MPs TURN PARLIAMENT INTO A CASH COW WHILE ZIMBABWE SUFFERS
Zimbabwean Members of Parliament have mastered the art of milking the national treasury while pretending to represent the will of the people. Since 2018, these so-called public servants have focused their energy not on the hunger, unemployment and collapsing infrastructure that plague their communities but on negotiating better perks for themselves. Instead of amplifying the cries of their constituents, they have become expert negotiators of comfort and convenience, living in islands of privilege in a sea of national despair.
MPs are elected to represent the people in parliament. Their core duties include passing laws, overseeing the actions of the executive, approving the national budget and above all else ensuring that the voices of ordinary citizens echo within the walls of power. But what we see in Zimbabwe is a twisted version of that role. MPs have abandoned their watchdog responsibility and instead transformed themselves into predators of the public purse.
These legislators have made headlines for lobbying for luxury benefits while the majority of Zimbabweans live from hand to mouth. From demanding US dollar salaries and housing loans to craving luxury cars and post-retirement benefits, our MPs have become relentless in their pursuit of personal gain. In December 2022, they awarded themselves US$40 000 in housing loans and US$60 000 in vehicle loans, only to claim these amounts were too little. Today they shamelessly want housing loans of up to US$150 000 each, citing inflation and the privileges enjoyed by ministers. This is not representation. It is extortion dressed as governance.
Last year alone, MPs demanded second-hand duty-free vehicles worth US$40 000 each, more residential stands and even the doubling of their constituency development funds to US$100 000. Constituency development funds that should go to the people have become another avenue for corruption and self-enrichment. These are the same MPs who vanish after elections and only return when it is time to seek votes again. The suffering of the people in townships and rural areas where roads are dust tracks, clinics are bare and schools are falling apart clearly does not keep them awake at night.
Worse still, MPs have asked for their spouses to accompany them on parliamentary trips as part of their perks. They have pushed for basic monthly salaries of US$2 000, excluding allowances, and still demand Toyota Land Cruisers as if this were a successful oil-rich nation. Now government has even started giving them land for housing construction. While they add more zeros to their wish lists, nurses earn peanuts, teachers walk to work and civil servants live like beggars in their own country.
Yes, MPs should earn enough to carry out their duties. But that conversation must be rooted in service delivery, professionalism and accountability. Right now, what we have is a political class more concerned with lining their own pockets than lifting people out of poverty. Zimbabwean politics has become a profit scheme, not a calling to serve.
Nigerian leader Peter Obi once said no country can move forward if politics is more profitable than industry. In Zimbabwe, those in politics are indeed richer than entrepreneurs. They manufacture poverty and hoard privilege while ordinary people drink dirty water and die in queues. Our MPs have become merchants of misery, selling out their constituencies in exchange for a few extra creature comforts. Until this rot is uprooted, parliament will remain nothing more than a syndicate of elites pretending to serve the people they are actually exploiting.
