Viomak is a victim of harassment, cyber bullying and fake news perpetrated on her by a UK social worker Betty Hazviperi Makoni who she refers to as a fake news icon. Having been despised by Viomak and other Zimbabweans for abusing donor funds and workers at her Girl Child Network (GCN) Zimbabwe and Girl Child Network World Wide, Betty Makoni went into a rage of spreading fake news about Viomak as she was the most outspoken to despise donor funds abuse.

Notably, after failing to silence Viomak for despising donor funds abuse and workers abuse at GCN, Betty Hazviperi Makoni, a founder of now defunct Girl Child Network Zimbabwe and defunct Girl Child Network World Wide planned to tarnish and taint Viomak by publishing fabricated stories on her blog Muzvare Betty as the shamed ex-GCN founder and director struggled to sweep donor funds abuse and workers abuse levelled against her and the organization under the carpet. Makoni was irked by the momentum gathered when Viomak added her voice to the campaign which saw former GCN employees take GCN and Betty Makoni to the labour court following non payment of wages and bullying. As a result of the anti-donor funds abuse campaign which went viral, all the donors who were funding the organisation including a long time donor Oxfam Novid withdrew their support and this irked Betty who sought revenge by publishing a tirade of fake news about Viomak and all those who were despising the donor funds abuse. The shamed now UK social worker had to leave Zimbabwe unceremoniously enroute to Britain fleeing investigations into donor funds abuse. She would then spent hours and hours fabricating stories to smear Viomak and she was so desperate to the point of lying that Viomak is a ZanuPF supporter and undercover. As she struggled to clear her name, below are some of the fake news articles about Viomak that Betty Hazviperi Makoni published on her blog.

This is fake news. Betty Makoni fabricated that Viomak set up 8 bogus newspapers targeting Betty Makoni and that Viomak works with a syndicate undercover meant to spread information to Betty Makoni’s donors. Betty Makoni also claims that she left Zimbabwe in September 2007 and since then she has lived in self imposed exile after being targeted in Zimbabwe for her work to protect women and girls from high profile rapists and youth militia. Viomak did not set up any newspapers targeting Betty Makoni. Viomak supported Betty Makoni until news started spreading that Betty Makoni had run away from Zimbabwe following donor funds investigations. One of the donors Oxfam Novid indicated this scandal and abuse of donor funds by Betty Makoni in a letter to Girl Child Network (GCN) Zimbabwe and Betty Makoni. Betty Makoni fabricated that Viomak is a ZanuPF undercover to cover up the donor funds abuse and to make it appear as if Betty was being targeted by a ZanuPF supporter. It is obvious Viomak is a well known anti- ZanuPF and anti-Mugabe advocate and protest singer as also evidenced by the work on her website. She has no family or personal ties with ZanuPF a political party she has lived half of her life despising and singing against.

---

This is fake news: A disgruntled Britain social worker Betty Hazviperi Makoni who is supposed to know and understand the meaning of cyber bullying and abuse is busy fabricating lies in a desperate bid to clear her tainted name. Desperate Betty Makoni went to the extent of taking Viomak’s image and typed ZanuPF on it to give the impression that the prominent anti-ZanuPF singer is a ZanuPF supporter. If Viomak had no solid work in her name how many people were going to believe these lies perpetrated by a professional social worker for that matter. If this is not psychotic behaviour I don’t know what it is. Betty lied that Viomak is in a dirty syndicate with Ropafadzo Mapimhidze to destroy Betty. Viomak supported abused and bullied ex – GCN employees who included Ropafadzo to seek justice regarding non payment of salaries and bullying by Betty Makoni and she calls this a dirty syndicate. I don’t understand how a social worker can deliberately defame people who are demanding their unpaid salaries like this. Betty Makoni goes on to fabricate fake news that Viomak was all along a gospel musician who migrated to Canada for greener pastures but later when her fortunes seemed lost changed to be a protest singer under unclear circumstances especially at a time she was allegedly deported from Canada. Viomak was never a gospel singer but she has always been a protest singer. Viomak was not deported from Canada and has never been deported from any country. Betty’s desperation to silence voices has come to a dangerous point where she thinks lies can turn into truth. In her head the social worker Betty Hazviperi Makoni is imagining a weird situation where Viomak’s world crumbles right in her face because she despised Betty Makoni’s donor funds abuse and workers’ abuse. Authentic tangible evidence of her donor funds abuse and workers abuse is here but she still wants us to believe her lies that she was set up. This weird world as Betty Makoni goes on to fabricate lies that Viomak sought membership in Zimbabwe Vigil in London where upon she is alleged to have used pictures of murdered activists in Zimbabwe to convince the UK Home office to grant her asylum. With this kind of childish and malicious behaviour by a woman claiming to be a fighter of girls and women rights, one wonders where her conscience will be hiding as she will be typing such deliberate childish fake news.

