Living Zimbabwe

Tag: 2012

  • Meet The Miss Black Africa UK 2012 Semi-Finalist: Elizabeth Mbofana

    Meet The Miss Black Africa UK 2012 Semi-Finalist: Elizabeth Mbofana

    My name is Elizabeth Mbofana, I was born in Zimbabwe. At the age of 4 I moved to the UK and have lived here all my life. I am 18 years of age and have joined a Beauty Pageant called Miss Black Africa, this pageant is about finding a lady that is committed to taking the role of being an ambassador for young Africans in the UK and also helping less privileged children. I would like to become Miss Black Africa as I have a passion for children and I am committed and willing to take that role of helping other children who are in need.

    I entered Miss Black Africa back in May in order to make a change to the less privileged and become a role model to our youth, we started as 643 girls and got down to 43 which made the semi-finals, in order to get in to the finals I need the public’s vote,

    For all the Zimbabweans out there I need your support!!

    How to Vote :

    Please Click on Link below then click on stars under my name Elizabeth. All Things are Possible with your Vote. Thank you in Advance, remember you can re-vote as many times as you like

    This has been a submission by Elizabeth Mbofana.
    You can connect with Elizabeth Mbofana via the following:
    You too can become a Citizen Journalist by submitting your story here: Citizen Journalism by Living Zimbabwe.

  • Are We Going Down The Drain… Again? Part 2

    Are We Going Down The Drain… Again? Part 2

    Following on from – Are We Going Down The Drain… Again? Part 1:

    Then there is another monstrosity in the form of the Zimbabwe National Road Agency, ZINARA. One is often reminded of another miscreation, the National Oil Corporation of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) which, despite the glaring reality that we are yet to strike oil, that was shoved down our throats only for it to manifest one of the most devastating fuel shortages this country has ever experienced.

    NOCZIM proved to be a blatant funnelling of state resources into the pockets of a handful of clever dicks. To this day, the culprits are yet to see the four walls of a prison cell as is expected of miscreants of this kind. Shock turned to desperation as very prominent politicians were dispatched to the mountains to seek divine intervention of a traditional kind.

    If the images of shoeless leaders witnessing pure diesel gushing from a rock awash in the blogosphere are any accurate, then it explains why Zimbabwe is in the mess it is in. But that is not the point. Another elaborate siphon of state funds has entered the fray, ZINARA, and the fact that it has been in operation for close to four years is cause for concern. Just the acronym itself should send shivers of trepidation.

    Anyone who has driven on the roads in Zimbabwe will tell you that they are arguably the worst. Let me drop any comparison because that would open a Pandora’s box. In some parts of the country, the roads have simply vanished, reclaimed by the advancing bush.

    A giraffe is claimed to have disappeared into one notorious drumhole. It is stuff of crisis proportions if highways are fraught with gulleys and are evidently disintegrating by the day. That fatalities are the norm on our roads should to surprise anyone.

    It then begs the question: what the heck is ZINARA doing?

    Time there was when the mere existence of a ministry dealing with roads and transport was enough to keep our roads in pristine condition. It then boggles the mind why an entity created for the purpose decides that their first act is to acquire new headquarters and a shiny fleet of vehicles for their ‘hard working’ executives? What has this got to do with fixing the roads? Get your hands dirty first to earn your keep, I say.

    The toll fees that we are levied on the highways should be going into the coffers of ZINARA to help fix the roads. Before we can even smell the bitumen, there now is a proposal on the table to increase the tolls so that they are ‘in line with those in the region.’ OR WHAT? Tell us where the money already collected is!

    The only time the public knew anything about the revenues from toll gates was when some more clever dicks employed the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, ZIMRA, originally tasked with collecting the toll fees were caught with their hands in the till. They had managed to spirit away more than a million dollars by the time they were caught. A MILLION DOLLARS! How selfish can one get!

    Then we read in the press that ZINARA is blacklisting a number of local authorities for the abuse of something called called the Road Fund. Where is the accountability or transparency in all this? Why is it that all we hear does not directly translate into good roads that we are be paying for through levies and toll fees?

