Mliswa says Mnangagwa should arrest corrupt ministers while they are still in office

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER:  Sorry Hon. Member, it is not parliamentary language to call other Hon. Members in this House that they are criminals. Do you have evidence? Maybe you need to change that language because he is also an Hon Member in this House. I thank you.  You may continue.

HON. MLISWA: Sorry, I say this because I have written and they are part of the investigation of what is going on in the Land Commission. So there is evidence that I have written to the authorities in this country and Hon. Cuthbert Mpame was brought before the courts as a result of the Kingsdale issue. So that evidence is there. I would not talk about something which has not gone before the courts and so forth. They are being investigated with the Land Commission. My question is – how fair will the investigations be now that they are Members of Parliament? This is an issue of corruption that I am talking about that at times we need to be very clear in terms of that.

I also want to talk about the issue of bureaucracy in Government. The President was very clear and I think that the Government has not changed its ways of doing things. The President is much ahead of Government. You can see that there is so much bureaucracy still in Government. It seems that people still have the DNA of the former President Robert Mugabe in terms of how they work and all that, yet the new President is very clear about how he wants things to perform. The onus is on the new administration, the Ministers – to appoint people around them who will be able to align themselves to the vision of the President which he has shown by appointing them. We are hoping that there will be a truly new dispensation because for as long as Government is not performing – Government institutions have got to perform he mentioned that.

The ZRP are trained to investigate; Homicide section can do armed robber cases, CID can do frauds but we never hear of ZRP arresting anybody for corruption. We hear of ZACC arresting people for corruption. ZACC does not have the capacity that ZRP has. ZRP has stations around and they have a training centre, but you wonder what these institutions are doing in terms of ensuring that they are up to a lot of things. It says a lot again in terms of how the training goes in terms of the crime which is there. Hon. Musabayana spoke about the cyber crime which is highly sophisticated. As a result, we also need to find people who are able to deal with white collar crime and I do not know how far we have gone in terms of introducing that.

Mr. Speaker Sir, Command Agriculture has done well and I do not think there is any better person than the Hon. Sen. Chief Air Marshall Shiri to be able to run that. He is a farmer himself. He is a military person and being a military person, he needs that discipline which was lacking in the Ministry of Agriculture for things to be done and already we have got results which are there. I believe that in the appointment of Hon. Sen. Shiri from an agricultural point of view, this is probably one of the best appointments which have been made. I have no doubt that results will be produced for a man who is well trained.

In terms of the country’s resources of lithium and coal bed methane, it is a bit unfortunate that some of our resources that we have seem to be taken away by people who are not Zimbabweans. I wonder that the indigenisation and empowerment seems to have been forgotten but the locals need to benefit. What is in it for Zimbabwe at the end of the day? We cannot be excited by people who come in to get our resources yet our people continue to suffer. There must be a local content or percentage for the people in these areas so that they benefit.

Finally in terms of devolution, I think it is the way to go and I am hoping that it certainly complies with the Constitution in terms of the requirements. We had Provincial Councils elections which were held and devolution will talk a lot about how provinces will grow from an economic point of view.

I want to thank you Mr. Speaker for giving me this opportunity and equally congratulate all Members of Parliament across the political divide, to say let us work for the country and I am hoping that you do not stick to the whipping system but if you are whipped, you must let me know; I will be able to support you. I thank you.

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