---

This is fake news. How to spot fake news is easy at times. In so many cases the fake news fabricators just throw words around and join pieces here and there with no tangible evidence as the agenda is just to tarnish someone’s reputation. Never understand the wrath of someone named and shamed for wrong doing. When they start speaking and writing on their blogs we always hear and read one side of their story. The other side of their story you have to look for it in your common sense box. As the desperation continues Betty Makoni published that a Zimbabwe professional terrorized by Viomak on Facebook breaks silence. There is no evidence how the woman said to be a social worker called Cynthia Martha Tsetsemayi Mafara was terrorized by Viomak. A quick investigation about the woman Cynthia Martha Tsetsemayi Mafara established that Cynthia is actually an intolerant cyber bully who posted harassing comments days on end on Human Rights Defender Viomak’s facebook wall and calling Viomak names for despising ZanuPF and MDC-T bad leadership. Her agenda to silence Viomak flopped as Violmak told her off and this annoyed Cynthia who then decided to join hands with Betty Makoni when she saw Betty Makoni moaning about the donor funds abuse exposure. How Cynthia was terrorized by Viomak remains a mystery in Betty Hazviperi Makoni’s book of fake publications and malicious lies. By the way, both women colleagues are supposed to be social workers showing no integrity at all. Facebook is a great platform to learn about the human mind. A lot of cyber bullies like Cynthia enjoy it when they visit their opponents’ walls to provoke and start posting and cursing their opponents into silence and when their opponents hit back they call it terrorism. This is typical abusers’ behaviour, you should not hit back when they hit at you but you should just take in the abuse and cry your tears on your pillow as they move on to their next victim.

---

This is fake news. Wishful thinking, creativity and day dreaming is typical behaviour of fake news spreaders. If you have not been in the situation you will take time to understand and to believe how anyone in their right senses would sit on their laptop and started typing that police cautioned so and so against harassment. This is why the world turned to lying detectors. Fake news generators and publishers like Betty Hazviperi Makoni have no conscience at all and this is why their behaviour has been linked to a manifestation of underlying psychological problems. In June 2019 David A Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic wrote that Fake news is not just making people believe false things, a new study suggests it’s also making them less likely to consume or accept information. More than making people believe false things, the rise of fake news is making it harder for people to see the truth. More so when people start involving police as they compile fake news, who would think someone in their normal senses would spread fake news about someone being cautioned by police. Unfortunately this is happening in the real world we are living in today. Soon fake news bloggers and publishers will be using algorithm to generate fake news. On 25 April 2011 Betty Makoni posted on her blog that UK Police cautions Viomak against harassment of Global Girls Advocate. She goes on to say police in UK reported that on Sunday, 17 April 2011 they had to intervene in a case of cyber bullying and harassment of Global Girls Rights Advocate Betty Makoni and took a tough stance in issuing Viomak a recorded caution and that Betty has all documents for submission with confidence and police will bring Viomak to book as they reassured her they will act. She added that police have given her an appointment at 4pm on Tuesday 26 April 2011 to go and give her statement and provide all what Viomak has been posting of late especially after they cautioned her. If police cautioned and recorded Viomak about this fake harassment it should be someone else they cautioned and recorded and not Viomak the protest singer. It’s really unfortunate that Betty saw police cautioning and recording Viomak against harassment of Global Girls Advocate Betty Makoni in her imagination as she day dreamed. She goes on to say Viomak is believed to have formed a Zimbabwe political party in UK in addition to many other activities she is said to be undertaking in the country. Whatever, other activities she wants people to believe Viomak is undertaking in the UK. Trying hard to make it appear like Viomak is an illegal dealer of some sort. Viomak never formed a political party in UK. Actually Betty Hazviperi Makoni is a very good creative con-artist. She took time to read and assess information on Viomak’s website and joined pieces to come up with fake news. Whoever supplies her with fake news does not exist but she generates the fake news herself and writes as if someone one told her, that’s how cunning and dangerous she is .As if this is not enough, she goes on to say Viomak defied an order from face book which bars her from using face book. I give up honestly lol .This is my first time to hear that Viomak was barred from using face book. I honestly wonder what fake news blogger Betty Makoni is smoking, seriously.

