Café and Pamberi Trust. To celebrate the occasion and…
HARARE – State hospitals have run out of vital medicines, with the institutions prescribing even basic drugs for purchase at private pharmacies. This comes as morale has reportedly hit rock-bottom among health staff. The crisis has particularly hit hard persons under-five and those over 65 years of age who, according to government policy, should be…
HARARE – Suspended Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) chief executive Happison Muchechetere has applied for referral of his fraud case to the Constitutional Court. Muchechetere is being charged with contravening sections of the Procurement Act after purchasing an outside broadcasting van from China without going to tender. His lawyer, advocate Thabani Mpofu, argued that the charge…
HARARE – Zimbabwe has exported close to $0,5 billion worth of diamonds in the year to June 30, 2014, a new Kimberley Process Certificate Scheme (KPCS) report has revealed. KPCS in a report released this week titled “Global Summary: 2013 Kimberly Process Certificate Count Table,” noted that local diamond mining companies exported a total of…
HARARE – Former Mines minister Obert Mpofu failed to testify in Lovemore Kurotwi’s $2 billion fraud case yesterday, after the court said the State should first table its findings from an inspection-in-loco conducted in South Africa. Kurotwi, the Core Mining and Minerals (Private) Limited director, is jointly charged with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC)’s…
HARARE – Justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa has backed harsh minimum mandatory sentences for rapists, but said the punishment should not apply in special circumstances. Mnangagwa told legislators during question time in the National Assembly on Tuesday that it was important to prescribe mandatory sentences against crimes that violate other people’s rights such as the crime…
HARARE – Ignatius Chombo, the Local Government minister, was yesterday grilled by Members of Parliament over allegations of interfering in the operations of local authorities and nepotism in the appointment of senior Zupco officials. Members of the Local Government parliamentary portfolio committee, led by Mutasa South Zanu PF MP Irene Zindi, bombarded Chombo with questions…
HARARE – Joseph Chinotimba, the Buhera South Zanu PF Member of Parliament (MP), has queried why Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) was charging water that it gets from the Zambezi River’s catchment area for free. Contributing to debate on government’s policy on agricultural financing on Tuesday, Chinotimba said Zinwa had no right to charge for…
