Zimbabwean police arrested nine individuals on 11 July for illegally mining gold at the <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/National_University_of_Science_and_Technology/">National University of Science and Technology (NUST)</a> campus.
The police posted on Twitter that the arrests took place at the NUST campus and the Bulawayo City Council Khumalo pit. Along with these arrests, the police recovered 85 kg of gold ore, a generator, two picks, a hammer, two water pumps, two shovels, an axe, and a machete. Reads the tweet:
<blockquote>
On 11/07/23, Police in Bulawayo arrested nine people in connection with conducting illegal mining activities at NUST campus and Bulawayo City Council Khumalo pit.
The arrest led to the recovery of 85 kilogrammes of gold ore, a generator, two picks, a hammer, two water pumps, two shovels, an axe and a machete.
</blockquote>
The issue of invasion of properties by gold panners is not new in Zimbabwe. The NUST incident comes in the wake of a related incident that occurred in May, where a family from Kwekwe narrowly escaped death after part of their house collapsed into an underground mining tunnel beneath their home. The Rusike family had been unknowingly living on top of a huge mining tunnel for years until they detected some noises due to mining activities underground and vacated the house. Part of the house then collapsed into the tunnel after the family had moved out.
In March, at least seven learners at Globe and Phoenix Primary School in Kwekwe’s Central Business District, Midlands Province, were injured after a classroom block collapsed into a mine shaft. The school had previously decommissioned some of its classroom blocks due to illegal gold panners randomly digging within its premises.
Kwekwe, a city in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe, has many artisanal and small-scale miners who engage in gold panning, leading to such incidents of illegal mining.
<h3><a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/">More Pindula News</a></h3>

Pindula News

Nine People Arrested For Illegal Gold Mining At NUST Campus

The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has reversed the retrenchment of over 70 of its workers and reinstated them.
Reports suggest that some of the affected workers were summoned to the human resources office on May 30, and handed letters of retrenchment notifying them that May 31 was their last day of work.
However, in a notice, NUST Vice-Chancellor Professor Mqhele Dlodlo advised all the staff members who were affected during the Staff Rationalisation Exercise last month to return to work and continue their duties with immediate effect. Read the notice:
<blockquote>
The Vice Chancellor’s office wishes to advise that the Staff Rationalisation Exercise, which had resulted in some employees being laid off has been reversed with immediate effect.
All staff members who were affected should report for duty at their workstations.
</blockquote>
More: <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/">Pindula News</a>

NUST Reverses Staff Retrenchments

A former National University of Science and Technology (NUST) student who was arrested for allegedly criticising President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 2020 State of the Nation Address (SONA) has been acquitted.
Rujeko Hither Mpambwa (24), was arrested in August 2020 and has been been on trial since July 2022.
She was charged with undermining the authority of, or insulting, President Mnangagwa in contravention of section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
She appeared before Kariba Magistrate, Tapiwa Banda, and was represented by Unite Saizi of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).
 Caren Musiiwa prosecuted.
Allegations were that Mpambwa posted a comment denigrating President Mnangagwa on a WhatsApp group titled Kariba Hard Talk, wherein she reportedly wrote:
<blockquote>
He is busy forwarding the Vision 2030 Agenda. He is sick. He should keep quiet about patriotism. He is making us angry.
</blockquote>
An aggrieved member of the Kariba Hard Talk WhatsApp group, Samu Mawawo, informed ZRP officers, who arrested Mpambwa.
Police seized her Huawei mobile phone and sent it to Criminal Investigations Department’s National Cyber Forensic Laboratory.
The CIDs extracted her message and compiled an examination report, which was presented in court as an exhibit.
The magistrate, however, cleared Mpambwa of wrongdoing, ruling that the context of her message was not clear.
<blockquote>
[The magistrate said the] messages were plucked out from other messages, which were not retrieved from her mobile phone, and as such the context in which they were allegedly sent was unclear.
</blockquote>
The magistrate also said Mnangagwa’s SONA did not appear fully on the exhibits produced in court and hence the court could not, therefore, work on speculation when all the alleged offensive words were not retrieved. Said ZLHR:
<blockquote>
What purportedly linked Mpambwa to the alleged offence was the name “Emasoni,” and the court could not speculate that the said word refers to the President.
</blockquote>
| <a href="https://www.newzimbabwe.com/uni-student-accused-of-criticising-mnangagwa-acquitted-court-says-cant-speculate-that-emasoni-refers-to-president/">NewZimbabwe.com</a>

