BEITBRIDGE — The inaugural Tshitaudze Heritage Festival opened this weekend at the Tshitaudze Cultural Village Centre, launching a three-day programme aimed at reviving Vhenda culture and pulling the community under Chief Tshitaudze closer together.

Vhenda culture takes centre stage in Beitbridge

Coordinator Patience Moyo described the gathering as the first of its kind for the area, saying it had drawn a bigger crowd than organisers had planned for. Roughly 2,000 visitors had been anticipated, yet attendance climbed past that figure, with the programme building towards a main celebration on the final day.

Moyo said the festival was designed to give Vhenda-speaking families a platform to showcase their customs while keeping those traditions alive for children who might otherwise grow up detached from them. She stressed that community unity under Chief Tshitaudze was as much a goal as cultural preservation.

Schools were placed at the heart of the schedule. Twelve secondary schools and nine primary schools drawn from Matabeleland South and Beitbridge took part in competitions, a deliberate attempt to hand the culture to the next generation while they are still young.

Vice-President Kembo Mohadi was expected to officiate at the official opening on Sunday.

Mashoko Tapes Vol 3 lights up Shoko Festival

In Harare, the third volume of Mashoko Tapes emerged as one of the highlights of the Shoko Festival’s Mash Up Night, with audiences and organisers pointing to the project’s breadth and artistic depth. The instalment reinforced the Shoko Festival’s standing as a key date on Zimbabwe’s creative calendar.

Four million traffic violations caught on camera

Authorities say more than four million traffic violations have now been logged by the new AI-powered electronic traffic management system, marking a shift from surveillance to active enforcement. Offenders have started settling fines as the crackdown on reckless driving gathers pace, a development that is likely to reshape behaviour on the country’s busiest roads.

Young miners back multi-mineral mining policy

Zimbabwe’s young mining stakeholders have welcomed a government decision requiring future mining investments to account for every mineral contained in an ore body, arguing the approach could strengthen local recovery, processing and value addition.

Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga announced the shift at the Zimbabwe-China Business Forum in Hangzhou, China, stating that isolated single-mineral operations will no longer be approved. He urged investors to bring in machinery capable of identifying and separating all embedded minerals, rather than chasing one target mineral while other valuable components go unprocessed.

Nyasha Magadhi, president of Young Miners for Economic Development, said the emphasis on beneficiation could open more opportunities for young Zimbabweans across the mining value chain. Hazel Tsungai Karoro, secretary-general of the Association of Junior Mining Professionals of Zimbabwe, said the policy matters because young geologists, engineers, metallurgists and surveyors work at every stage from exploration to processing. Dru Kacherera, spokesperson for Miners for Economic Development, also backed the direction, which fits the grouping’s push for formalisation and responsible mining.

Chiwenga pointed to Zimbabwe’s concentration of strategic minerals, including lithium, nickel, graphite, manganese and cobalt, as well as copper, chrome, platinum group metals and rare earths. Government has framed beneficiation and value addition as central to retaining more value at home and supporting industrialisation towards Vision 2030.

Ex-Assa Abloy MD convicted over US$1.38m Treasury Bill diversion

Clive Majoni, former managing director of Assa Abloy Zimbabwe, has been convicted of fraud and money laundering by High Court judge Justice Kwenda following a full trial. The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission said Majoni diverted Treasury Bills worth more than US$1.38 million that had been issued to settle his former employer’s legacy debt.

According to ZACC, Majoni’s contract was terminated in November 2020, but in May 2022 he wrote to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on company letterhead and instructed the central bank to move the Treasury Bills into a CBZ account held by Chubb Security (Private) Limited, a firm he had registered. The instruments were subsequently issued to Chubb Security and disposed of at a 50 per cent discount for US$690,959. The money was never recovered; the court established it was used to buy two vehicles for Chubb Security. Majoni was remanded to 16 October 2026 for sentencing.

Mzembi’s finances in the spotlight as he seeks ZANU PF return

Former Foreign Affairs Minister Walter Mzembi is reported to be living at his nephew’s Harare home after his wife, Barbra Hernandez, allegedly sold properties worth more than US$2 million. Reports suggest his troubles date back to his self-imposed exile alongside other Generation 40 figures after Robert Mugabe’s removal in November 2017, when his houses were disposed of in his absence.

Contacted for comment, Mzembi neither confirmed nor denied the account, brushing it aside as rumour and questioning whether anything had been taken beyond bricks and mortar. He also suggested his wife had sold what belonged to her. Sources close to the matter insist he was left with little.

The former minister is meanwhile working to restart his political career, with an application for readmission to ZANU PF tabled before the party’s Provincial Executive Council.

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