The #ZESApetition

PREAMBLE

Zimbabwe is experiencing acute power shortages with most residential areas spending a lot of hours in the dark. Production time in most manufacturing firms has suffered greatly due to load shedding. Small home entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens have lost stock and groceries while electrical gadgets are damaged by abrupt ONs and OFFs. Needless to say, the country’s GNHI (Gross National Happiness Index) is at an all-time low as people struggle with this national dilemma.

The successful implementation of Zimbabwe’s economic turnaround program depends greatly on availability of power in numerous production processes from small home industries, farming processes to industrial performance. ZimAsset, which underpins the development of the country in the next 4 years, is already lagging behind in many of its targets with a large part of that attributable to power shortages.

With these factors and many others in heart, We, the People of the Republic of Zimbabwe would like to offer solutions from our perspective and ensure the country experiences growth. We are convinced that this situation is a learning curve that will strengthen our bonds in all communities. We are ready to play our part.

 

THE PETITION

We, the People of the Republic of Zimbabwe, individually and collectively, hereby petition the Minister of Energy and Power Development, Honourable Dzikamai Mavhaire; ZESA Holdings Board Chairman Dr. Hebert Murerwa and all Directors; ZESA CEO Mr. Josh Chifamba, ZESA GPRM Mr. Fullard Gwasira and all Management and subsidiaries, TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE EQUALITY OF ALL ZIMBABWEANS BY PROVIDING AN EQUAL AND QUALITY SERVICE to all. Specifically, we hereby petition ZESA Holdings through relevant subsidiaries to:

1. Deploy adequately trained FRONT OFFICE STAFF, who can be easily identified and are always furnished with up-to-date information on load shedding schedules and faults.
2. Draft, publicise and adhere to a REASONABLE AND EQUALLY SHARED LOAD SHEDDING SCHEDULE that will enable consumers both domestic and industrial to plan their routines with certainty.
3. Manage power distribution by suburb at domestic level and ensure complete separation of sensitive areas from residential clusters.
4. Draft, publicise and implement a CRISIS ENERGY SAVING POLICY that will ensure responsible maximum utilisation of available power across all sectors of the economy
5. Draft, publicise and implement a SMART 20-YEAR ENERGY POLICY that will see Zimbabwe well lit and being a net exporter of electrical energy among other aspirations.

 

END NOTE

It is our desire as patriotic citizens of a sovereign and independent Zimbabwe to send our children to school, go to work and rest in homes that are ensconced with modern day conveniences of our time. Even in these minute processes, we are actively involved in nation-building as we are raising future leaders, mothers and fathers while shouldering industry and commerce of today.

We want to raise future leaders that do not celebrate “kudzoka kwemagetsi” (ending of a load shedding period). We want to be more productive in workplaces while sending well fed and clothed children to school. On a national scale, we aspire to leave a culture of pride in nation and ability to rally to a national cause and act for the betterment of all.

We understand that the above comes with a great cost that goes beyond financial solution. Any nation that has grown has done so at some great cost at one time or the other. We believe this is one of our costs of growth as a nation and we must learn from it or we will not be worth the growth. We therefore require pro-active and participatory leadership from you on this issue.

We look to you for adoption of, and addition to, petition items here listed as you lead us on a path of conservation and responsible usage of this key national resource.

God bless Zimbabwe.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO SIGN PETITION http://t.co/WpEjQntm9P

Act on your beliefs

On the 18th of January, in the company of good friend Jazinda Machache, reporter and True African Woman Shanee and with technical support from Kudzayi Manyau, we walked from Town House in Harare to Makoni Shopping Centre in Chitungwiza. We walked the 27km distance in a time under 6 hours.

We had Shanee walking with us and chatting with me half of the way. Kudzayi provided logistical support; we had an amazing halfway stopover at the airport on Seke Road with a bit of dancing to some cool house music. It was indeed a fun trip all round.

For me, this walk was meant to assess my physical condition before embarking on the 1,000km Green Walkathon that will take me across Zimbabwe in 38 days. The speed pointers were great. At a very leisurely pace, I will cover 4km an hour and this can be improved to almost 6km per hour. Thus my projected 30km per day is a reasonable target.