University Student Accused Of Criticising Mnangagwa Acquitted

The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has offered free deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests for the pregnant nine-year-old Tsholotsho girl and her baby once she delivers.
The director of NUST’ Applied Genetic Testing Centre, Zephania Dlamini said it was part of their mandate to assist communities that were facing such crises. He told <a href="https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/dna-to-solve-tsholotsho-rape-case/">The Sunday News</a>:
<blockquote>
As a centre of excellence in DNA testing in Zimbabwe, we do have a responsibility to help the community that we are working in. We would be glad to help law enforcement agents to solve this case.
We will do this DNA testing as soon as the child is born, we will liaise with doctors so that we get the DNA samples from the suspect, the nine-year-old and the offspring that she is going to give birth to.
We will gladly conduct the DNA test as our contribution to society without charging them.
</blockquote>
He said since the matter was before the courts, they were waiting for the court to decide whether a DNA test was required, adding that the results would be given to the court officials. Said Dlamini:
<blockquote>
All life forms have genetic materials in the form of DNA. This DNA is inherited by individuals from their parents and human beings and animals usually have two pairs of chromosomes, half a pair comes from the mother and the other half from the father.
With that basically, there are no two individuals that have the same DNA except identical twins who have exactly the same DNA.
With the Tsholotsho case where we hear a nine-year-old is pregnant and the suspect is the father of this child, it is possible to distinguish the DNA of this man in this child who is supposed to be his grandchild and is now allegedly going to be the father.
You must recognise that he gave her only half and the other half is from the mother. So, there are some markers that are found within the father that will also be found in the nine-year-old.
The child to be born will have DNA markers that will be clear from the mother, we will analyse that DNA and then analyse from the suspected father and it will be possible to tell if he is indeed the perpetrator of the rape.
He can be excluded if we do not find his DNA in the child to be born. The importance of this is that we have to test the mother, new-born and the alleged perpetrator and it must match 100 percent with the suspect. It’s a simple case.
</blockquote>
Dlamini explained that not being the father of the to-be-born child would not necessarily exonerate him from having raped her. He said:
<blockquote>
If a person is charged with rape we do the tests and if they come out negative with no DNA match (with the newly born child), it does not mean they did not rape.
It may mean they did not impregnate the victim, but it does not necessarily provide evidence that they did not rape.
DNA cannot prove in that case, it can only exonerate one from being the father but not the rape case.
That one will remain the victim’s word against the perpetrator.
</blockquote>

NUST Offers Free DNA Tests For Impregnated 9-year-old Tsholotsho Girl

The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has received approval from authorities to increase its enrolment for its medical and health sciences school from the current 25 to 60 per intake.
The Medical School, housed at Mpilo Central Hospital, was introduced in 2012 and has since produced four sets of graduates.
NUST School of Medicine Executive Dean, Professor Elopy Sibanda confirmed the development to the <a href="https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/nust-to-increase-school-of-medicine-intake/">Sunday News</a> on Tuesday. He said:
<blockquote>
We have been allowed to increase our enrolment to 60. For the first couple of years, we were being monitored where our quality was being assured.
The authorities were satisfied that we produce quality graduates and now they can allow us to increase our number.
The increase in the number is still a small dot, we could have been able to increase more but we do not have premises at the moment as our campus is yet to be constructed.
The level of demand is very high and the candidates are very highly qualified and therefore I think if we could expand the services we would be able to offer more.
There is a World Health Organisation-recommended patient-to-doctor ratio which we can achieve if we are able to train more people.
We have Ekusileni Hospital which is meant to be a queenary hospital that is earmarked to do specialist services.
As such we need to train these specialists so that patients do not go out of the country.
</blockquote>

NUST To Increase Medical And Health Sciences School Intake

The <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/National_University_of_Science_and_Technology" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National University of Science and Technology (NUST)</a> has announced a new fees structure which will see undergraduate students paying between $5 000 and $7 500 per semester depending on their programmes.
According to <a href="https://www.nust.ac.zw/index.php/students/fees-structure/undergraduate-fees.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nust.ac.zw</a>, some of the new fees are as follows, students in the Faculty of Communication &amp; Information Science will pay $5,120.00, Faculty of Applied Sciences will pay $6,500.00, while those in the Faculty of Medicine will pay $7 500.00 in total.
NUST communication and marketing officer Lindiwe Nyoni defended the new fees structure, saying they are above board. She said:
<blockquote>The tuition fees that our students are supposed to pay are capped at $5 000 in line with Government’s directive. But what makes the total fees exceed the $5 000 cap are the levies that take into account processes that make it possible to run certain programmes.
Each programme or faculty have certain levies that are charged to ensure it’s smooth running for the benefit of the students as well as the effective running of the university.</blockquote>
Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Amon_Murwira" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amon Murwira</a> said there was nothing wrong with the fees as long as the tuition did not exceed $5 000.00.
Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/University_of_Zimbabwe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Zimbabwe</a> fee structure shows that students in the Faculty of Arts would pay $5 310 while those studying medicine will pay $8 755. 
<h4>More: <a href="https://www.chronicle.co.zw/universities-announce-new-fees/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chronicle</a></h4>

Universities Announce New Fees

<blockquote>CALL FOR PITCHES FOR IGNITE TALKS
The Zimbabwe Center for Media &amp; Information Literacy in partnership with the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Journalism and Media Studies Department, is pleased to invite pitch proposals from students for ignite talks to be presented during the second edition of the Zim New Media Summit.
The Summit will take place from 18 -19 July 2019 at NUST under the theme “New Media and Democracy: Beyond Fake News, Disinformation and Misinformation”.
The Summit will be delivered through panel discussions, paper presentations, parallel workshops and ignite talks.
Proposals for ignite talk pitches must generally fall within one of the following sub-themes drawn from the main Summit theme:
(1) Fake News and Democracy 
(2) Fake News and Local Journalism 
(3) Fake News and Social Media Legislation 
(4) Fake News and Business
Only four successful pitches will be selected for presentation during the Summit.
This call is strictly for students from local tertiary institutions. Students from NUST, Lupane State University, Bulawayo Polytechnic, Zimbabwe Open University (Bulawayo) and Catholic University (Bulawayo) are encouraged to apply.
The deadline for submission is 7 June 2019 at 12 midnight. Successful applicants will be notified of the Summit logistics by 12 June 2019 and will be allocated a mentor who will assist them with their topic.
Follow this link to apply<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSedh8ojmciQItrCCuFCoXA6N4zSmhSqrcftC88rcCmWOg7kxQ/viewform" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSedh8ojmciQItrCCuFCoXA6N4zSmhSqrcftC88rcCmWOg7kxQ/viewform?usp=pp_url</a></blockquote>

Bulawayo Latest News

Latest Jobs