HARARE – You inquire about a friend’s well-being and you’re informed that the police are on the lookout for him in relation to a mobile-phone snatching incident. This could be normal in a country gripped with serious economic challenges and a high rate of unemployment. But when the “thief” is a former international cricketer still…
HARARE – Early each morning, groups of bleary-eyed women and men who spent the night sleeping at a bus depot in Johannesburg scramble their blankets and check the condition of their goods. Others still wrapped in blankets, sit huddled together for warmth in the inclement early morning chill a few blocks away from central Johannesburg’s…
HARARE – Local industrialists are crying foul over the influx of cheap imported commodities into the Zimbabwean market. Stephen Chikomba, a business development manager with Mallcrest Enterprises, said local products were being pushed out of the market because people prefer cheap, foreign goods imported from Asia. “It’s difficult to penetrate European markets, which leaves the…
HARARE – Many children wail when they receive an injection, but Tanyaradzwa Mungare,3, is braving months of injections. “Tanya”, as he is affectionately called, has to receive an injection at least six days every week. On top of the daily jab, Tanyaradzwa has to swallow a combination of five drugs for treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis…
HARARE – Dokson farm is the only home 38-year-old Samuel Makazu, has ever known. His parents are buried there. Born at the farm in Shamva to migrant workers of Malawian origin, Makazu left school at the age of 12 just after completing his primary education to join his father’s occupation as a farmhand. Now a…
CHITUNGWIZA – For Justice Mhonda, a fruit and vegetable vendor, the world has turned upside down as he is suffering from a deep sense of betrayal by those whom he loved and trusted the most. He was first betrayed by his wife of 10 years, who left him while he was busy campaigning for the…
HARARE – Oppah Muchinguri, the minister of Women Affairs Gender and Community Development, who has been on the forefront of fighting against child abuse has vowed not to rest until stiffer sentences are imposed on sex predators. Her sentiments come as 11-year-old girls are reportedly engaging in prostitution, according to a report recently published by…
BULAWAYO – Ten years on, Operation Murambatsvina victims are still homeless countrywide, with government’s promises for better housing still a mirage for the hapless victims. In 2005, President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF government launched a countrywide house demolition campaign dubbed Operation Murambatsvina which left thousands of Zimbabweans in urban and peri-urban areas homeless under the…
HARARE – With government and local municipalities failing, despite lofty plans and pronouncements, to clear the ever-growing urban housing backlog, many home seekers are still paying for the sins of greedy land barons. Since the country’s switch to the multi-currency system, home seekers have turned to using their own finances or loans to buy houses…
HARARE – Not so long ago, maybe during the early eighties, if one had accurately foretold Zimbabwe’s present reality, quizzical looks would have met that assertion and he would have been taken to the nearest mental asylum for making crazy prophesies. But alas! What was once a rarity has become the norm and the exception…