---

This is fake news madness and desperation to get Viomak into trouble. Betty Hazviperi Makoni saw the name Viomak Charity Music and she convinced herself that there is a loop hole to snap on Viomak. If the so called trustees of the defunct Girl Child Network Worldwide reported Viomak to charity commission on her so called illegal activities, then obviously the charity commission never approached Viomak . They most likely couldn’t figure out what the illegal activities are. In her mind Betty Makoni is seeking revenge and nothing else makes sense to her except for revenge. This is why she is going to lengths and wishing and hoping that some donor from the blues will write Viomak a letter informing her that they are stopping all donations due to abuse of donor funds like what Oxfam Novib did to Betty and GCN. The problem with fake news generators is they think they are the only ones with brains such that everyone will believe their malicious lies. Her whole blog is full of Viomak such that even a reader who doesn’t want to suspect foul play will start wondering why her Muzvare Makoni blog is all about Viomak if the blogger is not pursuing some silly hidden agenda.

---

This is fake news even at face value, even a 4 year old will see that this is utter rubbish and fake. Ever since this fake news was published by Betty Hazviperi Makoni masquerading as Naomi T on 19 October 2014, efforts to find the over 109 Zimbabwean women leaders in UK who united for action against Viomak have been in vain. Betty Makoni is the 109 women so irked by Viomak’s anti-donor funds abuse campaign and anti- workers abuse campaign that also touched on Girl Child Network , a now defunct organisation founded by Betty Makoni purporting to be assisting sexually abused girls . Donors witnessed donor funds abuse and stopped funding the organisation after which the organisation failed to stand on its two feet and crumbled amid news that Betty built a mansion in Marlborough, Harare, Zimbabwe and bought personal houses using funds donated to build empowerment villages for sexually abused girls in Zimbabwe.

Irked that Viomak had added her voice to the selfish criminal behaviour, Betty decided to bash and silence Viomak days on end publishing fake news about Viomak. Whatever came to her mind she published as real news as she went on an errand publishing fictitious articles deliberately fabricated to deceive readers. It’s scary to even imagine that the woman, Betty Hazviperi Makoni engaging in this psychological warfare using all sorts of bullying tactics to silence those standing up against corruption and workers abuse is a professional social worker in Britain. Her intention was to mislead people into believing that Viomak is a ZanuPF supporter out to destroy her and that Betty did not abuse donor funds and workers, harassing, bullying and victimising them into silence if ever they raised voices about their unpaid salaries, and the donor funds abuse. Stuck between a hard surface and a rock the workers agreed to write a petition which one of the workers, Ropafadzo, sent to Viomak for help.

