Sunday News
By Charles Dube
21 March 2009

WHEN things have not been going well for sometime, it calls for hard work for the system to normalise.

There are many problems bedevilling the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture. Already the credibility of O- and A-level examination results for 2008 is being questioned in educational circles.
According to a representative from a teachers’ union, the examinations are disputed. They were written under very hard conditions. Many children did not get formal learning last year. Some students never had teachers before them hence whatever they produced will not be reflective of the actual performance they would have achieved if they had been guided by teachers.

I believe it is of paramount importance to restore the credibility of the examinations if students who sat their public examinations last year are not to be stigmatised. People will question the authenticity of their results and will always ridicule them for having not passed well even if they would have passed. Registration for this year’s examinations should be done early to instil confidence to both teachers and students. Examinations give direction. Teachers and students are motivated by the desire to perform well in examinations. They are a target which must be accomplished well. Learning with no proper set goals is discouraging.

Even though it looks like the problems that are there will continue to haunt the system for sometime, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, has already ordered schools to enrol Lower Sixth students in cognisance of the fact that they have already lost out on valuable time to learn. They are to register students basing them on the reports from the previous year. A step in the right direction as reports can easily show the potential in the students.

The fees charged by different schools are still causing concern and there are squabbles reported here and there with parents crying foul over the high figures demanded by schools. There is welcome news associated with those who cannot afford to pay the fees. There is a new scheme where those who cannot afford to fill in forms to ask for exemption or to pay less. But such a scheme needs to be tight to combat any corrupt acts which might be associated with it. Such noble ideas have been abused before where well-up individuals manipulated the system and had their children learning for free at the expense of deserving cases like the poor and orphans.

There is also a suggestion to allow people who cannot afford to pay fees one time to stagger their payments. This is a very sympathetic type of arrangement but again it cannot be ruled out that it can be abused. People will take advantage and continuously delay payment thereby affecting service delivery at the schools. Schools need money to run effectively. People have shown untrustworthiness on examination fees — students were allowed to register for examinations even before payment, the school being the guarantor. Some cunning people do not pay their dues until at the release of the results but the schools would have been inconvenienced as they need money everyday for them to run efficiently.

World Book Day, 23 April is coming soon. Does it make sense to you? It should make sense to readers as programmes of the day are meant to encourage a reading culture among students and the nation at large Through reading, students get a cross-section of ideas, learn about different cultures thereby understanding mankind. Students become objective in their perceptions of life and respect other people’s opinions from an informed perspective.

The Independent
By ENOCK MUCHINJO
20th March 2009

With politics being a pastime inside Zimbabwe rugby, accepting the post of Zimbabwe Rugby Union president was quite a courageous decision for youthful Themba Sibanda, who took over from Bruce Hobson this week.

It’s never easy, with a strong belief in the rugby circles that there are opportunists and armchair critics lurking along the way, ready to jump on any mistake made.

This is why you have to understand when Sibanda, 34, chose to be cautious in revealing his work plan — not promising much, yet clearly eager to make a difference and divert from his predecessor’s iron fist and hands-on approach.

“I’m going to involve a lot of people,” he says. “I cannot formulate anything without including stakeholders; the schools, women, clubs and others. I need to incorporate all of them. My plan is to have a meeting with various stakeholder groups before formulating anything.”

Diverse views have been expressed over the state of rugby in the country, uppermost being the different levels of the Sevens and XVs games. Sibanda does not have an illusion about the health of the game.

“We still got rugby, at least,” he says. “That alone is positive. Sevens have done well but we need to revamp XVs because it’s our flagship game. We need to emphasise that.

“Clubs are still going, which is another positive. It’s just a matter of building on that by helping development clubs such as Mbare, Mabvuku and Untouchables, which have fallen by the wayside. Then there are also clubs in Bulawayo and (the) Midlands which need our help.”

