Prepared by Veritas on November 15, 2009
(Published as a record)

The House of Assembly will sit on Tuesday 17th November

The Senate has adjourned until Tuesday 1st December

Update on Inclusive Government

Cabinet Meeting – Cabinet met on Wednesday for the first time since MDC-T re-engagement. The Prime Minister and other MDC-T Cabinet members attended.

Council of Ministers – the first post-re-engagement meeting of the Council of Ministers will be next Thursday 19th November, chaired by the Prime Minister.

Meeting of Principals – the three party principals met on Friday afternoon as a start to the Troika-mandated dialogue.

Meeting of Negotiators – the full negotiating teams of the three GPA political parties was scheduled meet on Monday 16th November. They had not met since the SADC Organ Troika meeting on 5th November, although there was an informal meeting of some members on Wednesday. All team members are Ministers, and they have apparently been too busy attending to their Ministerial duties and other engagements to get together for the dialogue demanded by the Troika.

Can the Troika Timeframe be kept? – At the time of writing 10 of the 30 days allowed by the Troika for resolving disagreements between the two major parties have been lost. President Zuma had offered to come to Harare about the 21st November for a preliminary assessment and to assist if necessary, but it is doubtful now whether he will come up so soon. The parties have until 6th December [end of the 30-day period] to deal with all outstanding issues. At that point President Zuma has to assess progress [or otherwise] and report to the chairperson of the Troika.

Forthcoming Statement by Prime Minister – in the House of Assembly on Wednesday the Prime Minister deflected a question about the feasibility of talking about national healing in the present political environment by saying “a more detailed response to the issues affecting the political environment will be in my statement in the near future”. This referred to a statement he will make in the House of Assembly in his capacity as Leader of Government Business in Parliament during the week commencing 23rd November.

Ministerial Portfolios: Which Minister is in charge of what?

The SADC Summit communiqué of 27th January requires a review of the “allocation of ministerial portfolios” six months after the formation of the Inclusive Government, and the Troika Summit stipulated that this should be one of the issues the negotiators deal with. This review is complicated by the current lack of clarity about the responsibilities attached to the existing Ministries. Since the formation of the inclusive government, the President’s Office has failed to gazette revised lists of Acts of Parliament assigned to Ministries for purposes of administration.

The existing lists were gazetted in 2006; in some cases they refer to Ministries that have ceased to exist, they do not mention several of the current Ministries at all. This has practical implications, such as the confusion about the responsibilities of the Ministries of Information Communication Technology and Media, Information and Publicity. It is still unclear which Ministry, Justice and Legal Affairs or Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, is responsible for the Electoral Act and by-elections. [See below for the growing number of Parliamentary vacancies requiring by-elections.] Another example: when companies were recently “specified” under the Prevention of Corruption Act by the co-Ministers of Home Affairs, their lawyers pointed out that the Act had not been assigned to the Ministry of Home Affairs

Parliamentary Update

Proposed Private Member’s Bill to Amend POSA

There was no progress last week on Mr Gonese’s motion, and it has been carried forward to this week. So far, no Ministers have contributed to the debate, not even the co-Ministers of Home Affairs, who are responsible for the administration of POSA and could be expected to explain the Inclusive Government’s attitude to Mr Gonese’s proposals. Assuming that Mr Gonese is permitted to proceed with his Bill, its eventual passage or otherwise by the House cannot be regarded as assured, given the present delicate balance of voting strengths between the parties [Veritas will shortly be issuing a Bill Watch Special giving the current figures in both House of Assembly and Senate].

This Coming Week in Parliament

House of Assembly

Bills: On Tuesday Minister of Finance Tendai Biti will make his Second Reading speech explaining the Public Finance Management Bill.

Debate on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill will continue, but there may be problems ahead for Mr Biti, because, although the Bill was sanctioned by Cabinet, ZANU-PF Chief Whip Joram Gumbo has stated that the ZANU-PF Parliamentary caucus has decided to oppose the Bill in its present form, and has told Mr Biti he will have to agree to changes if he wants the Bill to be supported. Mr Biti’s two other Bills, the Audit Office and Financial Adjustments Bills, may also come up for Second Reading during the week.

Motions: Debate will continue on motions carried forward from last week [see below]. Also on the agenda is a motion by Mr Matutu [MDC-T, Masvingo Urban] calling for an audit of the voters roll to rid it of inaccuracies and irregularities.