Physically, I had a few aches in both feet partly due to freshly purchased takkies. My toes burned a bit and briefly the sole of my left foot wanted to flare up. My left knee niggled a bit but settled down. All in all, I am convinced I can cover the 1, 000km albeit with some serious physical challenges.

I am doing this because I am convinced Africans should stand and be counted in telling the story of their continent. I believe there is need for serious discussion on the waste management chain in Zimbabwe and only drastic action will bring about this discussion and eventual progress on this issue.

I am doing this to raise funds for BIN-it Zimbabwe so that we can eventually say there is no litter in Zimbabwe. And this program can achieve this goal. We will put up crowdfunding appeals with different perks starting with Indiegogo. For home, we will encourage people to support through Ecocash.

I am attempting this walk so that you can come with me. I am asking you to support me. This is our huge pride factor as a people. Let us let everyone know that this is what some of us in the homeland are committing to. Share this post to your wall and everywhere on social media. TOGETHER WE CAN.

Tapinda tapinda mafera

Indeed we are in fellows. Into one more year given us by the almighty to exert our relevance on this earth. To leave a mark and be exalted by fellow humans as a person of worth. Yes, we are in.

The entrance into 2014 in Harare was rather hectic and colourful in contrast to the tepid 2013 we were leaving. Indeed there was money to be seen in the parties everywhere in the neighbourhoods. Popular joints rocked with bumper crowds drinking themselves into the New Year.

At exactly 0000CAT or 0200GMT, spontaneous fireworks displays erupted all over the city and I would like to imagine Zimbabwe as well as Africa. Not big fireworks but the small ones that still climbed up into the pitch black sky and exploded with aplomb and fanfare. Indeed, we are in people.

This is a time for being happy and speeding cars through neighbourhoods swollen with blaring music. It is also a time for introspection. What did you achieve in 2013? Did you leave a mark? What will you do in 2014?

We in Zimbabwe have oft wonder aimlessly in life here, waiting for the ticket to escape to some foreign land where we will arrive with purpose and passion. Some are too rich to be concerned about the unfortunate and have built their little Englands around Zimbabwe living as if in a bubble.

Either black and/or white, affairs of man are fast becoming cause for men. Thus my lack today is the rich man’s concern as I will be looking for means, legal or otherwise, to get a share of that wealth.

My appeal to you is simple, either at home or wherever, pick a cause. Stand for something. Be passionate about something broader than yourself. Live a life larger than you. Then you can claim a position in 2014, otherwise you are still in 1980.

Dear Proud Zimbabwean

Dear Proud Zimbabwean,  

We are inviting YOU to become a Msasa Network Partner of Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation.   We, Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation, are committed to sustainable development of our communities through people resident in or from those areas. We are convinced that every Zimbabwean either at home or in the diaspora has a part to play in realising local development.

Our pioneer program, BIN-it Zimbabwe is eradicating litter across the country and capacitating infrastructure in all CBDs. We have conducted clean-ups of CBDs and 2014 will see the program active in communities.  

Msasa Membership is our idea of getting ordinary people to be a factor of development and change. We are asking YOU to be a member. Your contribution is ONE DOLLAR PER MONTH payable YEARLY ($12.00), 2-YEARLY ($24.00) or 5-YEARLY ($60.00).  

The membership will be used to sustain the Foundation as well as fund some of programs and projects. 2014 particularly has a full calendar list of events that will move Zimbabwe towards clean communities and position our country as a tourist friendly destination.  

The biggest benefit to you will be knowing that you are participating in a program bigger than your immediate family and engineered to benefit the whole country. We will send you a membership badge & certificate that will carry a pledge (to development) for both YOU and the Foundation.  

We cannot do this alone. We need YOU. Become a member and change the  Zimbabwe narrative.  
You can send your desired membership amount to EcoCash Merchant Number 34567. We will contact you for more details and send you your certificate. You can also make a direct deposit into our account held with CBZ Bank.  

Alternatively you can come to office 225, 2nd Floor, Rainbow Towers, Harare (opening 6 January 2014) and pay your subscription in cash as well as meet the team.  

For the diaspora, we are in contact with progressive game changers in the UK who will champion the cause there. They will craft a contribution platform while putting in place a PayPal option that can be used worldwide.  

For more information, please contact us on 04-2913319, call/app/sms 0772867300 or email us on ProudlyZimbabwean@gmail.com  

Thank you.  
Fungai Chiposi, Mr.
Executive Trustee
Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation

The Diaspora: UNITE!

