BINGA North MDC-T MP Prince Dubeko Sibanda last week rubbished Transport minister Obert Mpofu’s claims that Binga district was underdeveloped because of voting for the opposition, describing his remarks as cheap politicking and nonsensical. Richard Muponde Senior Court REPORTER
He said Mpofu was only trying to win the votes of the Binga people, whose lives were miserable because of Zanu PF’s exclusionist policies. Mpofu recently said Binga was lagging behind in terms of development, as it always voted for the opposition MDC-T that would never come to power.
The minister was addressing villagers who attended a party to celebrate the appointment of provincial members into the Zanu PF politburo at Binga Centre. He said voting for a party that had nothing to offer was tantamount to voting for underdevelopment.
Reacting to Mpofu’s remarks, Sibanda, in whose constituency the Zanu PF party was held, said Mpofu was not qualified to attack the opposition as he presided over the province as a governor for over a decade, but had no tangible development to show in the province and Binga.
“With all due respect to honourable Mpofu’s views, I came to believe that he was mentioning the skewed polices of Zanu PF,” he shot back. “Zanu PF sees itself not as a national government, but a government for specific areas.
“Even in his constituency of Umguza he’s known for imposing his relatives and friends as councillors, but there’s no development taking place.
“What we know about Zanu PF is that its development priorities are the primitive accumulation of wealth by individuals like Mpofu and many other ministers at the detriment of national development.”
Dube said Binga, like many other areas, had been crying for development for the past 35 years and nothing had been done.
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“Therefore, the cheap politicking that Mpofu was trying was an attempt to bait political votes from the people of Binga and that’s nonsensical,” he said.
“A government in any country has an obligation to ensure it disburses the revenue it collects throughout the country regardless of people from that area voting for another party or not.”
Dube said the opposition was not in charge of revenue and it was difficult for them to initiate developmental projects.
“The money Zanu PF has been abusing since independence should be distributed for national development,” he said.
Binga is one of the most drought-prone districts in the country and has faced perennial starvation without any government aid, forcing villagers to survive on wild fruit.
Villagers are also forced to resort to selling their livestock for a song to buy food.
