HARARE – Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba and her entire team have a huge task at their hands of running a credible poll on July 30. Zec risks failing this mandate because of the way they have batted away demands from the opposition parties, particularly the MDC Alliance. On Wednesday, a massive demonstration…
Open letter to Higher Education ministry It was with much interest that I recently read an article in the Financial Gazette where the permanent secretary of Higher and Tertiary Education ministry Dr Desire Mutize Sibanda was reported as having directed all tertiary institutions to set up industrial parks and innovation hubs. Without a doubt, this…
HARARE – The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) must be commended for launching the Election Peace Pledge to ensure that peace and tranquillity prevail during the forthcoming harmonised elections. The initiative is crucial to the holding of peaceful elections since past polls have been marred by violence and intimidation. It is thus imperative that…
HARARE – Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa officially launched the Empowerment Bank, amid pomp and fanfare. The microbank has “been formed with the purpose of providing social and financial solutions to the financially excluded population with a greater focus on the youth”. Capitalised to the tune of $12 million, among its activities, Empowerment Bank offers…
HARARE – Zimbabwe, like most African countries’ populations, is dominated by young people. Historically, young leaders are energetic, rich in new ideas, technically competent with dynamic innovative capabilities. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe and many other African nations are endowed with the rulership of old men and their old cronies, who are perpetual underperformers with dishearteningly little to…
HARARE – Ball boys in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) have completely abandoned their duty and have now become a complete nuisance during matches, killing the entertainment value of the sport in the process. Instead of quickly returning match balls onto the pitch for a swift resumption of action, these kids now take their sweet…
HARARE – The last few weeks heading into this month, have seen some shades of the gloom and doom which once characterised Zimbabwe and its people during the hyperinflationary era — a period which forever will be rightly used to highlight former president Robert Mugabe’s ruining the once prosperous country. There is no escaping the…
HARARE – Elsewhere in this edition, we report on concerns by ant-graft agencies about the rising vote buying scourge in the homestretch to the July 30 general poll. This is emerging to be a major blot on elections and indeed the democratic process in Zimbabwe. The bad thing is that this practice of vote buying…
HARARE – A boycott from this month’s harmonised elections as mooted by the MDC Alliance can only have an impact if it has the buy-in of all opposition parties. The Alliance is bitter that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is not transparent in its approach to electoral issues, including the printing of ballot papers. If…
HARARE – It is now 26 days to “D” Day — the day of democracy, when we all go to a polling station and at the cost of about $50 each (the cost of an election in Zimbabwe) we are asked to appoint our next batch of 2 500 leaders. We start with the president,…
