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(TALKZIMBABWE) MDC-T politicizing food distribution: Chinamasa

MDC-T politicizing food distribution: Chinamasa
TZT/TZG
Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:30:00 +0000

JUSTICE and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa has told the Joint Monitoring and implementation Committee (JOMIC), that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party, the MDC-T, is politicising humanitarian and food assistance in the Makoni District of Manicaland.

Chinamasa said the politicisation of humanitarian and food assistance in Wards 20 and 22 of Makoni Rural District Council is unacceptable and against the spirit of the inclusive Government. The MDC-T is working with the Irish humanitarian agency, GOAL in that area.

Chinamasa says the MDC-T party distributed food along partisan lines on October 26 at Nyahukwe Primary School and on October 28 at Sabhuku Foto’s homestead.

In a letter written to JOMIC Chinamasa said:

“I am writing to bring this incident to the attention of JOMIC as such incidents are in violation of Article XVI of the GPA (global political agreement), in particular, Article 16.3 which reads as follows:-

“16.3 Non governmental organisations involved in giving humanitarian and food assistance shall do so without discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation and religion and in doing so, shall not promote or advance the interests of any political party or cause.”

JOMIC is special multi-party taskforce mandated with supervising the implementation of the GPA signed by Zanu-PF and the two MDC parties last year.

It handles all complaints, grievances, concerns and issues relating to compliance with the GPA

Chinamasa’s letter says at Nyahukwe School Sport Fields, villagers were ordered to gather under their respective headmen and registered to get fertiliser from GOAL.

An MDC-T councillor is also said to have delivered a political speech informing the villagers that fertiliser was coming from his party. Only those with less than five cattle were eligible for the fertiliser.

“A Mr Tsungano of MDC-T claimed that he had been given MDC-T pamphlets with the picture of Tsvangirai a day before,” Chinamasa’s letter says.

“He was busy distributing them to each member who was written down for inputs. We wondered why GOAL was seeing this and kept quiet. GOAL is also involved in this dirty game."

Sources in the JOMIC said the secretariat had been tasked to probe the incident and a team including the political liaison officers from all the three parties in the JOMIC, had visited Makoni and will be reporting back.

TZT/TZG

Labels: JOMIC, MDC, MDC CORRUPTION, NGOs, PATRICK CHINAMASA

posted by MrK @ 3:34 PM