In the papers today we’re told that toll fees are to go up in Zimbabwe. This is because the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) is implementing “state-of-the-art toll plazas on the country’s highways.” And with improved conditions at the toll plazas, “The US$1 charged on small vehicles will be sub-economic and we are likely to increase the current fees,” according to the ZINARA spokesperson.

Because the plaza is really where this money should be going anyway?

As yesterday’s Financial Gazette article points out, Zimbabwe’s road network is stalled. The priority for ZINARA’s toll revenue should be fixing the roads, not fixing up the “toll plazas” where the tolls are collected.

The president of South Africa Jacob Zuma has been framed again in another painting on show in Cape Town at AVA gallery. In the painting Zuma is dressed in traditional wear with his privates exposed. The artist, Ayanda Mabulu, titled the painting Umshini Wam (Weapon of Mass Destruction). To him it’s dedicated to the miners who died. It intends to strip Zuma of his suit and tie and bring him to the level of ordinary people who suffer daily according to the report in The Star. The artist claims that the painting did not show a lack of respect for Zuma saying:

“He is not naked; I did not paint him with an uncircumcised penis. This is a metaphor that shows he is not a boy; he is a man, an elder, a father, a leader … Through this painting, I respectfully, as one of his children, ask my father why he is starving us. Why he is negating his duties to his children, the citizens of South Africa.”

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.
- Lorraine Hansberry

This disclaimer is usually written in hand writing which is illegible and very difficult to read especially for the elderly. Or the sign is displayed where you can’t see it. The main reason that has driven many shops in Zimbabwe to put up this disclaimer is the sale of inferior and substandard goods. Imagine … you buy a pair of shoes in a shop for your grandfather who lives in the rural areas. When you get there, the shoes don’t fit – either the size is too big or small, and when you try to return them the shop owner tells you “sorry we don’t take returns and we do don’t do refunds here”. When you try to dispute that’s when the shop assistant quickly points to the hidden disclaimer. If you win your argument with the shop owner its either you are told to take another product but most of them they don’t give you your money back. Popularly known as “mazhing zhong” these products are being sourced from the East and people are flocking to buy them because of the low prices. The economic hardships have left many Zimbabweans with little option but to buy these products. Zambia’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission outlawed this disclaimer 2011 in order to protect consumers from these fraudulent activities by shop owners who sell defective products.

I have watched over the years how the Zimbabwean government and the responsible authorities around the country watch certain illegal habits grow in cities and towns until they become the normal thing to citizens. And just from out of the blue they pounce on the unaware “law-breaking” citizen with an operation to punish them. Illegal settlements did not just wake up one day and appear. They were there for some time and the City Fathers would see these and leave the residents until the residents felt homely and legal. But in the end they experienced the harsh Operation Murambatsvina.

For years retailers with or without liquor licenses were selling alcohol. In supermarkets alcohol was being sold until the time they closed their doors overriding their liquor licenses which regulates them to sell liquor up until 8pm. But who stopped them? They sold beer until people thought buying beer from a supermarket after 8pm was legal. But again they got slapped with a reminder of the regulation just when business was good and everyone expected to buy beer whenever they wanted.

For years we have been witnessing car sales sprout in and around the city. Name any major road in Harare and you will find a number of car sales. If one needed to open a car sale they only needed some poles and fence and an open area along a major road, and boom they were in the car trading business. But now the Harare City Council is conducting a clean-up exercise to wipe out all illegal car sales. Where has the City Council been while some of these “businesses” have been trading for more than 5 years at specific locations?

Today my nerves raged a bit as I read a story by Chipo Masara, an environment journalist with The Standard newspaper who reported how human waste is among Harare’s “litter” in the CBD. The areas most affected are kombi ranks where the City has failed to provide toilets. For the rank marshals, the hwindis and all vendors in the surrounding areas, using the city center as a ‘bush’ is now seen as normal. To them urinating in containers and throwing them on the street is considered to be ok. So the next thing is we will have the City as dirty as you can imagine and our City Fathers will pounce on us with an Operation Wawetera Papi to fine anyone relieving themselves in the wrong places. I wonder what they are waiting for?

Those in authority should make sure from the onset that people know what is wrong and right.  Is it that our police force that should be helping with the enforcement of laws in the country is diverting most of their energy to political related stuff? To me they seem to be doing a really good job implementing POSA, AIPPA, the Criminal and Codification Act and all the other draconian laws that exist, at the expense of our country’s upkeep and well being as a whole. Such issues need to be addressed as the glory of the Sunshine City will continue getting lost to an extent where trying to get back to how we once were will mean building a new city altogether.

Source Abiye Teklemariam:

“This happened because of an unhealthy conflation of appropriate post-death etiquette for private persons and the etiquette governing deaths of public figures. THEY ARE NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE THE SAME. We are all taught that it is impolite to speak ill of the dead, particularly in the immediate aftermath of someone’s death. For a private person, in a private setting, that makes perfect sense. Most human beings are complex and shaped by conflicting drives, defined by both good and bad acts. That’s more or less what it means to be human. And — when it comes to private individuals — it’s entirely appropriate to emphasize the positives of someone’s life and avoid criticisms upon their death: it comforts their grieving loved ones and honors their memory. In that context, there’s just no reason, no benefit, to highlight their flaws.

But that is completely inapplicable to the death of a public person, especially one who is political. When someone dies who is a public figure by virtue of their political acts discussions of them upon death will be inherently politicized. How they are remembered is not strictly a matter of the sensitivities of their loved ones, but has substantial impact on the culture which discusses their lives. To allow significant political figures to be heralded with purely one-sided requiems — enforced by misguided (even if well-intentioned) notions of private etiquette that bar discussions of their bad acts — is not a matter of politeness; it’s deceitful and propagandistic. To exploit the sentiments of sympathy produced by death to enshrine a political figure as Great and Noble is to sanction, or at best minimize, their sins. Misapplying private death etiquette to public figures creates false history and glorifies the ignoble.”

- Glenn Greenwald