Our homeland, Zimbabwe is a big country with wide open spaces. In rural areas, we stay together and share many resources, comforting each other in distress and wildly celebrating special events and successes. The whole community finds pride in acts of one achiever who would have done well.

While cities are slightly different, we are the most hospitable country in Southern Africa with a well educated population. We take care of extended family networks and practise excellent nepotism in lots of spheres life.

However, as soon as we cross the border, being mean and nasty to each other in foreign lands is the order of the day. Some of the stories I have heard are harrowing and almost border on fiction.
The most common statement that comes into my sphere is “I will not talk to that one!” This is not even on tribal lines. The most amazing has been reports of Zimbabweans in the UK and S.A. who spy on fellow Zimbabweans and get them deported back home for not having papers.

Every Zimbabwean in the diaspora is family of compatriots in similar circumstances. We must find refuge in each other and form strong associations to keep our culture intact. This close association will ensure our language and culture are not eradicated by migration as it will be easier to teach our children.

Now more than ever, Zimbabweans in the diaspora must come together to realise the massive potential they are to the homeland. No matter how far or how well accomplished one may be, home will always be home. Let’s unite to build our homeland.

If not You, then who?

Dear Proud Zimbabwean,  

We are inviting YOU to become a Msasa Member of Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation.  

We, Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation, are committed to sustainable development of our communities through people resident in or from those areas. We are convinced that every Zimbabwean either at home or in the diaspora has a part to play in realising local development.  

Our pioneer program, BIN-it Zimbabwe is eradicating litter across the country and capacitating infrastructure in all CBDs. We have conducted clean-ups of CBDs and 2014 will see the program active in communities.  

Msasa Membership is our idea of getting ordinary people to be a factor of development and change. We are asking YOU to be a member. Your contribution will be a dollar a month payable YEARLY ($12.00), 2-YEARLY ($24.00) and 5-YEARLY ($60.00).  

The membership will be used to sustain the Foundation as well as fund some of programs and projects. 2014 particularly has a full calendar list of events that will move Zimbabwe towards clean communities and position our country as a tourist friendly destination.  

The biggest benefit to you will be knowing that you are participating in a program bigger than your immediate family and engineered to benefit the whole country. We will send you a membership badge & certificate that will carry a pledge (to development) for both YOU and the Foundation.  

We cannot do this alone. Help us in this quest. Please become a member and make Zimbabwe famous for a progressive reason.  

You can send your desired membership amount to EcoCash Merchant Number 34567. We will contact you for more details and send you your certificate. You can also make a direct deposit into our account held with CBZ Bank.  

Alternatively you can come to office 225, 2nd Floor, Rainbow Towers, Harare (opening 5 January 2014) and pay your subscription in cash as well as meet the team.  

For more information, please contact us on 04-2913319, call/app/sms 0772867300 or email us on ProudlyZimbabwean@gmail.com  

Thank you.  

Fungai Chiposi, Mr.
Executive Trustee
Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation

My Zimbabwe, My Pride…

The month of March 2014 will witness  a unique march in Zimbabwe. In the company of David Hulme, I shall walk across Zimbabwe for 1, 000kms from Plumtree to Harare through all the capital cities of the country.

The walkathon aims to archive the following;
1. Raise attention to our environment with particular emphasis on solid waste disposal.
2. Raise usd500, 000.00 for smooth execution of BIN-it Zimbabwe program.

You will be able to support this initiative by;
1. Spreading word of the event to friends and family. This is the facebook link to the event http://ww.facebook.com/GREENwalkZIM
2. Joining the GREEN Walkathon briefly in a town near you and participating in some of the planned activities
3. Becoming a Msasa Member of Proudly Zimbabwean Foundation thus being a committed game changer in the battle to develop our country

Full details will be released on the facebook page as well as the press. Meanwhile, you can begin spreading the word by sharing this article and the facebook event link to your wall.

This is our pride moment. It’s your responsibility to talk good about Zimbabwe.

Raise your right hand and repeat after me..

There is a ball of fire in my stomach and bile in my throat. Waves of heat caress my body incessantly. I burn with a fever beyond medicine, beyond my healing. I am infected by Africa.

