• admin
• Herald
• July 11, 2012
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Zanu-PF in drive to assist farmers

Takunda Maodza
Senior Reporter
The success of the historic land reform is under threat from funding challenges, subletting of farms to white former commercial farmers and double land allocations, provincial governors and resident ministers have revealed.

This has prompted Zanu-PF to embark on a countrywide tour of the farms to access the challenges and recommend solutions.
The party’s fact-finding mission covering Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces follows a meeting between the Zanu-PF Land Reform and Resettlement department led by Cde Ignatius Chombo, his deputy Cde Herbert Murerwa and the governors in Harare on Monday.

The Zanu-PF national secretary for production and labour Cde Dzikamai Mavhaire also attended the meeting.
The governors presented situational reports painting a gloomy picture on developments on farms more than 10 years after the historic land reform.
Litigation by former commercial farmers, leasing of farms to displaced white farmers, double allocation of land, delay in issuing out 99-year leases, including offer letters, and lack of productivity on the farms were singled out as some of the major challenges threatening the success of the land reforms.

The governors bemoaned lack of productivity, especially on A2 farms, saying lack of State financial and material support incapacitated beneficiaries.

Mashonaland West provincial administrator Mr Christopher Shumba said land disputes continued to be experienced in the province due to failure by responsible offices to give offer letters to beneficiaries.

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• Herald
• July 11, 2012
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Deliberate transmission of HIV hard to prove

Innocent Ruwende
Senior Court Reporter
CASES of deliberate transmission of HIV are difficult to prove because there is no law that compels testing institutions to reveal or make public the HIV status of patients, a regional magistrate said yesterday.

Regional magistrate, Mr Clever Tsikwa, was speaking while acquitting a 37-year-old man who was accused of deliberately infecting his 20-year-old wife with HIV.
The ruling is a challenge to Section 79 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, which makes willful transmission of HIV illegal. The law says that any person who:
(a) Knowing that he or she is infected with HIV; or
(b) Realising that there is a real risk or possibility that he or she is infected with HIV;
(c) Intentionally does anything or permits the doing of anything which he or she knows will infect, or does anything which he or she realises involves a real risk or possibility of infecting another person with HIV, shall be guilty of deliberate transmission of HIV, whether or not he or she is married to that other person, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 20 years.

Mr Tsikwa said the problem with such an offence was that the medical history of an accused person constituted the most important evidence for the State.

He said it was apparent that no evidence was led that prior to December 31 last year when the man is alleged to have had sexual intercourse with his wife for the first time that he was HIV positive and that he was aware of such a status. Mr Tsikwa said no evidence was led that when he had sexual intercourse with the complainant his intention was to infect her with HIV and that he indeed infected her.

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• July 11, 2012
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PM Tsvangirai in private meeting

Tendai Mugabe
Senior Reporter

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai reportedly held a private meeting with the head of Britain’s Department for International Development in Zimbabwe asking for funds to spearhead his election campaign.PM Tsvangirai and DFID head Mr Dave Fish had officiated at the launch of the Rural Water and Sanitation in Tsholotsho, Matabeleland South.

Mr Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Mr Luke Tamborinyoka, however, dismissed the reports.

“The Prime Minister never had such a meeting. He met Fish in Tsholotsho in the presence of Government officials, including Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo,” Mr Tamborinyoka said.
“There was no other meeting between the Prime Minister and Dave Fish other than the one at Mkhubazi School, anything else is fiction.”

The MDC-T is reportedly struggling to secure funding from its traditional donors after Western governments expressed reservations in Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership qualities.

A source yesterday said PM Tsvangirai and Mr Fish met in Bulawayo for close to an hour.
He said the MDC-T leader made a passionate plea with the British government to bankroll its election campaign.

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• July 11, 2012
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Tomana warns Zesa workers on sabotage

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DELIBERATELY switching off electricity is tantamount to sabotage and attracts a heavy penalty,