We heard this from a subscriber today. What are you hearing about cotton farmers?

The Zimbabwe Gvt said it will be the sole buyer for cotton this year and the farmers are still holding on to their crop. All is silent. A friend of mine told me people are turning into stealing livestock especially goats to get the dollar. Worse things may happen if the silence continues. Is there anything that is being done to resolve this issue.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on State Enterprises and Parastatal Management public hearings revealed how frustrated Zimbabweans are with the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), reports The Herald today.

This will come as no surprise to the many Zimbabweans who phoned into our Freedom Fone test (thank you!) and left their voice mails about ZESA meter reading, load shedding, high bills and poor service.

Listen to some of this feedback here

Recently Kubatana’s sister project Freedom Fone won the Index on Censorship Innovation Award. Freedom Fone facilitates the sharing of pre-recorded audio information over mobiles phones. We are consistently trying to improve the Freedom Fone software and . . . we would like you to actively help us do this.

We’ve read something published by the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) on load-shedding which raises a Lot of concerns. And if we’re concerned, we’re sure you will be too.

Listen to what they say is Fact and let us know if you think it’s Fiction. Your opinion counts!

Here’s what we need . . .

To find out more, request a free callback from Kubatana’s toll free service by following these instructions:

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To avoid calling you late at night, we have set a daily cut off time for processing callbacks at 8:00pm. We have also instructed the system not to phone anyone on Sunday. If you do not receive your callback the same day you request it, we will try calling you again the next day that the system is making calls.

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Sorry!

Thanks a lot from the Kubatana Team

We recently shared Takura Zhangazha’s blog about Harare City Council’s proposed bus plan, and we got this feedback from a subscriber. Seems like what drives some people crazy about kombis is exactly what makes other people love them!

We would love to have cheaper public transport (bus), but since we have had a taste of the infamous kombis, as long I can afford, the kombi is most favorable because of the following reasons:

• Kombis don’t have a bus stop, they can pick n drop anywhere but the bus always has a designated place to stop.
• Kombi is much faster since I am always late for work
• Kombi does not have a time table
• If there is congestion, kombis always get a way to avoid it
• Buses can only drop us at terminuses, in my case I come from Glen Norah, it will have to drop me at the market square, yet the kombi will take me down all the way to Rezende Street

Unless they want to introduce systems that are in other developed countries such as in the UK. You buy a ticket for the bus that lasts for a week, you use the bus to go anywhere you want as long as it is within that town.

Okay so up there with the new vehicle license registration requirements has to be the new directive from the Ministry of Water about borehole registration.

Earlier this year, catchment offices around the country started leaving notes in people’s post boxes, telling them to come and pay $100 or more to register their boreholes. Whoa. At the time, in Harare at least, the City Council stepped in and reminded people that, no, they were the ones who handled borehole registration – for a one-off $35 fee.

Anyway, it would appear the Ministry of Water Resources and Development Management got wind of this and realised that they were missing out on an income stream here. So they’ve jumped into the fray and have issued a directive requiring the registration of boreholes – for a fee of $40 per year. They’ve given the public until 30 June to get registered, after which you pay a $60 fine on top of the $40 annual registration fee (sound familiar . . .).

Find the press release about registration and download the registration form here

Since the form isn’t exactly straightforward, I phoned their offices for some clarification. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What if I don’t know my borehole number?
Her: Leave it off
Me: What if I don’t know the borehole depth?
Her: You don’t know the depth?
Me: Nope.
Her: Okay leave it blank.
Me: What if I don’t know my GPS reading?
Her: The GPS reading is required. If you don’t know it, you can come to our office, pay $20, and we will send someone to read the GPS location of the borehole.
Me: What about abstraction rate?
Her: If your borehole is for domestic use we can estimate that.
Me: What do you mean by potential pollution sources?
Her: You know, a soak away, septic tank or asymmetry nearby.
Me: Asymmetry? What is that?
Her: Where people are buried.
Me: Ah! Oh. Thanks. Or pets? Like if I’ve buried my dog in the garden?
Her: Yes. Or pets.

For interest sake, a number of online sites let you zoom in on a map (including road, satellite or hybrid view) which you can use to pinpoint your GPS coordinates pretty well. For example try: http://www.getlatlon.com

Note you’re meant to get the form signed before a Commissioner of Oaths, and you’re meant to submit 4 copies (these can be photocopies, they don’t have to all be registered copies).

It would be great if this process actually goes somewhere – e.g. to the monitoring and regulation of borehole usage, and assessment of our country’s water table, usage and vulnerabilities in terms of water. But unfortunately, it’s really hard to feel like this isn’t just one more exercise in creating work for people in order to get money out of them.

When I saw The Herald headline Zinara deadline scrapped this morning, I assumed it meant they’d realised that they wouldn’t be able to process new vehicle license discs even within the extended deadline period, and had decided to give everyone even more time.

This made sense given the number of frustrated, queuing motorists who were reporting on their experiences – including on our blog here and here.

Silly, silly me.

Rather, Zinara has gone back on the deadline extension. On 30 May, realising at last that long queues and a shortfall of around 580,000 vehicles to license they announced the deadline would be extended to 30 June. Unsurprisingly, the queues began to dwindle as people had more time to get their vehicles licensed, and therefore could plan accordingly.

In a move that now punishes motorists for believing them, Zinara has retreated on the deadline extension, back dating the deadline to 31 May again, and has instructed Zimbabwe Republic Police to fine motorists found driving with an expired vehicle license disc.

Politics 101 teaches that public confidence in state institutions is fundamental to good governance. Punishing the public for believing you is a surefire way to breed an angry public.