MP questions govt over shortage of funds yet buying flashy cars for ministers

The MDC Prosper Chapfiwa Mutseyami has questioned the government over its claims that it has no money yet giving money to buy vehicles and live in government houses.

"This Parliament has a lot of Members and we have problems which we face as Members of Parliament. Generally, each one of us as a Member of Parliament has a vehicle which he or she uses as a means of moving from point A to point B but the type of cars given to us were not the cars we were expecting but we are able to move," said Mutseyami.

"We are told there is no money but my main concern is that people should be fed and yet we are told that there is no money. We are saying each Member of Parliament has a vehicle and Ministers are saying there is no money. If you have a new Minister, within a short period of appointment, that Minister is given money so that he buys a very big car and this is over and above the Mercedes Benz which he has."

He said the Ministers who will have been removed from their offices will also take their official cars and buy them at book value but this new Minister, not only does he receive a new car, he is also given accommodation and domestic workers who are paid by the State. He said this member will also move from his own personal and private residence to Government residence. Is that a reflection of a country which has no money?

"The President also talked about war veterans and he said he has introduced a Ministry of Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Former Political Detainees and Restrictees and we gladly accepted that ministry. These war veterans are the people who worked hard and sacrificed their lives for this country including my father John Salani Dhliwayo Mutseyami, he died a Major in the Army, he was a war veteran not a fake veteran but a genuine one," he said.

"When we are saying we have no money, look at the war veterans; we are saying people are paid at the end of the month but what I know is that the war veterans have not received their January allowances and we are in February and still they have not been paid anything."

He said these war veterans have families who look up to them and they should be paying fees for their children.

"We have some war veterans who are of ill health, they are sick and they are supposed to receive treatment in hospital but some of them owe these hospitals lots of monies. They also owe learning institutions monies for fees and we wish these people to be paid so that they can pay the monies that they owe these institutions," he said.

"When Ministers fall sick, they go out of the country where they receive treatment and we say the country has no money. The war veterans go to Government hospitals and they cannot afford the private practitioners who charge lots of monies for treatment. The war veterans cannot receive monies due to them and their salaries are behind by two months, how does a war veteran survive?"

The MP asked the government should give priority to war veterans for the sacrifices which they took in liberating Zimbabwe so that they can live a normal life, take care and pay fees for their families.

"These war veterans are only taken into consideration when we are going for the elections. That is when they are paraded as a way of show off but when it comes to their needs, they are ignored. I am debating this looking at the Presidential Speech. The people who liberated this country, the war veterans will die and the time they die they will be paupers. Just this past weekend, I attended a funeral of one Gibson Chimhini a war veteran," he said.

"When he died, the Government failed in all the things which he should have received. When he was ill, he needed treatment, medication and I would have expected this war veteran who went to the war a long time back and was trained in Yugoslavia and Russia to have received such. To my surprise, he was not given a military parade to honour this gallant son of Zimbabwe. They could have come to show the last respect for this war veteran but he was ignored. All his works were not taken into account."

The MP said one would have expected that when a war veteran is being buried, mourners should have been taken care of but unfortunately, in the case of this war veteran, people were eating cabbages and vegetables, no meat and yet he should have been respected.

"So, Government failed in paying for his treatment and paying for his funeral," he said.