There are cracks of bright light in my mind. In the middle of the night I wake up in a sweat burning with a quiver of ideas and sure knowledge of what must be done.

The roads.. we must fix our roads. All our gold is tied up in the roads. And rail. Our people. The environment. Our resources all linked up by road and rail. We must fix the roads and rail..

Infrastructure, let’s not rush to modern comforts. We cannot be Europe today. It must be progressive, ingrained and driven by our ideas not borrowed. We must live within our means, within our abilities.

Our people.. must know life is not a song. We must be prepared for hard work, over long hours and big dreams. We must keep time and be our own heroes. We must sacrifice some comforts for our future.

Our priority.. it surely must be energy. Energy to run our industries and homes. Energy to underpin our development. It must come from the sun, from water, for magnetic forces, from the wind.

I see the solutions and I know what I must do. But like a rabbit in the headlight glare, I am frozen in inaction. There is too much to do and too little time. Too much that is wrong and little that can be worked with.

Our greatest asset, our mind, has been captured by dreams beyond our ability with most of us either lazy or dreaming beyond what needs doing today. Our minds trapped in another civilisation, stopping us from perfecting ours.

Someone, somewhere, somehow  please hear my cry. Where is the fire in your belly? Who is building Africa while you slouch about? Who is building Africa while you build Europe or Asia or America?

Excuse me, what is the TIME?

An average haulage truck in Europe covers 200, 000km per year. The same haulage truck in Africa is averaging 60, 000kms per year. This basically means employers are paying 3 times more for truck drivers who are doing less. A haulage truck from Beira to Harare takes an average of 6 days on the road to cover 600kms with most of the time consumed by bad roads and customs points and inspections. Africa is stealing from itself one key ingredient of modern development; TIME.

Forget the cliche about time being money; today, time is development. Time can be measured in GDP terms. Management of time determines the success or failure of a venture. Time is one currency that Africa does not have today but continues to waste. Time is a bug worse that corruption in most African countries and to make it worse, no one is looking. Time is the most perishable of all commodities and its value hinged to development.

When a minister arrives one hour late for an event, he actually ties down capital and effort as CEOs and other guests wait. A tourist taking two hours to navigate the airport bureaucracy is actually denying a hotel somewhere use of valuable currency sitting in his pocket and or debit/credit card. An investor taking two weeks to open a business is actually defrauding the market for that period.

These are just a few modest observations. When next you are late for that meeting, remember what you are costing the nation. When you, the traffic cop, park people by the side of the road, you are indirectly affecting your family. Time is development.

Now that you have taken TIME to read this post, the least you can do is SHARE with others so that together we begin managing development consciously.

IDEA COURTESY OF MR. ZUZE AT SAZ. YOU INSPIRE…

The GREY Zimbabwean

Between 2 and 5 million Zimbabweans have made the diaspora home in the last decade. From 2005 to 2010, Zimbabweans fled the homeland like rats fleeing a burning ship. Most of those who fled were well educated young adults who quickly made home in various lands as far as the Greenland.  

Modest estimates indicate that more than half a million Zimbabweans spilled over the African continent. The bulk of those in neighbouring countries are quickly assimilating into new cultures and will soon be aliens to Zimbabwe. There is no one counting so all figures are carefully thumbsucked here.  

Unlike other cultures that remain true to their roots, Zimbabweans are master chameleons. There is no Irish more Irish than a Zimbo in Ireland. While other countries have benefited from their diaspora, the Zimbabwean diaspora’s claim to fame is supporting the extended family back home. And a whole lot of political noise.  

Much as we may vilify them, the current lot of Zimbabweans in the diaspora at least understand what it means to be a Zimbabwean. Of major worry is the generation born in the diaspora, the GREY Zimbabwean.  

Until 2030, the grey Zimbabwean will have a direct link to the homeland through the parent. By about 2020, we will have a new generation that may come to Zimbabwe to tour and wonder how their parents could have come from such a hellhole. The reluctant tourist.  

After 2030, we will have no relations with descendents in the diaspora. They will not speak any vernacular of the homeland nor understand any culture nor sadly will they be interested. It will be like human debris in space, at home away from home.  

The seeds for this are being laid today. Look hard in the mirror and ask yourself, what is my legacy? Who am I? There is something you can do to ensure our children know who they are. They may speak Russian or German but they will never be that. They are Zimbabwean.