self-enrichment.
Readers, who posted comments on The Herald online edition, said allocating MPs stands would set a bad precedent as Government would have to provide successive parliamentarians with residential stands in leafy suburbs after every election.
But Mr Masunda said the stands were long overdue, considering MPs’ contribution to the country’s development.
The mayor’s remarks followed a request by legislators to be allocated residential stands at subsidised prices in what they called respectable suburbs.
The legislators had also argued that facilitating them to own houses in the capital would serve the fiscus in hotel bills.
Mayor Masunga agrees with the legislators.
“I think it’s long overdue for our legislators, both Senators and Members of the House of Assembly as well as councillors right across the political divide to be assisted with reasonable accommodation.
“It is a source of considerable embarrassment to me that an unsustainably large number of our legislators are of no fixed abode due to circumstances well beyond their immediate control,” said Mr Masunda.
“It’s not within their dignity that so many of them are lodgers. We shall do what we can to assist although the situation is pretty grim at the moment.”
However, The Herald’s readers expressed outrage over the MPs’ demands.
One reader said: “If you want to make money operate your own business and use your money to protect your wealth by joining politics and advancing your sound ideas.”
Another reader said the legislators should buy residential stands on the open market and not get preferential treatment.
“If we have a new crop of MPs at the next election what do we do with them, allocate all 400 MPs stands at reduced prices in the leafy suburbs again. Assuming this happens at every election where will we end,” said the rea-der.
One reader from the Diaspora said the legislators have not done anything warranting them to get cheap stands.
“These people are doing nothing besides sleeping and fighting in Parliament.
“The US$15 000 they got is a lot of money while civil servants cannot even buy a loaf of bread. It’s very unfair,” he said.
However, one reader supported the legislators’ cause saying they were justified.
“It does not augur well to say an MP stays in Mabvuku or Mufakose.
“They should actually ask to have houses built for them and not stands,” he said.
Parliament welfare committee vice chairperson and Murewa West MP, Mr Ward Nezi (MDC-T), proposed that money owed by Government in sitting allowances would be used to construct houses once they are given the stands.
This is despite the fact that Parliament has since acquired Quality Hotel, a three star hotel as part of efforts to reduce accommodation costs.
There are about 370 MPs including ministers, provincial governors and traditional leaders.

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