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Zimbabwe Parliament debate on Operation Murambatsvina - Page 2
Extracted from Hansard Vol. 32, No. 8
Parliament of Zimbabwe
June 30, 2005

View list of 2005 Zimbabwe Parliamentarians

Jump to contributions by:
- MR. ZWIZWAI
- MR. MUBAWU
- MR. SIBINDI
- MR. MKHOSI
- MR. BHEBHE
- MR. MHASHU
- MRS. NYAUCHI
- MR. MOYO
- MR. MDLONGWA
- MR. MATIMBA

MR. SIBINDI: Thank you Madam Speaker, I am on this issue of Operation Murambatsvina. Victoria Falls is another place which was hit hard by the so-called Operation Murambatsvina. This town has a population of about 60 000 people. 5 000 people have got accommodation and the rest do not have accommodation.
In the high density of Chinotimba - that suburb was built during the 1970s. Since 1980, this government has failed to build even a single house in Victoria Falls. Shacks were destroyed. Most of the people were staying in these shacks and majority of these people were employed in the Safari Industry. When they went to work early in the morning, the police - we call them in Victoria Falls as the second Gukurahundi because they came destroying property inside those shacks. They never retrieved anything.

Some of the structures which were built by bricks were destroyed leaving people without anything and they were told to go to their homes. You could see children sleeping in the open and some are still sleeping outside as I am talking now. Only 65 houses were built in Victoria Falls since 1980. I ask this august House, "Where was the housing for all by the year 2000?" Where was this government, now this government have seen that the towns are not clean, where were they for the past 25 years? I ask that question.

It is very disappointing to hear that our brothers and sisters are treated like dogs in other countries. Some of them are in Botswana custody because of boarder jumping. Some of them are in South Africa and all over the world. Those are Zimbabweans who fought for their independence but now they have no chance to share this cake in this country. The rulers of this country do not want to give the young generation a chance to live. Where are these young ones going to stay? Those people who have got houses got in 1960s and 1970s. Really I think we need a government that respects human lives. As a Member of Parliament I would not like to see people suffering like that but I do not think a government under ZANU PF likes to see people suffering. It is embarrassing to see senior members in this House clapping hands that Operation Murambatsvina is a good thing whilst their brothers and sisters are sleeping outside. I do not think a normal person can clap hands to that disaster.

Madam Speaker, If you can allow me to go to my maiden speech. It is my pleasure to stand before this august House to deliver my speech. First, I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to my constituency for choosing me to represent Hwange East in Parliament. I also would like to thank my political party for supporting me to take that great opportunity. I would also like to thank friends and relatives for choosing me to carry out this daunting task and represent such a constituency and fight for democracy in this country.

Introducing Hwange East is a mere formality as everyone is aware of this place. The constituency is the heart of tourist flagship. Victoria Falls plays a major role in this regard. Hwange East constituency covers Victoria Falls urban, per-urban, Chidove Communal Lands, Jambezi area, Kanyamizi, Sidinga, and Mabale. Hwange East constituency borders Binga, Lupane, Hwange West and stretches 200km from Victoria Falls.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member I realise that you are reading your maiden speech but it is not under this motion. You should have delivered your speech under the Presidential Debate.

MR. SIBINDI: This issue of Murambatsvina, I think you are aware that most of the people in Victoria Falls, there is a lot of HIV which takes place and the people who used to get assistance are no exposed to diseases. I believe this Operation Murambatsvina, should be stopped immediately. I do not think there is any Member of Parliament who can say this operation is an excellent one except those people who are unreasonable.

MR. MKHOSI: I represent a constituency which borders with Botswana and the result of this operation is that the fabric of the town has been destroyed. Plumtree is an area where the unemployment rate is ever rising. Most of the people employed in this area are people that have come from outside the constituency and the locals depend on informal sector. Unfortunately, that informal sector has been the target of the attack. It has been completely destroyed.

