The MDC Alliance has scoffed at the ruling made by National Assembly Speaker, Jacob Mudenda, to withhold sitting allowances for its MPs after they walked out while President Emmerson Mnangagwa was delivering his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Writing on microblogging site Twitter, MDC secretary-general, Chalton Hwende, said his party’s MPs are not in Parliament to get allowances. Said Hwende:
The Speaker of Parliament thinks that the MDC Alliance MPs are deployed to Parliament to get allowances?
He is wrong, we are there to represent the 2.6 million voters who voted for Nelson Chamisa. Our Parliamentary agenda is to ensure that those votes are made to count.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda, ruled that opposition MDC Alliance (MDC-A) MPs will not receive sitting allowances going back five months after they snubbed Mnangagwa.
In August this year, they walked out on Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s presentation of the Mid-Year Budget Review Statement and Supplementary Budget with their allowances subsequently withheld by the government.