Hwange Central legislator Daniel Molokele has criticised President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), saying it failed to adequately address key infrastructure, healthcare, devolution, mining and gender equality concerns affecting Matabeleland North.
Debating the President’s address in Parliament on Tuesday, Molokele argued that the government’s development commitments failed to sufficiently reflect the challenges facing communities in the province.
He singled out the government’s plan to rehabilitate 50 kilometres of the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway during the Fourth Session of the Tenth Parliament, saying the commitment was inadequate given the road’s importance to tourism, mining and agriculture.
“The actual distance of the road as we speak today is more than 400 kilometres. How on earth can a whole government spend an entire year committing itself that during the whole year, they will only be adding 50 kilometres?” said the Hwange Central MP.
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“50 kilometres out of a national road that is an epicentre of our tourism industry, one of our biggest foreign currency earners, an epicentre of our mining industry and an epicentre of agricultural industry, and you say in the next year, you will be able to only construct 50 kilometres out of 400; that was very disappointing.”
The Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway is about 440 kilometres long and authorities have said rehabilitation works would be undertaken in phases.
The MP said the government’s commitments suggested Matabeleland North could continue to lag behind other parts of the country despite stated efforts to promote balanced development.
“This government, through this speech, has shown that after it has said everything, when it comes to actions, if actions speak louder than their words, they are obviously leaving Matabeleland North behind. They are leaving Victoria Falls behind and they are leaving Hwange behind,” Molokele said.
He also criticised the stalled construction of the Matabeleland North Provincial Hospital in Lupane, saying the province had gone 46 years without a provincial hospital.
“Everyone in Matabeleland North goes to Lupane, but they go to St Luke’s Hospital, which also acts as the Lupane District Hospital,” said the MP, who noted construction of the provincial hospital has stalled because of outstanding payments to the contractor.
Molokele said officials from the Ministry of Health and Child Care had told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health that about US$7 million was required to address outstanding payments while a ballpark figure of US$21 million had been given to complete the hospital.
Molokele said he was disappointed that the president’s SONA did not contain a specific commitment to resume and accelerate construction.
“There was no commitment from the government that within this year, construction will resume and that needs to be addressed,” he said.
Meanwhile, Molokele welcomed the proposed National Health Provision Care Bill, saying it could improve access to healthcare for Zimbabweans who cannot afford medical insurance.
He urged the government to bring the proposed legislation before Parliament for debate rather than allowing it to remain at Cabinet level.
“The majority of Zimbabweans are not medically insured. Medical insurance is a preserve of a few Zimbabweans,” he said.
Molokele also called for healthcare-related taxes to be ring-fenced for the health sector.
He said taxes imposed on products and services including airtime, data, cigarettes, fast food and sugary products were paid into the National Consolidated Revenue Fund instead of them directly channelled towards healthcare.
“The money is meant for health; it must come to health,” he said.
He also expressed concern over the omission of reforms to the National Health and National AIDS Council Act from the SONA, saying the issue remained important to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health.
Molokele further criticised the lack of progress in implementing constitutional provisions on devolution.
He said although the 2013 Constitution provides for devolution and decentralisation, provincial councils had not been sworn into office since the constitutional provisions were introduced.
According to Molokele, provincial councillors elected during the Ninth Parliament served their five-year terms without sworn in, while those elected in 2023 had also not assumed office.
He said the absence of legislation giving effect to the constitutional provisions on devolution remained a major gap.
Molokele also criticised the omission of the proposed Local Government Bill from the President’s legislative programme.
As the representative of Hwange, Molokele also raised concerns over Zimbabwe’s mining legislation, describing the current legal framework as outdated.
“I am a son of the coal, I was born in the coal, I was raised by the coal; my parents are Hwange Colliery Company,” he said.
He noted Zimbabwe was still operating under mining legislation enacted in 1962 during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Molokele said successive Parliaments had discussed replacing the legislation, but the country still did not have a new Mining Act.
He said the absence of updated legislation was particularly concerning for mining communities and expressed disappointment that the Mining Bill was not included in the President’s legislative agenda for the Fourth Session.
Molokele also criticised the absence of a Gender Equality Bill from the government’s legislative programme.
He said the 2013 Constitution promotes gender equality and that lawmakers had proposed legislation to give effect to those constitutional provisions.
He said the proposed Gender Equality Act had received support from the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission but had not been included in the SONA.
“We are leaving our women behind, while leaving those who have been marginalised in this country since ad infinitum. The fact that there is no Gender Equality Bill in this State of the Nation Address is a failure of leadership,” he said.
Molokele also raised concerns over access to safe abortion services, citing teenage pregnancies as a major concern and calling for greater attention to the issue.
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