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Does
Zimbabwe parliamentary reform provide reason for hope?
Parliaments
of the South E Newsletter
Extracted from: Parliaments of the South E Newsletter, Issue 2
March 2006
http://www.saiia.org.za/
A leading Zimbabwe
economist recently commented: "Whatever Mugabe can't control,
he makes irrelevant - that’s why he leaves parliament alone".
Apart from HIV/Aids,
arguably no other issue has occupied as many column inches of southern
African newspapers as the political, economic and human crisis that
has unfolded in Zimbabwe since 2000. The Zimbabwe parliament has
not been left unscathed. Indeed, parliament has been the site of
intense and heated exchanges between the ruling Zimbabwe African
National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and the official
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Parliament has
also passed a raft of restrictive, repressive and indeed draconian
legislation. But in the midst of this political maelstrom, the Zimbabwe
parliament has also been engaged in a programme of parliamentary
reform. John Makumure, Zimbabwe country head of the State University
of New York-Centre for International Development (SUNY-CID) parliamentary
support programme, reports on the activities of the parliamentary
reform programme.
The SUNY-CID
has been assisting the Parliament
of Zimbabwe implement its ambitious reform programme since 1999.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds
the Institutional Strengthening of the Zimbabwe Parliament project.
The major objective of the SUNY/CID programme is to enhance the
effectiveness of Parliament in executing its constitutional mandate
in the following areas:
· Streamlining
and improving the law-making process
· Executive oversight
· Representative functions
The key aspects
of Parliamentary reforms include the following:
- Opening
up parliamentary proceedings to the public.
- Establishing
an open system of portfolio committees shadowing all ministries.
It was envisaged that the new committee system would provide effective
and improved financial and administrative scrutiny of government
ministries and departments as well as making the Executive more
accountable to Parliament.
- The provision
of adequate time for parliament’s involvement in the law-making
process. The pre-reform era did not give Parliament enough time
to deliberate on bills or allow for adequate public consultation
and debate.
- Improved
conditions of work and other support facilities to members and
officers of Parliament.
- Reforming
the budget process so that parliament plays a more effective role
in the review and implementation of the budget.
The SUNY/CID
programme has largely focused on the portfolio committee system
since it is the heart and soul of parliamentary work. Technical
assistance has been provided to the committees in the analysis of
bills and policy issues. In many cases, technical and financial
support has been provided in the conduct of public hearings, in
line with the spirit of reforms of opening up the institution to
public participation.
SUNY/CID is
mindful of the importance of building sustainability in its work.
This is being accomplished by introducing training programmes for
the secretariat and chairpersons of committees in the areas of legal
drafting and analysis, policy analysis, report writing, among others.
These programmes are slowly bearing fruit as evidenced by the ability
of some of the officers to analyse legislation and draft reports
with minimal SUNY/CID involvement.
The technical
support provided has also put committees in a better position to
influence substantive amendments to bills. Parliament’s participation
in the budget has also become much more meaningful due to the technical
assistance provided. This was unheard of before 2000 when parliament
was viewed only as a rubber-stamp institution. The strategy is to
gradually withdraw the hands-on technical support so as to realise
the sustainability objective.
SUNY/CID has
also tried to sustain the reform efforts by assisting parliament
to document the new practices and procedures brought about by reforms.
The following documents have already been produced and approved
by the Liaison and Coordination Committee (forum of chairpersons
and the custodian of the reform agenda):
- Committee
Operations Manual
- Public Hearing
Guidelines
- Legislative
Analysis Checklist
- Budget Analysis
Guidelines
SUNY/CID has
also assisted the parliament of Zimbabwe to periodically review
the Standing Rules and Orders so as to align them to the reforms.
Members are repeatedly reminded that the reform programme is a process
and not an event and that the new practices must be captured in
the rules for them to become part-and-parcel of the institution’s
culture.
All its good
work notwithstanding, SUNY/CID has faced challenges in its work
with parliament.
The key challenges include the following:
- High staff
turnover in the secretariat due to poor working conditions. This
has negatively affected institutional memory.
- High turnover
of members at every general election.
- A polarised
political environment that has sometimes reduced the plenary session
to a circus. This has tended to dilute some of the good work happening
in committees where a non-partisan approach to business is mainly
the norm.
- The passing
of some bad pieces of legislation that has reduced democratic
space.
- Slow pace
of growth in knowledge among some of the members, despite increased
technical assistance.
Any future programmes
with the parliament of Zimbabwe are intended to deal with these
challenges and consolidate some of the gains already realised.
The SUNY-CID
web site is: www.cid.suny.edu
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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