Question Time [Wednesday]: The written questions from last week have been carried over.

Senate: The Senate will not be sitting.

Parliamentary Committee Meetings Open to Public: Portfolio and Thematic Committee Meetings open to stakeholders or the public have been listed separately in Bill Watch Special of 14th November.

Last Week in Parliament

House of Assembly

Bills: On Tuesday Minister of Finance Tendai Biti delivered his Second Reading speech explaining the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill.

Motions: Debate commenced on [1] the motion put forward by Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, ZANU-PF MP for Mwenezi East, calling for increased action against corruption, including the adoption of codes of conduct by executive, judiciary and legislature and the adoption by legislators of the Zimbabwe Chapter of African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption, and [2] a condolence motion on the death of Senator R.C. Hove. There was no further debate on the motion on the criteria used to declare national heroes; it remains on the Order Paper for continuation this week.

Questions: A number of questions went unasked because the Ministers concerned were not present to respond to them. The Prime Minister assured the House that this problem would not recur – it had been discussed in Cabinet and Ministers would in future be present to deal with questions. In answer to a question about external [“pirate”] radio stations, Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara said that once the Zimbabwe Media Commission is in place and has started issuing licences for additional internal broadcasters, there would be no need for external broadcasters.

Parliamentary Legal Committee [PLC]: The PLC presented a non-adverse report on the Minister of Finance’s Public Finance Management Bill, clearing the way for its Second Reading. It is still considering the Audit Office Bill and the Financial Adjustments Bill.

Senate

The Senate sat briefly on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons [less than hour on each occasion] before adjourning to Tuesday 1st December. The only business was continued debate on the President’s Speech at the Opening of Parliament,

Senator Roy Bennett: High Court Trial

Senator Bennett’s trial did not start on Monday 9th November, as it was supposed to. Preliminary procedural points raised by both State and defence were dismissed by the presiding judge, Justice Bhunu, on Wednesday. On Thursday the defence applied for Justice Bhunu to recuse himself, arguing that this was necessary because of views expressed by him when dismissing a bail application made in 2006 by Peter Hitschmann, who is listed as the principal State witness in the Bennett case. The judge is due to give his decision on the recusal application on Monday 16th November.

Blessing Chebundo MP acquitted

On 10th November the regional court in Gweru returned a not guilty verdict in the trial of Blessing Chebundo, MDC-T MP for Kwekwe Central, on a charge of rape.

Constituency Vacancies Awaiting By-elections

New vacancy in the House of Assembly – with the death of John Nyamande, MDC-T MP for Makoni Central, on 7th November in a road accident, the number of House of Assembly vacancies requiring the holding of by-elections has risen to 10. In the Senate there are 6 constituency seats vacant. So the country now awaits 16 by-elections. Under the Electoral Act the new vacancy must be notified to the President as soon as possible, and the President must within the next 14 days gazette a proclamation fixing dates for lodging of nominations and polling for a by-election to fill the vacancy. No proclamations have ever been gazetted for any of the earlier vacancies. The latest explanation offered for this breach of the Electoral Act was that the inclusive government had decided that all by-elections should wait for the setting-up of the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The failure to call by-elections is unconstitutional, being in breach of sections 34 and 38 of the Constitution, which require Parliamentary vacancies to be filled in accordance with the Electoral Act, and of the new section 23A [“political rights”], which gives Zimbabwean citizens the right to free, fair and regular elections for Parliament.

Update on Independent Constitutional Commissions

There is still no news of any appointments being to the Human Rights Commission, the Electoral Commission and the Media Commission, and the President has not initiated consultations with Parliament on appointments to the Anti-Corruption Commission.

Legislation Update

Acts – the Appropriation (Additional)(2008) Act [No. 7 of 2009] was gazetted on 6th November. All Bills passed by Parliament this year have now been gazetted. The Acts previously gazetted are: Constitution Amendment (No. 19) Act; National Security Council Act; Finance Act; Appropriation (2009) Act; Finance (No. 2) Act; Appropriation (Supplementary)(2009) Act.

Bills in Parliament – Reserve Bank Amendment Bill [HB 7, 2009], Public Finance Management Bill [HB 9, 2009], Audit Office Bill [HB 10, 2009] and Financial Adjustments Bill [HB 8, 2009] [Electronic versions available on request.] [See Update on Parliament above.]

Statutory Instruments

SI 179/2009 – suspension of customs duty on civil aviation security equipment, effective 13th November.

(Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.)