9th Parly needs ‘sharp’ MPs
Parliamentary committees and MPs, the report said, merely fast tracked the passing of legislation because they lacked basic understanding of the issues.
AS THE Ninth Parliament beckons after the harmonised elections set for July 30 2018, there is need to equip Members of Parliament (MPs) with legislative, oversight and representative skills for them to effectively discharge their duties, if President Mnangagwa’s vision of a middle income economy by 2030 is to be realised.
Mr Speaker Sir, it is common cause that while legislators carry an onerous task of making laws, and analyse the National Budget, among other complex roles, some of them fall short in most of these respects.
It goes without saying Mr Speaker Sir, that analysis of national budgets is one of the cornerstones of achieving economic growth as envisaged by the Government.
While democracy entails that a legislator should come from the people, it does not always produce the best person in terms of appreciating complex issues like analysing the budget owing to limited education.
This is despite legislators commanding support from their constituencies because of the strengths they possess in other areas which endear them with the people.
Mr Speaker Sir, President Mnangagwa is on a crusade to transform Zimbabwe into a middle income economy by 2030. For that to be achieved there is need to capacitate everyone responsible for the realisation of that objective.
These people include MPs and councillors, who for all intents and purposes, are exempt from minimum educational qualifications.
What this means, Mr Speaker Sir, is that Parliament should brace itself for the challenge ahead to capacitate legislators for the Ninth Parliament.
To his credit, Mr Speaker Sir, Clerk of Parliament Mr Kennedy Chokuda admitted last week that he faced an onerous task of capacitating MPs of the Ninth Parliament given the challenges they faced in budget formulation, debate and eventually its passage.
Mr Chokuda made the concession on Tuesday last week during an open budget sensitisation workshop attended by civic society, the Auditor-General’s Office and officials from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development that was organised by the National Association of the Non-Governmental Organisations.
“The immediate task is to build capacity among legislators. As you know, MPs come from diverse backgrounds. You need to bring them to a platform where they speak the same language. We looked at the capacity needs of MPs and we developed a template to be used for the MPs,” said Mr Chokuda.
He said he was due to meet chartered accountants to brainstorm on how best they could assist in capacitating MPs.
Mr Speaker Sir, to demonstrate the onerous task that the next Parliament will have, Mr Chokuda said more portfolio committees would conduct public consultations on budget formulation unlike in the current situation where the budget and finance committee held sway.
The expectation, Mr Speaker Sir, is that Parliament has learnt from experience. In the current Parliament, some legislators have demonstrated that they could perform wonders both in Parliament and in their constituencies despite their limited education.
For example, contributions made by Buhera South MP Cde Joseph Chinotimba both in the Chamber and in his constituency have left everyone cross the political divide marvelling.
Cde Chinotimba had no apologies to make for his limited academic background which was mainly occasioned by the stint he had in the liberation struggle.
His contributions in Buhera South saw him standing unchallenged during his party’s primary elections last month and Mr Speaker Sir, it would be a reasonable inference to attribute that to his performance in the constituency.
Mr Speaker Sir, that means that there is need for the Government to invest in capacity building for such people to realise their full potential.
In preparing for the capacitation of the next crop of legislators, it should be remembered, Mr Speaker Sir, that Parliament has a foundation to start upon given that in 2012 it published a report titled “Baseline Survey on Sector Specific Capacity Building Requirements for Committees of Parliament”.
The underlying observation of that report was that the quality of Zimbabwe’s Members of Parliament for the Seventh Parliament in analysing legislation and the Budget, which is their primary responsibility, was extremely poor.
The report was commissioned by Parliament with the assistance of the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme and showed that 65 percent of the MPs still required intensive training in legislation and budget analysis.
What is striking, Mr Speaker Sir, is that the damning report came in the twilight days of the Seventh Parliament, meaning there was little the legislators had contributed during their tenure.
This means that there should be a blitz in terms of capacity building programmes for the Ninth Parliament.
It was noted in the 2012 report that portfolio committees lacked the required competencies to deliver on their core duties of critically analysing legislation and national budgets before passing them.
Parliamentary committees and MPs, the report said, merely fast tracked the passing of legislation because they lacked basic understanding of the issues.
“The baseline survey revealed a 70 percent skills gap in the committees’ capacity to analyse legislation,” reads part of the report.
The report further said most MPs acknowledged they lacked basic budget analysis skills and needed more time to study the Budget before passing it.
These deficiencies are further exposed when the Executive brings Bills to Parliament where more often than not they are passed in a single sitting with very little or no debate.
The survey revealed that parliamentary committees and MPs’ capacity deficiencies were more pronounced when the House had to ratify international conventions and other agreements which they did not bother to read through and analyse before ratification.
The survey said 71 percent of MPs acknowledged they were not very familiar with the policies of ministries they shadowed.