    Talking about toll fees, tell us, has the role of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, ZRP’s national traffic cops been amended to include the mandatory collection of another set of toll fees? Is it true that traffic police have each been given a daily target to collect from motorists? If that is the case, then one can explain why Zimbabwe arguably has the highest number of road blocks on the continent per kilometre of road, easily surpassing those of Mobutu Sese Seko’s era.

    That does not include those irritating bike cops who run the danger of being run over themselves. Never mind the fact that they are so blatantly corrupt, in a manner of speaking. How long shall they kill our economy while we stand aside and look? Surely?

    This has been a submission by Lenox Mhlanga. If you have something to share, you too can become a Citizen Journalist by submitting your story here: Citizen Journalism by Living Zimbabwe.

    Image courtesy of Sokwanele

  • Are We Going Down The Drain… Again? Part 1

    There are some of us who have entered 2012 with a sense of trepidation. They believe this is the year when a decadent earth will collapse into itself. I predicted the same for Zanu PF, but the earth? My bible says no one knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come. Meaning, make a living while the sun still shines.

    Don’t listen to those who are creating a multi-billion dollar industry out of scaring people. There even is a movie entitled “2012” that portrays the destruction of the world as we know it. It relives mankind’s worst fears…earthquakes, floods, fires, the works. But then I ask, what’s new? We already have fair share of death and destruction… most of it man made. We have seen it all.

    Mankind has become suicidal. We now swear by the motto “Live for today fas if there is no tomorrow.” Guess what? – to borrow Reserve Bank head honcho Gideon Gono’s favourite cliché – there is a tomorrow we all can look forward to. You might be flat broke today, yet tomorrow could be different. Just like the fingers on your hand, not all days are the same.The key is to have a deliberately positive attitude.

    There are a lot of things that we will never understand. If we knew all of life’s secrets, we would hasten the end of the world as we know it selfish beings that we are. We are so destructively selfish that we do not care about the consequences of our actions as long as we believe we are not on the receiving end.

    Take the fact that God has endowed Zimbabwe with unfathomable mineral wealth and a people who are supposed to be intelligent because, come to think of it, we run the world. Minerals that would easily take the country out of the rut it is in if the revenue found its way into the fiscus and not into someone venerated pocket.

    Yet the nation is robbed blind in broad daylight by people whose preoccupation is to ensure that we marvel at how rich they are. We watch them with awe as they claim that they were not born poor.

    There is nothing more treacherous than to personalise state resources with impunity and continue to perpetuate a crisis in order to pull wool over our eyes. We are in trouble as a country because there are those whose very existence is dependent on the status quo remaining as it is. They thrive on chaos.

    There are things happening that defy logic. Air Zimbabwe, a pale shadow of its former self, is kept gasping in the Intensive Care even when a basic grasp of elementary economics tells us that it should be shut down. It has gone way below the status of a chicken bus operation. The only consolation perhaps is that they don’t allow one to enter the cabin with chickens and goats like used to happen on some airlines in West Africa.

    Not that I don’t like goats and chickens. But there are depths that we cannot surely plumb if we claim to be more educated and intelligent than the next village idiot. We are tempted to believe that we are a country that celebrates mediocrity.

    Reports of the aircraft that transported the president to the African Union summit filling up with smoke before take-off should have sent alarm bells ringing in close security circles. If it were in Idi Amin’s time, those responsible would have been fed to the crocodiles.

    Worse still, the fact that engineers had to be lured from their lairs for a few pieces of silver to repair the plane reads like something out of a very dark comedy. I know of prominent people who have vowed never to fly Air Zimbabwe again even at gunpoint.

    It remains a mystery why none of their planes have ever dropped out of the sky. Is it because of the fact that it takes 120 people to service one Air Zimbabwe plane? I bet that some of those duties would be to blow cockroaches from the aircraft’s avionics if need be. Aren’t we just embarrassed that the South African Taxi Association has managed to, or is about to launch an airline of their own?

    This has been a submission by Lenox Mhlanga. If you have something to share, you too can become a Citizen Journalist by submitting your story here: Citizen Journalism by Living Zimbabwe.