• admin
• Herald
• September 9, 2012
• 50 views

SPB wants to take over authorities’ procurement

Lloyd Gumbo and Daniel Nemukuyu
Local authorities may soon buy all goods and services through the State Procurement

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• Herald
• September 9, 2012
• 35 views

MDC-T factional politics creep into constitution-making: Analysts

Farirai Machivenyika Herald Reporter
THE MDC-T wants to collapse the constitu­tion-making process by declaring a premature deadlock and launching a rash “Yes Vote” campaign before the adoption of a final draft, analysts said yesterday.
Sources close to developments at Harvest House say the move by MDC-T secretary gen­eral Tendai Biti and his faction to prevent party leader Morgan Tsvangirai from negotiating the draft with other principals was a vote of no confidence in Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership.

Mr Tsvangirai, they said, was riled when his Kitchen Cabinet alerted him to Mr Biti’s strat­egy prompting him to launch a premature “Yes Vote” campaign over the weekend that sources say is aimed at collapsing the process.

Despite the fact that there are clear stages that the draft constitution has to go through before being put to a referendum, the MDC-T launched a “Yes Vote” campaign on Saturday urg­ing its supporters to endorse the draft.

Political analysts yesterday said it was unfor­tunate that the MDC-T had taken its factional fighting to important national programmes. Political scientist and Zanu-PF legislator Professor Jonathan Moyo said Mr Biti wanted to use the constitution-making process to secure more senior positions in Government.“The MDC-T is now using the constitution-making process to settle the power struggle between Biti and Tsvangirai which has taken an ugly turn,” said Prof Moyo.

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• September 9, 2012
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Universities refuse to register 50 000 cadetship students

Felex Share Herald Reporter
STATE universities are refusing to register more than 50 000 tertiary students who are on the cadet­ship programme before Government clears outstanding payments.
Zimbabwe has 10 State universities, which are owed close to US$100 million by Govern­ment.
Students with outstanding payments have been barred from attending lectures and accessing results.

Government introduced a cadetship pro­gramme in which it pays the fees for those who enroll in different programmes.

In return, students must work in Zimbabwe after college for an equal number of years they received funding.
Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Stan Mudenge on Friday said the complaints by the universities were genuine.

He blamed the Government’s non-payment of fees to the universities on the Ministry of Finance, which he described as the “unreason­able partner”.

Government, said Minister Mudenge, had only released US$1 million for the pro­gramme this year out of the required US$42 million.
Minister Mudenge said he met Finance Minister Tendai Biti recently over the issue, but no money had been released.

“Treasury is not paying the money it prom­ised in the budget,” he said.
“The unreasonable partner is Treasury not the universities. I met him (Minister Biti) two weeks ago and he said he would release some­thing straightaway but he has not done any­thing.

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• Herald
• September 9, 2012
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Another water chemical flub

Michael Chideme Municipal Reporter
Harare City Council has rejected 25 tonnes of sulphuric acid delivered to Morton Jaffray Water Plant by Zimphos arguing the chemical was substandard and dangerous to residents.

The chemical was dark purple in colour while the tender specifications indicate the chemical should be a clear oily corrosive liquid.
There is also suspicion the chemical con­tained toxic substances such as lead and arsenic.

Sulphuric acid is used to correct the pH (acidity and/or alkalinity) of raw water.
According to information from city sources, Zimphos delivered bulk sulphuric acid on Sep­tember 3 this year “which did not meet our specification and hence the acid was rejected”.
Officers manning the water treatment plant tested the chemical as required and established it was inferior.

The chemical was taken to the Standards Association of Zimbabwe for further analysis where it showed deterioration on the strength of the acid from 98 percent to 87,24 percent.

Sources indicated that the same laboratory was now testing the sediments in the acid to check whether there were traces of toxic metals such as lead or arsenic.
Chemplex Corporation chief executive offi­cer Mr Misheck Kachere yesterday confirmed that the consignment was rejected but he dis­puted allegations that the chemical was sub­standard.