Mliswa exposes land barons among legislators in parly

Independent legislator Temba Mliswa has exposed some legislators in parliament as land barons who have caused the outbreak of cholera in Harare due to allocation of land to residents when there are no sanitary facilities.

"There is also the issue of the land barons, some of whom are in this House.  In Norton, we have Hon. Cuthbert Mupame who is implicated in the Kingsdale issue.  We have Hon. Cde. Killer Zivhu, who is implicated in the Galloway issue.  I speak about this with a heavy heart because these people have made people of Norton suffer," he said.

"The cholera that we talk about today is a result of land barons who have gone and built more stands without complying with the master plan.  Every town has got a master plan and if you look at it you give people land who are the land barons to build but they do not build any infrastructure to augment the new houses which are being built.  That cholera which is there is a result of the land barons who have been given land and not only that, but they are the same land barons who were sponsoring the G40, but I see them in this House again."

He said at times he wonder what really happened to the party.

"Where are the eyes of the party?  They created so much division in the country.  They were the ones supporting the former first lady but today I see them here.  I wonder - where was the Zanu-PF vetting system in terms of elections to stop these criminals from coming here?  When another faction comes, you know where it is coming from.  You failed to stop them at the end of the day.  The reason why I talk about the factions is because they have played a part in this economy not taking off.  The only thing that the ruling party did in the Eighth Session was to just fight and fight.  There was no progress at the end of the day," he said.


"I talk about the aspect of corruption because it is an issue and it is quite sad that some of the issues to do with the Land Commission was set up by the President to look into the land barons.  But, I then asked myself – how will the Land Commission be able to investigate other Members of Parliament when they are also part of that investigation?  It says a lot about what we need to do.  I also talk..."

Mliswa said he made the remarks because he have written that and they are part of the investigation of what is going on in the Land Commission.

"So there is evidence that I have written to the authorities in this country and Hon. Cuthbert Mpame was brought before the courts as a result of the Kingsdale issue. So that evidence is there. I would not talk about something which has not gone before the courts and so forth. They are being investigated with the Land Commission. My question is - how fair will the investigations be now that they are Members of Parliament? This is an issue of corruption that I am talking about that at times we need to be very clear in terms of that," he said.

"I also want to talk about the issue of bureaucracy in Government. The President was very clear and I think that the Government has not changed its ways of doing things. The President is much ahead of Government. You can see that there is so much bureaucracy still in Government. It seems that people still have the DNA of the former President Robert Mugabe in terms of how they work and all that, yet the new President is very clear about how he wants things to perform. The onus is on the new administration, the Ministers - to appoint people around them who will be able to align themselves to the vision of the President which he has shown by appointing them."

"We are hoping that there will be a truly new dispensation because for as long as Government is not performing - Government institutions have got to perform he mentioned that."

He said the police are trained to investigate; Homicide section can do armed robber cases, CID can do frauds but they  never hear of ZRP arresting anybody for corruption.

"We hear of ZACC arresting people for corruption. ZACC does not have the capacity that ZRP has. ZRP has stations around and they have a training centre, but you wonder what these institutions are doing in terms of ensuring that they are up to a lot of things. It says a lot again in terms of how the training goes in terms of the crime which is there. Hon. Musabayana spoke about the cyber crime which is highly sophisticated. As a result, we also need to find people who are able to deal with white collar crime and I do not know how far we have gone in terms of introducing that," he said.