He was ridiculed in the media following allegations that he had stolen a cell phone belonging to self styled war veteran’s leader Joseph Chinotimba. But Deputy Youth Minister Thamsanqa Mahlangu was eventually acquitted and says he is now focused on his job.
On Behind the Headlines SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma speaks to Mahlangu about that case and his speech in parliament that over 80 000 youths have passed through the controversial ‘Border Gezi’ youth service training programme. Lance also asks him what is being done to halt the continuous deployment of these youths to harass, intimidate and torture perceived ZANU PF opponents.
Interview broadcast 26/11/09
Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe and welcome to Behind the Headlines. My guest this week is the Deputy Minister for Youth Affairs Mr Thamsanqa Mahlangu. Mr Mahlangu thank you for joining us on the programme.
Thamsanqa Mahlangu: Thank you Lance.
Guma: Right, now first things first – you revealed recently in parliament that over 80 000 young Zimbabweans have passed through the controversial Youth Service programme. Tell our listeners a bit more about this – what were you talking about in parliament?
Mahlangu: In parliament I was actually responding to a question that was asked by the member of parliament for Mazowe East, Mr Mushonga who wanted to know how many youths had been trained so far by the Youth Service and also he wanted to know the number of Ward Officers on the ground as up to now so I was actually responding to the question.
Guma: OK, so this figure of 80 000, is this the total number of youth who have been trained since the programme was started?
Mahlangu: Yah since the inception of the programme, the former ruling party led programme of national service. As you know that after the formation of the inclusive government there’s no national service that has been started here, we are just trying here to make some reforms around it.
Guma: OK we’ve got 13 950 of these recruits currently employed as Youth Ward Officers as you said so yourself. What’s going to be done about them? Surely they can’t keep drawing on salaries as civil servants given their notorious history?
Mahlangu: Yah what I said was that the Public Service has given my ministry a number of 13 950 youths that are supposed to be employed officially by my ministry but so far after the vigorous auditing that was done by my ministry we have actually led to the official number of about 6 600 youths and I think that some of these people are being transferred to other ministries, I can only say that because when we started the research there are no people that are not yet off the payroll but still the number’s gone down so we suspect that there are other young people, other people, the old people that have been employed by my ministry that have actually been taken to other departments of the government.
Guma: OK even those who are still employed under your ministry, what exactly are they supposed to be doing?
Mahlangu: The Ward Officers actually they, you know before that their role had not been clearly defined as far as I’m concerned but what we’ve done now is actually redefine the role of Ward Officers, all Officers are supposed to be employees of the ministry, they’re supposed to be on the ground actually pursuing the youth agenda on the ground in terms of youth empowerment achieved on the ground, the communities working with the youth in the communities and ensuring that the programmes of the youth, the programmes of the youth on the ground are actually being done properly, that would be the job.
But now the crisis that had emerged was that these young citizens had been turned into individual youth officers, you find that the politicians have been abusing these young people on the ground. Certain political parties treat these young as an extension of their own youth league.
Guma: But is it practical Mr Mahlangu to modify the behaviour of these youths who in the past had been used to harass, intimidate and even torture opposition activists? I mean how are you going to modify their behaviour?
Mahlangu:
Yah it is a challenge, it is actually a challenge my friend, I think we are facing a big challenge as far as I’m concerned whether we must allow these young people to remain employed by my Ministry or actually cut their contracts so that we reemploy. We are looking at the two avenues whether, can we allow them to continue working because as far as I’m concerned as things are standing now, these youths in the communities are known for their actions, are known for their past actions before the GPA, this year some elections in June so we find that even the people they are not in a position to work with them, they are not getting any cooperation from the community, they are not getting any cooperation from the youth from my own party, they are being seen as the tools of Zanu-PF so it’s very, very difficult for them to work with communities so it’s actually a challenge that we need to overcome in the ministry.
Guma: Now you also said the Youth Ministry has this year used over 80 000 US dollars to try and reform the Youth Training programme, what sort of reforms are involved here, what are you going to be trying to do?
