MPs must be accountable to the electorates
#000000">I read and found it commendable the idea by the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, who is also ZANU PF National Political Commissar, Cde Webster Shamu that ZANU PF aspiring candidates in all elections would now be asked to produce their programmes and justify to the people why they should be voted for.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">This call must be taken serious as it comes on the background of various investigations being carried out by the Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs on how the current crop of MPs used the Constitutional Developmental Fund(CDF).
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">The CDF which was allocated to all the constituencies through their MPs representing those constituencies by the Ministry of Finance in the 2011 National budget in November 2010 had not seen any developments taking place in various constituencies around the country. And in some of the constituencies the CDF failed to do the intended goals but only ended up abused by MPS.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">As such a lot of constituents in the country are failing to understand why those MPs who abused CDF can come again to the same people seeking re-elections.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">So the call by Minister Shamu had come at an appropriate time as the counter is waiting eagerly to possible hold elections next year.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">Some of the MPs only lastly held meetings in their constituencies during campaigns for 2008 harmonised elections when they were seeking for votes to smuggle them into parliament. From that time upto now their constituencies had become ghost areas as they rarely go there.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">Most rural areas and even urban areas see no reason why their MPs could come back to them and seek their endorsements into the august house through their important Xs.
#000000"> The MPs had seen it necessary to use people to vote for them into parliament so that they get to live luxuriously, forgetting to represent those who had sacrificed their time standing into meandering queues waiting to vote for them.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">While this article may not be in a position to mention any MP by name but areas like Kuwadzana had gone for a long time without electricity which is blamed by many for load shading by ZESA.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">Well, ZESA had its own shortcomings, which l cannot discuss them in this article but the bottom line is that the MP of Kuwadzana must come to the people and explain to them why Kuwadzana has been sacrificed by ZESA in load shading as it seeks to satisfy other locations in
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">In Kuwadzana, electricity is switched on around ten(10) pm and switched off around five(5)am every day but in other locations electricity remains visible in normal hours.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">The MP of the area rarely comes there and it is now hard to think that there is any MP in Kuwadzana constituency. It would be good if he/she comes out from that cocoon and tell us that he/she is around and what business is he/she doing which interrupts him/her from visiting the constituency.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">Some of us who started staying in Kuwadzana just after 2008 elections are now regretting why in the first place we thought of going to stay there.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">Water problems are the order of the day and the Kuwadzana clinic is not also spared in the ZESA load shading exercise and water woos. It is disheartening to see such an important institution in the constituency failing to get essential services when it is there to serve lives.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">One wonders why people sometimes elect MPs who just come to them when they want to be elected into parliament and disappear after elections.
#000000"> Probably, the problem with this may be that most of the MPs just come in such constituencies claiming that they are residents of those constituencies yet they would be staying in areas like Borrowdale, Belvedere, Vainona etc
#000000"> Electorates are coerced into voting for such people into parliament as the leadership of various political parties would have presented to them those individuals as their representatives leaving people with no choice but to vote for them.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">In this way people get to be given a candidate who spends his/her time in Borrowdale and failing to know the hardships which his/her constituents would be facing. As a measure to make sure that an MP fully represents his/her people, a requirement for one to be voted into parliament must also see to it that an aspiring candidate lives in the area where he wants to represent.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">In addition to that, if one is voted into parliament and then fails to either visit his/her constituency or put in place developmental programmes within a period of two years, his/her seat must be declared vacant and the party which holds that seat must be given a chance to find replacement from its members within that constituency.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">MPs must be bound by law to make sure that they do tangible developments in their constituencies in which failure to do so during their terms, automatically they would have dismissed themselves from seeking re-election.
#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">So the electorates must take seriously Minister Shamu`s advice and make sure that hard working MPs remain in parliament and lazy ones are flushed out from parliament in next elections.
