Zapu and MDC leaders yesterday accused the MDC-T-dominated Bulawayo City Council of turning Lady Stanley Cemetery into an MDC-T members-only burial site.
This follows the recent burial of two MDC-T senators, Gladys Gombami (Mabutweni) and Enna Chitsa (Masotsha-Ndlovu), at the cemetery normally reserved for senior citizens who would have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the city.
Council has been accused of double standards after it approved the burial of the two senators.
Chitsa was the last to be buried at the cemetery on Monday and had a low profile in the city.
Zapu national spokesperson Methuseli Moyo said MDC-T councillors were now behaving like their Zanu PF counterparts who have been accused of turning the National Heroes’ Acre into a Zanu PF members-only shrine.
“The first thing is that Lady Stanley Cemetery is for prominent citizens and you don’t become prominent by being a senator for two years and let alone five years for that matter,” Moyo said.
“Truly speaking, MDC-T senators and MPs are anonymous and hardly put up a fight on behalf of Bulawayo.
“We would like to suspect that MDC-T councillors are behaving like the Zanu PF politburo where they are burying their own, throwing away reason and criteria for political allegiance.
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“They (senators) should have given service that is clear to the people of Bulawayo. You don’t become a hero by holding political office,” he said.
MDC Bulawayo provincial spokesperson Edwin Ndlovu accused the council of double standards.
“We are saying if there is something that they (senators) did for Bulawayo, they can be interred there,” Ndlovu said.
“However, they shouldn’t take chances and bury their people there when they don’t deserve to be there. At the moment they are dragging their feet to confer the Freedom of the City Award on Vice-President John Nkomo in spite of the hard work he did in bringing independence to the country.”
But Mayor Thaba Moyo said his council was too busy running the affairs of the country’s second biggest city “to stoop low and discuss burials of people”.
“As the mayor, I cannot be discussing burials of people when there are pressing issues to attend to,” he said.
“All people are buried, where one is buried should not be an issue because there is nothing amazing about it.
“Where I will be buried, do I ever care?
“We are burying people from this region. By being representatives of the people they did something for Bulawayo.”
On denying Nkomo the Freedom of the City Award, Moyo said the issue must not be mixed with burials. “Why are they mixing the two? A dead person is respected,” he said. “This must not be mixed with burials.”
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