Former ZANU PF Mashonaland West provincial chairperson, Temba Mliswa, who is the current legislator for Norton, has pledged to assist members of the Chakabvure Methodist Church in Shurugwi to complete a church building which is under construction.

Mliswa said he will use proceeds of the land reform programme and the Farm Mechanisation Scheme to assist the Methodists.

This follows an expose on Saturday by University of Kent law professor Alex Magaisa on how Zimbabwe’s governing elite gave each other farming implements worth millions of United States dollars at taxpayers’ expense in 2007/08 under the controversial Farm Mechanisation Programme.

He said:

Yesterday [Sunday] I attended church Chakabvure Methodist Church, Gamwa Section, Shamba Circuit, under the Methodist Church of Zimbabwe.

I’ve pledged to assist in completing the church building with proceeds of the land reform, supported by the mechanisation programme at my farm.

As a proud beneficiary of various empowerment initiatives implemented by the late former President RGM, I will do my part in ploughing back to the community and in this instance enlarging the Kingdom of God. The next 3 months will see a transformation at this church.

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Temba Mliswa is one of top political figures in the country who benefited from a controversial US$200 million RBZ loans.

The beneficiaries were initially expected to pay for the implements but later the government took over the debts.