I went to a breakfast meeting on recycling a couple of weeks ago. Met a woman there, up from Bulawayo (working for the ZNCC I think).

She was amazed at the cosmetics freely on sale in the shops here in Harare. Hair straighteners, skin lighteners – those imported female beauty products. All banned under Zimbabwean law. All dangerous.

She remarked, if you tried to sell those openly in Bulawayo, the police would have you in jail in half an hour. But here in Harare! All sitting there, on the shelves. From opening to closing time.

So, got to wonder. Do the ZRP in Harare not know what Zimbabwe’s laws are? Or do the police in Harare (as opposed to the ZRP in Bulawayo) not actually enforce the laws of Zimbabwe? They are too busy enforcing the laws of the power. They do not handle legitimacy, they only deal with power. They do not care about health and safety in Harare, and legal implications, they only enforce the (outgoing) power of the city (which is no longer a power in Bulawayo).

Walking through town the other day, a friend and I thought twice before taking the road that goes in back of State House. You know the one – up past the Harare Sports Club and Royal Harare Golf Club on the one side, and past the camouflage-wearing, gun-toting, State House-guarding soldiers on the other. We didn’t have ID on us, and the stories of people getting harassed on that road by officious guards are countless.

But we took a deep breath, and in the interest of claiming our freedom and refusing to bow to intimidation or self-censorship we carried on.

We were nearly out of the woods when a soldier – yes complete with camouflage, helmet,  and bayonet readied gun, called to us across the road -

Armed soldier in camouflage: Hello.
Me: Hello.
Armed soldier in camouflage: How is the morning?
Me: Good thanks, how’s yours?
Armed soldier in camouflage: How is the day?
Me: Good thanks, how’s yours?
Armed soldier in camouflage: Can I have your number?
Me: [Silence]
Armed soldier in camouflage: I need to phone you.
Me: [Turns to face him with a puzzled expression]
Armed soldier in camouflage: Bahahahaha [Packs out laughing like he’s just told the best joke ever.]

Harassment, yes. But not quite the kind of harassment I’d been worried about.

The Herald recently reported that “bigwigs” aren’t paying their electricity bills. Below is a response from a Kubatana subscriber … a good illustration of the disgust many ordinary Zimbabweans feel toward politicians in this country ….

In light of the revelations by the Minister of Energy and Power Development that quite a number of top government officials and Ministers owe ZESA amounts not less than US$10 000 in unpaid bills, it is saddening to note that the same people sit and discuss how underperforming the institution is yet they are the main cause of our worries. We have suffered a lot as a result of load shedding and being disconnected yet the ‘haves’ ie the rich continue to evade paying their bills. For how long shall the ‘have not’ ie the poor continue to subsidise the rich in the name of the agricultural revolution? It is a fact that when they applied for land they indicated they had the financial muscle to carry out farming activities, what has happened now? An investment in a mini hydro power worth US$100 000 in the Himalaya area in Manicaland has benefited more than 200 household’s with each household paying not more than US$5 per month in electricity bills. If the monies owed to ZESA were to be invested in such initiatives how many households would benefit and how much in savings would be raised for the betterment of the common person on the street. It is so sad to be urinated on whilst we are alive.
- Percy, Harare

Just when I was beginning to believe that all politicians were corrupt, money grabbing charlatans, and that politics was a misnomer for profit-making exercise, along comes Minister of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Eric Matinenga.

Matinenga is holding his peers in government and Parliament accountable for the public funds disbursed to them from the Constituency Development Fund. Unlike members of Parliamentary Portfolio Committees that investigated shady land deals and the disappearance of diamonds Mr Matinenga is doing what he was mandated by the people of Zimbabwe to do – his job.

This morning’s papers report that Matinenga’s ministry has reported those legislators who have failed to account for the funds to the Office of the President and Cabinet as well as the Prime Minister’s office. The Anti-Corruption Commission is also expected to investigate the legislators.

