Attending primary school was really tedious for me as a youngster. As Grade 7 pupils we had to be the first at school so we could write some tests before the teacher came. We were the last ones to leave too, in order to attend the remedial classes. We knew no holiday as most of it was spent at school reading and preparing for the final examinations.  My school’s hymn was, “The light that shines so bright”. However, in as much as we sang the school hymn with great energy and enthusiasm that could awaken the dead, we still failed to reach the top of the Grade 7 pass rate in the region.

What amazed me the most was the same school came tops for the years I spent in my primary education. Their pass rate was always high and you really wondered what teaching method was being used that other schools were failing to implement to achieve high pass rates. Word on the street had it that they opened the exam papers and gave them to the pupils before they sat for their final examination. Thus maintaining the same outstandingly high pass rate.

Today The Herald published a story that proves that headmasters and their administration might well do nasty tricks to get their pass rates high. In this particular story the headmaster (61) actually sat for different papers on behalf of six pupils. The accused headmaster had this to say in court, “The school development committee and parents had given me a last chance to improve the school’s pass rate and I agreed with my administration staff that we would help our best pupils to improve the pass rate”. Emmanuel Manokore of Nyamakate Primary School in Hurungwe committed this crime.

Now I am really wondering what that school did to keep tops despite all the efforts we made to try and beat them. Did they really open the examination papers? Or did the headmaster sit for examinations on behalf of the pupils?

Information on the power situation in Zimbabwe:

1700 hours  8th January 2011

I address this message to users of electricity in Zimbabwe and all other stakeholders who may be interested.

Recent Status of Generation in Zimbabwe
Over the Christmas period the country experienced a much improved availability of power. All six units at Kariba were working as were five of six units at Hwange and Munyati Power Station was generating between 20 and 40 MW. In addition, with much of industry taking a well deserved break, there was additional power on the grid for those customers on line.

Shortly after Christmas one of the, larger, units at Hwange was lost due to failure of certain components. On the 28th of December we had to take out a unit at Kariba for two weeks of routine maintenance. On the night of the 5th January we had to take out a second unit at Kariba which twins with the unit already under maintenance. These two units share a transformer on which components had to be replaced – this was planned for this period.

In summary customers will be experiencing excessive load-shedding in contrast to  the Christmas period, as  there has now been a sharp drop in generation just as industry is coming back to work.

Looking ahead over the next two weeks. Every effort is being made to bring the unit lost at Hwange back to service during this weekend. The fifth unit at Kariba should be on the grid on Monday with the sixth returning to service by mid-January.  This should bring the country back to a “normal load-shedding regime” by the middle of the month.

Looking ahead this year
It is important to advise customers of the realities at Hwange Power Station. The supply out of Hwange remains fragile in spite of significant progress having been made to stabilise supply during 2010. We still need to undertake major works on: the raw water supply line from the Zambezi River, work on the two large raw-water reservoirs at the station is underway; urgent and significant work will be undertaken during the first quarter of this year on the Ash disposal system (a new specialised pipeline has been ordered and is under manufacture).  Further to this, the units themselves at the station need ongoing work to optimise their output. To assist us with this “project related work” as well as to train and mentor staff at the station we have engaged a blended team from India and Zimbabwe under the management of WAPCOS – a highly respected Indian-based organisation in the energy field. This team will be on-station early in February. We are optimistic that there will be a consistency in supply out of Hwange Power Station by the end of the first quarter 2011 followed by a gradual increase through the year.

Kariba Power Station should remain at full capacity except for the isolated occasion when the station is forced into “sudden shut-down” due to exogenous shocks which can occur on the grid – these can emanate from the region or sudden failure of local transmission lines.

All three Small Thermal stations (Harare, Munyati and Bulawayo) will be brought back into service during the first quarter of this year. The cost of generation from these stations is high due to both the distance from the coal fields and, in some cases, the need to use higher quality coal. As a consequence power from these stations can only be sold to those companies who have dedicated power lines and who are willing, and able, to pay the higher tariff. However this additional power will help boost the economy and create additional employment in the process.

Beyond 2011
It is important to note that once we have achieved stability in supply and optimised our present installed-capacity the supply of electricity will still remain below demand. Ongoing efforts are being made to increase the importation of additional power from the region by our sister company, ZETDC. But there is a regional scarcity. In addition our economy will grow and hence demand for electricity. The only way to close this demand-supply gap is to build extra generation capacity, which will take at least three and a half years from the time funding has been secured.

ZPC’s planning and preparation are well advanced such that its can approach relevant investors and/or partners in pursuit of adding capacity at Hwange Power Station (top priority as a  “base-load” station) and Kariba (to add to “peaking demand”). We have the full and emphatic support of our ultimate shareholder to secure investment for the generation sector. In addition we plan, over the next two years, to retrofit the Small Thermals in a bid to increase the energy sent out and lower the costs.

In Closing
I take the opportunity to thank the entire staff of ZPC for their commitment, hard and long hours of work during 2010 – most often with constrained resources. Particular gratitude is extended to those who worked over the Festive Season – day and night. I also extend a note of thanks to our Ministry for their candid, progressive and demanding support.

