Source: China avails $46m for new Parliament | The Herald
From George Maponga in Masvingo
Construction of the new 650-seater Parliament building in Mt Hampden is set to start after the Chinese government released an initial tranche of $46 million for the project.
The new Parliament is being built to replace the current one which is short of space resulting in some legislators being forced to conduct business in the August House while standing.
Speaker of Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda last week revealed that road construction works at the venue of the new Parliament building had already started after the Chinese government released the initial batch of funds for the project.
Adv Mudenda was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Speaker’s Stakeholder Meeting with Civil Society organisations and the media in Masvingo.
Building of the new Parliament is expected to gobble cost $140 million.
‘’The Chinese Government has released $46 million for the new Parliament building in Mt Hampden and right now work has started on road construction and we hope that after between two to two and half years the new Parliament will have been completed,’’ he said.
Adv Mudenda said the new Parliament will have a capacity to accommodate 650 legislators.
‘’The implementers of the project are the Ministries of Transport and Infrastructural Development together with the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and we hope their involvement in the project will bring the total project cost down from the initial $140 million,’’ he added.
The Speaker decried the current shortage of space in Parliament which he said was forcing some of the legislators to stand in the August House.
‘’The current Parliament that we are using can only cater for 120 people but now we have more than 270 legislators so there is a serious shortage of space in the house (Parliament building),’’ he added.
Adv Mudenda challenged the media and civil society organisations to make sure the legislators did the job they were elected to do by the electorate.
He decried the tendency by some Members of Parliament to sleep in the House, saying legislators were in Parliament to represent people hence they were supposed to actively participate in its business.
Mt Hampden is poised to transform into a modern city upon completion of the new parliament building as other ancillary infrastructure such as banks, hotels and small businesses are expected to sprout to service the new Parliament.
Construction of the new Parliament in Mt Hampden got impetus last month after Micro Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister Obert Mpofu signed the $46 million deal in China to kick-start building of the new Parliament building.
The money is the first tranche of funds that would be released by the Chinese government which undertook to provide funds for the new Parliament building.
Besides funding construction of the new Parliament building, China is also providing funds to Zimbabwe to stimulate production in the agricultural sector and also in housing development.
COMMENTS
The country is falling apart and this is the ZANU priority! What a bunch!
How will Zimbabweans benefit from the new parliament? Who needs a parliament when Mugabe and his MPs go there to catch some sleep and fart! Under the current state of affairs the building will only be a duplication of ZANU PF headquarters.. Why not use the money to refurbish the dilapidated Matapi and Magaba flats. Parliamentarians as it is, are a drain on our meagre resources. Demand after demand of various types of vehicles and pieces of land and yet their presence in parliament has failed to improve our lives. I would rather they relocate parliament to Matapi flats.
This new parliament is not needed at all. This shows how much ruin these guys can do. They are borrowing money for something not even required.
What is required is to reduce the number of MPs. Zimbabwe has far too many MPs compared to other countries. For Zimbabwe’s population about 110 MPs are needed not the bloated 210
Are we now a protectorate of China. All this Chinese kindness is suspect. Remember nothing is free even Goethe Chinese. Zimbabwe has and is being mortgaged to the Chinese without representation. How much do we owe China and what is the projected date of payment?
Nnokuda is bang on. Work on the basis of 1 MP per 100k of population and the numbers will inform. Therefore, the current parliament can easily accommodate requirements.
Then I suppose, it’s a question of getting rid of 50% of the buffoons and their hangers on!
Another dead duck in the making. A new parliament will not put food in the pot
No worries this will correct it’s self when there is no money to pay 75% of the Knuckle heads.What we could do with $46 mil.
Repair the Kariba dam and add Generators.
Finish the Gwaai dam and pipe line for Matabeleland (i.e as atonement for the massacre)
OR Just give it to BOb as a retirement bonus ( This may save a few lives OR BLOOD BATH)
i wish you were still here to tell the centurion the importance of proprities
There goes more farmland stolen from whites to give to the “new settlers,”. I hope they all rot in hell.
This will be used by the new Chinese government when they come into power in 2018.
Availing of none critical finances that will allow Chinese to be part of the engineering teams, and construction results in the same national abusing locals in the construction sites and allow them to ill treat local, and even those to get away without paying taxes. Mugabe does not have priorities of the poor, who need medicine, not parliament, food not another city in mount harpden
Here they go again! These self-serving, brutal, heartless kleptocrats. Here is another money making scheme to line their pockets. A new parliament? For what? For making more louder monkey noises by cruel, overfed autocrats.