Tatenda Ngara

According to Warriner (1969) a simple way of defining land reforms is to name it “the redistribution of property or rights in land for the benefit of the landless, tenants and farm labourers”. Land reforms are mainly characterised by the government’s change of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reforms deal with the government in power distributing property which is in most times agricultural land. In some instances it also involves the distribution of land from the more powerful or wealthy group of people such as nobles and bourgeoisie and giving potions of the land to the less powerful in society especially during the start of the post-colonial error in most countries in Southern Africa. During the pre-colonial period, land or pieces of land belonged to different ethnic groups, clans and lineages but now in the post-colonial land reform programs were to introduce individual ownership of land. There are many reasons why the government (both colonial and post-colonial) embark on land reforms and some of the factors influencing them include political reasons such promoting communism or socialism, social reasons such as separating the blacks from the whites and creating social stratification and economic reasons such as facilitating private investments and raising the country’s economic growth of the agricultural sector just but to mention a few reasons. Though some of the government’s reasons to embark on land reforms appear to be noble, local communities refuse these land reforms since they create social stratifications, at times increase poverty, destroy the matrilineal societies and are more political in nature rather than a means to better the people’s lives especially during the colonial error. The essay below will vividly portray why the government embarks on land reform programs and why local people resist these reforms using examples from both colonial and post-colonial Southern African countries.

The term unemployment is defined by the International Labour Organization (2010) as the scenario where people are without jobs and have been actively looking for work within the past four weeks. Unemployment has been a bone of contention the world over but due to its high prevalence in Zimbabwe, its effects have been grossly perceived in the various age groups ranging from 18-60 as citizen’s fall far below the daily living wage in the country due to unemployment (ZimStat, 2012). The effects of unemployment are severely negative and this is further worsened by the high inflation rates in Zimbabwe thus leaving unemployed citizens living in squalor or abject poverty unable to afford food, cover school and hospital expenses making unemployed youths resort to crime such as theft and prostitution. The writing below will vividly portray the costs of unemployment in Zimbabwe from an individual, social and socio-political perspective

HIV and AIDS is still menace bedeviling society particularly in 3rd world countries such as Zimbabwe. The impacts of HIV/AIDS are gravely felt within workplaces as affected employees suffer from stigma and prejudice. Organizations also suffer as the pandemic leads to high absenteeism and a high rate of employee turnover. This writing therefore addresses the impact of HIV/AIDS in organizations and communities and how the Zimbabwean Government, NGOS, Trade Unions and Companies have been battling this pandemic and the achievements made to date

The success of any election depends on whether it was free and fair both to the candidates and the voters. Due to media coverage of national elections locally, regionally and globally, subtle psychological cues have become popular and are being used in student Representative Council (SRC) elections to harness voter preferences. This study focused on investigating the relationship between subtle psychological cues and voter preferences among university of Zimbabwe students. More so, the study was focused on four operationally defined subtle psychological cues namely Ballot order effects, Hallo effects, Negativity bias and Push polls on whether they would influence the participant’s voter preference. The study takes the form of an experimental research design and is based on a sample of 80 purposefully selected participants. In addition, primary data was gathered using 4 ballot papers with a Likert scale and was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Studies (SPSS) version 23. Descriptive statistics, T-tests for independent samples, Chi-square tests and Pearson correlation were computed to establish the degree of the relationship between the variables in question. Results show that of the four subtle psychological cues under investigation, negativity bias and hallo effects were predominantly popular due to the American presidential debates such as that of Richard Nixon against Kennedy and Barack Obama against Hilary Clinton. In addition the results show no statistically significant group differences on how gender, ethnicity and year of study affected voter preferences. Ultimately, there were three positive correlations for the experiments Ballot order effects, Hallo effects and Negativity bias. However, contrary to the reviewed literature there was a negative correlation between Push polls and voter preferences. The conclusion was that there is statistically significant relationship between subtle psychological cues and voter preferences and hence have the potential to increase or decrease the votes a candidate obtains. Therefore, the University can closely monitor SRC elections and make sure the students do not abuse psychological cues such as negativity bias and push polls as they have the potential of ruining the student’s reputations. Also the organisation can add to its current SRC election policies the strategies that were implemented in this study to hold other factors at a constant such as using butterfly ballot paper ordering to help make the free and fair.

The doctrine of vicarious liability provides that an employer is vicariously or indirectly liable for all delicts or violations of the law committed by his or her employees when they are acting in the course and within the scope of their employment at the time when a delict is committed. In simple terms it is law that imposes liability on employers for the wrong doings of their employees. Some of the reasons why it has been justifiable to have this doctrine in the Law of delict, is because employers have greater financial stamina to offset any losses caused by employees and employees work under the instruction of the employer just but to mention a few