Dear Reader
Zim News Flash 3 May 2010
South Africa Presses Zimbabwe Power-Sharing Leaders to Revive Stalled Talks
President Jacob Zuma's facilitators were said to have expressed disappointment following their meetings with President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. Following pressure from South African facilitators this week, principals in Zimbabwe's unity government were expected to resume discussions soon aimed at resolving the many issues troubling their power-sharing arrangement and to implement what they have agreed on, political sources said Friday. President Jacob Zuma’s facilitators were said to have expressed disappointment following their meetings with President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, given the lack of progress on the talks agenda by the Zimbabwean leaders. Facilitator Lindiwe Zulu said her team will put together a report on the stalled dialog, which President Zuma will in turn pass on to the Southern African Development Community's troika or committee on politics.
Indigenisation shouldn’t be disorderly: PM
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said implementation of the indigenisation law should not be as haphazard as President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic land reform because this was increasing the country risk profile. Speaking at the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) May Day celebration on Saturday, the former opposition leader who has wrangled with Mugabe over how to share executive power since the two former foes agreed to form a government of national unity last year, said the law should not benefit people who want to seize what they did not invest in. "You cannot invest where you did not put a cent," he said. "The programme should not be chaotic like the land reform."
Zimbabwe has since 2000, when Mugabe’s often violent land reforms began, relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly due to failure by resettled black peasants to maintain production on former white farms.
1 200 Teachers Quit – PTUZ
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has said that nearly 1 200 teachers have left the teaching profession in the past three weeks in Masvingo province alone, a development which will leave several schools faced with servere staff shortages at the beginning of next-term. PTUZ provincial co-coordinator Munyaradzi Chauke said teachers are beginning to cross boarders again after discovering that the government is failing to meet their salary expectations. “We have discovered that over 1 200 teachers have left the profession in a very short space of time. During this holiday alone, a number of teachers have quit citing low salaries." Zimbabwean teachers are getting about US$150 and their cries to have their salaries increased to US$ 600 have been rejected by the cash-strapped government. Government also froze teachers' salaries. “Teachers are saying their salary is not enough to keep them going to work, more so the salary freeze announced by the Finance Minister (Tendai Biti) recently worsened the situation,” said Chauke. |
