You just have to ask yourself if any national project will ever escape the opprobrium of political interference. Now we read that the the feared spooks are taking over the Zimbabwe national census as Zanu PF proxies. Small wonder then some people have no problem giving false information to enumerators or simply telling off the enumerators like they would do to ZBC license inspectors. All this because members of the public think the CIO feeds this into data some database to monitor their political activities! People believe these things, and it is thanks to reports that the not-so-secret agents are doing the bidding of Zanu PF in the counting project for nefarious purposes. And who will be surprised if the census findings are disputed as we have seen in the past?

Okay. So maybe it’s the same world over. But I found the headlines from this weekend’s papers particularly depressing:

• Go to hell, Tsvangirai tells Generals (The Standard)
• Mugabe wants deadlock on constitution (The Standard)
• Armed forces averted coup, says Shiri (The Herald – Talking not about any specific or recent coup, but about a coup that might have been in the era of the rapidly collapsing Zim Dollar)
• COPAC Management Committee exposed (The Sunday Mail)

Is this really as pathetic as our politics is? Or is it just as good as our local press can do?

After enduring the pain of the Zimbabwe 2008 election violence residents of my constituency are yet to see the “change” we were promised by our Honorable Member of Parliament (MP). With an overwhelming victory in 2008 people thought real change had come. Like any other urban areas in Zimbabwe where poor service delivery is now the order of the day, Chitungwiza South constituency’s woes have been worsened by the recent Typhoid outbreak. Still reeling under the effects of the 2008 Cholera outbreak residents in my constituency thought our Honorable MP was going to do a noble thing by using funds he received from government under Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to sink more boreholes. Living in a town where rusty and slimy drops of water trickling from the tap are received with loud cheers and ululation doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure out that a crisis is looming.

Water rationing is increasing by each day.

Children now spend most of their time helping parents to queue for water at the few boreholes donated by UNICEF. I wonder if our Honorable Member of Parliament is still living in Chitungwiza for him to understand these problems? I guess he also can’t feel the effects of bumps on most of the pot and ditch-hole riddled roads in this constituency because he was allocated a four-wheel drive truck by the government.  As a school headmaster and a former mayor for the town these problems should not be new to him.  Where and when he consulted residents on how to use CDF funds boggles the mind because the only time our Hon MP was seen addressing a public meeting was during a tour of the town by high-ranking officials from his party.

With nothing to write home about as a success story, it’s a pity that legislators like these would seek another term in office. Prepare to choose another career, or go on pension because the time for cheap politicking is over and your time is up Hon MP.

Work in and for Zimbabwe. Help grow our nation. Check out the vacancies below. If you’d like to receive this sort of information, as well as civic and human rights updates, by email each week drop us a note saying “subscribe” to info [at] kubatana [dot] net

Please note that the job vacancies we carry are related to the NGO and civil society sectors only.

Assistant National Food Security Officer: Zimbabwe Red Cross Society
Deadline: 9 August 2012

Reports to the National Food Security and Livelihoods Officer

Duties and Responsibilities

-Contribute to the development of Food Security programmes supporting vulnerable population, with particular focus on agriculture-based interventions, sustainable farming systems and market linkages

-Administer monitoring of different stages and provide technical assistance to field level staff where needed

-Participate in compliance and monitoring visits to projects

-Maintaining close liaison with area project implementation staff on project planning, implementation and monitoring

-Identify needs and opportunities for strengthening

-Programme progress report writing and compilation

-Assessing training needs of beneficiaries and households

-Organize and training of  beneficiaries on sustainable livelihoods strategies

-Co-ordinates with other agencies on food security issues at national level

-Co-ordinates and liaise with programme and provincial managers on other programming issues e.g. initiatives on the integration of programmes within the Zimbabwe Red Cross

-Represent the ZRCS at various stakeholder meetings at national level

Qualifications and experience

-Degree/Diploma in agriculture or equivalent

-At least two years experience in a similar or related position

-Good communication skills and ability to relate to people from different backgrounds is a distinct advantage

-Good reporting skills

-Class 4 drivers licence

Only short-listed candidates will be acknowledged.  Interested candidates to submit their written application, including a detailed curriculum vitae and certified copies of academic and merit certificates.

Applications in envelopes marked the position applied for and addressed to:

The Secretary General
Zimbabwe Red Cross Society
P.O. Box 1406
10 St. Annes Road
Avondale
HARARE

How foolish is it to have on the one hand AIDS activists (including the government) giving out condoms especially to sex workers and on the other hand police officers taking these away from them?

In a report Criminalizing Condoms, published by the Open Society Foundation it is revealed that Zimbabwean police officers are amongst those who confiscate condoms from sex workers. By carrying condoms the police assume that women are prostitutes.

In as much as prostitution is illegal in Zimbabwe the state however should not be discouraging safe sex practices. If one is ‘proven’ guilty of prostitution let the law apply. But assuming that one in possession of a condom is a prostitute and further going on to confiscate condoms is absurd.
The report brought to light that in some countries where sex workers are arrested and have their condoms confiscated, they still make it back to the streets on the same night and end up having unprotected sex. And in other instances, sex workers have resorted to not carrying condoms at all to stay safe from police harassment or arrest. Confiscating condoms places the life of sex workers at risk and compromises disease prevention.

The art of reading starts with a habit and every habit has a trigger. Reading helps people understand life and it teaches you how to write. Most great writers were inspired to write through reading. For writers, reading is one of the most important tools.

Writing is a skill, which one masters through practice. It gets better through writing a lot and reading widely. During a Food for Thought session at the US Public Affairs Section in Harare visiting award-winning authors from America shared some reading and writing experiences with young and upcoming writers in Zimbabwe. In order to encourage young writers to read, the visiting authors urged young authors to be broad minded. The authors from University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP) are in the country to facilitate writing and capacity-building seminars with Zimbabwean writers.