Mahlangu: Yah looking at the past, the past youth training programme, it was a violent one. The youth had been taught to, the National Service had actually been abused as I said before by a political party for their own political interest and so on, so now what we are trying to do, we want a national service that is youth friendly, a National Service that can accommodate across the political divide, we want an inclusive youth service whereby the youth service is used as a vehicle of national unity in our country.
Gone are the days when the youth service will be used to pursue a certain political party’s agenda. Gone are the days when youths will be abused by certain individuals, certain individuals who think the political party to actually take own parents, actually kill their own brothers and sisters, gone are those days so what we are saying is that we want to see a National Service that will serve young people, a National Service that will actually create a democratic Zimbabwe, a National Service that would be viewed as youth friendly, will be viewed as a place to be.
Guma: You also revealed in parliament that the programme has used about six million US dollars from the taxpayers, now this week I spoke to the spokesperson of the Zimbabwe National Students Union, Blessing Vava and he was arguing that instead of prioritising this National Youth Service, the resources are better spent revamping the education sector. What do you make of his argument?
Mahlangu: Yah whilst I agree with him but he has to know that the National Service has been acknowledged by the GPA in the agenda so we are in a Catch 22 situation because the negotiators say that National Service in itself is a noble idea but how it was done is the issue that actually was not seen to be good but now what we are trying to do is that we need to ensure that when we start the National Service scheme the country is ready to run such a scheme, the country is financially stable to run such a scheme but I don’t think at the present moment right in time we can actually afford such a programme.
But now what we actually do, we have started working on the formalities not implementation but how we can actually come out. It can actually take us another two years to have the service but what we are saying is that what is on the ground now is actually looking for reforms. As I’m talking to you now, we have got a trip that we are taking to, we are going to Kigali, the minister and other certain members of the team from across the political divide, we are going on a fact finding mission, on a study trip to see how the Rwandan’s resolved their own differences after the genocide that took place there. We are going to learn a lot to see how we can overcome our own challenges here in Zimbabwe again.
Guma: Are you confident that that is something that can be pulled off? I mean because there was a lot of talk about national healing and reconciliation and we even had National Healing Ministers appointed but nothing seems to be coming out of that. All we heard was a National Healing Day.
Mahlangu: I agree with you, I agree with you 100% my friend that the National Healing that we are having now, the people that have been appointed, they are just paid to just sit there and watch things happening, there’s violence that is actually currently taking place in Zimbabwe. There’s nothing that has been seen in that office I don’t know why we have a National Healing Ministry, those people involved in that office because as far as I’m concerned they are toothless bulldogs.
So as far as I’m concerned what we are trying to do, we the Youth are the most affected part, so we are taking the lead as the youth to make sure that we the youth take the lead in the National Healing process in our country than waiting for those three, the three people, the three ministers, that have already seen better to actually do the healing for us because first of all they are trying to heal themselves before they heal the nation of Zimbabwe.
Guma: Newsreel has been reporting on the deployment of youth militia in areas like Zaka North, Murehwa, Gokwe and Bindura and even last week, the MDC’s Changing Times newsletter actually talked about Zanu-PF youth militia trying to influence people to vote for the Kariba Draft. As the Deputy Youth Minister is there anything that you can do about these reports?
Mahlangu: No we are doing our own investigation, we have heard about those cases. But I assure you that we are investigating, on top of, we are on top of the situation, we are very concerned about that, we cannot allow the same situation that was happening before the inclusive government to happen again so I want to promise you 100% that we are doing a lot to ensure that such things will never happen again. We cannot have secret youth militia camps that are not known by the inclusive government.
We should know where the young people are, the parents should know where their children are. It’s very, very important, we cannot abuse young kids anymore. The days of abusing young people have gone past. As far as I’m concerned we are looking forward in a democratic Zimbabwe which at the end of the day the young people will actually voluntarily join this National Service, no-one will push them, to force them. So as far as I’m concerned we are on top of the situation in terms of investigating these allegations.