Development is a subject which excites the otherwise calm Sibanda, perhaps because of his own background — attending a school that was never a powerhouse in the sport. Born in Lupane, Matabeleland, and then growing up in Harare, he was introduced to the game in Grade 3 at Vainona Primary School.

He proceeded to Vainona High, where he played for six years. At Harare Sports Club where he became club chairman, he had a special interest in juniors and women. With his older brother, HSC coach Sykes Sibanda, he was instrumental in twinning the club with Churchill High School, an exercise which saw a number of talented youngsters from the school getting special attention at “Sportivo”.
For Sibanda, development in Zimbabwe rugby should not be a grassroots exercise in the common context of development.

“The structure is already there. We need to support the existing structures that are not doing well,” he says. “You cannot talk of developing rugby at grassroots level when schools or clubs that used to play the game no longer play. After we have revived these structures then maybe we can turn to grassroots.

“For example Churchill used to be a powerhouse but now they are struggling. And this is a feeder school. We need to look into that. How to do it is obviously by consultation.”

Sibanda will of course be hard-pressed to breathe life into the Sables.

To allow teams that sailed through to the next rounds of the 2011 World Cup qualifiers adequate time for preparations, the Confederation of African Rugby (CAR) has shelved this year’s edition of the
Africa Cup, replacing it with regional one-off tournaments.

The Sables will play Zambia, Botswana and Swaziland in a CAR trophy event in Gaberone in July.
The Sables will play additional test matches in the year.

“My vision for the national team is to give more emphasis to players settling in the national team. I think we need to have a feeder group, or say, two feeder representative teams,” Sibanda says.

“We’ve got players who play for the Under 21s in a given year, become over-aged in the following year but would still not be ready for the national team. They then get tired of waiting. In between there is need to have another team they can aspire to play for.

“We need to have an Emerging Sables or something like that — perhaps a Zimbabwe A side. (However) the biggest problem is finance. Once you have teams they need to play. If you don’t have finance, they will fall by the wayside.”

Last month in an interview with this paper, new sports minister David Coltart said he would try to get the Zimbabwe national side in a competitive domestic league in South Africa. Sibanda also sees this as a possibility.

“We could do that but it boils down to finance. As a union, with what we get as a grant, we cannot afford to do that unless there is corporate support. We also need government to get involved in rugby.

“Playing in SA is a good idea because you get to play week-in-week-out and your skills level improve. What we lack is finance. Talent-wise, we are prepared for any team. In 2007 we played the Emerging Springboks at Loftus before the South Africa/England test. We were very competitive. If we had prepared better we could have upset them. It all boils down to preparation and preparations boils down to finance.”

New York Times
By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: March 19, 2009

HARARE, Zimbabwe — On his first day as education minister in a government so broke that most schools were closed and millions of children idle, David Coltart said he got a startling invitation.

“Come and get your brand-new white Mercedes,” an official told Mr. Coltart, a veteran opposition politician, as President Robert Mugabe peered down from a portrait on the minister’s office wall.
The offer of an E-Class Mercedes to every minister in the month-old power-sharing government was vintage Mugabe, an effort to seduce his political enemies with the lavish perks he has long bestowed on loyalists.

Mr. Coltart said no thanks.

Opposition members like Mr. Coltart who joined Mr. Mugabe in office last month have already achieved some successes, like getting teachers back to work and winning the release of some political prisoners.

But many of them warned in interviews that the progress would be short-lived if Western nations, meeting Friday in Washington to discuss expanding assistance, did not extend billions of dollars to rebuild Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s main donors of emergency medical and food aid — the United States, Britain and other European nations — face a painful question posed by those pleas for more help. How do the wealthiest nations pump money into Zimbabwe’s crippled economy without propping up Mr. Mugabe, feeding his patronage machine and extending his disastrous three decades in power?

