*HON. MATANGIRA: I want to add my voice on the speech that was delivered by His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde R. G. Mugabe. No other better information will come than what he said in his speech where he called upon all of us Zimbabweans to unite and come up with strategies that have the support of all of us for the development of our nation. He did not leave out the fact that right now we are experiencing a drought that has been caused by El Nino and not by political parties but sanctions which affect us such that we can no longer engage in farming.
The President of Zimbabwe is not the one who brings the rains but the hunger that is here is because of El Nino. What is pleasing is that he said that no one in Zimbabwe will die of hunger. I think we should give him a round of applause for this. Truthfully speaking Mr. Speaker Sir, I stayed in Binga, Hwange, Tsholotsho, Masvingo and Manicaland – there are no people who are not getting any food aid up to today. I want to say that the Hon. Member who was talking of food hand-outs being given along party lines – everyone is allowed to dream and that is not the case.
What I want to say is that primary school children from where I come from and other areas are being given food supplements. The question that I want to pose to the Hon. Members in this House is that…
Hon. Cross having passed the Chair without bowing was reminded to do so.
…instead of just crying foul that the Government is not this and that, the President is not addressing these issues, we should ask ourselves what we as individuals are doing to help the people in our constituencies who voted for us. Are we also going to monitor the food that is being given to people in communities and schools to see if children are being fed. We need to go and monitor whether distribution is being done efficiently. The Hon. Member also said that whoever is distributing food is from a particular political party, when we are here in Parliament we are civil servants. We are not partisan. We are like the village heads. We are not different from the traditional leaders. The chiefs do not rule over a certain group of people belonging to one party only. What we are saying here is that we are not partisan and that is why the ruling party keeps progressing because we are not segregating. Hunger does not choose whether you are MDC or ZANU PF. There is no segregation that is taking place.
The President also said that even the Opposition that we have in this country is being ruled by President Mugabe because of democracy. The opposition should therefore accept that those who are distributing food are people who are appointed by God as village heads and chiefs – the traditional leaders.
Mr. Speaker Sir, if we consider in all countries that we know, the opposition began long back. God Himself and his angels was ruling both in heaven and on earth. Satan was also there and he wanted to make himself God – to take over the throne. That is where opposition began. Opposition will never see anything positive although it is positive. Even if things improve and development takes place, the opposition will never see any positive developments.
The Government of President Mugabe is leaving no stone unturned in sourcing for food to give to the people of Zimbabwe and not to ZANU PF people only. The Government does not segregate and what I have realised in this House is that, the opposition has realised that they do not have any room and opportunity.
Continued next page
(305 VIEWS)
One Comment