The legislators who failed to account for the $50 000 from the fund are:

Sekai Holland – Minister of State for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, MDC-T Senator, Mabvuku-Tafara
Lucia Matibenga – Minister of Public Service, MDC-T MP for Kuwadzana
Douglas Mombeshora – Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare, ZANU PF MP Mhangura
Marvelous Khumalo  – MDC-T MP, St. Mary’s
Peter Chanetsa – ZANU PF MP, Hurungwe North,
Edward Chindori-Chininga – ZANU PF MP, Guruve South
Naison Nemadziva – MDC-T MP, Buhera South
Franco Ndambakuwa – ZANU PF MP, Magunje
Abraham Sithole – ZANU PF MP, Chiredzi East
Lawrence Mavima – ZANU PF MP, Zvishavane -Runde

Minister Matinenga may not be very popular in Parliament after this, but he’s got my vote.

It is Tuesday evening, Valentine’s Day and for some reason I find myself watching Oscar Pambuka’s Melting Pot. In the studio he has a two chaps discussing youth empowerment. One is – perhaps predictably –  from Upfumi Kuvadiki, that notorious anti-investment outfit that shares the same degenerate  ideologies as Mbare’s Chipangano vigilantes.

It reminds one of how so many things are wrong in this country where political instruction from the elders has moved from the very tenets that saw young men once upon time in 1912 form Africa’s oldest political movement, or what stirred Ndabaningi and his contemporaries as valiant young men to take up the fight for a greater good, yet you have to ask yourself what these Upfumis have in common with the Robert Mugabe of 1963. What place do they have in Zimbabwe’s political history other than tales of grief, tales of how they broke down the walls which other compatriots tried to build? Has it not been recorded that the coming into government of the firm hand of Tendai Biti “coincided” with the economic stability that eluded the Zanu PF elites for more than two decades? This is no way is to extol the abilities of any mortal, but the facts stare right back us.

The language of the Upfumis is about empowering the youth, giving them USD5,000 to start their own business, economic emancipation, and a new form of capitalism. If only this were true. At least Oscar Pambuka to his credit did ask about the abuse of the funds where the young patriots are reportedly using the funds to buy crappy chattels. But still rather predictably, an Upfumi Kuvadiki rep was quick to dispute this claim, going on and on about lies being told about young beneficiaries of this largess. I have said this before that Zanu PF has made extinct the spirit of hard work: youths now know only too well that hard work is an alien virtue; after all, they are from that amoral stock where killing people who do not agree with your political beliefs are indeed a virtue! Young people are being taught that all you have to do is line up on the Zanu PF ticket and claim the resources of the land as your own simply based on the name of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF.

A rather daft university student said to me the other day he had been elected into the Zanu PF youth chairmanship of some sort, and I asked him if he believed all that nonsense that came with allegiance to the party of blood. All he had to say for himself was: “My friend, you never know. What we want is to eat.” I shut my ears as he continued talking. And you just have to see the people who speak on behalf of the youth: fat cheeks and arrogant mouths when we all know the penury the majority of young people here live with as they continue the dangerous trek to South Africa despite reports that their fellow countrymen are being shoved into the Black Maria and deported as personas non grata. That is not to mention hundreds of thousands who seek honest lives by enrolling for higher education only to be kicked out of classes because they cannot afford the extortionate fees. Small wonder then that for the soul-less types, taking over white-owned mines and other business concerns is too good an El Dorado to resist. You still have to ask yourself how this youth empowerment drive seeks to address these issues as obviously not all youths are anarchists who want to reap where they did not sow. These clowns are just obsessed with being wealthy but apparently have no clue how to get there without taking over what someone else built ages ago.  They obviously do not have the knowledge gleaned from Aesop’s fables and the wisdom of their own father about imaginary riches. A bunch of morons by any other name. But I know they read this and say: “screw you; we are claiming what rightfully belongs to us!”

Why now you bozos?

On 10 February, The Herald published an insert of the 2012 Constitution – First Draft. As Veritas points out, COPAC has not confirmed whether this is the draft they are currently reviewing, and the document itself does still have some gaps and omissions. However, even if the Constitution is still in draft form, it is important that we begin to know what is in it, so that we can know what changes, if any, we want made to the draft.

I’m pleased to report the Kubatana team have put their fingers to the test and done quite a bit of work to tidy up – and fill in the gaps! – of the version of this draft published on The Herald website. You can download this more comprehensive version here.

Let us know what you think of the draft so far. Email info [at] kubatana [dot] net or share your thoughts with COPAC directly using their online contact forms: http://www.copac.org.zw/contact-us/copac-secretariat.html