Before fully re-engaging with Zimbabwe’s government, the donors have said they want to see the release of all political prisoners, the adoption of sensible economic policies, a halt to seizures of white-owned farms, and the restoration of a free press. But some diplomats here say hard-liners in Mr. Mugabe’s old guard seem determined to sabotage the power-sharing deal and the infusion of Western aid that the public would credit to the newcomers, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The most critical test for Mr. Tsvangirai is whether he can deliver on his inaugural promise to pay the civil service in foreign currency — particularly the police officers and soldiers who have enforced the repressive rule of Mr. Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, but whose pay in local currency is now worthless.

Even some diplomats who were most skeptical about Mr. Tsvangirai’s deal to govern with Mr. Mugabe, 85, now sense an opportunity to weaken “the old man,” as he is called here.

“There’s a creeping sense that we are in an endgame, that there is a new dynamic here,” said one Western diplomat who spoke anonymously according to diplomatic protocol. “Never before has the government been this prostrate. Never before has ZANU-PF been so weak or the opposition in office.”
The opposition politicians say that they, too, sense an opportunity to loosen Mr. Mugabe’s grip on power.

Mr. Coltart’s experience is a good example. He faces huge hurdles, not least the fact that his ministry’s foul-smelling headquarters had no running water to flush toilets when he arrived. But he has coaxed most of the nation’s teachers back to work with little more than a paltry $100 monthly allowance and the promise to try to give them more.

The sight of children in tattered uniforms walking to school has become another sign of encroaching normalcy — along with affordable loaves of bread and well-stocked grocery shelves — in a country ravaged by hunger, hyperinflation and cholera.

But the teachers’ unions have warned Mr. Coltart that their members will soon stop working unless he can get them better salaries, akin to what the British, the United Nations and other donors are already paying to more than 20,000 doctors, nurses and other workers in Zimbabwe’s collapsed public health system.

“If we don’t get support for education in, literally, the next few weeks, there’s a very real danger the teachers will leave in their thousands as they did last year,” Mr. Coltart said.

Teachers at the Fungisai Primary School in Chitungwiza, a city south of Harare, the capital, say $100 a month does not come close to paying for the essentials: rent, clothing, food, school fees. Still, they seem hopeful.

“The government is broke, but it’s better to have someone promising something better,” said Mercy Manza, 38, a third-grade teacher and mother of two. “Before, it was as if we didn’t exist. They just ignored us.”

The hyperinflation became so bad last year that the teachers’ pay in Zimbabwean dollars was worth almost nothing. Many teachers emigrated to South Africa to work as maids or grape pickers. Mrs. Manza and Kudzayi Chivasa, 44, a widowed teacher, said they sold their clothes, plates and silverware to raise cash to feed their families.

“I went for a week in January without food,” Mrs. Chivasa said.

The teachers said their lives had gotten materially better this year. The Zimbabwean dollar has effectively died, and all goods are now priced in United States dollars and South African rand. With the lifting of price controls and some import restrictions, goods have flowed into the country and food staples cost less.

The Fungisai school, a complex of single-story red brick buildings, was empty for months last year. All its 52 teachers are back, along with 2,200 neatly dressed children in royal blue uniforms.

But the headmistress, Angela Katsuwa, doubts she can hold on to her staff unless they get a raise. “I’m afraid they may go away,” she said. “They’re grumbling because that $100 is not enough to take them to the end of the month.”

The teachers are not the only ones challenged by poor pay. Every minister in the new government makes the same as a teacher — or a janitor, for that matter.

Sitting in his 14th-floor office, with a sweeping view of Harare’s skyline, Mr. Coltart took his crumpled pay stub out of his wallet. His earnings were 4,224 worthless Zimbabwean dollars and the voucher for $100. Mr. Coltart is a prominent human rights lawyer from Bulawayo who describes himself as “completely self-funding at present.”

Some new ministers, however, have devoted years to political activism in a country whose economy is crumbling. Diplomats here worry that Mr. Mugabe will exploit this vulnerability with his usual strategy of “bait the hook.” Many new ministers have accepted the Mercedes-Benzes that Mr. Coltart refused.

