JACOB Mudenda, the Speaker of Parliament, had a very eventful week this week. It was a welcome break from his favourite pastime of touring far-flung countries to see how other parliaments are run, just so he can laugh at their professionalism.
This week, he wrote over a dozen letters to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to say some recently elected Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) members were no longer MPs.
The basis for his letters was correspondence from one Sengezo Tshabangu, who convinced Mudenda that he was the secretary-general of the opposition party. Now, some people are asking why Mudenda was so eager to act on a letter from some random guy.
The Speaker told the CCC: “Listen very carefully to my statement. I cannot adjudicate on that issue. In the letter, the contents in that letter are not of discussion in this House.”
Fair enough. Muckraker, as a true patriot, is in the process of writing a letter to Jacob Mudenda recalling every Zanu PF MP in the House. More importantly, the letter shall demand that the reeling party’s allocation of government loot be promptly dispensed into yours truly’s mobile money account.
There is no doubt Mudenda will comply. The only letters he ignored were the ones he got during the Sandura Commission over the Willowgate Scandal.
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Talking to a wall
In parliament, the CCC tried to resist the recall of 15 of their MPs. Their chief whip, Amos Chibaya, stood up to try to tell Mudenda that Tshabangu was not his secretary-general.
Chibaya said: “Honourable Speaker, those recalls are not from CCC. In our structures, we do not have a secretary-general in our party. As the Speaker, you must not rule in favour of Tshabangu.”
He may as well have been talking to a wall. Annoyed by all these people talking back at him, Mudenda called in the riot police to clear out all the miscreants. He then banned them from parliament for six seatings and docked two months’ pay for each of them.
We wonder why he stopped there. He should have just banned the opposition for life and declared the country a one-party state there and then. We need to loot the country on our own in peace without pesky opposition parties asking us silly questions.
Honest wealth
The Zimbabwe Allegedly Anti-Corruption Commission has announced that it is going after bigwigs with flashy cars.
According to a report, these people would be asked questions on where they got their money, as Zacc tries “to establish whether they acquired their wealth through honest means”.
“Zacc has noted the so-called mbingas who are flaunting their wealth on various social media platforms,” said a Zacc spokesperson. Some of these people “are genuinely rich and can afford those luxuries”, she said, but some may need to explain how they got their loot.
Of course, the news was meant with much surprise. What exactly is Zacc trying to do? What do they mean when they say they want to ask people if the money they are flaunting was acquired through honest means?
Surely, by now, they should know that in this country, nobody who acquires money through honest means flaunts it on Instagram.
In fact, we are surprised to hear that Zacc thinks that, in this day and age in this country, there are people who still acquire wealth through honest means.
Solution to cholera
Residents of Harare, currently suffering from an outbreak of the medieval disease, cholera, got a dose of incredibly uplifting news this week.
Usually, in other less enlightened parts of the world, people prevent cholera by supplying clean water, fixing sewerage, and collecting rubbish. It was announced that the City of Harare, the authority that is supposed to supply water and collect garbage and thus prevent such outbreaks, had found an even better solution to the problem. Our newly elected council will go around hospitals praying for those infected.
“Councillor (Happymore) Gotora praying for a cholera patient in Harare today. He was part of a tour by the Harare Mayor at Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital,” the City of Harare’s public relations team gladly posted on the internet.
While some of us thought this was the City of Harare, it is really the City of Harare International Ministries.
Bright flashes
Meanwhile, Harare’s deputy mayor was having her own bright flashes. She told people not to worry about prayerful councillors laying hands in infectious hospitals.
“Cholera is not contagious, but is passed through orally and by touch,” she lectured. Of course, some no-good people pointed out the fallacy in that statement.
Her apology came quickly. She said: “My sincere apologies about the misleading cholera tweet it was a typo, I meant to say airborne & not contagious. Cholera is spread by eating food or water contaminated by faeces of an infected person. Cholera is not spread directly from one person to another.”
We should not be too surprised. Not so long ago, it was reported that our deputy mayor had tried to sneak into a local university without the requisite qualifications.
She had a good explanation, blaming party rivals for making noise about it. She said: “I was given a special dispensation — being mature entry and I was also given the opportunity to sit for the (‘O’ Level) subjects while I take up my undergraduate programme.”
And we wonder why this alleged capital city is a large dump.
Jailed for insulting
It was reported this week that a man who has spent the past month in jail for insulting the country’s owner has been released for some reason.
According to the reports, the Mutare man, Elroy Muchaya, was arrested on September 6 for the serious crime of being heard saying that Mnangagwa was making his life miserable. It is said the chap went to a police station, stepped on a counter, and removed Mnangagwa’s portrait. He then declared, much to everyone’s horror: “This is the man causing all my suffering.”
We thank Heavens that we have alert police officers. He was promptly arrested and sent to cool his head for a month. Prosecutors said the man’s utterances were “unlawful, abusive, indecent and obscene”.
Now we hear that some obviously unpatriotic magistrate has decided to let him out on bail. We want someone to have strong words with that court official. We cannot allow people who perform such dastardly criminal activity to roam our streets.
Boring news
Sometimes you wonder if the newspapers have run out of new news. Imagine one paper telling us this week that Zanu PF officials were busy looting farming inputs meant for poor villagers.
“Villagers in various parts of the country have accused Zanu PF bigwigs of hijacking the presidential inputs programme through looting and nepotism,” a report said. We were told that distribution has started of seed and fertiliser to 3,5 million beneficiaries.
However, it was reported, the allocations all around the country “has been marred by accusations of looting and nepotism”.
When reporters are writing about Zanu PF chefs looting things meant for the poor, they may as well be writing about water being wet and the sky being blue.
Surely, if Zanu PF chefs stopped stealing, would they even still be Zanu PF? These reporters should stop boring us.