LEGISLATORS have said a number of reforms meant to democratically transform Parliament were still to be implemented, over a decade after some of them were adopted.
By VENERANDA LANGA
Parliament in 1996 went through reforms meant to strengthen the capacity of MPs to contribute more effectively to proceedings, improve internal systems and procedures of the House. The reforms were also meant to increase public participation in the legislative process, and enhance the oversight role of both Houses with special emphasis on promoting greater efficiency in the management of public funds.
But MPs said although Parliament had come up with a good constitution with a good bill of rights, as well as coming up with the Parliament reforms, the government had used its muscle to stifle implementation of some of the reforms.
Midlands senator Morgan Komichi (MDC-T) said opposition MPs had been abused in Parliament and had their ideas downtrodden.
“One of the greatest achievements for the past 35 years has been that opposition parties managed to garner seats and brought a new dimension of debate,” Komichi said.
“However, as long as the opposition is a minority in both Houses [National Assembly and Senate] their ideas are often shot down and recommendations not implemented, even if they might be good.”
He said although Parliament, through Copac, came up with a good constitution in 2013, the biggest shortcoming was failure to re-align laws with the new charter.
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“Laws such as the Electoral Act need to be aligned with the Constitution. What we have seen is reluctance by the ruling party to do that because they always want to interfere with elections through violence and rigging. The Constitution also demands that securocrats be non-partisan, but we have seen the opposite,” said Komichi. He said the re-introduction of the Senate was a good move, although its effectiveness to scrutinise pieces of legislation was affected by the whipping system.
“Senate must be a house made up of legislators who are mature, above 40 and have certain expertise which will see them contributing positively to issues affecting the country and scrutiny of legislation. However, in Zimbabwe we do not see such a calibre of senators because there are no age requirements as compared to other countries,” he said.
Zanu PF chief whip in the National Assembly Joram Gumbo said some of the positive achievements of Parliament 35 years down the line included opening Parliament to the public through public consultations, as well a provision of 60 uncontested seats to women through a constitutional provision.
“We achieved a lot through coming up with a home-grown constitution where Copac involved people in coming up with the charter, but a lot has not been implemented. There were other good things which were introduced, like the Constituency Development Fund,” Gumbo said.
“Constituency Information Centres [PCICs] were also set up. However, CDF is no longer being disbursed and very few PCICs are running due to lack of funding. PCICs were good in that people in rural areas could get information on what was happening in Parliament.”
He said some of the failures included poor remuneration for MPs who were some of the worst paid in the region and were often humiliated at hotels for failure to pay bills.
“Our achievements include opening up of public enquiries through committees. Different Portfolio and Thematic Committees can go to the people to gather oral evidence and it is something that came with the Parliamentary reforms of 1996,” Gumbo said. MDC-T deputy chief whip in the National Assembly, Dorcas Sibanda said Parliament’s biggest failure was that most laws were passed without consulting the public.
“What we have seen is that for some pieces of legislation, the public are consulted but their contributions are not included or considered,” Sibanda said.
“The public has not been consulted whenever government implemented policies such as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme [Esap]. Policies are just imposed on the people. Whenever treaties are to be ratified, the public has to be consulted.”
On achievements, she noted the participation of more women in the legislature (35%), which enabled them to debate issues that affected women.