The bulk of the youths who were employed in the informal sector are now jobless. The informal sector was stemming the exodus of the youths to do border jumping. The only means of their livelihood is down and the exodus of the youths is going to increase especially to Botwana. The people who were employed in the informal sector have suffered another blow. You can actually see the death of a town orchestrated by a government that claims to put people first. You do not destroy in order to reconstruct. You build from what you already have. The Government is destroying what it has in order to build at a time when we dot have the money.

Yesterday I was watching Dr. Mupawose on the television and he said that whatever little thing you buy has got a foreign currency component in it. So, alas, while we are busy hunting for foreign currency you are creating another expenditure which needs foreign currency. Government is trying day in day out to bring food into the country and that requires massive foreign currency but at the same time you are creating a situation whereby you are going to spend trillions of dollars. It is easier to say we can get money but you cannot print the US Dollar. Pula or the Rand. I can see some of my colleagues are not privileged to know the economic complexity involved. I have made it clear that in Plumtree the informal sector was providing employment for the youth and giving income to the owner of those stands of informal sector trading. The monies that the youths got sustained them in every form of life. The vendors were also able to pay rentals, build houses - some of which were destroyed; send their children to school and buy food. But alas, the Government has seen it fit to destroy that sector. This operation is for your benefit because people are wailing and suffering.

Unfortunately, we do not have the injection of money from government to reconstruct the houses that have been destroyed. Here in Harare, there is Caledonia Farm but we need another one in Plumtree - [AN HON. MEMBER: Now you are talking.] - Talking is not an issue. What is an issue is - where is the money? I am calling upon you to give money to those whose houses have been destroyed.

There is something ironic about this exercise. Some of the affected people were fortunate enough to get money from SEDCO to purchase the goods they were selling. Now their structures were destroyed and the wares were either destroyed or stolen. Will SEDCO be able to recover that money? If SEDCO goes broke, it should not blame anyone but the initiator of this operation. You print money in order to build what you have destroyed. Ironically, you even created the ministry to help, initiate and develop the informal sector. That ministry is there but its operations have been undermined by the Government. That is why I used the word 'ironic'.

Some of you might not understand what I am alluding to. We have a very difficult situation here. The logic in every development is before anybody destroys any asset, they should build a house and make sure that the house can stand the standard test then you can transfer people from that old house to the new house. Then you can go and destroy the old one - [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections] - that is a contradiction of any logic and common sense. Since common senses is lacking we are not surprised.

Another thing that is a bit baffling is that Plumtree in general, is a constituency where starvation is becoming normal and it is also short of grains. Every year we suffer because of grain shortages because it never rains in that particular area. We are adjacent to Botswana which has the same weather but they have got a caring government. The Botswana government has got all the money that they need. By money, I am talking of foreign currency. Its cities have got slums but the Government has not destroyed those slums. It is waiting to have enough money to build new houses before destroying those slums. You do the opposite here in Zimbabwe.

You are the people that are daily complaining about bad publicity and of people undermining its independence and sovereignty. Everyday you are inviting people to come and see how cruel you are: Just come and watch the big picture of what you are doing. Why are you unkind to yourself - [AN HON.MEMBER: Inaudible interjections]

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order. Who said 'Mbuya Makombe?' Please own up.

Mr. Sibindi stood up.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Sibindi, please leave the House and do not come back. I will not tolerate Hon. members or Hon. members who use un-parliamentary language in the House - [Hon. MDLONGWA: It comes from that other side.] - Hon. Mdlongwa that is not open for debate. Otherwise, you go out as well.

MR. MKHOSI: Thank you. I think sanity prevails now and then you might listen to words of wisdom. My appeal is very clear. I am aware that we are all suffering because of this bad behaviour, unfortunately, caused by people that should be in control of national affairs. You are daily inviting your opponents to come and see you in your bad behaviour. You are giving yourself bad publicity. This Operation Murambatsvina is not supposed to have been carried out. It has damaged the image of this country to the extend that those outside the country find it difficult to associate with this country. You say that the British and the Americans are so bad and yet you do that - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order. Address the Chair.

