Such superfluous expenditure came at a time when State hospitals are operating with neither doctors nor painkillers.
By Sibanengi Dube|MDC Alliance MPs who rode to parliament on a pro-poor ticket were this week part of hundreds of parliamentarians who blew $5 million at the resort town of Victoria Falls in the name of a pre-budget conference.
Air-tickets, five star hotel rooms, three course meals, allowances and single malt whisky seem to have taken precedent in the MaChinjas’ list of priorities.
As to why other affordable venues were discarded in favour of Victoria Falls, one of the world’s most expensive venues is difficult to virtue even as a fleeting deride.
Maddening poverty currently gripping Zimbabwe should have been employed by MDC as a moral justification to boycott the conference and demand a cheaper venue for the conference.
Such superfluous expenditure came at a time when State hospitals are operating with neither doctors nor painkillers.
Medical doctors are pleading poverty to the extent of failing to raise bus fares to go to work while the government can’t afford to import even painkillers because of ‘sanctions.’
The same government without money for painkillers then ropes in MDC to join a week long spending spree in Livingstone. If this is not madness, then one should assist me to find an appropriate term.
Zanu PF is being consistent here. The gorillas have nothing to lose by displaying a DNA which they have always exhibited since 1980. MDC parliamentary Chief Whip, Prosper Mutseyami, missed a political penalty shoot-out. Mutseyami should have declined to lead his colleagues to an opulent feeding trough sponsored by starving and bare-footed taxpayers who can’t even afford coarse salt.
A three star hotel or B&B within the outskirts of Harare would have done the trick, than splashing taxpayers’ cash on parties, air tickets, cruises and cross border shopping escapades.
Do these charlatans expect citizens to believe that only Victoria Falls is good enough to accommodate them as they carry out their parliamentary responsibilities?
Only a fool will commit such resources to extravagances before even fulfilling a single essential on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model.
The MDC is now skating on a thin high moral ground for accepting invitation to dip their fingers in the cookie jar in the name of attending parliamentary duties. These chaps are constantly subjecting the poor people’s faith in their cause to a fitness test.
Tsvangirai’s parliamentary red brigade are short minded and appear to have conveniently thrown away their scripts to make ends meet. MDC MPs should by now have raised their profiles beyond the seduction of mammon, stipends or allowances.
A Z$3200 attendance fee, fuel coupons and air tickets were enough for MDC MPs to throw away their hymn books and start singing from Zanu PF tunes. What about all the election rhetoric of being pro poor and keeping Zanu Pf government under check? This was a missed opportunity to show solidarity with the suffering population instead of enjoying the trappings of power.
Shockingly one senior MDC chap I spoke to, seems convinced that the fruitless expenditure incurred was consistent with their ‘strategic’ contributions at the conference.
He believes that their contributions helped to put the interests of the poor in Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s ZW5.5 billion budget deficit he is expected to reveal soon. Since when has Zanu PF started factoring in MDC contributions to the national agenda? Did the MDC MPs’ presence in Victoria Falls change anything?
One would have anticipated the MDC to push for a pre-budget consultative meeting around the country in the run-up to the budget presentation so as to get public input, instead of jumping at the slightest opportunity to nibble marinated fillet and sip cold ones in a bushy resort as the poor famish.