Here are some excerpts from the Prime Minister’s Question Time in Parliament:

Gay Rights
Hon. Dorcas Sibanda (MDC-T Bulawayo Central) asked the Prime Minister to clarify his position on the issue of gay rights in the light of recent media reports. The Prime Minister indicated that he was just echoing what Zimbabweans expressed during the COPAC outreach programme. He said his personal view did not matter and government position would be guided by the outcome of the constitution.

Measures to Deal with Political Violence
Hon. Marvelous Kumalo (MDC-T St. Mary’s) asked the Prime Minister if government had any policy measures in place to deal with political violence. The Prime Minister said government did not condone violence. He noted that there had been reduction in cases of violence in the country. He pointed out that it was the responsibility of the police to curb violence in the country. He said government principals had tasked the co-Ministers of Home Affairs to ensure that police carried out their duties professionally. He also appealed to national leaders to ensure that the message on peace should cascade down to lower structures of society.

Liberalization of the Airwaves
Hon. Innocent Gonese (MDC-T Mutare Central) asked the Prime Minister what government was doing to liberalize the electronic media in fulfillment of Article 19 of the Global Political Agreement (GPA). The Prime Minister said government leader had assigned the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity to reconstitute the Broadcasting Authority of Zimabwe (BAZ) board and to expedite the liberalization of the airwaves. He said that government was also concerned with hate speech and vilification of other government members by the state controlled media.

Bulawayo residents held a “peaceful march” yesterday to protest against Zesa for what we already know is lousy service. No police to beat up the marchers apparently. Here is the catch as later reported on national radio: the marchers demanded the resignation of the Parastatals minister and his energy colleague. It ain’t no coincidence that they both belong to the PM’s MDC. Now juxtapose that with previous marches by WOZA protesting about the same bloody shoddy service. One August  headline screamed “28 arrests in Woza demo over Zesa bill.”

And we all know whose resignation WOZA has always demanded!

For some time people in various cities in Zimbabwe have faces the realities of poor service delivery and mismanagement by local authorities and some of these challenges have gone unreported due to lack of reporting channels. Most people used to prefer the traditional media channels like radio, TV and newspapers to report poor service delivery cases. But these methods have got their own challenges like poor coverage resulting in few cases being reported.  For example its not every time we report a burst pipe in our neighborhood and the problem is automatically covered in the press and we get immediate attention of the council to come and repair it.

Recently I went to buy lunch at a local restaurant and I came across this funny flier. At first I thought it was one of those being distributed by companies advertising their products in town.  So as I read through I got so much interested with the “For Free” part. It’s very rare in Zimbabwe to hear something being offered for free. So I read the whole leaflet and unlike the rest of the fliers I have been given in town this one I didn’t throw into the rubbish bin because I wanted to check the website address on the flier.

So I logged on to www.pupurafakazazim.com.

These are two Shona and Ndebele words joined together to read Pupura and Fakaza. This is an organisation created to provide a platform for us citizens of Zimbabwe to report our social service delivery problems in our cities. For one to send a report you just sent a text message typing your problem and location to a number on the flier. And this text message is for free.  The organisation compiles the text messages and forwards them to the relevant authorities.  If you want to check the reports you just log on to the organisation’s website address and select the category you want to view. Since the website uses a programme powered by USHAHIDI there is a provision to see a map of the area from which the problem was reported. This kind of a service lets make our local authorities accountable by reporting and informing about our concerns in the areas we live. Hopefully this service will spread to other towns so that it doesn’t only serve residents of Harare.

Zimbabwe, Africa and the rest of the World’s marginalised population are set to benefit from a great initiative launched by the United Nations which is meant to connect poor citizens to the Internet by 2015.

Read the rest of the article.

So, they are at it again, the capitalist n*ggers [apologies to Chika Onyeani, author of the book by the same name], wearing black empowerment caps but having nefarious self-aggrandising hearts. Someone Tweeted the other day about how Robert Mugabe inspired the spirit of hard work in Zimbabwe, but the twit neglected to mention it is economic mismanagement that inspired the so-called hard work that has earned and turned many into veritable entrepreneurs. We all know that there is nothing like “hard work pays” in Zimbabwe, you just have to listen to the stories of the few men and women still in formal employment who have locked up managers, beaten up company executives because of the unpaid hard work they put in but at the end of the month take mouthfuls home empty promises. It is no wonder then that when you talk to anyone, virtually all poor Zimbabweans have dreams about waking up in the morning with stupendous wealth, and this is writ large when you follow the dogfight emerging from the black empowerment band wagon. Argghh, the pomposity with which some of these capitalist n*ggers speaketh.

You just have to recall the visit to the United States a few months ago where the empowerment crusade was taken, and you could see this former journalist dude speaking as if he had all the answers about anything, yet today a firebrand jailbird is giving it to him claiming missing dosh, thanks to these unsanctioned foreign jaunts. It was US acting President Ronald Regean [he was a former actor you see] whose wisecracks have become stuff of legend who quipped, “Hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the chance.” Exactly. No hard work, just claim your economic birth right as a black Zimbabwean and you got it made. It will be recalled the “deposed” AAG president said it loud and proud that Zimbabwean folks gotta strike now for the indigenisation drive will not last forever, “don’t say we will come home to invest when thing are all right, the time is now,” the Muezzin bellowed from the roof tops. Everyone has come to know all claims to black empowerment in the name of spread wealth to the poor is nothing but a smokescreen for government officials and their associates to strip the land of its wealth. You just have to look at the community trusts created in mining areas that have been riddled with controversy as government officials fall over each other depriving toothless grannies of at their right to tea with milk and bread with butter in their twilight years. And what do you know, these are the same people who still insist it is these same grannies who will vote for them in the next election! Upfumi kuvhanu, perhaps the worst misnomer to emerge in Zimbabwe’s post-independence discourse.

There is nothing worse than a leader without backbone. If Mr Tsvangirai had hoped to go down in the annals of history as a defender of freedom, protector of human rights or as his books and publishers seem to indicate: that guy who finally defeated the Moo-gah-bee regime, he should aspire to lesser goals.

BBC NEWS Africa reports: Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai in gay rights U-turn. Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has reversed his position on gay rights, saying he now wants them enshrined in a new constitution. He told the BBC that gay rights were a “human right” that conservative Zimbabweans should respect.

Yet last year the very same PM of Zimbabwe, who has been described ‘as a courageous and indefatigable symbol of resistance in the face of brutal repression’ declared that he agreed with Our Dear Leader’s position on the issue, and would not support the rights of LGBTI persons being enshrined in the Constitution.

What kind of leader completely changes position on something so crucial to the lives of thousands of Zimbabweans as their right to practice their sexuality as they see fit?

There is nothing courageous about finally being a part of government and doing nothing to change the laws, then worse, joining the other side in persecuting that minority. And there is nothing admirable about using the pain and suffering of people who have been persecuted by the government that is supposed to protect them to pander to Western media.

Read the GALZ statement here