Mines portfolio chair accused of receiving bribes

Published: 02 August 2017

Norton representative Mr Temba Mliswa yesterday accused chairman of the Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy Daniel Shumba of receiving bribes from Sakunda Holdings chief executive officer Kudakwashe Tagwirei to block the committee from carrying out investigations on the Dema Diesel Power Plant.

Mr Mliswa raised the allegations in the National Assembly yesterday.

"He is a one man band despite us as a committee resolving on certain matters which are in the minutes. It's pretty clear that they are not being adhered to in particular is the Sakunda situation. The committee resolved that the chief executive officer of Sakunda Mr Tagwirei should appear before us; we then asked why he did not come. A letter from the Clerk of Parliament was shown having been written to Sakunda directly through the instruction of the chairman of the committee Honourable Daniel Shumba that he must not attend. That letter referred to a resolution which we never made. As a result, he (Tagwirei) did not attend.

"We tried to talk about this to air out our views that it was not proper. There are also allegations that he (Shumba) had been paid some money," Mr Mliswa said.

He added that attempts to get clarification from Speaker Advocate Jacob Mudenda had also been fruitless. "The committee also requested the Speaker to appear before us to try and verify what the chairman said because we have no other way of doing that but unfortunately that was shot down.

"I have communicated to the Speaker, I have communicated to the head of Government business in the House, in terms of the Sakunda issue. I went to the honourable Vice President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) himself to ask him if he had spoken to honourable Shumba about Sakunda not appearing. He said he did not know about that," Mr Mliswa said.

He accused Shumba of approaching various company executives demanding bribes.

"He certainly uses names all the time, name dropping and knowing you Mr speaker you are a man of honour and so is the Clerk of Parliament there are so many allegations of companies who come before us who have equally come to me. I will furnish you with their names, (those) who say this is how you operate as a committee. Your chairman is asking (for) money from us. He has got extortion tendencies which are destroying this Parliament. I am prepared to bring evidence," he added.

Advocate Mudenda advised Mr Mliswa to put his grievances in writing so that Parliament authorities can investigate the matter.

"Where there is some disagreement in a committee, the committee should write to the Clerk of Parliament who then will address the issues in the committee and if the Clerk of Parliament fails to resolve the issues, he will then refer the matter to the office of the Speaker. I want that followed so that we can get to the bottom of the matter.

"Suppose there is evidence so that they are no longer allegations, tender them to the committee in black and white, I am wondering whether this was done," Advocate Mudenda said.
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