“There’s a very real danger our members and ministers could be sucked into the patronage system,” said Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, who is now driving an E280 Mercedes. “Our members have to be vigilant and principled.”

Eric Matinenga, one of Zimbabwe’s most respected trial lawyers and the new minister of constitutional and parliamentary affairs, said he talked to others in the Movement for Democratic Change about taking a unified stand on the cars. “I said, ‘Look, how would we justify getting these luxury vehicles when there is a humanitarian crisis out there?’ ” he said. “To my disappointment, we were not able to come up with a single position.”

Mr. Matinenga, who braved arrest and weeks in jail last year after representing victims of political violence, took a metallic green E-Class Mercedes. “I know it’s not a good excuse,” he said, “but will I make a difference if I turn this down?”

Diplomats and local analysts say that despite some missteps the Movement for Democratic Change ministers, led by Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Mutambara, are standing up to Mr. Mugabe and demanding a say in how the country is governed.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti is credited with taking control of economic policy from Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank governor widely blamed for the profligate printing of money that drove inflation to astronomical levels.

“If Zimbabwe was a company, it would long ago have been liquidated,” said Mr. Biti, a combative lawyer who was beaten and jailed on flimsy treason charges during his years in the political wilderness. “If it was a human being, it would be brain dead.”

Looming over them all is the old man. Mr. Coltart has not quite figured out what to do with the portrait of Mr. Mugabe hanging behind his desk. “I’m thinking I’ll find a more appropriate place,” he said, “where he’s not looking over my shoulder.”

UPI
19 March 2009

HARARE, Zimbabwe, March 19 (UPI) — Zimbabwe cannot guarantee teachers will be paid this month, the new government’s education minister said, triggering a call for another teachers strike.

“While we are very concerned with the genuine demands of the teachers, right now I cannot promise anything in terms of salaries,” David Coltart told a news conference.

He said the nation’s “treasury coffers are almost bare” and appealed to the unions to show a spirit of patriotism by delaying any strike action while the government seeks money for salaries from the international community, the ZimOnline News Agency reported.

The country’s pleas for international money have failed so far, Coltart said.

The government offered in February to pay the teachers, like other civil servants, $100 a month — the first time their salaries would be paid in a foreign currency — but the union argued that $100 would have the buying power of $2 a month due to Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, Southwest Radio Africa reported.

The unions rejected the offer, first demanding $2,300 a month and later softening their demands, insisting teachers receive meaningful salary increases.

“If within 14 days they don’t give us a satisfactory answer, we are going back to the trenches (and plan a strike for the second term in May),” Firebrand Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe Secretary-General Raymond Majongwe said.

The teachers have been on strike over pay disputes and working conditions much of last year and the beginning of this year, SW Radio Africa said.

Business Weekly
19 March 2009

Zimbabwe teacher unions have warned the new government that their members will not be reporting for duty in May if they do not get their salaries in foreign currency.

So far the teachers are just receiving the USd 100 allowance per civil servant while their Zimdollar salary component was not being paid.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe
(PTUZ) on Monday held a meeting with David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sports, Arts and
Culture, where it emerged that the new government would not be able to improve on February salaries as it was broke.

Sifiso Ndlovu, the chief executive office of ZIMTA, said his organisation had issued Circular Number 10
advising members of the impasse with the government over March salaries. “We have advised the
government that teachers will not be going back to school in May if it fails to top on the USd 100 paid
out in February,” said Ndlovu.

Raymond Majongwe, the secretary general of PTUZ, concurred. “We met the Minister and told him the
government is provoking us to go on strike,” said Majongwe.

He said what had further incensed teachers were revelations that ZANU PF militia and other members of the ZANU PF Women’s League got similar allowances as teachers and other civil servants. “The
government is agitating us to go back on strike. We have registered our concerns with the
minister and have also written to the Minister of Public Service on the failure to hold salary negotiations for March as agreed last month,” he said.

Coltart confirmed meeting the teachers. “Yes we meet and they registered their grievances which the
government is looking into,” he said.

