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PLC
Chair elected; MPs support proposed "no collateral" women's
bank - Bill Watch 56/2013
Veritas
November 12, 2013
The National
Assembly Sat Last Week : The Senate was in Recess
Both
Houses will Next Sit on Tuesday 19th November
Parliamentary
Legal Committee [PLC]
Hon Jonathan
Samukange is the new chairperson of the PLC. He was elected at the
first meeting of the PLC on Tuesday 5th November, and the Speaker
announced the result of the election in the National Assembly that
afternoon. The PLC’s next meeting will be on 18th November,
when it is expected to start considering the backlog of statutory
instruments that has accumulated since the end of the 7th Parliament
on 28th June. There are no current Bills for its consideration.
PLC’s
duties vis-à-vis statutory instruments: As was the case under
the former Constitution, the PLC must, by section 152 of the Constitution:
- examine
every statutory instrument [SI] published in the Government Gazette,
and
- report to
Parliament whenever it considers that any provision in the SI
contravenes any provision of the Constitution
or is ultra vires [beyond the powers conferred by] the enabling
Act of Parliament.
In addition,
Standing Orders oblige the PLC to ensure that no SI changes an Act
of Parliament or contains matter more appropriate for Parliamentary
enactment; or makes the rights and liberties of the people unduly
dependent on administrative decisions that are not reviewable by
a court.
Reminder: Other
members of the PLC are Hon Tendai Biti [MDC-T]; Hon Dr. Christopher
Kuruneri [ZANU-PF]; Hon Jessie Majome [MDC-T]; Hon Priscah Mupfumira
[ZANU-PF].
Reinstatement
of Hon Munyaradzi Kereke
Hon Kereke’s
reinstatement as MP for Bikita West was announced by the Speaker
on 5th November. The reinstatement follows the judgment in Dr Kereke’s
favour handed down by the Constitutional Court on 23rd October.
[For background to this case see Bill
Watch 54 of 29th October.] The Speaker also announced that Dr
Kereke would serve on two portfolio committees, Finance and Economic
Planning, and Mines and Energy.
In Parliament
Last Week
National
Assembly
The National
Assembly sat on Tuesday 5th, Wednesday 6th and Thursday 7th November.
At the end of Thursday’s sitting it adjourned until Tuesday
19th November. Improper language and heckling during debates on
Tuesday and Wednesday resulted in the Speaker taking time at the
start of business on Thursday to lecture members about the need
to abide by Standing Orders, respect the Chair and not to persistently
and wilfully disrupt business; he pointed out that offenders could
be suspended.
Motions
Backbenchers
on both sides of the House have been adding new motions to the Order
Paper.
On the President’s
speech - On 5th November the first part of the afternoon was
taken up by contributions to the debate on the motion in reply to
the President’s speech opening Parliament on 17th September;
the debate continued on 7th November and will go on when the House
sits again.
The remaining
time on 5th November was devoted to the resumed debate on Hon Maridadi’s
motion calling for a portfolio committee inquiry into the power
sector because of intermittent power cuts by ZESA. The ZESA debate
deteriorated into what the Speaker described a circus after MDC-T
members protested about the language used to describe them by ZANU-PF’s
Hon Matambanadzo. The MDC-T Chief Whip Hon Gonese tried to insist
that the debate be continued but a division was called on a ZANU-PF
motion to adjourn the debate and won the day by 91 votes to 27.
The Speaker then adjourned the Assembly, overruling Hon Gonese’s
further protests that over an hour was still available to deal with
other waiting business. [Later in the week the Speaker having read
the Hansard record of Hon Matambanadzo’s remarks extracted
a withdrawal and apology from him.]
On Wednesday,
after the two-hour Question Time, Hon Khupe as proposer and Hon
Majome as seconder, made speeches presenting their motion for the
establishment of a Women’s Bank that will not require collateral.
When debate resumed on 7th November, the motion attracted enthusiastic
support from all sides of the House. Debate is due to continue when
the Assembly sits again.
Also on Wednesday
after the introduction of the Women’s Bank motion, the Assembly
continued the sometimes emotional debate on the ZANU-PF motion against
US and EU sanctions on Zimbabwe, with MDC’s Hon Misihairabwi-Mushonga
pleading with members to recognise that “we will not move
forward if we continuously use the excuse of sanctions” for
all Zimbabwe’s problems and urging them to use their time
more constructively by talking about issues Zimbabwe can do something
about, rather than endless debating an issue, sanctions, about which
Zimbabwe can do nothing. Hon Gorden Moyo pointed to examples of
economic decline long pre-dating the imposition of restrictive measures
by the US and the EU.
Note: The attribution
of Zimbabwe’s problems to Western sanctions and the resulting
inter-party wrangling on the correctness of that attribution, and
existence, effect of and responsibility for sanctions, was a recurring
feature during last week’s debates, whatever subject was being
debated.
Question
Time [Wednesday 6th November]
Questions without
notice [Note: Oral questions with notice take up the first hour
of business on Wednesdays, when private member’s business
takes precedence over Government business until 6 pm. This period
enables backbenchers to quiz Ministers on questions of Government
policy relevant to their Ministries which the Ministers may reasonably
be expected to answer off the cuff – a point that the Speaker
had to stress several times on Wednesday, when disallowing questions
calling for detailed factual information to be provided on the spot.]
