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Review of the last session of Parliament – Bill Watch 30/2010
Veritas
July 31, 2010
The House of
Assembly has adjourned until 5th October, the Senate until 12th
October
Review
of the Last Session of Parliament
The just-ended
Second Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe lasted from
Tuesday 6th October 2009 to Monday 12th July 2010.
Number of Sitting
Days
During the session,
a period of just over nine months:
- the Senate
sat on 16 occasions [10 in 2009, 6 in 2010],
- the House
of Assembly sat on 30 occasions [17 in 2009, 13 in 2010].
Normally sittings
are on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, commencing at
2.15 pm for the House of Assembly and 2.30 for the Senate. Standing
Orders envisage work continuing until 7 pm, but very seldom did
either House sit after 5 pm. There were a significant number of
short sittings, when one or other of the Houses met only to adjourn
after sitting for less than an hour and sometimes after 10 minutes.
The Session was also marked by long adjournments – six weeks
over the Christmas-New Year period, and a premature adjournment
for more than three months from March onwards to allow legislators
to take part in the Constitution outreach programme – which
eventually only started at the end of June.
Membership
Vacant Seats:
The number of vacant constituency seats rose to 16 [Senate 6, House
of Assembly 10] during the Session. The failure to hold by-elections
to fill the vacant seats is in breach of the Constitution
and the Electoral
Act [Note: the excuse of first having to update the voters rolls
is not a valid one as the law currently limits voting at a by-election
to those on the roll when the vacancy occurred; and some of these
vacancies arose in 2008.] There are a further 4 vacancies in non-constituency
seats: 1 chief’s seat, still to be filled by the Matabeleland
South Assembly of Chiefs; two ZANU-PF appointed seats in the Senate;
and 1 ZANU-PF appointed seat in the House of Assembly.
Suspended Members:
At the beginning of the Session 4 MDC-T members of the House of
Assembly were under suspension in terms of section 42 of the Constitution,
having been convicted of various offences and sentenced to more
than 6 months imprisonment. During the session one of them had his
conviction overturned on appeal and was automatically reinstated.
The other 3 remain suspended pending the determination of their
appeals against conviction and sentence. They continue to hold their
seats, but while suspended cannot vote or participate in Parliamentary
business and receive no remuneration. If they win their appeals,
they will be reinstated; if their appeals are unsuccessful, their
seats will fall vacant. Meanwhile, MDC-T voting strength in the
House is reduced, by 3.
Party Voting
Strengths: [figures are for the end of the Session – they
take into account vacancies and suspensions]
House of Assembly:
MDC-T 96; ZANU-PF 96; MDC-M 7
Senate: MDC-T
27; ZANU-PF 56; MDC-M 8 [Note: the ZANU-PF figure is made up as
follows: 25 elected, 4 appointed, 10 provincial governors, 17 chiefs
– chiefs included because they have traditionally voted ZANU-PF.]
Police Action
against MDC-T Legislators: Arrests and/or prosecution of MDC-T parliamentarians
continued, and MDC-T continued to complain that its legislators
were being specially singled out by police. Charges of insulting
the President featured in several such cases. No convictions have
yet ensued. The then MDC-T Deputy Minister of Youth, Thamsanqa Mahlangu,
was arrested, spent time in custody and after weeks of court hearings
was acquitted of theft of a cellphone. MDC-T Deputy Minister-designate
of Agriculture, Roy Bennett, spent weeks in remand prison and then
at the end of a protracted trial was acquitted of terrorism and
banditry charges, whereupon the Attorney-General applied for leave
to appeal. The Chief Justice heard legal argument on the application
on 28th July, then said his decision would be handed down later,
but warned that this would not be soon, given the lengthy trial
record.
Legislation
Dealt With
Bills Passed:
Only 6 Bills were passed, 5 of them in a flurry of hasty legislative
activity in December 2009 [3 were Budget Bills which have to be
passed each year]. This fell far short of the 15 Bills forecast
for presentation by the President in his speech opening this Second
Session of Parliament last year; nor did it include the reform legislative
agenda referred to in STERP and the Prime Ministers Speeches, upon
which so much foreign investment is depending. The Bills passed
were:
- Finance
Bill
- Appropriation
(2010) Bill
- Public Finance
Management Bill
- Audit Office
Bill
- Financial
Adjustments Bill
- Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill [finally passed in March]
Acts Gazetted:
all these Bills were gazetted as Acts. [Electronic versions available.]
Private Member’s
Bill introduced: In what was seen as a sign of back bench frustration
over the failure of the Inclusive Government to bring forward Bills
aimed at restoring basic freedoms, MDC-T Chief Whip Innocent Gonese
introduced a Private
Member’s Bill to amend the Public
Order and Security Act, having first been granted permission
to do so by the House of Assembly. [As the Bill had not been passed
by the time the Second Session came to an end on 12th July, it automatically
lapsed on that date. But the House of Assembly has since agreed
to restore the Bill to the Order Paper, so it has not been abandoned.]
The
Budget
A key Parliamentary
power over the Executive is its power to approve or disapprove the
Budget, but it is not effectively wielded in practice. Although
there were some pre-Budget consultations before the main 2010 Budget,
Parliament ended up fast tracking and rubber-stamping the presented
Budget – with dissatisfaction about Ministerial allocations
raised in post-Budget Portfolio Committees, too late to make changes.
Motions
Motions passed
included:
- call for
the removal of sanctions
- approval
of SADC Protocol on Gender and Development
- approval
of the Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of
Investments [BIPPA] between South Africa and Zimbabwe
- approval
of Agreement between Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe
for the establishment of the Limpopo Watercourse Commission
- acknowledgement
that conferment of hero status should not be decided by one party
alone
- condemnation
of corruption and call for Codes of Conduct for Executive, Judiciary
and Legislature [Note: Parliament’s own Code of Conduct
and register of financial interests are still not operational,
although they have been in preparation for years.]
