CDF abuse ‘grossly irresponsible’: Matinenga

Constitutional Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga has described legislators who failed to exhaust their constituency development fund as grossly irresponsible.

Thanks to the CDF in Budiriro, locals had water for growing vegetables.
Thanks to the CDF in Budiriro, locals had water for growing vegetables.

The fund was set up to in 2010 when the Ministry of Finance allocated $50,000 to each legislator for development projects in their constituencies. The programme later became mired in controversy after several MPs were accused of abusing the fund for personal benefit.

“Those legislators who left money in the accounts were grossly irresponsible. It is up to the electorate to judge and decide on such individuals,” Matinenga said. He added that the accounts had been frozen but the programme would continue and the funds would be put at the disposal of incoming legislators.

“The fund is not about the people who were representing those areas but it’s about the institution they were serving,” he said.

Matinenga said that there was a number of legislators who had still not fully utilized their allocations. Harare East MP in the previous parliament, Tendai Biti, recently came under fire from the Harare Residents Trust after it emerged that some of the money for his constituency was still in the bank.

Four MPs from Zanu (PF) and MDC-T were arrested and charged over the issue but the cases were dropped after the intervention of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana.

A government official recently said auditing former MPs would continue and they would be brought to court if anomalies were discovered.

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