circular to all newspaper companies in the city, Harare City Council acting finance manager, a Mr Dhliwayo, said all newspaper companies must pay for sites where their products are sold.
He said the fees would be increased by 50 percent every quarter until the
end of the year.
The commission did not explain what wwould happen to foreign newspapers, among
them South Africa’s Mail and Guardian, Sunday Times and the London-based The
Zimbabwean, which are sold on the streets in Harare.
The government-appointed commission, headed by Sekesai Makwavarara, which has been accused of gross extravagance and mismanagement of council matters. Basic services have collapsed.
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) secretary general Foster Dongozi has condemned the move to introduce vending fees saying the plan was meant to drive newspapers out of business. – ZimOnline
Doomsday for private schools
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe has signed into law the Education Act Amendment Bill giving the state powers to fix fees at private schools, in a development education experts say could see standards falling at the schools that are the only sources of a reliable education for young Zimbabweans. Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere – who two years ago forced several privately-run schools to close and threatened to jail the administrators for refusing to lower fees until he was ordered by the High Court to leave the schools alone – immediately threatened to use the new law to “deal heavily” with privately-owned and church-run schools he claimed were overcharging on fees. “The Education (Act Amendment) Bill is now law. The President assented to it on Monday,” said Chigwedere. “We are going to deal heavily with all those schools that are charging exorbitant fees. We are aware that there are some schools already charging $300 million a term, some $250 million, others $200 million a term. This is outrageous and unacceptable.” The more than 500 non-government owned schools that are run by either private entrepreneurs or church organisations are the best equipped and best run schools in Zimbabwe as the country’s once highly regarded public schools crumble after years of under-funding and mismanagement. They are attended by the children of senior officials of the government and the ruling Zanu (PF), who are not studying in rich foreign countries. – ZimOnline
Farm leases scam uncovered
CHEGUTU – Five Zimbabweans have been arrested here for issuing fake leases to whites desperate to stay on their farms. This comes at a time when all agriculture land, once largely owned by a few whites was nationalised following amendments to the constitution last year.
Any farmer who wants to farm will now have to apply for a lease. 87% of Zimbabwe best agriculture land had been in white hands up until the year 2000, when a land revolution by the majority Zimbabweans forced most them off the farms, demanding an equitable land redistribution programme. The government then moved to amend the constitution to make land expropriation legal.
Local papers reported that the scam was discovered when one white farmer told the accused he could not raise the US$1500 needed. He then paid with cattle, which they sold, but were caught as they shared the spoils. – AND Africa
Court hears Mugabe coup plot
BULAWAYO – An alleged coup plot against President Robert Mugabe was to be carried out in two phases with the first phase seeing the ouster of Vice President Joseph Msika and Zanu (PF) chairman John Nkomo, the High Court heard here this week.
Zimbabwe’s former information minister Jonathan Moyo is suing Nkomo and Zanu (PF) politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa for Z$2 billion for allegedly telling Mugabe that he plotted a coup against him and other senior party leaders.
A witness, Virginia Sithole, told High Court judge Francis Bere that a Zanu (PF) district co-ordinating meeting for Tsholotsho district called by Nkomo was told that the coup plot was in two phases with the first phase targeting Nkomo and Msika while the second phase would deal with Mugabe.
Ndlovu disputed claims put to her by defence lawyer Francis Chirimuuta who had said minutes of a co-ordinating meeting indicated that the Tsholotsho declaration only targeted Mugabe.
“According to my understanding of events at the Tsholotsho meeting attended by the two accused, the issue that came to the fore was that the Tsholotsho coup was targeting not only President Mugabe but also Nkomo and Vice President Msika and the coup was to be carried out in two phases. The first phase would have seen Msika and Nkomo ejected from the party while President Mugabe would be dealt with in the next phase,” Ndlovu told the court.
Moyo is suing Dabengwa and Nkomo for defamation following allegations that the two had told a meeting in Tsholotsho that the former information minister planned a coup against Mugabe. Nkomo and Dabengwa deny the charge.
The trial continues next week with Moyo expected to call in more witnesses to testify against the accused.- ZimOnline