Notably in this fake news article, Betty who is desperate for Viomak to be arrested for NO wrong doing said, “Men and women have made reports to police who seem not keen to investigate and establish nature of her misinformation, harassment and threats to ordinary Zimbabweans in the UK.” She doesn’t seem to be an intelligent person does she? She sells herself out that police are not keen to investigate her fake news meaning police figured out that Betty is just a wounded heart just throwing around words in a bid to clear her tainted name and tattered reputation. It looks like the police advised her that making a fake or false police report is a crime. She goes on to say, “Over 109 Zimbabwean women in the UK have finally come together to do a joint program to stop cyber-bullying by a woman who masks as human rights defender and who has duped thousands of Zimbabweans to join her facebook and records show that she also duped home office into granting her asylum at the expense of many well deserving Zimbabwean women.” Mark my words there are no other 108 women, Betty is the 109 women and one wonders how anyone is duped into joining someone’s facebook and even dupes home office into granting asylum to someone whose work clearly justifies why she deserves the protection lol. Betty reminds me of my school days when we used to do critical analyses of literature. She goes on to say “her encyclopedia which she fraudulently set up states she is a human rights defender but in reality she is double faced and has used that online record to dupe many in UK. A total of five women have lost cash to her. ” As said earlier on, our social worker Betty Hazviperi Makoni doesn’t even know what an encyclopedia is. It looks like she meant Wikipedia. Remember fake news rarely has names because it is fabricated news so Betty cannot pin point the five women who have lost cash to Viomak and how such adults lost cash to her and never approached Viomak to demand their cash . Only Betty Hazviperi Makoni knows who these mysterious women are. It’s not yet over until you listen to this, “Meanwhile the Zimbabwean women have made appeals to pro bono human rights lawyers to advise on how best to proceed with suing for damages collectively in UK courts. A formal petition jointly signed by the women will be presented to UK prosecutors and to Home Secretary Theresa May to investigate the number of community men and women abused.” Laughing out loud, the woman Betty Makoni is so desperately funny. I wonder if she went back to her bloggowers who follow her blog to update them that apart from raising fake alarm bells, nothing that she wrote materialised ever since she published her fake news in 2011.

---

This is fake news. Obvious blatant lies written by a woman with no sense of shame or conscience. In July 2013 having failed to silence Viomak for the past 2 years since the publishing of her first fake news , Betty Hazviperi Makoni published this fake news claiming that Viomak is terrorising Zimbabweans in UK on internet . Mind you the Zimbabweans being terrorised in UK have no names and the terrorism is not explained. Only Betty knows what the terrorism is but she never bothered to elucidate her half faked news. It looks like Betty Hazviperi Makoni is the only ‘Zimbabweans’ in UK who has been terrorised by Viomak. One wonders why the rest are quiet if they have genuine concerns lol. The intention was for the desperate Betty Makoni to go and lie to the police that there are plenty of Zimbabweans in UK being terrorized so as to coerce police to open a docket for nothing really .If this is how Betty Hazviperi Makoni a social worker in Britain is supposed to behave God forbid, social work has drowned with its values, really gone to the pit. She has the energy to create fake news for sure. I always remind people that lies will never turn into truth no matter how many times the lies are repeated. The fake news icon wrote, “the undercover terrorising human rights defenders in UK is on asylum benefits”. The social worker is obviously suspecting. However, even if Viomak was on asylum benefits, what is wrong with that seriously. To imagine that this degrading and insensitive statement has been typed by a social worker who posted on the internet boggles my mind. This is a professional who works with asylum seekers to ensure they receive the support they are supposed to receive and this support includes asylum benefits. God forbid, she doesn’t end there and goes on to say, “Viomak now purports to be a human rights defender and she claimed asylum in UK after failed forgery of asylum in Canada. Canada made a good decision not to grant her asylum as that would have taken hard earned income some people pay for as tax. She has been on UK benefits since then. As a way to gain income she started a music business pretending to advocate for victims of political violence in Zimbabwe but in reality it was a shift from gospel music where she did not do well. An anti -Mugabe campaign was meant to blind people to who she is. She is exposed now as undercover working on cyber bullying and defaming human rights defenders. She also works with a team of men who attack anyone perceived to be anti- ZanuPF. Any spy job she does at the moment is getting her income she desperately needs. So far attempts to swindle people through membership of her new party flopped in UK as none of the members registered via facebook parted with hard earned cash. The woman uses google and facebook to create defamatory news on targeted human rights defenders as a way to scuttle their work.”

