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

Several legislators blasted Local government Minister July Moyo for failing to come to Parliament to answer questions about the Belarus fire tender agreement arguing that he had made his deputy Marian Chombo the sacrificial lamb.

The fired a number of questions on Chombo on the deal which is being questioned by legislators from both the ruling party and the opposition.

Full debate:

HON. CHIKWINYA: On a point of order! Hon. Speaker, you gave one Member of Parliament a time to ask questions.  The response from the Hon. Minister must be addressing a particular question to a particular Member of Parliament.  So, we expected you to say to Hon. Biti these were issues and these are your answers, with Hon. Markham, these were issues and these are the answers.  Otherwise to give a blanket response is not fair for Members of Parliament who asked different questions and expect different answers from the Hon. Minister.

So, the Minister was here taking notes, can she respond to each and every Member of Parliament stating their names as she gives responses. That is the parliamentary procedure.

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Thank you very much for that suggestion but you need to understand that I gave a chance to many Hon. Members to put their questions forward to the Minister.  So, there were some other questions that were interlinking.

HON. CHOMBO: Thank you Hon. Speaker.  As I was saying that were there is a bilateral agreement as pointed out by Hon. Biti, the Procurement Act does not apply.

Hon. Porusingazi asked about the specifications, if they were just general – the specifications were given by the chief officers and after consultations with their relevant local authorities.  Hon. Porusingazi went on to ask if there are going to be backup training as we had problems previously with these bilateral agreements.

Definitely, in my presentation, I mentioned that there was going to be training and there was going to be backups and the training were going to be conducted locally here in Zimbabwe and also in Belarus.  The equipment that we have proposed is already being used at Allied Timbers, so it is not something new that is going to be purchased in Zimbabwe. I think I have responded to all questions. If there are any that I have left out…

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order! There is a question that was asked by Hon. Porusingazi which you did not address.  The question was – are these machines different, the ones which come to Chipinge and the ones which are in Harare.

HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order! Hon. Nduna said murungu uyu haana basa.  It is being racist and it is not a laughing matter and being a racist means you are also going to be a tribalist.  These are the same people who cause genocide.  Can the Hon. Member withdraw paati murungu uyu haana basa.

Continued next page

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