Guma: And how would you characterise your working relationship with the Youth Minister Saviour Kasukuwere who is from Zanu-PF? Are there any differences, are you working well, how are things going?
Mahlangu: Yah we are working well. We have got a cordial relationship with my Minister, we are working well, we agree where we are supposed to agree and we disagree sometimes where we are supposed to disagree and we are agree to disagree sometimes with other issues so we are working very well and we know that we are coming from, I have said to him that we are coming from different backgrounds, as I have said to him that we are coming from parties with a different ideology altogether, so we have accepted that, I’m MDC, he is ZANU PF but we are working together for the sake of Zimbabweans.
Guma: We are clearly running out of time but my final question obviously would have to congratulate you on being acquitted in the trial with Joseph Chinotimba, stealing a mobile phone. Just your comments on that, how did you feel about it?
Mahlangu: (laughing)……Can you imagine my friend, me stealing a phone? It was the joke of the year to me but it was actually unfortunate that he took my time instead of him focussing on the real issues to make sure that, we are working very hard to empower our own people but I found myself being dragged into the courts, my time was wasted, I don’t have a problem about the case but it was about my time that was wasted. Instead of serving my people in Nkulumane constituency I was seen to be always in court all the time. I’m just hoping that my brother, Bennett is going to be acquitted also, that’s my prayer.
Guma: But how was it like for you in terms of trying to convince people that, look I didn’t do this? Obviously you’d have people who had doubts…
Mahlangu: It was a difficult time. I think I didn’t have any big problem about the case itself, I just believed that anyone has got a right to take someone to court and it’s up to me to prove myself, to prove my innocence but the problem that I heard about things that were being, the lies that were being carried by the State media, things that were being told to the nation of Zimbabwe, lies after lies so it was very, very difficult time when I read Herald every time, to hear my name, to hear things that were being said – lies only you know. So I’m happy that we now have professional magistrates in our court, people that are seeing the light of the day, they are just seeing that Zimbabwe is no longer going to be Zanu-PF for ever, we are happy about that as far as I’m concerned.
Guma: But without going into too much detail, can you maybe for the sake of our listeners, SW Radio Africa listeners, just briefly summarise what happened on that day? When Chinotimba alleged that you stole his cell phone?
Mahlangu: Yah I think just a story was created, it was created to implicate me and you have to understand that there are a lot of issues in the government, you are talking about these youth militias and so on, it’s a problem whereby people will be trying to put you in the corner so that you can actually lose focus on the real issues so it was something that was actually planned, it was a plot on myself. Someone wanted to implicate me in that thing.
I was nowhere near that thing, that issue, I was not part of it, I didn’t know what happened I just heard people talking about that I had stolen a phone so it’s unfortunate that, it’s fortunate that when I went to the courts, the courts, you know when you are in the courts it is different from only talking and again the character of person that I was dealing with is someone that can pretend, is someone that can be a clown sometimes. I understood him very well that he is actually like that and everyone, even the people, in the court of public opinion didn’t even believe in him, that was my luck now because people never believed that Mahlangu could do that because of my political history, because of my past I was actually been in front, in the eyes of the Zimbabwe society they’ve been seeing me as someone, a progressive leader and being a member of parliament elected by the people of Nkulumane, being the National youth chairman in the MDC, no one could believe that I can go so low.
Guma: My colleague Violet Gonda actually interviewed Joseph Chinotimba and he told us he had filed a 19 million US dollar law suit against you. Is the law suit still going on or has it since been dropped?
Mahlangu: I don’t know what he is planning but as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t asked my lawyers about that but as far as I’m concerned I don’t think that it will actually see the light of the day anymore because he was actually taking from the allegation that he actually put on me and this allegation has been cleared by the courts so I don’t know, it is up to him he has got his own right but I will always be there to defend myself again as far as I’m concerned.
Guma: That’s Deputy Youth Minister Thamsanqa Mahlangu, he is currently on his way to Rwanda. Thank you very much for spending time to talk to us on Behind the Headlines.
Mahlangu: Thank you very much.
