Several opposition
MDC-Alliance legislators are holders of diplomatic passports issued by
Government, allowing them to enjoy various advantages that include easy passage
at borders, special lines at customs, tax exemptions, travel upgrades on
airlines and hotels, free visas to any country and in some cases, visa-free
travel.
This, The
Herald has learnt, amid grandstanding by the party’s secretary-general Mr
Chalton Hwende who last week said his party would decline the privileged
document.
Mr Hwende
himself holds the red passport.
The chairman of
the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Trade Cde Kindness Paradza, who announced in Parliament last week that
President Mnangagwa had agreed that all parliamentarians be issued with
diplomatic passports, yesterday revealed that Mr Hwende and several other
members of his party already had diplomatic passport, despite the noise he is
making.
“To begin with,
Hwende is denouncing the issuance of diplomatic passports to his fellow MPs yet
he is a holder of one which he was issued with by the same President, President
Mnangagwa. He was just grandstanding, but as we speak, there is a stampede from
members from his party to get the document.
“There are
several MPs from the MDC including him that already have diplomatic passports,”
Cde Paradza said.
Contacted for
comment, Mr Hwende all but confirmed that he was a holder of such a passport.
“That is
neither here nor there (whether he has a diplomatic passport or not). When I
speak, I speak on behalf of the party and my statement was that the priority
should be on issuance of ordinary green passports because there are people who
are genuinely in need of those passports.
“So whatever
foreign currency we have it should go towards printing of those ordinary passports,”
he said.
Some of the
other legislators who already have the document are Tendai Biti, Prosper
Mutseyami (MDC Chief Whip), Paurina Mpariwa, Daniel Molekele, Concilia
Chinanzvavana, Prince Dubeko Sibanda, Anele Ndebele, Willas Madzimure, Guebuza
Guebuza, Zwizwai Murisi, Tapiwa Mashakada and Jasmine Tofa.
The decision by
the President follows requests by legislators on several occasions in past
parliamentary sessions for them to be issued with the document.
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