Darlington Chiwa
Beatific Gumbwanda
13 March 2017, CHIREDZI – A seemingly overwhelmed Chiredzi West legislator, Darlington Chiwa has directed his guns at Tongaat Hullet, accusing the sugar giant of neglecting the educational needs of surrounding communities in order to keep the people illiterate and exploit them as cheap labour.
Speaking at Batanai Primary School in section 23 recently, Triangle, Chiwa lambasted Tongaat for failing to build permanent structures at the school. He said the sugar giant was the enemy which wants to keep an uninformed society for commercial gain.
“Tongaat has no interest in the welfare of the communities. The company has the social responsibility to develop the community but they are not. The company is useless because these children are studying under trees.
“They want these children to stay uneducated so that the company can have cheap labour as cane cutters,” Chiwa charged.
His accusations, however, have been described by some as stupefying, given that the MP was recently at the forefront of defending the sugar company against planned seizure of its land.
Chiwa organised fierce resistance against plans by Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs, Shuvai Mahofa to seize vast parts of the company’s land for redistribution.
The legislator’s critics have also dismissed him for being insincere, saying he was only criticising Tongaat for political expediency, having realised that he is likely to lose his parliamentary seat to the former Tongaat executive, Farai Musikavanhu in next year’s elections.
“Chiwa has realised his folly of supping with the devil and is desperately trying to make amends. He defended a greedy Tongaat Hullet when Minister Mahofa wanted to take some of the land to give to landless locals. Now he has realised that he no longer has support. He can’t fool anyone,” said a source.politics