On reading the above one can safely say the desperation in her fake news is extreme and one can only agree that Betty is psychologically deranged and needs help. One would think Betty doesn’t know the meaning of anti- ZanuPF but she knows. When generating fake news one has to fabricate all sorts of malicious lies and come up with obvious lies and something as stupid as, “Viomak also works with a team of men who attack anyone perceived to be anti- ZanuPF.” The idea is to spread lies, harm and instill fear in the victim that if she ever mentions again that Betty Hazviperi Makoni abuses donor funds and workers more fake news will be written and published on her blog. Many of her victims actually went silent after she threatened them and bullied them into silence bragging that she will deal with them, she has connections. The victims don’t have a detailed profile and biography like Viomak so they feared readers will believe Betty Makoni’s fake news about them. Betty spent hours a day sending fake information about Viomak to Zimbabwe facebook pages and one of the pages ran the fake news as published by Betty Hazviperi Makoni on her blog as well saying “ Viomak also works with a team of men who attack anyone perceived to be anti- ZanuPF.” This is an anti- ZanuPF protest singer and activist being referred to as someone who works with a team of men who attack anyone perceived to be anti- ZanuPF. Fake news is something else especially when fake news generators run out of lies. The only truth in their stories is they fabricate information in order to deceive and harm and use misleading information to frame an individual so as to achieve their agendas. After generating the above fake news articles Betty Hazviperi Makoni thanked herself for being a renowned fake news icon and she shared her supposedly last blog post about Viomak on 16 July 2013 titled ‘Betty Makoni exposes Viomak as undercover’, claiming that she had exposed Viomak as a ZanuPF under cover. The news article ‘Girl Child founder Betty Makoni wanted for financial irregularities’ written by Wonder Guchu of Artsinitiates which Viomak also helped to circulate sparked hell for Viomak and she was showered with fabricated stories , fake news by Betty Hazviperi Makoni as revenge for shaming her for corruption, abusing donor funds and workers.

---

Girl Child Network World wide director and founder Betty Hazviperi Makoni who has been nominated for the CNN Hero of the year is being sought by Oxfam Novib to explain financial maladministration. Oxfam Novib has been GCN’s major funders of nine years.

Makoni who has resurfaced in the United Kingdom after fleeing Zimbabwe for Botswana last year is currently claiming to be sourcing funds for Taremeredzwa Nomatter Mapungwana who has a life-threatening tumour and needed funds to fly to the UK for an operation.

In a letter addressed to the Oxfam Novib headquarters in the Netherlands dated 23 September 2009, Ger Roebeling the Interim Regional Manager for Southern Africa says Makoni is not responding to emails written to her in connection with financial maladministration. Roebeling states that GCN is not being run properly and that for some time, they had doubts on the way Betty Makoni managed funds.

“Also of concern for at least a year has been the fact that we were having doubts about the financial performance of GCN and lack of verification of expenditures. Our concern became reality after the sudden resignation of the Financial manager in December 2008 and the observations indicated by the auditor in the financial statements 2008.”

Early this year, Betty Makoni was requested to clarify the financial situation and give additional information but she did not. Unfortunately, Roebeling wrote, “we never received satisfactory response. Therefore, we decided to start external system review and expenditures verification and put our transfers on hold.”

GCN financial team then met Oxfam Novib financial manager in May 2009 where they agreed to co-operate with the verification.Oxfam Novib commissioned KPMG Services Ltd to undertake the external systems review and expenditures verification. Betty Makoni and her board were notified of the process which should have started in August 2009 but neither Makoni nor the board responded.

“We requested KPMG to contact them directly to plan for this exercise. It seems, however, that the founder/ director of GCN and the (very weak) Board of GCN and the remaining acting director of GCN in Zimbabwe are not co-operating with KPMG,” he said.

KPMG was then requested to plan for a final meeting on 18 September 2009 but GCN financial managers did not attend.

“At the moment, there is a decisive constraint on our relationship with the founder/ director who is not replying to our emails.”

The Oxfam Novib contract ended in September 2009.

“We regret to have to end the relationship with GCN after approximately 8-9 years especially with regard to the thousands of girls they stand for but under the circumstances it would be irresponsible as a donor to go on funding them,” the letter said.

Makoni has been campagning for the CNN Hero of the Year award using Taremeredzwa’s name. Although she has claimed that she was at the forefront of fund-raising for the girl’s operation, Artsinitiates reliably understands that well-wishers in Zimbabwe raised $22,000 and Air Zimbabwe provided tickets to enable Taremeredzwa to fly to the UK where Betty Makoni bought into her case. Some of the organisations that put in money are Econet $13 600, Stanbic Bank $5,000 and Bishop Trevor Manhanga’s organisation that chipped in $3 600. Taremeredzwa’s operation needed about £10 000. An investigation by Artsinitiates also revealed that the so called sanctuaries or empowerment villages for girls that Betty Makoni claimed to have built for the girls in Zimbabwe are deserted or are non-existent. It has also emerged that Betty Makoni treats GCN staff as children and there has been a huge staff turnover in the past two years. Recently, Zimbabweans in the UK who were asked by Betty Makoni to help Taremeredzwa for free complained bitterly when Makoni told them that she would give all the donations to Taremeredzwa and that they would do the work for free. Yet she was pocketing some money for her personal use until a volunteer whistle blower Priscilla let the cat out of the bag and the fundraising stopped. Makoni has since changed her organisation to an international one called Girl Child Network World wide.

