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CHIVHU district development coordinator (DDC) Michael Mariga yesterday stripped two MDC Alliance councillors of their posts and barred them from attending council meetings after they defied orders to resign from the civil service following their victory in the 2018 harmonised elections. BY MIRIAM MANGWAYA Edwin Maseva (ward 11) and Emmanuel Punungwe (ward 10), who are both primary school teachers, were stripped of their titles just before the beginning of the Chikomba Rural District full council meeting. Addressing other councillors during the meeting, Mariga said Maseva and Punungwe had failed to comply with a directive from the Public Service Commission (PSC), which ordered them to resign from the civil service 30 days following 2018 their electoral victory or stop serving as councillors. According to a letter dated April 15, 2020, written by the PSC secretary Jonathan Wutawunashe, which Mariga read out to councillors, civil servants serving as councillors would be violating the Constitution and the Public Service Regulations Statutory Instrument 1 of 2000 as stated in Circular 10 of November 2018. “Given the fact that it is a misconduct to engage in any other employment or service for remuneration without the written consent of the commission, it is advisable that you act immediately to correct the situation,” the letter read. “For avoidance of doubt, the commission hereby directs that as a civil servant, you should cease to serve as a councillor with immediate effect. Failure to comply with this directive will result in disciplinary action taken against you.” Maseva said Mariga had misdirected himself by relying on an old prohibition order which had been overtaken by events. “We are still in talks with the PSC on this issue and we have also engaged lawyers. As it is right now, the DDC’s dismissal is null,” Maseva said. Punungwe described the decision by PSC to dismiss them from council as part of political persecution of opposition officials. “This is a selective application of the law aimed at pushing certain agendas. I wonder why PSC decided to fire us from council instead of the civil service,” he said. Following the PSC directive, three Zanu PF councillors in Buhera Rural District Council who were also teachers, resigned recently from the civil service to continue serving in council. Follow Florence on Twitter @FloMangwaya
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
Unicomer (Jamaica) Limited says it is giving customers at its Courts Optical stores discounts of up to 65 per cent on select frames and has added a further 10 per cent off for civil servants.
The discounts are available on six to 36 months' credit for the remaining Saturdays in May, which Brand Manager Danikee Knight noted is the month when many groups are recognised and celebrated.
In this time of global pandemic, we are pleased to be able to lend support to our civil servants, especially our front line workers,” Knight is quoted in a company release.
To access the discounts, customers may visit the Bogue, Constant Spring, King Street, May Pen, and Spanish Town stores, Unicomer said, adding that appointments can be made online at www.courtsoptical.com or through the company's call centre at 876-926-2110-4.
The company offers its customers a wide and modern line of products and financial services through its retail brands Courts, Courts Optical, Ashley Furniture HomeStore, RadioShack, Lucky Dollar, and Servitech.
We know that because of our fallible legal system, video proof does not mean justice; however, it still provides the public evidence of excessive force, unprofessionalism, unconstitutional actions, and in the worst-case scenario, murder hands of a few police officers.
This protects your First Amendment Right to record the police by making it illegal for a police officer to confiscate or view the contents of your recording device.
Quickly upload your video, email it, or set it to automatically back up to a cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive to ensure that your footage is safe in the instance that an officer unlawfully seizes your phone.
Recording a video for evidence of police misconduct is a little different than recording for fun.
Having your name publicly tied to such a video makes you a target of internet trolls and perhaps even harassment by other police officers.
An unreleased Biggie freestyle has surfaced 23 years after the rapper's death — and in a Pepsi commercial, no less. Tune in here.
The Governor of the Cayman Islands, Martyn Roper, on Friday approved a law making same-sex partnerships legal.
