The MDC acting leader was accompanied by Deputy National Chairperson Morgen Komichi, Secretary-General Mr. Douglas Mwonzora, Deputy Organizing Secretary Hon. Amos Chibaya, Deputy Treasurer-General Chalton Hwende and youth leader and Secretary-General Happymore Chidziva and Lovemore Chinoputsa.
Provincial leaders also accompanied the national leadership, who toured the town’s water treatment plant and visited Chinengundu clinic, where 94 cholera patients, including a prison inmate, had been admitted in 24 hours.
Chegutu Mayor Leo Gwanzura told the MDC acting President that the outbreak was mainly due to poor water supplies and old pipes, which all had to do with the lack of the requisite support from central government. The government is supposed to provide five percent of the budget to local authorities but it has not done that, straining the meagre and grossly inadequate revenue in the country’s municipalities.
Engineer Mudzuri and the party’s leadership visited several bereaved families in the Mashonaland West town where they paid condolences and left food hampers. The visit to Chegutu was in keeping with the party’s key value of solidarity.
The acting MDC leader said he was under instruction to maintain close ties with the grassroot communities from President Morgan Tsvangirai, who is undergoing a routine medical treatment in South Africa. President Tsvangirai scored a first among the country’s national political leadership when he went public in June 2016 that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
Addressing Chegutu residents after the tour, the MDC acting President said cholera was a mediaeval disease, adding that the only solution was in voting for President Tsvangirai and an MDC government in the next election. Hon. Mudzuri, an engineer himself and a former executive mayor of Harare, said there was enough technical capacity in the country to deal with the challenges facing urban local authorities. He said the only solution lay in the people registering in their numbers to vote in the next election so as to usher in a new government that would deal with the challenges facing the people.
Later this week, the acting MDC president will interact with vendors in Harare to appreciate their plight. President Mnangagwa’s government has threatened to unleash the army on the vendors, who are struggling to eke an honest living in the harsh economic environment in the country.
Luke Tamborinyoka
Presidential Spokesperson and Director of Communications