---

The moment we fail to set the record straight is the moment we allow smear campaigns and fake news to go on unchecked. Of course setting the record straight comes with a lot of risks but when the need arises it is very important that we set the record straight. Many people who have exposed and despised GCN aka GCNW Betty Hazviperi makoni corruption, donor funds abuse and workers abuse, have been called names, labelled ZanuPF state agents and in some cases reported to the police on trumped up charges in order to have them arrested so as to silence them. Some former GCN aka GCNW workers raised the corruption and donor funds abuse issue but they were intimidated into silence and victimized by Betty Makoni except for a few including Ropafadzo Mapimhidze who remained standing until some valuable information was revealed. One of the messages that came from one of the disgruntled former GCN workers said,

“Betty Makoni is theatric, corrupt and uses money to pay in order to tarnish critics and some of those paid include Robert Mukondiwa (H- Metro editor) and Gilbert Munetsi (Kwayedza editor) who was paid us$800 dollars to tarnish another former GCN employee in Kwayedza newspaper. Gilbert Munetsi was subsequently sacked thereafter because the former employee had documented evidence for both persons.”

So what happened is a Kwayedza newspaper junior reporter, Muchaneta Chimuka investigated GCN Betty Makoni abuse of donor funds after a tip off and established that donor funds we being abused and workers bullied and ill treated. The story was published in Kwayedza newspaper on 08 May 2009 and it was published in vernacular, Shona language. It was translated into English and aggregated by other online newspapers. The translated story got Betty to defend her organisation’s abuse of donor funds. She accused the reporter and the translator for working hand in hand with ZanuPF state agents to destroy her. Remember this is the same woman who is in good books with some ZanuPF state agents such as Robert Mukondiwa who accompanied Betty to the CNN awards ceremony. Robert Mukondiwa was a reporter at the state newspaper, the Herald before joining the state tabloid newspaper H- Metro as assistant editor. Robert Mukondiwa also did accounts for GCN having been given the position by Betty Makoni.

Determined to mislead Kwayedza readers and the public, Betty together with Robert Mukondiwa, a state newspaper reporter and Robert Mugabe’s presidential aid, liaised with Gilbert Munetsi, the editor of Kwayedza to re- write the Kwayedza junior reporter story shaming Betty Makoni for donor funds abuse. Betty Makoni paid Gilbert Munetsi us$800 as kick back for the favour, for agreeing to republish the story exonerating Betty and GCN from donor funds abuse. Mind you the Kwayedza editor Gilbert Munetsi approved that the story go for publication on 08 May after the junior reporter investigated it. But as soon as Betty and Robert convinced him that the junior reporter had lied about GCN donor funds mismanagement, Gilbert changed his mind and chose to become an incompetent and unprofessional editor who allows false stories to be published but was ready to correct it and become a competent and professional editor who doesn’t allow false stories to be published.

So Gilbert Munetsi took it upon himself decided to re -investigate and re -write the story after receiving us$800 from Betty Makoni. The re –investigation of the story that set to put the record straight did not go without payment. The editor of Kwayedza ,Gilbert Munetsi ,after pocketing us$800 went on to do his own fake investigations. After doing his own so called investigations he wrote a new story covering Betty Makoni’s back and defending her that she had not abused donor funds. To make sure readers believe his fake story Gilbert weirdly also went on to despise how one of his ‘workmates’ was putting Kwayedza’s sister paper, The Herald into disrepute as he argued that the Herald reporter had also erred and falsely accused GCN Betty Makoni of donor funds abuse. Gilbert was not aware that Oxfam Novib had written a letter withdrawing GCN funding due to donor funds abuse.

