Magwegwe MP Anele Ndebele on Thursday likened President Robert Mugabe to the late Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin saying his use of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to introduce bond notes was meant to cause more pain on the already suffering populace.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Contributing to debate in the National Assembly on the Second Reading Stage of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill, Ndebele said Stalin used to be cruel to animals in order to intimidate people into supporting him.
“Stalin is said to have walked into a politburo meeting with a live chicken and started plucking out feathers from that live chicken one by one while the chicken quelled in pain and was bleeding,” narrated Ndebele.
“When he had finished plucking all the feathers, he then pulled out pellets from his pocket and started feeding the chicken, and that chicken ended up sitting on his lap and as he walked around the room, the chicken followed him.”
He added: “My point here is when you feed a chicken whose pain you have caused, it forgets that you are the very person that caused its particular pain and this is the point where we are. The children of Zimbabwe are crying out in pain, in hunger and sickness and our beloved government is feeding them bond notes.”
Ndebele said Zimbabweans were helpless and had no choice except to accept the bond notes.
“So, for us to sit in this House and think that the very people who caused the demise of this economy will bring in any normal recovery is a waste of time,” he said.
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Ndebele added every time government had difficulties in introducing something bad and that is likely to be rejected by the people, they resorted to use of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act.
“I have noticed over time that every time this government has something very bad and difficult to drive through, it uses the Presidential Powers Act. Clearly, the bond notes are coming under a very unhygienic situation. I remember that the last time this (Presidential Powers) was ever used was when the Law and Order Maintenance Act was pronounced to declare war upon Matabeleland,” Ndebele said.
This irked Zanu PF MPs resulting in Zvimba West MP Ziyambi Ziyambi calling on Ndebele to withdraw his statement.
The MP stood by his statement. He said Mugabe even used Presidential Powers in the Law and Order Maintenance Act to invoke Gukurahundi.
Kuwadzana East MP Nelson Chamisa described Mugabe’s usurping of Parliament’s powers as ‘an unhygienic way of law making’.
“The bond is already out there, but what is important is to indicate that in future let this be a lesson to our esteemed government that at no time should we usurp the powers of Parliament, and at no time should we run away from constitutionally defined contours of law making,” Chamisa said.