Motions
Not Finalised at End of Session:
- motion in
response to the President’s address opening the Session
on 6th October 2009
- condolence
motions on the death of Vice-President Msika and Senator Richard
Hove
- motion for
appointment of select committee to investigate 2008 election violence
[debate commenced 16th March]
- motion calling
for audit of the voters roll [debate commenced 17th November 2009]
- “take
note motions” on reports of committees work and parliamentarians
Questions Raised:
although some good questions were raised the attendance of Ministers
to answer them was poor and the answers given often failed to provide
full and informative responses.
Second
Session Committee Work
Parliamentary
Legal Committee [PLC]: A non-adverse report on the Indigenisation
Regulations [SI 21/2010] was issued, conditional on the Minister
of Indigenisation and Empowerment amending the regulations to meet
the PLC’s objections [that the obligation to “cede”
controlling interests in businesses to indigenous Zimbabweans smacked
of unconstitutional compulsory acquisition.] The Minister eventually
made an appropriate amendment in SI 116/2010. [Electronic versions
of both SIs available on request.] Adverse PLC reports on four statutory
instruments were issued, but have not yet been released for public
information. The statutory instruments concerned are SI 78/2010
[Lupane Local Board vehicle licensing tariff]; SI 85/2010 [increased
fine for offence under Parks and Wild Life Regulations]; SI 87/2010
[Chipinge Town Council rents and service charges]; SI 88/2010 [Chipinge
Town Council cemetery charges]. [These reports do not automatically
invalidate the statutory instruments but may result in their repeal
or amendment in due course.]
Thematic
and Portfolio Committees:
Public Hearings:
There were public hearings on the POSA Amendment Bill; the state
of the public media; the Indigenisation Regulations; local authority
service delivery; and provision of telecommunication services.
Reports
Tabled:
Only a few committee
reports were tabled during the session:
- POSA Amendment
Bill [Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs]
- Status of
University
of Zimbabwe [Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science
and Technology]
- Health Care
Financing [Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare]
- Comptroller
and Auditor-General’s Special Report on First Quarter of
2009 Financial Year [Public Accounts Committee] [this was the
report that covered the irregular engagement of thousands of “youth
officers” by the previous Government in the run-up to the
2008 elections]
- Role of
Ministry of Agriculture [Thematic Committee on Peace and Security]
- Access to
Clean Water [Thematic Committee on Gender and Development]
Other reports
were being finalised for presentation when the Session ended, including
reports on:
- the Indigenisation
Regulations, by the Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce
- the food
industry, by the Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce
- access to
treatment, by the Thematic Committee on HIV/AIDS
- the state
of the public media, by the Portfolio Committee on Media, Information
and Communication Technology
- the state
of SMEs in Zimbabwe, by the Portfolio Committee on Small and Medium
Enterprises.
It is unfortunate
that these reports could not be presented before the end of the
Session, as it is only after committee reports have been presented
that they can be made public.. The committees appointed for the
new Session can adopt the work done by their predecessors and present
the reports to the appropriate House. It is to be hoped that this
will happen, in order to make committee work already done available
for public information – but even if it does happen, much
time will have been lost and some content may be out of date or
of limited relevance so long after the events reported on.
Parliament’s
Oversight Role – Tensions between Executive and Legislature:
There was a reluctance from some Ministries to cooperate with the
committees responsible for their oversight. The Portfolio Committee
on Mines and Energy had its frequently planned visit to the Chiadzwa
diamond fields obstructed. The Speaker described this as “unacceptable”,
saying that in carrying out its oversight role it is not Parliament’s
intention to invade the Executive's territory, but rather to execute
Parliament’s “constitutional mandate”. “The
Chiadzwa diamond fields are a national resource, it is therefore
Parliament's obligation to play its oversight role and scrutinize
the exploitation of the resource on behalf of the nation. There
is urgent need to clear all existing misunderstandings in line with
the doctrine of Separation of Powers, so as to ensure the smooth
running of Parliamentary activities without any interference and
intimidation.” [Electronic version of remarks available.]
Verdict
on the Session
This was not
a productive Session. Very little legislation was passed. While
it may well be that internal difficulties in the Inclusive Government,
and having to have Cabinet approval from three parties that have
different agendas, prevented the presentation of more Government
Bills, this is no excuse for continuing the bad old habits of fast
tracking Bills. Backbenchers could have presented more Private Members
Bills – even if these do not get through it would show that
legislators are aware of public concerns for legislative reform
and promote national debate.
Delays in completing
and issuing Parliamentary committee reports reduces their usefulness
and detracts from the undoubtedly valuable work done by committees.
There was no
excuse for not having used the ample available Parliamentary time
to dispose of pending motions more promptly. Did MPs and Senators
simply take the easy way out, frequently knocking off after sitting
for only ten minutes instead of putting in four hours or more of
solid work to finish debates, motions and pursue questions in the
public interest?
Although Parliamentarians’
involvement in the Constitution outreach process was a complicating
factor, better co-ordination could have resulted in an earlier recall
of Parliament once it became clear that the outreach was not going
to take off in March – and that would have enabled more work
to be completed.
Parliamentary
sittings are costly, with attendance allowances and accommodation
for out-of-town members having to be paid for. Was Parliament a
cost-effective institution during the Session? The amount of time
wasted in short sittings, the meagre output of legislation and committee
reports and the failure to complete debates on motions suggests
a definite “NO”.
As one of the
three arms of the State – and perhaps the most important one
for an effective democracy – Parliament has hardly justified
its existence. Until politicians take the work of Parliament more
seriously Zimbabwe cannot claim to be a functioning Parliamentary
democracy.
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