Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Social media users, including supporters of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), have condemned the opposition party’s legislators for accepting loans from the government less than 12 months before the end of their terms.
The government has offered a US$40 000 housing loan to each sitting Member of Parliament (MP), US$500 000 for individual ministers and US$350 000 for their deputies.
The loans have seemingly angered CCC supporters who feel that the MPs should reject them to prove that they are not in Parliament for personal gain.
University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Political Science lecturer, Eldred Masunungure, told NewsDay that CCC MPs had fallen into the ZANU PF trap to expose the opposition party’s “lack of organisational cohesion”. He said:
In this case of loans, the party is being judged against its moral standards. It is against their party position on pursuing selfless interests, but the MPs are rather benefiting from political patronage.
In this case, no party position has been abided by. The logical thing to do in this case was for them to sit down and discuss the matter and agree on one position.
What it means is that the leader is very consistent, but he has failed to whip his subordinates to one collective stance.
Another political analyst, Vivid Gwede, said the public expects opposition MPs to act differently from ZANU PF legislators. Said Gwede:
Members of Parliament from the opposition will always be held to a higher standard than those from ZANU PF because the expectation is that they should represent and bring a new culture.
That expected culture is about service over self. Hence, when they appear to be already enjoying themselves while the rest of the populace is suffering, there is a feeling of betrayal.
But that does mean that people should get acclimatised to the selfishness of ZANU PF MPs.
At this moment, MPs should be fighting for the resuscitation of basic public services such as health and education.
Team Pachedu, a group of activists, critical of the government and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), said that Harare North MP Allan Norman “Rusty” Markham is the only legislator to reject the loan. It also said:
US$500,000 grants for ministers is madness. US$350,000 grants for deputies is madness. MPs will not complain about this wasteful spending because they have been silenced with US$40,000. Zimbabweans, we are on our own!
Very unstrategic for CCC MPs to take the $40,000. With only 6 months before the next election how do they attack the other side of failing when they too received the loot? When the alternative acts like the current it ceases being one.
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