CUSTOMS and excise officers at Beitbridge border post and other stations yesterday briefly downed tools and later opted to go slow to register disgruntlement over poor wages, although the tax agency denied that such a development had occurred. BY REX MPHISA The development could cripple imports of food in the entire Sadc region, which is handling the bulk of basic food imports into the region. In an unsolicited Press statement, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) spokesman Francis Chimanda dismissed reports that customs and excise officers at Beitbridge were on strike. “There have been misleading reports that Zimra employees at Beitbridge border post have engaged in a strike. Employees have reported to duty as normal. There is no strike,” Chimanda said in the statement. “We would want to assure the transacting public that (Zimra) continues to provide uninterrupted service as the borders.” Shipping agents at Beitbridge, however, said at one time yesterday morning, senior managers manned work stations ordinarily manned by junior staff. “At the box office, we submit and collect documents. The deputy regional manager, a Mr Mutembu, was receiving and releasing commercial declarations, otherwise called bills of entry. Junior employees were gathered elsewhere,” a shipping agent said. “It has never happened that a senior man is seen in that office and something was brewing, but some few hours later, the juniors were back behind their desks. The pace was, however, extremely slow.” A Zimbabwe Revenue Authority Workers Trade Union (Zimratu) official, Lovemore Ngwarati, told NewsDay Weekender that the workers were, indeed, disgruntled about their salaries and general welfare. “We have been observing this in the last two days and serious welfare issues have been raised by Zimra workers. They have not communicated official labour action, but we expect them to submit that to us soon,” he said. Like all civil servants, Zimra workers, who raise the bulk of government revenue, complain about salaries that do not correspond with the cost of living.
Freetown is the capital, principal port, commercial center, and largest city of Sierra Leone. The city was founded by British Naval Lieutenant John Clarkson and freed American slaves from Nova Scotia. Freetown was part of the larger colony of the Sierra Leone which was founded by the Sierra Leone Company (SLC) in 1787. The SLC, organized by British businessman and abolitionist William Wilberforce, sought to rehabilitate the black poor of London and former slaves of North America by bringing them to the settlement in Sierra Leone where they would stop the African slave trade by spreading Christianity through the continent.
The first groups of blacks, about 400 Londoners, arrived in Sierra Leone in 1787 and established Granville Town, named after British abolitionist Granville Sharp. When the settlement was destroyed by the indigenous inhabitants in 1789, British abolitionists sent a second, larger party of 1,100 former American slaves who had been resettled in Nova Scotia at the end of the American Revolution. These settlers established Freetown in 1792. In 1800, 500 Jamaican Maroons were landed by the British.
The surviving Londoners, the Nova Scotians, and Jamaican maroons, intermarried to create the Creole population of Freetown. The Creoles banded together partly because of their Christian background and western culture but also because they lacked the tradition of native law and custom which dominated the lives of the indigenous people. Creoles also had important connections with British colonial officials who administered Sierra Leone from 1808 when they assumed control over the SLC colony, to 1961 when Sierra Leone gained its independence. Those connections allowed the Creoles, always a tiny minority of the colonys populace, to become the most powerful and influential group, after the colonial administrators, in the city and colony.
From 1808 to 1874 Freetown was the headquarters for the Royal British Navys West African Squadron which captured slave ships headed for the Americas and
George Floyd was an unwilling martyr for the cause of a new world order.
George Floyd was Eric Garner reincarnated.
Torres, Garner and Floyd are the weight of nothing that can collapse a nation.
Prophet and scholar WEB Dubois was crystal clear when he said that the problem of the 20th century was the color line.
When they tell you that Mr. Floyd did everything right and the cops still killed him, tell them to keep practicing the 10 Rules for Successful encounters with the police and you will help become the change that you desire.
IT is pleasing to note that the reinstated 2014 MDC-T structures seem to be finding common ground now regarding the Supreme Court judgment, which ruled suggested that an extraordinary congress be held to elect a replacement for the late party founder Morgan Tsvangirai.
From my following of events, two groups of the MDC-T 2014 structures have held council meetings, and each of the groups rejects the other’s meeting as improperly constituted.
From my following of events, the WhatsApp council meeting called by the re-instated secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora was considered illegitimate as many of the genuine members of the MDC-T 2014 national council did not get invited to the meeting.
If the Supreme Court could nullify meeting decisions, the decisions taken at these two meetings may also be nullified, but on a positive note.
Let the person constitutionally responsible call for the meeting, whether it’s a standing committee or council meeting, which should ask Komichi why he usurped the chairmanship of the party immediately after the Supreme Court ruled that the party revert to its 2014 structures, when he was not the chairperson.
THIRTY-SIX per cent of public sector workers surveyed recently believe that they will not be granted a wage increase this year because of the economic strain and reduced financial resources brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.
