GRACE PROTECTING CORRUPT MINISTERS : MLISWA

FIRST Lady Grace Mugabe was yesterday lambasted in Parliament by Norton MP Temba Mliswa for interfering with executive decisions, and in the process, protecting corrupt ministers.

“The First Lady cannot interfere with executive decisions, and where does she get the powers to stop an investigation of Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo? And with all due respect the Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa was very clear to say that the First Lady has no executive powers,” he said while contributing to debate in the National Assembly on a motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.

“When I go into the Constitution, I do not see any section which confers executive powers on the First Lady.” Mliswa said President Robert Mugabe had failed to put a leash on his wife.

He said Mugabe was also failing to curtail corruption, which was now being permeated by the First Family, with recent reports that Grace’s son, Russel Goreraza, had imported two Rolls Royce vehicles worth $5,4 million in a country struggling to get foreign currency.

“The First Family has no will to deal with corruption because we see luxurious cars being bought when we have no foreign currency in the country,” Mliswa said.

“Posh cars worth $5,4 million have been bought and we need to be sensitive to the plight of Zimbabweans because you cannot buy expensive cars when there is no foreign currency.”

He then took a dig at Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo, saying he should be investigated for land scandals and promoting land barons.

The MP was referring to Mugabe’s announcement that a Land Developers’ Bill would be brought before Parliament for crafting. Mliswa said when Chombo was Local Government minister, he presided over land barons.

“The current Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere is too small to deal with the issue of land barons and so let Chombo deal with them,” he said.

“This Land Development Bill is incomplete if Chombo is not investigated as the minister who was in charge. [When] Kasukuwere came into office, there was no land.”

Meanwhile, the mover of the motion on the Presidential speech, Daniel Mackenzie Ncube (Zanu PF), suggested that judges’ wigs must be done away with, as they were colonial regalia.

In an unrelated matter, Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda congratulated leader of the opposition, Thokozani Khupe, for graduating with a doctorate, saying five more legislators were working on attaining theirs.

Buhera South MP Joseph Chinotimba then stood up saying the MDC-T legislators must update the House on their leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s health, after reports he was airlifted to South Africa for emergency treatment.

“We want to know from MDC-T vice-presidents Nelson Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri if they were not the ones that poisoned him,” he said.

But Mudenda ruled him out of order, adding the House wished Tsvangirai a speedy recovery. Newsday

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