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

HON. S. BANDA:  Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for giving me this opportunity to seek a few clarifications from the Hon. Minister. My first point is just to commend Hon. Chombo.  She is a very strong woman.  What she is being made to pass through, I think Hon. July Moyo should come to this House and face the music on his own.

Secondly Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to understand; is there no law in this Parliament which allows us to arrest some Ministers?  That one is for you Mr. Speaker Sir.

I want to go to the issue at hand.  On 19th March, 2021, Eng. Mabhena Moyo said that council was failing to raise 68.000 pounds to facilitate delivery of fire tenders.  Why did the Ministry not choose just to look for the 68.000 pounds to facilitate that delivery than for them to now come and say we are purchasing these fire tenders that are coming from anywhere and yet they are not coming from nowhere?

My other clarification is, did these councils go willy-nilly or they were forced to ask for the fire tenders.  Lastly Mr. Speaker Sir, the fire tenders that are at our airports are top notch, all of them are from South Africa.  Why did we not go again to South Africa to get them than to go to Belarus?  Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.

HON. CHIMINA:  Thank you Hon. Speaker.  I have a question to the Minister of Local Government.  When she was giving her Statement, she said she consulted the Chief Fire Officers.  How did she do that skipping the councilors who are elected officials and policy makers in councils?

The other issue that I have, I remember in 2019 the same Ministry ended up buying wrong pumps.   For Gweru City Council, they bought agriculture irrigation pumps instead of dresser pump that was required.  Is it not a repeat of what happened that year when they left out the elected councilors and they went ahead and bought wrong machinery?  Council will be blamed on something that would have been done by the Ministry.

HON. SARUWAKA:  Thank you Hon. Speaker. Firstly, I want the Minister to clarify on the issue of devolution funds.  Devolution funds are not free funds.  Secondly, fire tenders use water when putting out fires.  We hear stories where fire tenders arrive at a place and there is no water to put out the fire.  I want to find out the plans that they have so that water will be available for the fire tenders when they want to use them.  Where are they going to get the water from? What plans do they have in place so that we have enough water to use in the fire tenders so that we put out fires?  Lastly, is she aware that Belarus, despite that they are friends with the Executive, where we come from in the rural areas like in Mutasa, Belarus is not in good books with the locals in Mutasa because of the mining activities.  So I do not know the relationship between them and Belarus, where their relationship is coming from because out there there are no good relations.  I thank you.

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