Act now against money changers

ON November 15, 2019, The Herald published a story which informed the nation that “the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is investigating CBZ and Ecobank for allegedly illegally releasing $58 180 of the new notes and bond coins to two clients”.

Apart from the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube, who during a recent post-Budget breakfast meeting praised the RBZ for its swift action on the two banks, nothing more is known on this matter of public interest.

Members of the public who are being subjected to daylight robbery of their meagre finances by money changers remain curious to know who authorised the large withdrawals from the two banks when the law states that it is $300 cash per account holder per week.

The public is keen to see the culprits serving long prison terms for breaking the law and engaging in outright corruption in violation of the Bank Use Promotion and Suppression of Money Laundering Act.

Albert Einstein stated: “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

What Einstein is saying is that the illegal financial and minerals transactions in the country, despite their negative effects on the economy and well-being of the citizens, do not in themselves have a capacity to derail the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and Vision 2030.

The paramount threat to Zimbabwe achieving the upper-middle income status by 2030 arises from inaction whether by commission or omission of the arms of Government which have the backing of the law to effectively end or at least put under control the growing corruption cancer.

The illegal financial dealings that are proliferating in Zimbabwe are stifling the economy, scaring away investors, impoverishing the population, and generating unnecessary criticism of the Government.

While the citation of CBZ and Ecobank as the sources of the large sums of money drawn by individuals outside the parameters of the regulations is probably the tip of an iceberg, comfort is in the fact that at least the cat is out of the bag!

Money changers are there right in front of all to see at shopping centres in their many cars, Mbare Musika, along known streets and SMEs locations.

The legitimate questions the citizens ask are, when will the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, the RBZ, the police, and the Judiciary act decisively on this valuable lead and take concrete steps to end the menaces of illegal financial, minerals transactions especially gold and the illegal trade in United States dollars in industry?

What law are the money changers basing on to trade the large bundles of local notes and coins openly spread out on tables and stashed in vehicles the money changers use?

On what basis do these money changers peg premiums of over 50 percent of the amount transacted; and, what is the legal instrument they are using for working with a three-tier goods and services pricing regime?

Karl Kraus wrote: “Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual; the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.”

Financial irregularities prevailing in the country are a form of corruption and economic terrorism at its vilest perpetrated by some banks, their agents and other saboteurs in industry are the number one enemy of development.

It is, therefore, prudent for Zimbabweans to unite in the fight against the vice.

Government and all well-meaning citizens together can leverage on the strength of the Zimbabwe dollar which can be measured by its scarcity to make Vision 2030 a reality through concerted efforts to stop all forms of financial malpractices.

FOR decades, early child marriages have stuck out like a sore thumb in many African societies. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, countries have had to face the sad reality of “curing” this scourge which has shredded the societal fabric.

In Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, issues ranging from gender inequality, poverty and insecurity have “pushed” girls on the marriage bed way too early.

A serious violation of girls’ human rights, early child marriages also strip them of their rights that include health care, education, the right to choose when and whom they marry, just to name a few.

SADC countries respond

In Zambia, traditional leadership has been playing a major role in reducing and hopefully ending child marriages.

Chieftainess Kawaza (Vainess Phiri) of Katete District, Eastern Province, has “traded” her royal robes to become a foot soldier working tirelessly to end child marriages and cattle herding.

At the sidelines of the just-ended International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, she told The Herald that Katete had some highest cases of child marriages in Zambia.

But, she adds, they have not been sitting and watching.

“The conversation with society started when I attended a workshop in Kitwe, Copperbelt,” said Chieftainess Kawaza. “At the workshop, I discovered that an assessment report mapped in my area showed a high prevalence of early child marriages.”

As a starting point, Chieftainess Kawaza upon returning home armed with new knowledge on the topic, took the lead and immediately set up committees in each village under her watch.

“We called our partners like UNFPA to sensitise and further train us,” she said. “We wanted society to understand the dangers of marrying off a girl before the age of 18. Most importantly, if traditional leaders speak to the people, they understand.”

Her role also came at a time the Zambian government was requesting traditional leaders to be the major stakeholders in fighting early child marriages.

“Government believed that if they did this with NGO partners only, the goal of ending child marriages will not be achieved,” she said. “Bringing in the traditional leaders who are the custodians of culture was important.

“At community gatherings, I also share my personal story explaining why I have the passion to see a girl child go back to school. I went back to school and completed my education after I already had children.

“I also explain the dangers of early marriages, and ask the girls how they feel when they do so early.”

The community responded positively and is now valuing the rights of the girl. Results are starting to show.

So far, said Chieftainess Kawaza, 67 girls have been withdrawn from marriages and gone back to school, something that could not be achieved a few years back.

“I am contributing school fees and stationery towards the education of girls,” she said. “We ensure schools and parents are connected. We cannot know a girl has been married off. We engage teachers who alert us when a girl stops coming to school. We immediately make a follow-up.”

