Zimbabwe Parliament- What they said about the Belarus fire tender deal- Part 3

HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker Sir, the residents of the City of Harare are consulted in terms of the budget…

HON. S. NYATHI: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. I am requesting that the Hon. Member who debated previously should refer to the Minister as Hon. Minister July Moyo and not as July Moyo.

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Your point of order has been noted. Thank you very much. Go ahead Hon. Madzimure.

HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I was saying that annually, the City of Harare, through its councillors engages citizens to hold consultations with their communities on what they want on their budget. Is there submission that requested for fire tenders? Secondly, if there is a bilateral between governments, do they consult the recipients of the agreement? Government was supposed to go to the local authorities. Hon. Chombo knows that local authority refers to councillors and top administration. Currently, in Harare there is one substantive Director for Health. There are no directors and it means that they have to go and pick those at the lowest level in administration so that the devolution funds that were supposed to be used for developing Harare are now being used to buy fire tenders.

Lastly, the fire tankers that they bought are too expensive, that is the truth of the matter. There is no such fire tanker that is needed in areas such as Checheche and Rutenga. The amount is too high. Can they justify the price of the fire tender that cost half a million? In their opinion as Government, did they see that tanker with its expensive nature that it was what we require in Zimbabwe? I thank you.

HON. GABBUZA: The Minister indicated that in the region they compared and the cheapest was $500 thousand in the region and yet Belarus was offering at $400 thousand. Belarus is a manufacturer and locally we do not have manufacturers. Did they compare with other manufacturers of fire tenders like Japan, France, et cetera because you cannot compare with SADC in the region where they do not manufacture, they also buy?

Secondly Mr. Speaker, it is the issue of suitability of Belarus equipment. Is the Minister aware that Hwange Colliery bought the same Belarus equipment and it never worked? Were we not guided accordingly in terms of quality because of the Belarus equipment which she said is very suitable?

Lastly, can the Minister indicate to this House the special specifications that were given to Belarus to manufacture? One would think that fire tenders are standard but what are those special specifications that are unique that they gave to Belarus?

HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question has been raised before but the Minister did not respond. As Members of Parliament, we are being sidelined by the Minister of Local Government on a number of issues. That is why we say if provincial councils were operational, we would put our contributions. We did not see any consultations in our constituencies on fire tenders. As we leave this place we are going to be asked by our communities. They actually say Parliament is the one that bought fire tenders but you are failing to provide us with clean water. Out there the public is not happy as to why fire tenders are being procured.

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