Hello again. Here is a small update: Kubatana has moved its blog style posts (citizen voice, feedback, and yes the JOBS) to our main website: www.kubatana.net

This website will now be hosting news, updates, citizen feedback, our newsletter and job offerings, the NGO directory, and more. So if you want the latest from Kubatana, make sure to visit our main website: www.kubatana.net

Meanwhile, this blog will still be here “for posterity,” but we won’t be adding to it here – Look for our regularly updated content on www.kubatana.net instead.

And if you’re a researcher looking for our archive of Zimbabwean civil society reports and human rights documents from 2001 – 2013 it’s still there! Just visit archive.kubatana.net and you’ll find all 25,000 documents for your research pleasure.

Thanks!

Hello everybody and anybody out there!

Just a short note to say that we are discontinuing this blog so you won’t see any new posts on it. This isn’t because we’ve fallen asleep over our keyboards, it’s because we are hopefully going to be launching another platform soon that will keep some elements of this blog as well as adding some spice!

Change starts with us. Right?

Bye for now.

A new report from the Centre for Research and Development, “Challenges and future prospects of the mining sector in Zimbabwe,” raises some important points on Zimbabwe’s mining sector and the challenges a lack of accountability in that sector create for Zimbabwe’s economy.

The report begins:

The later part of the year 2013 saw the government of Zimbabwe making lukewarm efforts to address challenges bedeviling the mining sector that civil society groups working in this sector have been highlighting relentlessly for years with very limited response from government. Despite the mining sector failing to achieve the projected growth of 17% in 2013 statistics from the ministry of mines indicate that mining has significantly contributed to Zimbabwe’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from an average of 10.2 percent in the 1990s to 19.9 percent in 2009 and 2013 surpassing agriculture. Similarly, figures from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority for 2013 also reveal an upward trend of the mining sector attracting 207 million out of the 660 million worth of investment with the remainder 460.30 million falling into other 5 sectors of the economy. Between 2009 and 2013 the mining industry became the leading export sector accounting for over 60% of Zimbabwe’s total export earnings. In spite of this growth, the mining sector’s contribution to fiscus has largely remained insignificant due to lack of transparency and accountability prevalent in the governance of the sector.

Download the full report here

US Embassy Public Affairs hosts a Food For Thought discussion on Community Arts, Advocacy and Empowerment: Tuesday 7 Jan at 3pm – 7^th Floor, Gold Bridge, Eastgate.

Moyo was in full knowledge of the looting & servitude that is going on at ZBC but he chose the protectionist route of shielding the perpetrators by sending them on ‘PAID LEAVE’ under the guise of avoiding undue influence. Secondly, these hefty salaries did not even alarm them on taking office because they gave indication that the woes at the broadcaster were known for a long time. The only assumption for their laid back approach based on the turn of events is that these amounts of loot are not material enough to trigger speedy reactions. And those salaries are most likely far much lower than the value of diamonds they are smuggling at ZMDC etc. Thirdly, a minister for the people does not wait for an embarrassing hunger strike to salvage starving souls that are his direct mandate in his office. I wont praise the exposure of the grand theft at ZBC because everyone knows that Muchechetere and his entire junta guard were appointed as revivalists of a stumbling regime in 2008, their project is done now. It is not a secret even to a grade one child that this is an old offloading strategy of this incumbent government. Announcing these figures is just an incidental and deceptive strategy for them to appear dead on to service delivery yet they are still in the business of expending people and protecting the crown. I view this whole approach as corrupt & populist and trying to correct these parastatal wrongs using corrupt means is just as cancerous as corruption itself in Zimbabwe