At the same time, seven per cent expect a minimal percentage increase, seven per cent do not believe the pandemic will affect public sector wage negotiations, while another six per cent said Government will use the pandemic as an excuse not to increase the wages of public sector workers.
“As the world continues to reel from the effects of the pandemic, respondents fear that the global economic decline and fallout will negatively affect negotiations and cause the Government to borrow from the International Monetary Fund once again, leaving their focus of debt reduction rather than wage increase,” authors of the survey findings wrote.
Respondents, when asked about health and safety claims they want included in the next round of negotiations between Government and public sector workers, 136 said there should a 100 per cent increase in health insurance coverage, inclusive of all dependents.
The public sector workers, however, had high praises for Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I WANT to share a Bible verse with you today and then tell you why I believe it should mean something to you. MOTIVATION:Ashley Thaba “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favour is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:1-2 Growing up, my parents taught and more importantly modelled that your name is to be highly valued and protected. My mother was a highly respected child psychologist and my father considered a lawyer as a person who operated with utmost integrity (there is a tall order! Ha!). Even if it meant they were cheated, they did everything they could to honour their name and reputation. One motivation was the fact that they also were Christians and wanted to make sure that they were not “preaching” one thing and living another — hypocrites. But it was more than that. They genuinely loved others and took literally the advice in Philippians 2:3, which states, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” They thought about how their actions would affect others and treated others the way they wanted to be treated. This has stuck with me combined with the fact the same Holy Spirit within them that motivated them towards selfless love now lives and convicts me in a similar way. In today’s article, I want to encourage you why this is so important in a world where corruption reigns and customer service can feel nearly nonexistent! Corruption is the very opposite of what I am advocating because the only way to knowingly buy someone off means you are choosing to not think of the implications your illegal actions have on someone else. If you get the tender because you know someone or you pay someone, that means the playing field is not level. You are choosing to elevate yourself over others who are just as worthy but now will not even be considered. You know you wouldn’t want someone to do that to you! Customer service stinks because people don’t care about the business. If they are tired, they will not get up and go that extra mile to make a customer want to buy and support that shop. Why would you do this? Because at the end of the month, you are going to get your paycheck regardless, so why put in the effort? If it were your shop and your efforts directly impacted your paycheck, you wouldn’t do that. My point is we pick and choose when we want to operate our “best” because ultimately we pick and choose who matters to be treated fairly and kindly. Here is the result that I want you to pay close attention to. Over time of treating people like this, your name gets sullied. You don’t mean to. If you knew that same person you cheated would one day be in a position to cheat you, you wouldn’t do it. If you knew that same customer you ignored or were rude to would one day be in a po
In 2011 when I worked for the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), we published Kenya’s first ethnic audit of the civil service, which is the largest employer in the country.
While still at NCIC, a colleague would painstakingly go through names in newspapers of candidates shortlisted for jobs in the public service, then look up sadly, saying, “as usual, there is no one from my ethnic community.”
Massive exclusion was clear as only 20 of the then 42 ethnic communities were statistically visible, indeed seven ethnic communities had less than 100 members in the civil service.
Five ethnic communities—Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba and Luo—occupied nearly 70 per cent of civil service positions.
The then Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura took administrative action, reviewing how each ministry or department addressed ethnic inequality and increasing the hiring of under-represented communities.
Western Bureau: Hanover, which was the last parish to record a case of the coronavirus in Jamaica, took a direct hit yesterday as the family court in the parish had to be closed because of positive COVID-19 cases at the facility. A press release...
I WOULD like to urge the people of Zimbabwe to open their eyes. Zanu PF will continue with its empty promises. This time we must say enough is enough to these endless empty promises. Zanu PF launched its manifesto in 2018, which was totally useless considering what the people were promised by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He promised to stabilise the economy in a few days, bring in investors and create jobs, but in actual fact, the economy is now worse off than it was under the late former President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa promised to arrest corruption, but has dismally failed to do so. Instead, his politicians are now busy fronting it. The Zanu PF government promised to review the working conditions of all civil servants starting with critical areas, but so far, civil servants have been banned from demonstrating, nurses were fired, teachers were threatened. Taking into consideration all these factors, Zanu PF must not expect to get my vote anymore. By Mbada, Our Reader
The post AMHVoices: Majority won’t sympathise with Zanu PF appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.
