A ZANU PF legislator has claimed that closed Bulawayo industries were owned by the white community which was not eager to reopen with the hope that the unemployed would rebel against the government.
NQOBILE BHEBHE CHIEF REPORTER
Close to 100 firms have closed shop in the city in recent years due to financial constraints.
An estimated $400 million is needed for them to reopen and operate at optimum levels.
President Robert Mugabe once described Bulawayo as a huge scrap yard due to the rate of industrial closures.
Kwekwe Central MP Masango Matambanadzo told the National Assembly last week that resuscitating the industries was a pipe dream as the owners were using them to incite retrenched workers to rebel.
“We should not behave like Bulawayo companies.
“The president said these companies should be opened, but they have not been opened. Most of the companies in Bulawayo belong to whites and they connived with the people in the opposition to close them,” Matambanadzo said.
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“If we are not careful, these companies are not going to reopen.
“The whites closed these companies because they want the country to experience hardships.
“There is also mention of Americans having said that if Zimbabwean companies close, we will pay you while you are not producing until the Zanu PF government has been dislodged,” Matambanadzo added.
“These companies belong to the whites who are conniving with other people so that the Bulawayo populace can suffer hardships to revolt against government.”
Matambanadzo said the current national budget addressed the plight of Bulawayo firms.
“I strongly believe that with this budget, we will come up with ideas to enable Bulawayo companies to reopen as per the president’s directive,” he said.
“When these companies are reopened, we will come up with ideas that I cannot discuss here because there are thieves and they may steal them.
“They will come up with counter suggestions to this so that we are not successful.”
Matambanadzo often boasts that he is a Grade Two dropout, but has ideas to transform people’s lives.