On devolution
- Hon Chinamasa, as Acting Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary
Affairs, dealt firmly with a question from MDC-T’s Hon Gorden
Moyo about the Government’s policy on setting up metropolitan
and provincial councils as required by the new Constitution. When
putting the question, Hon Moyo said that there was no mention of
“devolution” in the ZimAset
policy document adopted by Cabinet recently. Hon Chinamasa said
the Constitution did not provide for devolution, a concept his party
had not agreed to in the constitutional negotiations, but assured
MPs that the Government would comply with the letter and spirit
of the Constitution’s provisions setting out provincial and
metropolitan structures and their powers. He reminded MPs, however,
that ZANU-PF had said before the elections that this compliance
would take a long time to achieve, perhaps years.
On salaries
and perks for parastatal and State enterprise senior executives
- Hon Chinamasa said the Government would be looking into the matter
to see what intervention might be appropriate to curb excessive
benefits.
Written questions
with notice - [The second hour on Wednesdays is for written questions
with notice, which give Ministers time to investigate issues and
to be briefed by their officials before responding to questions.]
Topics covered included:
- IMF Staff
Monitored Programme
Minister Chinamasa,
who was shortly to meet a visiting IMF delegation, confirmed that
Zimbabwe remains a member of the IMF but is unable to enjoy the
benefits of membership because it is substantially in arrears with
the IMF both as to repayment of capital amounts and servicing of
debt. The Staff Monitored Programme ihad been agreed with the IMF
and sets benchmarks and targets for the country’s macro-economic
policies and is monitored annually by the IMF. The Minister said
he would be trying to persuade the IMF delegation that the answer
to Zimbabwe’s incapacity to service or clear its present debt
is for the IMF to provide new funds to enable growth in the economy
and creation of capacity to deal with the debt arrears.
The Minister
gave details of the sorry state of NRZ [he railway infrastructure
has almost collapsed” and the workforce is down from 25 000
to 6 000, with the NRZ board seeking to retrench another 4 000]
and said US$450 million is required for the initial phase of its
revival programme.
- Rights of
criminal defendants
The Deputy Minister
of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs said the Ministry is
giving high priority to amending the Criminal Procedure and Evidence
Act to bring it into line with the new right of criminal defendants
under the Constitution, but he declined to say when a Bill might
be ready.
The Deputy Minister
of Mines and Mining Development said the Ministry is carrying out
an exercise, province by province, to see how many registered mining
claims are not being used and then seek explanations from the holders,
before deciding on means to enforce the “use it or lose it”
principle and get the claims released to allow for exploitation
by others.
- Small scale
miners/Makorokozas
The Deputy
Minister of Mines and Mining Development explained that Government
policy was to decriminalise the presently illegal operations of
makorokozas who exploit mining claims legally held by others. Amendments
to the law are necessary, and the Ministry aims to have the necessary
amendments to the mining law in place by the end of January 2014
latest.
Update
on Bills
The Government
Printer is preparing only one Bill for gazetting. The Bill is from
the Minister of Defence:
- Biological
and Toxin Weapons Crimes Bill [no summary available until the
Bill is gazetted in due course, but the Bill’s title gives
some indication of its probably contents]
Update
on Acts
- Income Tax
Act - Parliament has sent the Bill to the President’s Office
for assent and signature by the President, and a public notice
giving the date this was done is due to be published shortly.
[See Bill
Watch 55/2013 of 6th November for a note on this subject.]
- Electricity
Amendment Act - There has still been no official public confirmation
of any withdrawal of this Act although there was a press report
that the Clerk of Parliament had said the Act was not validly
assented to and signed by the President.
Government
Gazette of 8th November
Statutory
Instruments [SIs]
Banking –
new, but dubious deposit protection regulations SI 156/2013 contains
the Deposit Protection Corporation “Regulations”, said
to be made under section 64 of the Deposit
Protection Corporation Act [DPC Act], which came into force
on 16th March 2012. There is, however, a serious legal flaw in the
SI which makes the whole SI invalid – its preamble states
the “regulations” have been made by the Minister of
Finance and Economic Planning, but neither section 64 of the Act
nor any of its other provisions authorises the Minister to do this.
Only the Deposit Protection Corporation can make binding rules under
the Act. This being the case, the SI should be re-gazetted as “Rules”
that have been made by the Corporation. It is too important for
its validity to be suspect.
The SI purports
to set out detailed rules for the operation of the new scheme for
the protection of depositors in failed banks and other financial
institutions. The Act covers the payment of contributions to the
Deposit Protection Fund by institutions; depositors’ entitlements
to compensation when an institution fails; and other regulatory
aspects of the scheme. One obvious omission from the SI is the failure
to provide for the repeal of the previous regulations, originally
made under the Banking Act and continued in existence by the Deposit
Protection Corporation Act until replaced by new rules made by the
Corporation. [Act available from the address at the end of this
bulletin – but SI not available until its standing has been
officially clarified.]
Veritas
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legal responsibility for information supplied
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