The government last month promised it would improve on the March salaries for all civil servants.
In a circular to its members ZIMTA said failure to secure a concrete and written agreement from
government “with clear milestones that will indicate a gradual incremental salary award as a strategy of working towards a salary level competitive to the region” teachers would not be going back to class in May 2009.

The ZIMTA circular added: “ZIMTA wishes to put it on record that it supports the Government of
National Unity and it is taking these steps to give it up to April 2009 for GNU to jelly up and address
educators legitimate grievances.”

The government is desperately seeking financial injection from the West and the region but indications are that a rescue package has been proving elusive. The South African government has indicated it might bankroll Zimbabwe as it was perusing a proposal submitted by Finance Minister Tendai Biti.
Last year, teachers worked an average 23 days, as they protested poor salaries and working conditions.

This year schools opened late as teachers delayed to go back to work, demanding they be paid in foreign currency. They only went back to work after they had been assured by Coltart that their grievances would be looked into.

New Zimbabwe.Com
19 March 2009

THE Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart on Wednesday appointed the new National Education Advisory Board which will advise the minister on ways to improve primary and secondary education in Zimbabwe.

Coltart said: “I have consulted widely before appointing the group of ‘grey-hairs’ gathered here today. I look forward to working with them to restore the rule of law in our education system and to reconstruct our primary and secondary education, which used to be the best in Africa.”

Their immediate task is a rapid assessment of the state of primary and secondary education, as the foundation for a long-term plan and funding for the Ministry, Coltart said.
On the board are teachers’ union leaders, former Education Minister Fay Chung, former Bulawayo Town Clerk Mike Ndubiwa and former Harare North MP Trudy Stevenson.

Board Members are:

Dr Isaiah Sibanda (Chair) – Lecturer in technical teacher education at NUST, Founding Director ZIMSEC, former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry
Dr Fay Chung (Treasurer) – Education consultant, formerly UNESCO Africa, UNICEF New York and Minister of Education
Mrs Trudy Stevenson (Secretary) – Former teacher/Cambridge oral examiner and MP Harare North
Dr Goodwill Shana – Representing Church schools, Chair Heads of Christian Denominations in Zimbabwe, President EFZ, etc.
Dr Sharai Chakanyuka – Education researcher and lecturer, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Education, Zimbabwe Open University
Mrs Mary Ndlovu – Education consultant, former lecturer in education at Hillside, etc.
Fr Joe Arimoso – Head of Jesuit education, former teacher at St George’s College
Mr Stanley Hadebe – Board member, ZIMSEC, Zimbabwe Open University, etc, former Matabeleland Regional Director of Education
Sr Tariro Chimanyiwa – Special education, Head of Emerald Hill School for the Deaf
Mr Neil Todd – CEO Association of Trust Schools, former Head Falcon, Deputy Head Plumtree, etc
Mr Mike Ndubiwa – Educationist and former Bulawayo Town Clerk
Mr Charles Maunze – President, National Association of Secondary Heads NASH and Head, Oriel Boys
Ms Tendai Chikowore – President, Zimbabwe Teachers Association ZIMTA
Mr Takawafira Zhou – President, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe PTUZ

Zimbabwe Times
By Our Correspondent
18 March 2009

HARARE – Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister, Senator David Coltart says government will not be able to fulfil growing demands by teachers who are demanding to be paid salaries of up to $US1 500.

Coltart pleaded with teachers to “call on their sense of patriotism” and accept that government was broke.

Addressing journalists Wednesday afternoon, Coltart said his ministry had limited capacity to pay teachers viable salaries, pointing out that teachers were employees of the Public Service Commission.
“Teachers are employed by the public service commission not by the ministry of education,” he said.
“To that extent this is beyond our control. We have been in discussions with the Ministry of Finance which ultimately is the source of funding for all civil servants.”

Incidentally, Finance Minister Tendai Biti allocated the Education Ministry the lion’s share of the budget he announced in Parliament on Wednesday. The ministry was allocated over US$177 million.
“Our economy is in a state of near collapse,” said Coltart.