I thank all our customers for your patience and understanding. I encourage you all to keep paying for the units of electricity that you use. In addition please could we all take all possible measures to reduce our usage – it is good for your pocket and for the Nation.

Best Wishes The Board and management of ZPC are determined to stabalise and increase the generation levels in 2011 to well above those levels achieved in 2010.

I wish you all, users of electricity and the staff of ZESA as a whole, a safe and fulfilled 2011.

R. Maasdorp Chairman ZPC     (chairmanZPC ( @) gmail.com)

Only relevant and constructive emails will be replied to from this address.
All other queries should be directed to the Zesa email address of: pr ( @ ) zesa.net
For daily updates on the generation and load-shedding status visit the home page of www.zesa.co.zw

Uganda has many moral challenges and sex work is just one of them. It is disturbing how politicians expend lots of energy on fighting sex work and homosexuality yet not showing similar stamina against worse evils such as corruption.
- From the article Hard Line On Sex Work Does Not Help published on allafrica.com

The same could be said for Zimbabwe.

From Pambazuka News

The article below, published by IRIN, will hit a nerve in most Zimbabweans. Treated like shit at the polls, like shit at government institutions such as the passport office, like shit at road blocks by surly, bribe seeking policemen and like shit in shops where retailers run establishments that can’t and won’t work out how to give their customers change.

We’ve all been there . . . accepting the most ridiculous items like 3 minute noodles in lieu of what we really want, and what is owed to us, our change in Money. When I’m out shopping I do my level best to make sure that what I’m buying adds up to a round number. When it doesn’t I pay it backwards, giving my change to the next person in the check out queue. I figure this is better than getting a “credit note” that will get lost, or fade before I get home.

Enough is very much enough:

Short-changed and angry

People in Zimbabwe are becoming angry about the lack of small denominations in circulation and tempers are fraying as a result: A policeman recently shot dead a taxi assistant for failing to give him the correct change.

After the formation of a coalition government in February 2008, the hyperinflation-afflicted economy was dollarized – with the US dollar and South African rand most widely used, but the Botswana pula, the Zambian kwacha and the Mozambican metical also in common use.

To avoid disputes, taxis now give out travel vouchers when they run short of change – and the problem is not just in the transport sector.

Sipho Mpofu, a public sector employee, went grocery shopping last week and was given a brown voucher instead of change. “When I asked them what it was for, they told me that they could not provide me with change and the voucher worth five rand would allow me to use their toilets for free. I threw away the offending piece of paper because I knew I was being ripped off.”

The lack of change angers many consumers, who are now trying to make purchases in round numbers. Shops use items such as tomatoes, matches, eggs, potatoes, candles, bananas, sweets, pens, pencils or vouchers in lieu of change.

Mpofu said the use of “unwanted” grocery items was a “huge inconvenience”.

“Right now I have a huge pile of matches, candles and sweets which I have no use for. In fact, they pose a threat should they be set alight accidentally.” He said he had to hide the sweets from his children.

Financial journalist Paul Nyakazeya said consumers were effectively being forced to buy items they did not want.

“At the end of the day, when calculations are made, it may be discovered that the goods consumers end up taking as change… make up a substantial percentage of their monthly groceries… The best way out of this quagmire for the consumers would be the widespread introduction of an electronic system to purchase commodities.”

But, with frequent power cuts, especially in rural areas, Nyakazeya acknowledged it would be very difficult to make such a system work.

Economist David Mupamhadzi told IRIN the authorities urgently needed to introduce smaller currency denominations, especially for the South African rand: Many service providers round up the bill, making goods and services more expensive, eroding disposable incomes and boosting inflation, he said.

In his article The Age of Polipreneurship, published by Pambazuka, Dr. D McKinley defines and describes Polipreneurship:

At its most basic level, polipreneurship can be defined as ‘politics as business’. Polipreneurship is not simply about making money from and through politics. It is more about the way in which politics is seen approached and more importantly practiced.

It would be easy enough for ours or any other populace to just point fingers at certain politicians, parties, the ruling party itself and/or government and argue that is simply a matter of having different ones in power (at whatever level) in order for our politics to ‘return to the source’. [But] when we take a critical look at contemporary polipreneurship, we cannot just focus on the politicians, political parties and private business sectors, we also have to look at ourselves.

…We cannot divorce ourselves from the intensifying tide of corruption, the cesspool of nepotism, the inbuilt disdain for organisational transparency, the conscious refusal to embrace personal responsibility, the general demise of human empathy, the constant evading of popular accountability and the never ending litany of false promises, lies and subterfuge. They are all representative of what we as a society, and thus our business and politics have become. And let us not fool ourselves, this is the norm, not the exception.

In our polipreneurship age, the mandarins of capitalist politics and capitalist business have perfected the art of creating a sustained symbiosis between the private and public ‘interest’. They have been able to achieve this because most of those who organisationally and institutionally represent the ‘public interest’ at various levels of governance as well as ever-increasing numbers of ordinary people have personally imbibed and institutionally integrated the ‘traditions, cultures and values’ of their business counterparts. In the process the measurement of what is ‘good for society’ has become almost completely delinked from the historic and popular struggle for a universally conceived but mainly nationally practices, collective human solidarity and benefit.

The challenge is as difficult as it is profound. If we can’t change our politics then we can’t change our societies.