MR. MKHOSI: Why do you not look at the log in your eye before you look at the stick in somebody else's eye. So, I am appealing very strongly to this House that Plumtree has also suffered the damage just like in Harare and Bulawayo. My colleague referred to the irreparable damage in Victoria Falls to which Government is going to commit itself to spend huge sums of money in repairs.

If the Government is not going to do that, this country is going to be unsafe for everybody because these people will not die before you. You are going to erect durawalls around your premises and they will knock them down and come to get their food from your tables - whether you like it or not, this is reality. So we have to make sure that this situation is properly addressed because unless we do that, we are inviting problems for ourselves as a nation. I said, Madam Speaker, that I am giving everybody here words of wisdom.

Remember again that whenever you get to Plumtree, you have to excuse people from Plumtree who cannot pay levies because their only source of income has been destroyed by the very people who loaned them that money. Again you have to investigate cases whereby police are alleged to have looted some of their wares because they mix everybody's things resulting in huge heaps. How is one expected to identify their wares from the massive heap - you can not! That again, has given a bad name to Government which is so worried about its publicity and face - I am telling you the obvious truth.

Madam Speaker, I plead again with my colleagues, particularly those responsible for making sure that the country goes back to work. As you do that, please reduce the volume of words - the talks. The country is fade up with talks. the country needs action. I call upon everybody concerned, I say concerned because some people do not care because they do not have what my friend called 'righteous hearts' - they have evil hearts.

It is time we had people with righteous hearts forming a righteous Government to rule over our country and put an end to all the suffering.

Madam Speaker, I would like to plead again with all the ladies on the other side. I have known my mother to stand with people who are suffering because she knows she is a mother to any child regardless with who bore that child. So, I plead with the ladies to stand with the suffering people and show this Government that there is a better way of running this country. This country has suffered irreparably in the hands of these people and these very people have been misleading the Government for too many years. The Government has been getting the wrong message and now ZANU PF is going to lose quite a lot in elections - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] - I sympathise with ZANU PF now because they are very cruel. I am saying this because I come from the people as their representative - this whole thing is cutting right through my heart like a sword. With these few words, of wisdom, I submit my case.

MR. BHEBHE: Thank you Madam Speaker, I would like to add my voice in this debate about Murambatsvina. At the same time, it has been argued that Operation Murambatsvina is political and the benches from the Government side refuse and say that is not so.

Mr. Speaker, let me demonstrate and prove that this was political. First and foremost, I would like to tell those that came late that I represent the constituency of Nkayi which is a purely rural constituency. What has happened since after the announcement of Murambatsvina in Nkayi - there were poor women selling their wares which they would have planted along the riverbeds or planted from water drawn from their own homes and some of them even selling vegetables from their own gardens. Some of them had been selling wares from their own garden before I was even born.

When this so-called Murambatsvina was announced, those women were brutalised by police in Nkayi, their wares were taken to Nkayi Police Station and sold by the police [AN HON. MEMBER: Was there an auction?] - Whether it was by auction or not, the fact remains that the wares were sold. Those women were making a living out of those wares, ferrying their wares by scotch carts to vending bays because they cannot afford to raise enough money to ferry their wares to town centres - it is their livelihood. Some of the people that are in Government offices today got their education through the proceeds of those vending bays. Because it was political . . . -- [AN HON. MEMBER: Political?] - because that constituency belongs to an MDC Member of Parliament. The brutality that was used in Nkayi was not applied in other rural areas because if it was applied everywhere else, this debate is open for all members to argue what has happened in their constituencies.

Very soon, I am going to ask the Minister of Home Affairs to provide us with the proceeds and the actual amount that was raised out of the auctions of people's vegetables.

Secondly, yesterday I was watching CNN and I observed the President of this country, Robert Mugabe - he actually said that this was supposed to have been implemented before elections. If it is true that it was supposed to be implemented before the elections, why did you not advise or alert those people to seek for alternative accommodation? If it was not political, why did you not actually alert those people or give them three months notice. If you knew it was before the elections that those houses were keeping mbavha, why did you not go to arrest them before?