“Our treasury coffers are almost bare. Our entreaties to the donor community have not to date secured the funding that we have asked for although we have been dealt with sympathetically. Money has not flowed into treasury coffers yet.

“Whilst we are very sympathetic towards the legitimate concerns of teachers and civil servants right across the board, unfortunately there is a limit to what we can do in the circumstances. My hope is that monies will be forthcoming shortly.”

Coltart, who was appointed minister in February, refused to commit his ministry to making any promises to the teachers.

“As the responsible person, I cannot today make any promises and all that I can do is to call on the sense of patriotism of our teachers and the trade union movements to recognize that we are acting (sincerely).

“But there is a limit to what we can do. Unfortunately we can’t wave a magic wand.”

Like all civil servants, Zimbabwean teachers are earning allowances of up to US$100.

Government met teachers’ representative groups last month and agreed to negotiate teachers’ salaries this month.

Progressive Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) president Takavafira Zhou said his organization was not willing to continue accepting excuses being proffered by government.

“We do not accept the view that government has no money,” he said.

“All sources of generating revenue by government are still functional. We cannot continue to wait for so called donors to one day think of paying the teachers. What shall we be eating?”

Zhou said teachers affiliated to his organization were already on a “go slow” and would declare a full blown strike if government fails to meet their demands by mid next month when teachers will be paid their April salaries.

Meanwhile, Coltart has appointed a 14 member think-tank of experienced education officials to work as a board to be known as the National Education Advisory Board.

The board, whose activities are being funded by the European Union, will conduct an immediate assessment of the education sector and make recommendations on how to restore credibility in the country’s faltering education system.

Former secretary for education, Dr Isaiah Sibanda will chair the board while former education minister, Fay Chung will be the treasurer.

Former Movement for Democratic Change legislator Trudy Stevenson, who was a teacher for 30 years, will be the board secretary.

Zimonline
By Patricia Mpofu
Tuesday 17 March 2009

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s teachers have threatened a fresh work boycott unless the
country’s new government agrees to pay them more than the US$100 allowance
paid to every civil servant last month.

Officials from the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA) and the Progressive
Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) – the two representative bodies for
teachers in the country – told ZimOnline on Monday that their members would
not report for duty for the second term in May unless they were paid more
money.

The union officials said they told Education Minister David Coltart in a
meeting yesterday that they would not report for duty unless the government
topped up their salaries or allowances.

But the union leaders appeared comfortable with teachers getting paid US$100
this month, indicating their members would remain at work if this was the
case but would go on strike if the allowance was not topped up in April.

“We told the minister that our members are very unhappy and have given the
government up to April 2009 to find the money, failure of which teachers
will not go back to work,” said ZIMTA chief executive officer Sifiso Ndlovu.

PTUZ secretary general Raymond Majongwe said: “We have registered our
concerns with the minister and have also written to the Minister of Public
Service on the failure to hold salary negotiations for March as agreed last
month.”

Coltart described his meeting with teachers’ unions as “fruitful” adding
that his ministry and the government was working to improve salaries for
teachers.

He said: “It was agreed the government has no capacity at the moment to
improve on their allowances. The Minister of Finance has assured us the
government is looking for funding. We are aware of their concerns and we
will be continuously looking into improving the salaries.”

The government of national unity between President Robert Mugabe, Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara is broke and
has no cash for salaries for teachers and hundreds of thousands of its
workers including the police and army.

The hard cash allowances paid civil servants last month and due to be paid
this month were raised from donors.

But rich Western governments with capacity to fund the unity government have
refused to provide support until they see evidence Mugabe is committed to
genuine power sharing and to implementing comprehensive political and
economic reforms.

Finance Minster Tendai Biti last week told journalists the international
community had to step in and assist Zimbabwe’s new government or it would
fail to deliver on its promises and ultimately collapse.