Some members of parliament recently suggested the idea of government rolling out special incentives for teachers to help uplift their welfare, which, they say will go a long way in boosting the quality of education in the country.
The suggested incentives include a special duty free shop where teachers can buy groceries at subsidized prices, and providing their children with free education.
The MPs' proposals last week, on Friday, June 12, during the approval of an assessment report on issues affecting quality education, follow a request of a monthly minimum salary Rwf80,000 for a primary school teacher by the National Union of Teachers in Rwanda (SNER) in 2016.
\"Because a teacher gets a low salary, we should probably think of something like Umwalimu Shop to help them easily access basic groceries for their families which whelp to improve the quality of education,\" he said.
Umwalimu SACCO offers loans to teachers based on their salary at relatively lower interest rate of 11 percent - compared to loans from other commercial banks whose interest rate is between 14 per cent and 20 per cent
\"If I get a loan, and say Rwf25,000 is deducted from my monthly salary to pay back the loan, I will be getting Rwf25,000 per month, which cannot cover my basic needs such as accommodation and meals,\" he said.
Thousands of Cape Town parents are battling to get their children into a public high school next year.
Spokesperson for Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, Kerry Mauchline, says there are 59 761 Grade 7 pupils currently finishing their last year of primary school in public schools within the Cape Town metropolitan districts this year, and only 57 257 Grade 8 pupils who will potentially move up to Grade 9 next year.
Earlier this month thousands of parents in Cape Town received notification from the Western Cape Department of Education (WCED) that their child had not been granted a Grade 8 place in any of up to five schools they applied for, as all the schools were \"oversubscribed\".
One principal at a popular Cape Town public high school, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to talk to the media, said the school had received more than 1 000 Grade 8 applications this year.
Wynberg Boys' High School and Wynberg Girls' High School have sent notifications to parents whose applications were unsuccessful, asking if they would be interested in having their children attend a new online school next year.
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has pampered soldiers and the police, giving them between $5 000 and $8 000 COVID-19 allowances which critics say are meant to appease them ahead of the planned July 31 protests by opposition and civic groups. BY MOSES MATENGA In contrast, teachers were awarded $1 200. Mnangagwa last month awarded government workers a 50% salary hike and a non-taxable US$75 three months COVID-19 allowance to cushion them from the economic crisis that has eroded earnings and savings. With inflation running at 786% and the prices of basic commodities rising daily, workers are demanding United States dollar salaries and rejected the government offer. The increment, recently described by Information permanent secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana as “a gift”, reflected in civil servants’ accounts on Tuesday, showing a huge disparity between other civil servants and security forces. While police and soldiers got $5 000 and $8 000 respectively, other civil servants including teachers questioned why government gave them only $1 200. They now await the US$75 COVID-19 allowance promised by government. Observers immediately described the government move as a ploy to appease members of the uniformed forces ahead of the protests against the deteriorating economic situation in the country. In separate interviews, teachers, military and police officers confirmed receiving the allowances which they immediately rubbished as a useless gesture by government. Analyst Rashweat Mukundu said the disparities exposed the divide and rule tactic by the government which was banking on soldiers and police to crush dissent. “It is a clear strategy of divide and rule in which government is pampering the security sector in order to use it for repression and suppressing protests by other civil servants as we saw a few days back where police were used to chase and arrest striking nurses protesting over poor salaries,” Mukundu said. “Government is in a survival mode and not necessarily focusing on resolving issues faced by civil servants. Essentially, it is a strategy to pamper and give more money to those you will unleash on protesters. “It is partly to prepare for end of month protests being planned and it is an unfortunate way to deal with the civil servants crisis of livelihood.” Mangwana was not picking calls yesterday, but hinted on his Twitter handle that Mnangagwa might be forced to lock down Harare and Bulawayo in the face of rising local COVID-19 cases, a move seen by observers as an excuse to block the planned anti-government protests. Zanu PF communications director Tafadzwa Mugwadi said government would unleash the security forces to quell “the illegal protest”. “I am pretty sure these July 31 issues will be a non-event,” Mugwadi said. “It is illegal and it is not going to happen. I am pretty sure that our law enforcement agents, whom the nation has entrusted with the responsibility to maintain peace and order and also ensure that lockdown regulations are enforced to the full, are not going to fold their arms and watch people
