IN THE PRESS

HOW come Harare City Council’s mouthpiece Mr Michael Chideme never tires of issuing empty threats and ultimatums?

Mr Chideme is a steadfast fella, eyes always on the ball, bookish public relations through and through and everything else out of the way.

Sometimes you feel pity for the guy as he is made to say things that do not make much sense. The deadly typhoid that has already claimed a few lives was the precursor to the latest ultimatum that was directed at illegal vendors.

They were told to vacate the capital’s central business district in 48 hours, failure of which council would spring into action. This is not the first time that we have heard these high-sounding nothings from the MDC-T dominated council but hopefully this will be the last.

At this rate, it is no wonder why the Sunshine City keeps losing its lustre. The vendors, the touts and their road unwor- thy mushika-shikas, who have turned the CBD into a jungle now know that Harare is only good at issuing PR statements, not implementing them.

God help us. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea for the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe to start worrying about the private aircraft that keep plummeting down from our skies.

The latest one went down in Matabeleland North. The immediate concern is whether the authority is aware of every aircraft that is using our airspace. For national security reasons, we sincerely hope they do. Then there is the issue of deforming the country’s aviation history. To date, none of our national airline’s planes have crashed.

Air Zimbabwe flies the country’s flag up high with pride, we would like to maintain that clean slate.

Private and non-private aircraft simply have to meet these standards for as long as they are using our airspace.