Biti yesterday said he could not comment on whether the government had found
money for salaries for its workers as promised last month but pleaded with
civil servants to be patient while the administration looked to address
their salary grievances.

“What I can say is that we are all the time looking for money. It takes time
but we are trying all the time. Civil servants will be paid but we appeal
for patience,” said Biti.

However government sources said civil servants will again be paid US$100
each to be deposited in their respective bank accounts beginning today, with
teachers the first to get paid followed by soldiers who will be paid
tomorrow.

The rest of government workers will receive their allowances in coming days,
according to our sources.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which facilitated
formation of the unity government in Harare, is planning to hold an
extraordinary summit to discuss ways to convince the international community
to provide US$2 billion urgently needed to kick start Zimbabwe’s stalled
economy and restore basics services such as health and education.

But analysts see little hope that Western governments – many that had
demanded Mugabe’s resignation before they could support Zimbabwe – would
agree to give significant aid before Harare meets a set of tough benchmarks,
including providing a credible economic recovery plan, upholding human
rights and taking firm steps to write a new and democratic constitution for
the country.

The Times UK
By Georgina Godwin
Sunday, 15 MARCH 2009

Susan Tsvangirai would have been surprised by the impact her death has had on this country. The unifying effect and the sense of hope to come out of this awful tragedy would, I am sure, have pleased her.

In Zimbabwe, when someone dies a mourning vigil is held at their home. Traditionally, friends and relatives gather at the family home as soon as possible until after the burial. Therefore, on Monday, along with hundreds of others, I made my way to the suburban Harare home of the Tsvangirais to pay my respects to my friend Susan.

From a mile away cars were abandoned along the potholed roads and the sound of drumming drifted through the early evening. There was a group of women in red-and-white Methodist church uniforms standing at the gate singing Tichasangana kudenga, neropa raJesu. Sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, the hymn translates: “We will meet again in Heaven, Through the Blood of Jesus.”

I took a seat in the queue waiting to enter a room where I believed we would contribute to the condolence book. In front of me was Stan Mudenge, the Zanu (PF) Minister of Higher Education. On the opposite side, both physically and politically, was a representative from ZUM, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement that Mr Mugabe effectively crushed in the 1990s.

I entered the darkened room and found the Prime Minister there, dressed in a dark suit. Selfishly my own grief took over and I wept as he hugged and comforted me. “There is nothing to be done,” he said. “What can you do?”

I recalled my work with Susan, before my political broadcasts made me an undesirable in Zimbabwe, and her trip to London in 2002 when we had believed she would be First Lady soon. By the time I left him, darkness, always swift in Africa, had fallen and the garden was alive with cooking fires.

David Coltart, the MDC Minister of Education, called me over to meet his colleague, Herbert Murerwa. Mr Murerwa is the Zanu (PF) Minister of Lands and a man I have been very vocal in criticising publicly. As we were introduced, he told me: “I hear what you say and I see what you do.” Sinister at any other time, his words seemed oddly benign in an atmosphere of real unity. I don’t believe the Zanu (PF) presence was cynical. I, perhaps naively, think that they joined in this intimate part of the occasion in a spirit of genuine grief and togetherness.

Susan was an unassuming and gracious lady who possibly had no idea how much her work with the poor and sick achieved. Susan’s contribution to the nation in life was great. In death it may be greater still – genuinely bringing true unity to the Zimbabwean people.

Sunday Mail
Consumer Forum
By Garikai Mazara
15 March 2009

SCHOOL fees, school fees, school fees . . .

The topic that is refusing to go away and go away it will not until some semblance of order returns to the education system. Most parents, fearing for the victimisation of their children in class and at school, are afraid to raise the concerns that they harbour albeit that the concerns will be founded and genuine.

The intention this week is to speak to the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, with a view to asking him some of the burning questions being raised by parents. But given the tragic accident the other week that killed the wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, it was difficult to get hold of Minister David Coltart — his phone went unanswered for long periods. It must have been hectic for everyone and he must have been held up here and there.

