BY VENERANDA LANGA
Zanu PF and MDC Alliance MPs on-going squabbles over President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s legitimacy saw chaos revisiting the National Assembly yesterday, paralysing debate on the 2020 national budget.
There were near fist-fights in the House as main opposition MPs prevented Zaka North MP Robson Mavenyengwa (Zanu PF) from “illegally” masquerading as Environment Portfolio Committee chairperson and presenting the committee’s report on the 2020 budget.
For almost an hour, MDC Alliance legislators praised their leader Nelson Chamisa through song and prevented Mavenyengwa from presenting his report.
Mavenyengwa and Zanu PF MPs recently ousted the MDC chairperson of the Environment Portfolio Committee Concillia Chinanzvavana.
After realising that he had been drowned by the opposition MPs’ songs, Mavenyengwa then tried to smuggle his report into the Hansard by handing it to Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Tsitsi Gezi.
The opposition MPs then confronted Gezi who resorted to chucking some of them out of the House.
Norton MP Temba Mliswa (independent) pointed out that Zanu PF Rushinga MP Tendai Nyabani was also making noise and had even gone to the MDC benches to threaten MPs.
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In an unrelated matter, the Privileges Committee led by Chief Fortune Charumbira, set up to investigate four MPs – Mliswa, Binga North MP Prince Dubeko Sibanda, Gokwe Kabuyuni MP Leornard Chikomba, and Magwegwe MP Anele Ndebele – on allegations that they solicited a $400 000 bribe from Bulawayo businessman James Goddard, found the four not guilty of the offence.
The committee found that the evidence by Shepherd Tundiya and Goddard was insufficient to pin the four MPs of the extortion allegations.
Charumbira said the committee ruled that measures should be taken against the four MPs for their night activities which were inconsistent with parliamentary decorum.
