via Tsholotsho still like Lobengula days: Moyo – Southern Eye
Information minister Jonathan Moyo has claimed life in Tsholotsho has not changed since Ndebele monarch King Lobengula’s days in an unwitting and damning indictment on President Robert Mugabe’s government.
By Staff Reporter
Mugabe’s government after 35 years in power is still accused of marginalising Matabeleland provinces.
Moyo is hoping to win the right to represent Tsholotsho North constituency in the June 10 by-election and his statement lends credence to claims there was a deliberate campaign to sideline Matabeleland.
“It’s as striking as it is disquieting that for most in Tsholotsho life today is just like it was in King Lobengula’s days,” he wrote on micro-blogging site, Twitter, which he has used inexhaustibly to update on his election campaign.
Moyo seemed to concede that the issues bedevilling Tsholotsho were historical and structural, saying despite having represented the constituency before, he could not do much as he was an independent and was outside government then.
Users of the social networking site challenged Moyo, saying it was because of the Zanu PF government that Tsholotsho was under-developed, but he cleverly wriggled out of the cul de sac.
Before his election as MP in 2005, Moyo oversaw a rapid development of Tsholotsho, ensuring the building of a Grain Marketing Board depot, a bank and the installation of tower lights.
Moyo retained the seat again in 2008, but the development projects had long dried up, something he attributes to his being an independent and was unable to facilitate development outside of government.
Government officials have in the past made strenuous efforts to deny charges they were marginalising Matabeleland, but by Moyo’s admission, colonial governments, just like Mugabe’s successive administrations, have failed to change life in Tsholotsho.
Scholars have argued that while other provinces benefited from the post-colonial government’s social programmes in the 1980s, Matabeleland provinces were under a state of emergency, with authorities even barring food aid from being sent to drought- hit parts of the province.
Tsholotsho is one of the poorest provinces in the country and suffered the brunt of Gukurahundi.
COMMENTS
Neither I, the reporter, the govt, nor the people of Tsholotsho can make any sense of this idiot. He’s going to have the devil and God confused when his time comes,and he starts flip-flopping between heaven and hell. He stands better chance of being MP for purgatory.
A man without shame. You come and insult the very people who slaughtered by the very same regime, to vote for them. Being a prostitute is a matter of choice. You can not therefore expect to force everyone to follow you, in your chosen endeavour. Some of us have unflappable principles, when it comes to political belief’s.