To prove that he had done his investigations accurately and make sure that all was under his control Gilbert wrote a leaked email to one Melaine (a GCN donor organisation boss) , taking responsibility of the Kwayedza reporter’s ‘incompetence and spoke against the ‘incompetence’ as he set the record straight. Of course Gilbert wrote the email after Betty Makoni instructed him to do that so as to convince donors that GCN was clean and also the us$800 that Gilbert was paid by Betty as kick back included this dirty work of writing an email to donors lying and misrepresenting truth. The email was to convince Melaine that Betty Makoni and GCN are innocent.

Quoted below is the email that Betty wrote to Gilbert instructing him to write an email to Melanie. “From: Betty Makoni [SMTP:gcnworldwide@btinternet.com]Sent:Tuesday, July 28, 2009 12:08 PM .To:gilbert munetsi .Cc:Melanie A .Subject: Melaine email address : Dear Gilbert .I hope you are fine. Please see cced Melaine email addresses for both work and personal. I cced this yesterday. You can reply all .Keep well.Regards

Hazviperi Betty Makoni , President and Founder .Girl Child Network World Wide.4 West Road .Westcliff on Sea.Essex.SS0 9DA.United Kingdom. After receiving the email above from Betty, Gilbert obliged and wrote to Melaine the email below which he copied to Betty as per her email instructions. On Tue, 28/7/09, gilbert munetsi wrote: From: gilbert munetsi .Subject: RE: Melaine email address .To: “Betty Makoni”.Date: Tuesday, 28 July, 2009, 11:51 AM. “My name is Gilbert Munetsi and I am the News Editor of Kwayedza, the weekly newspaper that published the original story about Betty Makoni. The story, published in our ‘Kwayedza’ issue was written by one of our stringers by the name of Muchaneta Chimuka after she had been misled by a former disgruntled employee of Girl Child Network, Ropafadzo Mapimhidze. Before joining GCN, Ropafadzo Mapimhidze also happens to have worked for the Zimbabwe Newspaper Group (as an Assistant Editor) under whose stable our paper falls and it became evident after investigations that she was using her influence as a former senior employee to make the junior stringer believe her story. After we had published the story, we had a visit from GCN staff members querying the credibility of the article which, ethically, was supposed to carry the other side (Betty’s) but because the writer and her source brought it to us just before the paper went to bed, there had not been time or effort put to reach Betty or GCN for comment (and I have to admit this was gross unprofessionalism on the part of my paper). However, instead of carrying out a retraction, I decided to personally carry out investigations which included physically visiting the schools where GCN is paying fees for the girls, going through the documentation made available for my perusal by GCN management staff and talking to employees as well as Ropafadzo Mapimhidze’s lawyer. Should you need confirmation of the above information, please do not hesitate to get in touch with my Editor, Mr Happiness Chikwanha, on e-mail address: happiness.chikwanha@zimpapers.co.zw .Sincerely, Gilbert Munetsi. News Editor. Kwayedza news editor Gilbert then wrote a new story headlined ‘Ndorumwa Nechekuchera’ after receiving the said us$800 from GCN Betty Makoni to kill the first story that exposed GCN mismanagement of donor funds which was written by the junior reporter, stringer Muchaneta Chimuka and approved for publication by Gilbert the editor. Ropafadzo exposed this corruption to Gilbert Munetsi’s bosses and Gilbert was fired as Kwayedza editor.

---

“Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. It often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue” Wikipedia. “Fake news is a term that has come to mean different things to different people. At its core, we are defining ‘fake news’ as those news stories that are false. The story itself is fabricated, with no verifiable facts, sources or quotes. Sometimes these stories may be propaganda that is intentionally designed to mislead the reader. The other type of ‘fake news’ is Misinformation and Disinformation. The universe of ‘fake news’ is much larger than simply false news stories. Some stories may have a nugget of truth, but lack any contextualizing details. They may not include any verifiable facts or sources. Some stories may include basic verifiable facts, but are written using language that is deliberately inflammatory, leaves out pertinent details or only presents one viewpoint. ‘Fake news’ exists within a larger ecosystem of mis and disinformation news’. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is mistakenly or inadvertently created or spread. The intent is not to deceive. Disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” University of Michigan Library Online.