THE GeoGenix BV-City of Harare deal signed on Wednesday this week stinks to high heaven. The deal in which the foreign company will supposedly invest €303,9 million (approximately US$344 million) to convert the Pomona dump site in Harare into a modern waste management facility that will also generate a bit of electricity is shrouded in mystery.
Until this week Zimbabweans were made to believe the company was from Germany; all reports, including those from the City of Harare information department itself said the company was German.
But this week as the city signed the memorandum of agreement in the presence of no less a person than Minister of Local Government himself July Moyo, we were told the company was from The Netherlands.
A look on the internet to find out who this outfit is hit a brick wall, well not quite. Written on their wall is this: “This company has activated a Non Mailing Indicator (NMI) to indicate that they do not wish to receive unsolicited mail or sales visits. Their registered address should not be used for this purpose.”
Throw in the mix one Delish Nguwaya, described in the deal as the Dutch company’s country representative in Zimbabwe and then you know where this stinking deal is coming from.
Zimbabwe will remember Nguwaya from another stinking deal in which he courted another shadowy company from Europe to supply Covid-19 equipment and medication. It did not end well. But who really is Delish? Is he a son-in-law to some important family or something? Time will tell!
Son-in-law President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Kenya this week on a state visit ostensibly to strengthen bilateral relations between Zimbabwe and the East African country. It is reported several MoUs were signed. All very good. At the tail end of his tête-à-tête with his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta (UK), Muckraker’s mole overheard the following:
ED: (rubbing his palms together) Then there is the small matter of your famous son-in-law.
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UK: (with faked puzzlement): Oh, you mean Jonso (Jonathan Moyo)?
ED: (with a salivating smile): Exactly. Can I have him back for a while?
UK: (With concern in his voice): You mean if I give him to you, he will come back alive?
ED: (with a wry smile): I hope so.
Fuel prices The prices of fuel have gone up again and will keep going up almost weekly for the foreseeable future.
he reason: the Russia-Ukraine war whose end is not in sight. Even if it ends tomorrow the disruption it has caused to the supply of fuel around the world will be felt for a long time to come.
But for the Zimbabwe government, which has always wished to keep the price of fuel way ahead of its regional counterparts, the war has come at the right time. The government has always fleeced its citizens of their hard-earned money through punitive fuel taxes which no other country in the world charges.
Cynically, Energy minister Soda Water has added effervescence to the issue. He has advised Zimbabweans to use Zupco buses instead of driving to work. Fair enough if these were available and efficient.
Everyone knows the buses’ primary purpose, namely to pick up people at the usual pick-up points and ferry them to rallies addressed by the country’s owner.
Now with the election season in full swing, these buses will spend days on the road far away from those who need to get to work and back.
Invictus diesel If the Invictus Energy thing was not just another “diesel in Chinhoyi” hoax the country would urge it to speed up the drilling of wells so that Zimbabwe does not have to depend on Russia and Ukraine for its fuel.
Muckraker is reliably informed that there is nothing happening in the Cahora Bassa basin in the form of oil exploration. If there is, Invictus should do the right thing and organise a media tour of the area.
What news organisations are reporting are simply press statements from Invictus. I dare them to invite journalists to Muzarabani so they see for themselves what’s happening (or not happening) there.
Voters’ roll ferrets It was great to hear Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) putative president Nelson Chamisa saying there was now no way the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) was going to cheat them again because the party has planted its people in all important places, including in Zec.
Of course, he could be right seeing how the voters’ roll was leaked to Pachedu, a group of pro-CCC ferrets interested in analysing the roll. Pachedu has exposed some very damning shenanigans employed to doctor the roll, including moving hundreds of thousands of voters from their constituencies to other ones without their knowledge.
But now that Chamisa has his own people in Zec, it means according to him, the coming elections will be “free and fair”. He said it himself, not Muckraker.
Porn hoax Many companies across the globe are sanctioning Russia because of its invasion of a “sovereign” country Ukraine. There was panic across the length and breadth of the huge country of 144 million people of which nearly 70 million are men when one interesting company said it would not extend its services to Russia.
PornHub, a free sex videos website, popular in the country, had reportedly blocked Russia and the outcry was virile. There was a heavy sigh of relief, however, when it later emerged the news was a mere spoof.