Today we are a laughing stock because the United Nations is coming to investigate that because the President had not answered the question asked by the United Nations and instead he had said that the exercise was supposed to be implemented before the elections. It then proved that there was no consultation of stakeholders of this country who are the people of this country. It was a decision that was made somewhere and kept secret to the people that were affected. If you can prove that it was not political, so then prove it for the nation because the nation is hungry for the answer.

Thirdly, This Operation Murambatsvina was implemented because the Government was faced by a situation of going to lie to the electorate because they wanted to be voted into power. They promised the people that there was going to be enough food and everyone was going to be fed. They promised the people that there were not going to be shortages of any commodities. Those were the promises. After winning the elections or 'stealing' the elections, they were faced with answering those questions. First and foremost, we discovered that there were no commodities in the shelves of supermarkets. Those commodities went up; there was no fuel in the garages. The question has to asked that you were going to deliver and you failed to deliver those basic commodities.

You have then politically decided to divert the attention because during this operation Murambatsvina people were beaten. Some of them were threatened with fines by the police. There are cases that are before the courts pertaining to Murambatsvina. I am glad today because the attorney-General is here and that is why he has to come in here because it was illegal for Government to implement this exercise because they have violated human rights. We want to know what the courts are going to decide on Government violating the people's human rights. That is why we are saying it was political, what we would have thought is that you would think of people first. Now that they voted for you, you decide to dump them. Now that they voted for you, you then decide to beat them and to destroy and burn their properties - that is ZANU PF Government and a Government led by Robert Mugabe, who agreed yesterday that he will not demolish the houses but then decide to ambush them. You have ambushed them and won but the road has narrowed, the road is coming to an end.

MR. MHASHU: Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my sorrow to this sombre debate. I find it very disturbing that some Hon. members do not take this debate seriously because it has very serious consequences on the lives of our people. Let me first remind Hon. members of where I come from. I represent Chitungwiza Constituency which was born in the early 70sas a dormitory town to provide labour to the then Salisbury which then became Harare - [MRS. NYAUCHI: Mhashu ndewe ZANU PF.] - If you love me, then tell me. The residents of Chitungwiza were on a transit camp on a very large farm which was called Derbyshire. Derbyshire was a concentration camp during the Smith regime.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please let us give the Hon. member time to express himself.

MR. MHASHU: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I was on the point that the residents of Chitungwiza were as a result of people who transferred from a concentration camp during the Smith regime on a farm called Derbyshire. They were then transported to Chitungwiza and there they were just given stands to build structures and those stands by then had no proper or legal plans as required by local Government. So, what you find even up to today is that there was a cluster of structures of people who had no sources of livelihood, no jobs, but were depending daily by way of small markets and flea markets.

So, when the demolition came through Operation Murambatsvina, those structures and mud houses that were accommodating people - and by the way Chitungwiza is very densely populated, it has a population which is about 45% of its people under 30 years of age. Now, where do you find them? When I came home last Sunday, I was met by a bulldozer at my gate intending to come into my premises to look for a structure to destroy. So I said what is the problem and if you want to come in, you can, there is the gate. They said the gate was too small and were going to come into my premises through any entrance. If I had been stubborn to say that because I am a Member of Parliament I should answer back, then I would have had my house destroyed to the ground. So I said it is okay, why do you not try to drive and see whether it fits or not. The one of the men said why not listen to what he is saying. I said to them that as far as the premises were concerned, there was no illegal structure. There's a big house and a servants' quarter behind and all the structures on the stand were approved by the municipality and so I asked them to leave this alone. I followed them and witnessed the demolition of properly built structures that had plans authorised by council and the personnel that were doing the job refused to look at the plans to prove that the structures were legal.

