OPPOSITION MDC Alliance officials in Masvingo are up in arms against a Zanu PF jungle which “wrongly” credits First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa for building an orphanage at Chambuta refugee camp in Chiredzi.
BY GARIKAI MAFIRAKUREVA
In the jingle, being played on all local radio stations, the lead vocalist thanks the First Lady for constructing the orphanage and asks God to bless her for her “generosity”.
But the orphanage in question was constructed 30 years ago by the Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe Church.
The First Lady only visited it last year and pledged to support the 21 orphans currently housed there.
The orphanage is situated at Chambuta Refugee Camp near Chikombedzi.
The camp was established in 1988 to house over 25 000 Mozambican refugees that were displaced by Renamo insurgents.
The jingle has irked the opposition members in Masvingo, who feel that these are attempts by Zanu PF to distort the history of the camp by adding a fictitious script that Auxillia constructed it.
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During her visit, the First Lady only pledged to revamp the camp into a national rehabilitation centre in order to accommodate over 1 000 children living in the streets across the country.
Her Angel of Hope Foundation in partnership with other local stakeholders have also promised to refurbish the buildings at the orphanage, including painting and furnishing them.
Jeffreyson Chitando, the former MDC MP for Masvingo Central, said the jingle by Zanu PF members praising the First Lady was a distortion of the orphanage’s history.
“Zanu PF wants to steal everything in this country. They have stolen an election, they stole diamonds and gold, and now they are stealing buildings. It’s unfortunate that they want to misinform our children. The First Lady never built anything. She just took over what was already there,” he said.
“After all, where is she getting resources to move around the country? She is not a government official as much as I know.”
Marko Shoko, a ZimRights human rights monitor, described the jingle lauding the First Lady for constructing the orphanage as “abuse of State resources and misinformation of the public”.
“The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) has long back ceased to be a public broadcaster. If what they say is not about Mnangagwa, it’s about the First Lady. But this is not a surprise to us, because that’s what people who are doing nothing normally do. They force people to see what’s not there.
“Why is the ZBC always seen following the First Lady Amai Mnangagwa? Who is she in government, and why are they not covering national issues like that there are no teachers at schools?” Shoko queried.
Zanu PF Masvingo provincial spokesperson Ronald Ndava rubbished the assertions by the opposition and civic society.
“If someone builds a house and it is no longer occupied by anyone, we will take it over and start doing something meaningful there. If the Zanu PF musicians got inspired and composed a song for the First Lady, then why should we want to control that? We have better issues of national interest to discuss than such little beer talk,” he said.
