Mr. Speaker, Government media takes sides, The Herald, The Sunday Mail, ZBC, they take sides. The Minister of Media then cries foul in public that ah-h the media is taking sides, what am I going to do? Resign – it means that you are not doing your work. Why should you cry foul in public. You have been given that mandate to run the public media and you come and cry in front of us. What do you want us to do? You want us to give you cerelac. Resign because you are a failure.
The fourth point here says, bureaucrats are meddling in issues of politics. Mr. Speaker, Permanent Secretaries are paper tigers. They must stay in offices and implement Government policy. That is what Permanent Secretaries must do. Permanent Secretaries must not give press statements which attack Ministers. Ministers are politicians and Permanent Secretaries are bureaucrats. There is a clear line between politics and bureaucracy and Permanent Secretaries must adhere to that. That is why then you find a Permanent Secretary being paraded at a rally and insulted because he is meddling in politics – iwe George huya pano. The First Lady will not say that to Ngoni Masoka because he is not meddling in politics. He is sticking to his guns but if you meddle in politics and you are not a politician, politicians will undress you in public and that is what happened. What can we do in that scenario? This country needs people who know exactly what they are doing. Politicians must stick to politics and bureaucrats must stick to bureaucracy. If you are a bureaucrat and you want to be politician, resign and join lasting politics torovana kuma primary elections.
This country needs peace and security. When you have the President telling us secrets of his deputy in public, that is a source of conflict. I know ZANU PF people are going to keep quiet because that is a hot potato. You cannot have a President haranguing his deputy in public. You cannot have that and vice versa. You cannot have a Vice President saying bad things about his senior in public. It must not happen. We know the President and his deputy cannot agree on everything but that must be discussed behind closed doors. When they come out, they come out with one position.
I am going to talk about the state of the economy. The President also says, “the Session also comes amid increased optimism for a stronger rebound of the national economy”. Mr. Speaker, people that give the President information must be brought to Parliament and must be asked to respond. Why do they allow the President to read a speech which says the economy is on a rebound when unemployment is at 95% and when everyone is a vendor. Fortunately, Zimbabwe is one of the few countries which has a President who is very intelligent. At his age, the President is very intelligent and he knows but if you give him a speech to say now the economy is on a rebound, he will read it verbatim. What do you expect him to do?
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