Anyway, we will still discuss the issues obtaining and here is to hoping that when the minister becomes available, he will be able to answer some, if not most, of the questions raised.

For starters, most parents want to know what will become of the money that they had paid to schools at the beginning of the term. For instance, some primary schools were demanding anything up to US$250 per term, some as “little” as a US$1 per day, of which some, if not most, of the money was not even receipted. Now that Government has set US$150 per term (we will come to this later on, as it is just too much), was the money paid at the beginning of the term to be part of the new fee regime?

In instances where refunds are due, will parents be credited with the next term’s fees or they should or will be given their differences in cash? Is there going to be an audit on how the money that was paid was used? Who was/is accountable for the money that was paid – the SDAs or the school heads? Or the teachers?

But the most glaring problem is that most school (and/or teachers) were not issuing receipts for the money that they received because they knew pretty well that the money was “illegal”. So recourse will be difficult, if not impossible. And asking a parent who had already paid US$150 as teachers’ incentive to pay another similar amount to the Government as fees will be asking for too much. That means if you have three pupils in primary school, you will need US$900 this term!

Against an average salary of US$100! Even though The Herald suggested in a mid-week editorial that fees can be staggered in payment, the fees regime announced by the ministry does not fit into the obtaining salary regime. As much as consideration was given to the Government’s need to raise money, to meet its obligations, the same consideration must have been given to parents’ ability to meet the fees regime.

If, for argument’s sake, US$150 is split into the three months of the term, this equals US$50 per month. From the US$100 salary voucher/coupon paid at the end of February, take away the US$50 and one would understand the parent’s plight. Though not everyone is a civil servant, we are using the US$100 base salary because most companies took a cue from Government and most salaries were pegged around US$100.

As argued in last week’s Sunday Mail editorial, it is very wrong for Government to want to fund education using fees. Instead taxes must be used for such purposes and Government must be implored to find ways of harnessing the millions of dollars that it might be losing each passing day through tax evasion.

For instance, this column once suggested that Government must force companies to pay forex salaries so that deductible taxes are also paid in forex. If companies continue paying allowances as opposed to salaries, no taxes are forwarded to Government. Or if they are, they will be in Zim dollars.

Then there is this reasoning that has since been given some legitimacy, reasoning which was first enunciated in the national budget. That high-density residents are poorer than low-density residents, or that the rural folk do not have money. Granted, the demographics of the 80s and 90s would have suggested and supported such reasoning, but the socio-political order of this decade would suggest otherwise.

Granted, the rural folk still remain worse off, in terms of development and hence accessibility to cash, but the line between the town cousins — high- and low- density residents — is very thin. For example, the furniture in Glen Norah households can be far better than that in, say, Arcadia, the cars in Mufakose far better than those in Milton Park, etc.

Given the dynamics of the last decade or so, which saw many locals leave for the Diaspora, and mostly drawn from the high-density areas, it does not readily follow that the people in these areas are worse off than their counterparts in the low-density areas.

Inversely, most of those in the low-density could just be relatives asked to look after properties by their relatives in the Diaspora, or mere tenants. The demographics of social classing of people were effective in the 80s and 90s when most of the people relied on working wages, and thus could be stratified by their earnings. But the way of dealings that had taken over life in Zimbabwe over the past five or so years have rendered the social rankings of the past irrelevant.

So it is wrong for our principals to use the demographics of the past for the present. That high-density residents do not have money or would rather have their bills paid in Zim dollars, yet the services they are getting are being for in US dollars.

As we seek the normalisation of our systems, I think it is only rational that we all adopt a Zimbabwean approach, that we are in this together, that we need to rebuild our country with concerted and equal efforts.

Shifting the cost of reconstruction of Zimbabwe is akin to shifting the blame, like the low-density residents have to pay for the high-density ones.

So it is in this light that as the responsible minister considers bringing down school fees, to match the obtaining remuneration, it is equally imperative that he aligns the same fees.