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By Nhau Mangirazi
Magunje – There was chaos during the Parliament portfolio committee hearing on youth, sports, arts, and recreation on Thursday after it was forced to abort the hearing on the reintroduction of the national youth service in Magunje.
This is the third time the same committee has suffered resistance when another hearing was aborted in Bulawayo after participants exchanged blows.
In Wastomba, Manicaland province, another hearing also ended prematurely.
In Magunje, the meeting was marred by chaos and was tension filled with some booing those who had said opposing facts from two divided camps.
Committee chairperson Tawanda Tungamirai (Zvimba East) was forced to plead with the audience that never respected the parliament’s privileges.
His pleas were drawn by seemingly drunk participants.
Ronald Kwena was the first to speak and was forced to stand down after he was booed when he said the national youth service must stop until the economy improves as the country has no capacity to carry out the programme.
‘‘We are suffering and as a country. We cannot afford financial capacity to kick start such a programme that is of national importance,’’ he said.
This triggered opposition from some members that forced some to boo him and Tungamirai had to stand him down.
Mary Muchemwa further fueled tension after she suggested that national youth officers are jobless and have been used as political militia against some political opponents.
‘‘National youth services is a noble idea but our previous experience from those that went to Border Gezi training Centre is of violent in nature. Most of the sisters and brothers are jobless and some of them are here only making a lot of noise than contributing with facts,’’ she said.
She added that youths must be empowered.
She was mobbed by some participants and was later whisked away by the police.
Tsitsi Mupasiri called for the rebranding of the national youth service.
‘‘We look forward to a better rebranding of youth services. Government has the reasonability for better institutions with modern infrastructure,’’ she said.
Peter Matemera said the reintroduction is ill-timed.
‘‘There is no need to have youths trained ahead of next year’s elections. The government must put it on hold,’’ said Matemera.
Tapiwa Masenda said youths must be trained to be patriotic and fight against economic injustice.
‘‘Patriotism means someone is committed to his country than calling for sanctions,’’ said Masenda.
After his speech, some youths broke into song and dance forcing the parliament portfolio committees to abort the meeting. A ministry official, Ofias Dube had earlier explained that the cabinet had approved the programme to be reintroduced with a policy framework and an act of parliament on 13 April 2021.
Hardly a month later, the National Association of Youth Organizations (NAYO) petitioned parliament to stop national youths training amid allegations that it was used as a political tool to silence opposition party members.
Part of the petition read that most of the recruits of this ‘political tool disguised as a youth empowerment program’ were involuntarily recruited and were then taught to be aggressive and heartless.
‘‘Skills to torture, assault, group rape and kill victims were taught to these new recruits. They were never given an option to opt out when they felt like so, running away wasn’t an option either as that was like signing up for a death sentence and no further investigations would be done,’’ reads part of the petition that prompted parliament to carry out public hearings.