Zanu PF central committee member and former Technology minister Callistus Ndlovu was booed during a meeting at the Small City Hall in Bulawayo last week when he tried to blame “sanctions” for the de-industrialisation of the city.
Ndlovu, infamous for his “Zapu is a dead donkey” remark in the 1980s, was addressing residents during a Bulawayo Agenda-organised dialogue on the de-industrialisation of the country’s second biggest city.
Residents shouted at the politician when he started repeating the Zanu PF line of blaming the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy on sanctions, accusing him of feeding them the former ruling party propaganda.
Zanu PF is unpopular in Bulawayo where it failed to get a single parliamentary seat in the March 2008 harmonised elections.
“Bulawayo was once a hub of the manufacturing industry such as textiles,” said Ndlovu.
“The city was also a stronghold of the engineering sector. The imposition of sanctions coupled with other economic factors has made the companies to fail to restore their machinery, which is now obsolete. Sanctions have seriously affected our local industries,” he said, before the audience jeered and heckled him.
Ndlovu later blamed politicians in the coalition government for uttering discordant remarks, thus scaring away investors.
“People must stop making harsh statements, which repel investors. Let’s be careful of what we say about our country,” added Ndlovu.
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The meeting was also attended by Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals Gorden Moyo, National Healing, Integration and Reconciliation co- minister Moses Mzila-Ndlovu and Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries Matabeleland Chapter regional president Ruth Labode.
