FOR years now, President Robert Mugabe has been officially opening new sessions of Parliament and announcing on average 20 Bills to be crafted in the duration of each of the sessions, yet less than half the number of the bills has been brought before the august House.
by VENERANDA LANGA Zanu PF legislators are known to shower praises on the President’s speeches during debate, and have always avoided critiquing them — apparently out of fear or sheer blind support.
Interestingly, however, the past few days during debate of the motion on the presidential speech, some Zanu PF MPs, who contributed to debate, raised very pivotal issues and pointed out what government should take cognisance of as a way of correcting mistakes of the past.
While introducing his motion on the presidential speech, Buhera North MP William Mutomba (Zanu PF) pointed out that since the inception of the Eighth Session of Parliament in 2013; very few Bills that Mugabe had announced were actually crafted after being brought before the august house by the Executive.
“During the First Session of the Eighth Parliament, the President presented 24 Bills but only nine were crafted. During the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament, 19 Bills were announced, but only eight were brought into the House for crafting,” Mutomba said.
“During the first session, five of the 24 announced Bills were investment oriented, whereas in the second session six of them were investment Bills. However, during the first session none of the five investment Bills were brought for crafting before Parliament, and during the second session only two investment Bills were crafted,” he said.
Mutomba said most of the Bills that were announced during the previous sessions were too restrictive and repulsive in nature.
“For how long are we going to be discourteous? Is it limited financial resources, or is it the Executive failing to bring Bills to the House? This is a sign of discourteous attitude or lack of support to the President,” Mutomba said.
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Bikita West MP Munyaradzi Kereke (Zanu PF) also said: “This time around, we have been mandated to look at 21 Bills. They need to go through Parliament for the good of the economy. If history were to repeat itself, we will again see a fraction of these Bills being passed. We need closer working relationships between Parliament and the Executive.”
Kereke said the result of failure to perform in terms of crafting of legislation was the continuous leakages and pillaging of the economy affecting the country.
“Unless we realise that there are urgent policy decisions that need to be made to re-align the economy, indeed goals of the legislative agenda may be missed,” Kereke said.