Chieftainess Kawaza has been advocating for lower school fees to ensure girls from underprivileged families do not drop out of school and forced to marry.

“For example, last year, I advocated for the government to reduce school fees,” she said. “The Zambian government listened to us and this resulted in many other girls who had dropped out of school and going into early marriages continuing with their education.”

Chieftainess Kawaza encouraged traditional chiefs in the SADC region, especially those who have not started, to use Zambia as a case study towards ending child marriages.

“Whatever I am doing in Kawaza, royal highnesses in Katumba, Mbamumbe are doing the same,” she said. “The plans are similar. We will not allow a girl below 18 years to be initiated, even a schoolgirl. As royal highnesses, we will only allow those 18 years and above and ready for marriage to be initiated.”

If a villager is found on the wrong side of the law, the subject is invited to the palace and punished.

The traditional punishment involves working, paying a fine or even staying at the chief ’s palace for some time.

“Our subjects fear being invited to the palace for wrongdoing,” she said. “We do not want to punish them, but want them to implement policies that end child marriages and also work with us.

“Because if they do not come on board, I can talk and talk, if they have not accepted, it becomes a challenge.”

UNFPA Country Representative for Zambia Ms Gift Malunga said the country has rolled out a campaign to end early child marriages, further developing a five-year national strategy from 2016 to 2021.

“Coincidentally, Zambian President Edgar Lungu is the African Union champion for ending child marriages,” said Chieftainess Kawaza. “The political will is already there.

“Because of his position and commitment together with his own government to end child marriages, the ministry of gender was tasked to come up with a national implementation plan.

“In 2017, a costed national implementation plan was put in place. The issue was to look at the key drivers of child marriages and one of the most pressing issues was poverty. When you have high poverty levels, unfortunately, the girl child is seen by some parents as a commodity. They believe if you marry off the girl child then they have some resources.”

While child marriage is a national development issue, there are regional variances were high prevalence rates are in rural areas, like the Eastern and Western provinces of Zambia.

The national average is 31 percent, while it sits on 40 percent in some provinces.

In urban areas, it could be as low as 19 percent, according to Ms Malunga.

She said some cultural issues that require a girl to be married off when she reaches menarche, the first occurrence of menstruation, contributed to early child marriages.

Because of limited education, some parents do not see the value of educating a girl child.

“When a girl is married off early, it means dropping out of school and early child marriages, pregnancies and the cycle of poverty continues,” said Ms Malunga

In Zambia, Ms Malunga added, they do not work alone, the problem requires a multi-sectoral and multi-partner response to address.

“We are working with other organisations within the national framework of the national strategy and the implementation plan that is already in place. From our end we are looking at issues of legislation and the policies that are not speaking to each other,” she said.

“The available legislation and the customary laws do not speak to each other in terms of age of consent for marriage. We are looking at reviewing such policies supporting government to do that working together with parliamentarians.”

While the process is ongoing, they hope it will be tabled in the current session of Parliament.

“We are also looking at issues of keeping girls in school. We noticed from evidence that if girls remain in school, they delay childbirth and marriage,” sid Ms Malunga. “When educated, they can look after themselves, families and, most importantly contribute to economic development.”

According to Ms Malunga, Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be achieved if the young girls are left behind.

“Zambia has a very progressive mediumterm plan, The Seventh National Development Plan, which is supporting Vision 2030,” she said. “Zambia expects that by 2030 it will be a prosperous middle income country. That cannot be achieved if girls are left behind.”

Ms Malunga emphasised that education is not just academic, but also entails young people having the knowledge to access sexual and reproductive health information and services (SRHR).

“When they have accurate information about SRHR they know where to access services, can prevent HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancies,” she said.

“SRHR becomes a key component. Working together with agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO we are supporting age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education in schools, so that young people know about growing up, relationships and protecting themselves.”

Some sections of society have resisted this kind of education.

“We cannot blame them because they do not have correct information on what exactly young people are being taught,” said Ms Malunga.

“For Zambia, the Ministry of Education already has incorporated age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education in the curriculum as the government realised it is important for young people to get correct information as they are growing up.”

Ms Malunga believes SADC can do a lot as the region is just demarcated by boundaries.

“We are one people,” she said. “That is why SADC and the AU needs to come together and speak with one voice about the issues of placing importance on the girl child. How do we empower the girl child? The AU is already ahead in terms of the Agenda 2063 and the demographic dividend.

“The missing link is the focus on empowering young girls. This is our entry point; it has multiplier effects for generations. SADC and AU should come together; the strategies are there. They need implementation and enforcement of policies they have put in place so young girls and women are empowered to take control of their lives, to be economically empowered.”

Malawi

In Malawi, child marriages stand at 46 percent, meaning one in two girls is married off and becomes a mother before the age of 18.