They went on to destroy, not only the "so called" illegal structures but even the properly built houses. One of the places that I went to witness, the bulldozer was too small. They just went on and drove in and destroyed a corner of a proper house. When they went there, there was no thought that this was being done by a human being with senses. Right now, Chitungwiza constituency is a dereliction, it is a vast area of devastation and you see people outside.
During the night what do you see? You see spots and spots of fire - people trying to cook food in the open. As you go to them and say maybe things will improve, they will ask you how do the things improve and why were they done anyway? Surely, a Government that cares for its people, which is not callous, which is not insensitive - if there is something they think they want to do to correct a wrong they do not correct a wrong by doing a wrong.

The should have first of all looked at the problem and said, well we have to destroy these illegal structures but what should we do before the destruction. We must prepare alternative accommodation for the people to be shifted to and then destroy these illegal structures. But they had to destroy randomly and senselessly to the extent that in some areas, children/babies were killed in the act - all in the spirit of trying to make the area hygiene. It bobbles my mind.

As I went round the schools, a lot of pupils are not attending school at all. Where they are? They are in the open of their former homes guarding the belongings of their parents as the parents are running around trying to find accommodation.

Teachers as well were affected because they do not have houses of their own. When these structures were destroyed, teachers' properties are also in the open. What do they do first? They first think of food and accommodation and they forget about the job. They can only think of the job under conducive factors around them. The teacher is busy running around to find accommodation forgetting about the pupils. Sometimes you see the teacher standing besides his belongings. He or she will tell you that he/she must be able to guard her/his property while my wife/husband has gone to find an alternative accommodation.

Let us imagine the child who would eventually go to school. Imagine the trauma and their state of mind in the classroom. The mental trauma that is making its round in their minds and its psychological imposition of the children at school. Are we cleaning the nation and yet we are saying education is vital for development. These scars which have been caused by the demolition, can they be repaired or reversed. It will continue to haunt the minds of many people in this country.

I am surprised that some members pretend that all is well. I am also surprised that some members think that they are safe yet some of them have relatives who are out in the open as we are talking and yet they are trying to defend this theory for the sake of partisanship. What we are saying here is that this House must be a House that represents the people. When we talk about serious issues like this one, let us forget about our political differences and talk about the welfare of our people. The support and defence coming from the other side of the House is a partisan support and defence when they know that this thing was wrong. Let us be human enough and condemn what is wrong and praise what is right. In this case, you hear somebody hurling and heckling and rejecting to something that is so serious. I am very surprised.

One of my colleague has mentioned that though it is believed that Operation Murambatsvina was hygienic in order to clear the grounds but I want to repeat what was said earlier on by the other side that it was political. The demolition and the devastation was a primitive measure for the ruling party to punishing people for rejecting the ruling party. They are punishing the urban people for that.

Also because of the economy that has ground to a halt, because of the starvation that is in the country, the operation Murambatsvina was divined to decongest the people from town to rural areas.

The other reason for Operation Murambatsvina was that because of problems that are besetting the top people and worrying everybody, it was to able to deviate the people from the economic hardship. They had to introduce this drastic measure. If they wanted to improve the life of the people as I said earlier on, they should have, what my colleagues said, put measures before, where they were going to put the people.

The other reason which is economical and not always pronounced but it is very correct - it might be an idea that have come from a combination of thinking from the Governor and Minister of Finance and other sensible political gurus of this country that Zimbabwe not only does it not have foreign currency but does not have even the local currency. In the national fiscus there is there is no money. The taxation base in this country has been narrowed because of the closure of industries. People have reverted to informal sectors. Therefore, there is not much money coming to the Government by the way of taxation their advisor said the money is in the informal sector. What we want to do is to destroy the informal sector and let them register, when they want to run business and when they register then we will be able to capture them, that is the point. Now they are saying that let the people suffer and may be we are going to make a turn around to the economy. It was over done.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I want to say that if the informal sector is no longer available, then the Government must remove the ministry because it is now redundant. I am aware of the presence of the UN Envoy, they maybe suspicion of this activity but I want to remind my friends that they are going to come back to us again. This Operation Murambatsvina is Operation Mudatsvina because the whole country is dirty.

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