Zwizwai laments lack of CDF to service his constituency

By The Standard | May. 21, 2018 | 3 Min read

Harare Central Constituency is the heart of Harare and it includes areas such as Milton Park, Avenues, Avondale, Belvedere, Ridgeview, Strathaven, Belgravia and Alexandra Park just to mention a few. This constituency has recently been facing various problems such as poor roads and water shortages. This area has many hospitals and this is an advantage to its residents because the electricity rarely goes off. The majority of people who were interviewed showed that they did not know their member of Parliament, Murisi Zwizwai.

By KUDZAI MUCHENJEKWA

Problems in the constituency that the MP could highlight in Parliament

Poor roads (Local Government ministry)

Street lights not working (Local Government ministry)

Late collection of rubbish bins (Ministry of Local Government)

Performance of the MP in Parliament

Despite that most people said they did not know their MP, Zwizwai is a very vocal MP in the National Assembly. He has contributed to a lot of debates in the House, although mostly political issues. The MP has been very passionate about contributing to debate on electoral issues, and during question and answer sessions on Wednesdays; Zwizwai has raised a lot of questions pertaining to electoral reforms. He is very eloquent during debate.

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What people said about their MP

Tinashe Makawa

I do not know my MP. Even now as they are campaigning I have not seen him. Here in Milton Park, our roads are in a very poor state, this is a business area, but if you come here you will think you are at an area that does not have a representative in Parliament. We need our roads fixed and we need to see him more often addressing constituents.

Gaudancia Chikofu (Belgravia)

I have never seen Zwizwai. We know we voted him into office, but I haven’t seen him, maybe it’s because I go to work every day and when he holds meetings I will not be around. We have problems of poor roads and poor street lighting. There are too many potholes destroying our vehicles and we wish that the MP could prioritise road maintenance using the Constituency Development Fund.

Geoffrey Lingar (Arcadia)

I know my MP Zwizwai I have a problem, which I wish he could solve. My house was destroyed because it was said we built it on wetlands. This was bad and it did not happen to me only, but to several other people in the constituency. It is times likes these that we need to see our MP standing for us so that such things do not happen again.

Alice Kabvimbu (Avondale)

I know my MP, but I have only seen him once. On television he is very vocal in Parliament. People say that he comes to Avondale, but personally I have not seen him that much. What I can say is that I have seen some roads here in Avondale being repaired, but I am not sure if it’s him doing these projects

Tilda Matanhire (Belvedere)

To be honest with you, I have never seen my MP and I don’t know him. One thing that I just want to mention is we want our roads to be fixed and we want to have a clean area. Bins are being collected after a very long time.

MP’s Response

The problems that we have in Harare Central are issues faced by the whole country and they can only be fixed if we have free, fair and credible elections. We cannot go to Zimbabwe National Road Administration as the MP and order them to fix the roads when the economic situation in Zimbabwe is not good. What this means is that we should go back and amend the Electoral Act and ensure that the manner in which the ballot paper is procured is transparent so that people vote freely. I stay in the constituency within the Avenues area and I have an office where I always hold weekly constituency meetings at number 101 Trafalgar Court and people are always free to come to those meetings.

We applied for the Constituency Development Fund, but as a constituency we are yet to receive it. In Parliament I sit on the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care.