Back to Index

Senate sits for 18 minutes
Veneranda Langa, NewsDay
October 23, 2013

https://www.newsday.co.zw/2013/10/23/senate-sits-18-minutes/

Senate yesterday adjourned after sitting for only 18 minutes when senators failed to contribute to debate on two motions on yesterday’s Order Paper.

The first motion on the presidential speech failed to attract debate while the other motion on the report of the 62nd session of the executive committee of the African Parliamentary Union (APU) was wound up by the mover Matabeleland North senator Thokozile Mathuthu and was adopted within a few minutes.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa then adjourned the House amidst some murmurs from a few MDC-T senators who felt business in the Senate was not being taken seriously.

Responding to the murmurs, President of the Senate Edna Madzongwe said the House had to adjourn since there was no business.

“Those who do not want to adjourn should make sure we have motions to debate in the House,” Madzongwe said.

Asked by NewsDay why they were failing to bring motions for debate in the House, some senators said they were still in the process of crafting them.

Meanwhile, Senate had overlooked the inclusion of representatives of people living with disabilities in thematic committees that were appointed last week.

Although they were subsequently allocated committees to work with yesterday, the two representatives, Annah Shiri and Nyamayabo Mashavakure said they were not happy by lack of recognition in the House.

“We have no ill feelings about it, but whenever one deals with a majority one finds that they tend to think of themselves. We simply did remind them that they had forgotten us and they rectified the situation and included us. We definitely will articulate our issues and make an impact on the committees we have been seconded to. It is important that people realise that society is made up of different things, personalities - some are disabled, others are girls or boys, and young or adults,” said Mashavakure.

Nyamayabo was seconded to the human rights thematic committee and the indigenisation thematic committee and Shiri will sit in the millennium development goals (MDG) and gender thematic committees.

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.

TOP