adminThe current crop of MPs should arguably rank the most self-centred group this country has ever had because the list of their demands is endless. At every opportunity the parliamentarians look at avenues to make more money and never worry about the welfare of their constituents. Is this a new crop of politician emerging in Zimbabwe? People who get into politics not to serve their country or its citizens but to make endless monetary and material demands. Just recently the MPs were demanding $10 000 each for using their cars for the Copac outreach programme. Now they claim they should have been paid $75 per day instead of the $25 they received. They claim the $25 per day is way below the $75 per day approved for any parliamentary business. The MPs argue that Copac members were paid $75 per day and no parliamentarian should be paid more than what other legislators are paid when conducting parliamentary business.
We have been reading about how Copac was operating on a shoe-string budget because of under-funding and thought the MPs would have been content with the $25 they got because at least they got something. Constitution making business is a national duty honestly and more money is still needed to complete the work. The Copac select committee and the management obviously did more work than their counterparts and that could be the reason they were probably paid $75. What is it exactly that the MPs did except just mobilising their constituents to come for the outreach meetings. Even if the MPs had not mobilised their constituents, people were still going to turn up because Copac put advertisements in newspapers and on radio and television. Copac went as far as erecting billboards in public places to invite people to make their contributions.
Civil servants are toiling for salaries that are below the poverty datum line and hardly get opportunities to make an extra dollar through travel and subsistence allowances because they are always at their workstations. Why can’t the Members of Parliament also sacrifice just like the civil servants? After all the MPs get to travel locally, regionally and abroad on Parliament business and they draw allowances. They get car loans and have of late been demanding housing loans to buy houses in Harare, where they attend Parliament. But did the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered at various centres countrywide demand anything to make their contributions to this exercise of national importance?
The stampede for payment for services rendered negates the very objective of running for public office. The demands just go to show that the MPs and the thousands of councillors running most of our councils are in political leadership to make money and not to serve the people. The constitution making process has clearly been taken as a source of making riches rather than a national process. MPs and councillors, some of whom were recently fired by the MDC-T on allegations of corruption and engaging in activities to amass wealth and properties using their positions, should understand that they were chosen to represent the people and not rip them off.
MPs are already paid salaries and allowances for serving their constituents and should make do with the $25, which they shouldn’t have been paid after all if there was no money. There is a growing cancer in Zimbabwean politics that has seen leadership at the local government and legislature levels scrambling for the gravy train at the expense of the people and the State. Is the national interest safe with this calibre of politicians or leaders?
We wait for the day when the MPs and councillors will demand that social grants being given to the elderly, the vulnerable and orphans are increased from the current $20 per month or the civil servants’ salaries are raised above the poverty datum line.
Online Reporter