Mangoma refuses to comment on Biti’s health
By Thulani Ncube | Bulawayo Bureau |
BULAWAYO – Former MDC-T Deputy Treasurer General Elton Mangoma has refused to be drawn into the speculation surrounding the health of former Secretary General Tendai Biti who now leads a breakaway faction of the opposition party.
At the Bulawayo Press Club on Saturday, a journalist asked Mangoma a rather cheeky question saying; “ After the bombing at Honourable Biti’s residence, his health has deteriorated drastically. What is it that is affecting Biti?”
In response, Mangoma, a former Energy Minister in the 2009-2013-coalition government said; “Biti has not shared with me his medical history. In any case my profession is far away from that of a medical doctor. I am a chartered accountant by profession.”
The split of the MDC-T into two factions has resulted in a nasty exchange of barbs. While the MDC Renewal Team have focused on what they claim to be Tsvangirai’s womanizing the former Prime Ministers’ loyalists have retaliated with several unfortunate observations on Biti’s dramatic weight loss.
In January Biti had a go at President Mugabe’s health problems telling a meeting in Harare that “being 90 is illness on its own.”
Addressing a panel discussion on the Zanu PF government’s new ZimAsset economic blueprint held at a Harare hotel, Biti said;
“We are paralyzed by a crisis of leadership; that you can have the chief executive officer of the country at 90. I know that there has been debate about the President’s health but it is my respectful submission, being 90 is illness on its own,” Biti said to roaring laughter from the audience.
A state media columnist Nathaniel Manheru believed to be Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba retaliated in his weekly column by making mention of an incident in which Biti collapsed and fell off his chair.
According to Manheru, Biti was “apparently unable to explain what falling from a firm chair, right in front of an audience, at an age decidedly below 50, means in the scheme of human maladies.”
“At below 50, age cannot have anything to do with it, surely? God does interpose in swift, mysterious ways, I tell you. Lesson one, why throw stones from an ailing, wafer (not wafa!) castle?,” Manheru said.
