Vice President Constantino Chiwenga caused a stir in Parliament yesterday when he told Movement for Democratic Change vice-president Nelson Chamisa the country would have been better off if he had not gone to America and other places campaigning for sanctions.
Chiwenga was responding to a question about pensions for war veterans first raised by Tshinga Dube who was at one time Minister of War Veterans.
“I was saying that we need to understand the history behind that journey of the past thirty seven years that we have gone through. If we had worked together as a nation and not a divided people, we would not be talking about under development or poverty,” he said.
His response sparked intense debate with MDC-T chief whip Innocent Gonese asking Chiwenga to withdraw the part about Chamisa’s going to America as it was not relevant to the question.
“The matter is withdrawn but an arrow shot is a fly which has gone,” Chiwenga responded sparking even more intense debate.
Chamisa responded: “The Vice President has withdrawn his statement but he has further added salt to injury when he said an arrow shot is a fly which is gone. This is a challenge because this is a man from the military who has spoken, but in the military set up, it might not mean anything because the Vice President is known as an esteemed and highly recognised Commander. Kana munhu arimugandanga mukuru achitaura zvakadai…”
Speaker Jacob Mudenda asked Chamisa to withdraw the word gandanga, which he did while Chiwenga “retrieved the arrow.”
Below is the entire exchange
HON. T. J. DUBE: Hon. Speaker Sir, my question is why it has taken so long to align the laws of the collaborators to the Constitution. This has been going on for too long, it seems to have been swept under the carpet now. Secondly, on war veterans, do you have any consideration of their pensions for the last 20 years? Those are the two questions Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. You did not indicate which Minister. I suspect – [AN HON. MEMBER: Ehe.] – Just a minute! Just a minute! I suspect that question it is directed to the Hon. Vice President, Rtd. General Dr. Constantino, G.D.N. Chiwenga who is in charge of war veterans [HON. MEMBERS: Guvheya.]
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