On a walk on one of Harare’s upmarket streets in Borrowdale Wednesday, I turned a corner and was struck by this perfect square patch of tall, lush mealies planted in the verge outside a house. It reminded me of an urban gardener in London, who plants tiny gardens in sidewalks.

Attorney General Johannes Tomana has rubbished recent media reports regarding the reappointment of Augstine Chihuri as Police Commissioner General by the President.

President Mugabe is the only person with the mandate to appoint or reappoint the Commissioner-General of Police and other constitutional bodies without consulting anyone except the Public Service Commission

Tomana uses a superfluous semantic argument about the legal differences between appointment and re-appointment in the constitution. Truthfully, he needn’t have wasted his breath.

The MDC is trying to exercise Subsection 20.1.3 (p) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 19)Act, 2008 states that the President:

in consultation with the Prime Minister, makes key appointments the President is required to make under and in terms of the Constitution or any Act of Parliament;

Where “in consultation” is defined in Amendment 19 as meaning that the President is required to consult and secure the agreement or consent of the person consulted. In this case the Prime Minister.

However, Chapter IX Section 93(2) of the Constitution which deals with the appointment of the Police Commissioner General requires that any appointments to this position be made “after consultation with such person or authority as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament”. In other words, the President may appoint, or re-appoint as his whims dictate.

In an audit of the Global political Agreement Dereck Matyszak notes that the MDC placed undue emphasis on gaining control of the Ministry of Home affairs which administers the Police Act. Given the number of lawyers amongst the MDC’s Party officials it is surprising that they were unaware that only the President and Police Commissioner General determine appointments within the Police Force, while the Attorney General may -Commissioner General to direct the Police Commissioner General to investigate criminal offences and he as the final say over  prosecutions. I’m sure that the MDC-T is very aware that the Attorney General, Mr Tomana, serves at the pleasure of the President.

In the beginning of the MDC-Ts formal relationship with ZANU PF Mr Tsvangirai has the opportunity to exert the authority of his office. He neglected to do so in favour of political expediency. MDC-T will of course cry foul to anyone who’ll listen over Chihuri’s inevitable re-appointment. They may even threaten to pull out of the Inclusive Government and throw themselves on the ground in front of Zuma and SADC begging that their boo-boo be fixed and the world made right again. They have only themselves to blame.

In concluding his introduction to the audit, Mr Matsyszak wrote:

No one should be surprised by the failure of the GPA to open democratic space. The chain of command over the instruments of state repression was unaltered.

Every year people like to set goals and resolutions but as the year progresses we lose out on the implementation part. In order to motivate and share ideas on the art of goal setting DefZee in collaboration with US Embassy started the year with a talk called “Screw it Let’s Do It”. The theme of the seminar was borrowed from a book by Richard Branson. To some people the theme of the seminar may sound dirty but from just a few minutes of presentations from the facilitators you end getting motivated to embark on your goals and resolutions for the year. A well picked panel of some of Zimbabwe’s finest entrepreneurs consisted of Fungai James Tichawangana the founder of a popular entertainment site ZimboJam and Rudo Nyagulu a lawyer by profession and founder of Ethos and Stimulus group gave testimony and motivation to the audience on how they started their businesses and the importance of setting goals and achieving the best in life.

Starting something from scratch is the most difficult thing especially in an unfriendly environment and some people are scared of taking risks. The key to goal setting is your ability to turn vision into reality.

Creating SMART goals also involves passion and getting over the default mindset of defeat before you even start. Goals can be set according to your timeframe; some can be short term (0-6 months), medium term (6-18 months) and long term (18-24 months). With no time frame tied to your goals it means there is no sense of urgency and you may end up relaxing. A specific goal has a greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. Measure your progress so that you stay on track. The reason why some goals are not attainable is because they are not realistic. Like for example to start a business in Zimbabwe you need to have capital and to get a loan from a bank requires one to have collateral which you might not have. So if your goal is to own an operational company by the end of the year the chances are high that your goal won’t be realised in one year. So set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

The event gave motivation especially to those aspiring entrepreneurs as it provided the opportunity to learn from the best. According to Richard Branson “looking, listening, learning – these are things we should do all our lives, not just at school”. The food for thought session created the space for members of the public to hear live testimonies from people who started from scratch but with a “screw it, let’s do it” attitude they ended up creating something.

~ Paul Auster, City of Glass

The Global Journal has released the top one hundred best Non Governmental Organizations in the world with Wikimedia Foundation topping the list for its efforts of coming up with the famous Wikipedia. According to Global Journal the criteria which was used to come up with the top hundred covered areas like:

Innovation
Effectiveness
Impact
Efficiency and value for money
Transparency and Accountability
Sustainability
Strategic and Financial Management
Peer Review

Some of the big organisations ranked in the top ten and operating in Zimbabwe include Oxfam, Care International, International Rescue Committee and Medicine Sans Frontiers. The only African based organisation in the top ten list is a Kenyan organiation called Ushahidi. The organisation specialises in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Ushahidi developed a software package, to map incidents of violence and peace efforts from reports submitted via the web and mobile phones during the Kenyan elections in 2007.

Source

Pretty damn cool …. from Flavorwire

How’s this for a clever concept? Inspired by an envelope of foreign stamps that she received from her dad over a decade ago now, New York-based artist Molly Rausch creates paintings that explore the background world that exists outside of their tiny frame. She starts each piece by gluing the stamp to a sheet of paper, and then uses watercolor and gouache to extend the small-scale scenes by freehand; rather than researching her subjects ahead of time, Rausch lets her imagination take her to strange and interesting places. Click through to see what we mean.