“It means almost half of Malawi girls marry off before the age of 18,” expounded UNFPA Country Representative for Malawi, Young Hong. “This has been a major reason for school dropouts.

“They are completely excluded from any opportunity because usually they are born in poor families. Because they become mothers so young, they tend to produce babies before they physically become adults. They have four to five children per woman.

“Their children continue to live exactly the same pattern on life.”

Presently, teenage pregnancies through early marriage or without marriage become the major driver of population growth in Malawi.

In Malawi, she said, 84 percent of the population lives in rural areas. This means cases of child marriages are concentrated in rural areas.

Poverty, unmet need for family planning also the cultural and socio issues surrounding them such as initiation rites in rural areas, access to relatively traditional ways of teaching sex and some sections of the initiation rites are promoting early sexual debut. ◆ Read the full article on www.herald.

co.zw

NAMIBIA will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on November 27 where President Hage Geingob is seeking a second and final term in office. Geingob, leader of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), will contest against eight other candidates, including Esther Muinjangue of the National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) the first woman to stand as a presidential candidate in the history of Namibia.

Another notable candidate is a member of SWAPO, Panduleni Itula, who is running as an independent.

Itula has refused to resign from SWAPO after deciding to contest against Geingob and now risks being expelled from the party.

Other presidential candidates are McHenry Venaani of the main opposition party, the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) formerly called the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA).

The PDM is a coalition of more than 10 small opposition parties.

The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) will be represented by Mike Kavekotora while Ignatius Shixuameni is the All People’s Party (APP) candidate.

The other three candidates are Apius Auchab of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Bernadus Swartbooi representing the Landless People’s Movement, and Tangeni Iijambo of the South West Africa National Union.

Presidential candidates Epafrans Mukwiilongo of the Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters and Henk Mudge of the Republican Party have pulled out of the race and are rallying behind Itula.

Namibia uses a majority system for presidential elections in which the candidate with more than 50 percent of the votes is declared the winner.

In the last election held in 2014 Geingob garnered a commanding 86,7 percent of the vote compared to five percent for Venaani, while the late Hidipo Hamutenya, who was leader of the RDP, came third with 3,4 percent, and then NUDO presidential candidate Asser Mbai gained 1,9 percent.

With regard to elections for the 104-member National Assembly, a total of 15 political parties will take part in the parliamentary poll, according to the Electoral Commission of Namibia.

Of the total 104 seats, 96 are elected through these polls and eight are appointed later by the president.

Namibia uses the proportional representation (PR) system for legislative elections.

Under the PR system, each political party submits a list of candidates and then the parties receive seats proportional to their overall share of the national vote.

SWAPO is leading a quiet gender revolution under which it has not only committed to filling half of its seats in Parliament with women and half with men, but also committed to a “zebra system” for Cabinet, whereby if a minister is a woman, the deputy minister will be a man, and vice versa.

In the last election, SWAPO won 86,73 percent of the popular vote and 77 seats, with the DTA (now DPM) getting five, and RDP three seats.

The APP, UDF, NUDO and Workers Revolutionary Party got two seats each.

SWAPO also won 40 of the 42 seats in the second chamber, the National Council, 112 of 121 regional councillors, 277 of 378 local councillors, and four of the five seats in the Pan-African Parliament.

According to the ECN, a total of 1 358 468 Namibians have registered to vote at 4 241 polling stations that will be established across the country for this year’s elections.

The number of eligible voters is about 10 percent more than the 1 241 194 that registered for the previous elections in 2014.

Key issues in this election include the consolidation of recent gains in the social sector such as health and education, as well as access to land, job creation and infrastructural development.

An analysis of party manifestos shows that there is a general focus on winning the vote of the poor and the youth.

There is consensus among most of the political parties that the pace of the land redistribution programme needs to be increased.

As a result, most parties are promising an accelerated land acquisition programme, with some committing themselves to the willing-buyer willing-seller principle while others are offering a mixture of land nationalisation and the restitution of ancestral land.

President Geingob said at the centre of SWAPO’s development strategy for the next five years will be issues to do with ensuring equitable distribution and utilisation of land, measures to tackle corruption and gender-based violence, and programmes to empower young people.

“The high demand for the delivery of serviced land and housing, especially in our urban and peri-urban areas, accentuates the vulnerability of Namibians. The SWAPO Party will act decisively and with greater urgency to address this challenge,” Geingob said in a preamble to the SWAPO manifesto.

SWAPO is not the only political party prioritising land reforms.

◆ Read the full article on www.herald. co.zw

‘‘

Raparinga Biz is another potential opportunity for other countries, she pointed out. “It is inexpensive, about $4 per girl,” said Wojnar. “Other countries can learn from that. They can also learn from the laws which allow pregnant girls to attend school.”