King Mswati III has got his priorities all wrong.

Wheeler dealer

Relative to the number of roads in his tiny southern African country, King Mswati III has a surfeit of horsepower. Then again, with 13 wives, each of whom has her own palace the king of Swaziland has a lot of royals to transport: his 27 children must be taken to school everyday.

In 2004, after media criticism of the 44-year-old monarch’s purchase of southern Africa’s only Maybach 62 (estimated cost: €325,000), the king banned newspapers from writing about his cars. Since then, Mswati has been seen arriving for the opening of parliament in a six-door Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman limousine.

Mswati head of an army that has never fought in a foreign conflict, only crushed internal dissent; as such, he has made surveillance, logistics and crowd control his priorities. The Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force has three Alouette 3 helicopters, one IAI Arava transporter plane and seven RG-31 Nyala Mark 5E armoured vehicles, all bought from South Africa.

In 2002, Mswati paid a €2.6 m deposit on a Bombardier Global Express 19-seater; however, donors disapproved and the deal was off. This year, a mysterious “development partner” gave him a 36-seater McDonnell Douglas MD-87 which had a VIP conversion at Goderich Aircraft in Canada. The jet, worth up to €16m, was delivered for his birthday n 19 April.

Source: Monocle

Women are considered to win every argument especially in relationships because they raise their voice the loudest. Personally, at the back of mind right now I can hear the echoes of my voice of my last argument. This is one characteristic that I associate WOZA with. To me they strike me as women who will surely raise their voice. The kind of Zimbabwe that we now live in leaves no room for smooth talk, one has got to be aggressive and speak loud to be heard. I remember last year when WOZA took to the streets in a demonstration against ZESA. The women were chanting “Tinoda magetsi” (We need electricity). Everyone was so fed up with ZESA and we still are but it took the guts and bravery of WOZA to march outside ZESA’s office along Samora Machel Avenue in Harare. There has been a lot of other strikes and demonstrations by WOZA but yesterday’s demonstration is among one of the major highlights in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe.

As we are aware, COPAC produced a second draft constitution, which had been approved by all parties. Soon after its release Zanu PF’s politburo made a u-turn and made amendments to the draft constitution. The MDC stood by the second draft constitution and the party launched a ‘Yes’ campaign for the draft constitution. But back to WOZA, the brave women demonstrated yesterday outside the Parliament of Zimbabwe, to remind Zanu PF and MDC that they have gone several steps ahead of the COPAC constitution making process itself. This is so in the sense that Zanu PF has made amendments to the second draft released by COPAC and MDC is close to launching a Yes Campaign. Initially, COPAC had planned that when a second draft constitution was released, an All Stakeholders Conference was to be held to discuss the draft constitution and the way forward would be mapped from the outcome of the conference. Meaning if Zanu PF had amendments to make they had to table them during the conference and the MDC voting for or against the constitution should be made after the conference.

During this demonstration WOZA reminded the political parties that neither of them owns the constitution. The constitution is made by the people and it’s for the people. It should not in any way favour a political party but should always be found abiding by the interests of the citizens.

Many households in Zimbabwe have made an outcry over never being counted during the 2012 census. From an SMS survey conducted by Kubatana on the 2012 census people did mention they were not counted during this exercise. According to a report on New Zimbabwe this has led to Zimstat calling for a ‘mop-up count’ for all those who were left out.  Zimstat’s population census director, Washington Mapeta is quoted as saying, “We are checking all those reports and for the purposes of making the whole process credible, enumerators will visit areas where people are said to have been left out.” This is in the face of remarks made by the Finance Minister Tendai Biti who declared that the 2012 census was a success. It is important to point out also that the armed forces hijacked the census programme demanding to be included as enumerators.

You can bet your butt that these things only happen in Zimbabwe: expecting mothers moaning and groaning as they wait their turn to deliver – doing the writhing not on a bed, but a hospital bench! And this week I met some nurses who recently finished their training and they said they were looking for jobs, wait for this, not as nurses but temporary teachers because government isn’t hiring! I was told some of their “fortunate” colleagues are working as till operators at some supermarkets in Bulawayo! And we vividly recall President Mugabe lambasting Australia and the UK for reaping where they did not sow by luring Zimbabwean nurses! Crap by any other name.

This disclaimer is usually written in hand writing which is illegible and very difficult to read especially for the elderly. Or the sign is displayed where you can’t see it. The main reason that has driven many shops in Zimbabwe to put up this disclaimer is the sale of inferior and substandard goods. Imagine … you buy a pair of shoes in a shop for your grandfather who lives in the rural areas. When you get there, the shoes don’t fit – either the size is too big or small, and when you try to return them the shop owner tells you “sorry we don’t take returns and we do don’t do refunds here”. When you try to dispute that’s when the shop assistant quickly points to the hidden disclaimer. If you win your argument with the shop owner its either you are told to take another product but most of them they don’t give you your money back. Popularly known as “mazhing zhong” these products are being sourced from the East and people are flocking to buy them because of the low prices. The economic hardships have left many Zimbabweans with little option but to buy these products. Zambia’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission outlawed this disclaimer 2011 in order to protect consumers from these fraudulent activities by shop owners who sell defective products.