PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 16th March, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to remind all Hon. Senators that they are required to log in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their names on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance registers. Hon. Senators are also reminded to keep their gadgets on mute and only un-mute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
INVITATION TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SERVICE
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I also wish to inform the Senate that there will be a Roman Catholic Church Service tomorrow, Wednesday, 17th March, 2021 at 1230 hours in the Senate Chamber. All Catholic and non-Catholic members are invited.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 3 be stood over until the rest of the Orders of Day have been disposed of.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
SUSPENSION OF PROVISIONS OF STANDING ORDERS NOS. 43 AND 105 RELATING TO REMOVAL OF MOTIONS FROM THE ORDER PAPER
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move the motion standing in my name that the provisions of Standing Orders No. 43 and 105 that relate to the removal of motions from the Order Paper after 21 days be suspended in relation to the Address in reply to the Presidential speech.
HON. SEN. SIPANI-HUNGWE: I second.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: We are requesting for the suspension of Standing Order Number 43 to give an opportunity to Hon. Members who still want to debate and for Ministers to respond to issues raised during the debate. I therefore move that the Standing Order be suspended. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
MAINTENANCE OF THE ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE COUNTRY
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I move the motion in my name that this House;
COGNISANT that the road network is an indispensable component of economic and social development of the country;
DISTURBED that our country`s roads have badly deteriorated owing to very heavy downpours experienced in most parts of the country, a situation that has left most roads resembling death traps for motorists;
CONCERNED that roads all over the country are characterised by numerous potholes, damaged bridges, completely washed away surfaces, thick shrubs and tall grass along the sides thereby affecting visibility of motorists;
FURTHER CONCERNED that the challenges faced along the country`s roads have not only affected service delivery and human transportation in general, but have culminated in loss of human and livestock lives including colossal damages to property;
NOW, THEREFORE, RESOLVES that the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development
- a) embarks on a massive road rehabilitation programme countrywide by 30 September, 2021;
- b) Prioritises strategic roads that play a crucial role in the promotion of tourism and investment, the conveyance of goods, essential services including resources which play an integral part in the country`s economic growth;
- c) properly maintains the road infrastructure throughout the year if economic benefits are to be realised and communication with other countries in the region is to remain open and viable; and
- d) clears shrubs and tall grasses along the country`s highways all the time so that the prevalence of accidents due to poor visibility is reduced.
HON. SEN. TONGAGARA: I second.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI:
Zimbabwe’s Road Infrastructure
Madam President, road transport is indispensable to economic and social development in any country, be it a developed or developing country like Zimbabwe. Therefore, it is important that we maintain our roads to good standards in order to reap the benefits. To date we witness a very poor road network in our country, characterised by shrubs and grass, potholes, patching here in there, unfinished tarmac, gravels and many other ills. Such challenges have resulted in loss of human life and damage to property.
Madam President, there are 88,100 km of classified roads in
Zimbabwe, 17 400 km of which are paved. About 5 percent of the network is classified as primary roads and has some of the most trafficked arterials that link Zimbabwe with its neighbours. A portion of the Pan-Africa Highway passes through this country. This part of the road network plays a major role in the movement of the country’s imports and exports as well as transit freight.
Fourteen percent of the network is classified as secondary roads that link the main economic centres within the country, enabling internal movement of people and goods. The primary and secondary roads are collectively referred to as the trunk road system; they carry over 70 percent of the vehicular traffic and they are managed by the Department of Roads (DoR). A little more than 70 percent of the network is made up of tertiary feeder and access roads that link rural areas to the secondary road network. These are managed by the District Development Fund (DDF) and by the District Councils (DC).
The road density in Zimbabwe is about 0.23 km per square km. This is high compared with many developing countries; it is comparable to that of the high income, and lower middle-income countries. However, the quality of the road infrastructure has vastly deteriorated.
The share of the total road network of almost 90 000 km in fair
to good condition declined from 73 percent in 1995 to about 60 percent for much of the past decade. The additional 12 800 km of road network that was reclassified to poor condition requires complete rehabilitation.
Major carriage links such as the Beitbridge-Chirundu road and roads such as the Masvingo-Mutare highway exhibit negligence with shrubs and tall grass within 1 metres of the road in some areas.
Importance of Roads
Madam President, road transport is the dominant means of
transport in Zimbabwe with 80% of traffic and trade by volume utilising this resource. This has a significant implication on development and the economy of our nation, thus the maintenance of roads to an acceptable standard is a prerequisite.
Impacts of Roads on Trade
Madam President, coming to the impact of roads on trade: roads
also play a crucial role in determining the competitiveness of exports and imports on international and regional markets. In Zimbabwe, mining and agricultural exports are a major source of foreign currency and a driving force for economic growth. In 2019, mineral export earnings reached $1,97 billion, of the total $3.01 billion between February and October. These exports are largely exported by road. However, high transport costs due to the poor state of roads are a barrier to regional and international trade, and have a negative effect on exports.
Zimbabwe provides the shortest distance on the link to the northern
front from the Ports in South Africa through Beitbridge Boarder Post, and this has been the main route for freight transport to Zambia and DRC. At Beitbridge Boarder post ZINARA collects an average of USD$550 000.00 from freight traffic per month while processing on average 1000 heavy vehicles per day. However, this revenue is under threat as the Kasane Bridge between Zambia and Botswana provides an alternative safer route with good roads when completed. Inspite of this development Zimbabwe has a significant advantage as a shorter route if we can upgrade our roads.
Inadequate infrastructure and poor transport network makes it difficult for local manufacturers to participate in global supply chains because they cannot guarantee timely delivery of goods or ensure reliability or flexibility in the supply of the goods. Some of the delays are due to poor infrastructure in both transit countries and in national economies.
Impacts of Roads on Tourism Growth and Investment
Madam President, Zimbabwe has the potential to improve its
economic performance through the contribution of tourism and Hospitality to the national fiscus. Between 2016 and 2017 tourism contributed 8% to the GDP.
In 2016/17, 87% of visitors arrivals in to the country was by road;
visitor arrivals by air in contrast only contributed 13% of arrivals into Zimbabwe. A total of 1 318 908 visitor came to Zimbabwe on holiday in 2018. If roads are not well-maintained, retaining these tourists will be difficult, as the majority of drive-in tourists have indicated that the poor state of roads such as the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highways make travelling very difficult.
Madam President, failure to develop transport infrastructure could
cost Zimbabwe millions of dollars in potential revenue due to the emergence of alternative routes bypassing the country.
The growth of tourism in Mauritius in the eighties and nineties was aided by the internal development of transport infrastructure in the country. Meanwhile, the growth of Sun City resort in South Africa received great impetus from the provision of adequate transport infrastructure by the South African government. This testifies to the need to make deliberate development of road infrastructure to aid growth of Tourism in Zimbabwe. Tourism has potential to surpass Agriculture as a GDP contributor.
One of the key competitive factors in tourism has been found to be accessibility of the destination through both road and air transport systems (WEF 2016). Therefore, in order for a destination to thrive it is important to ensure that both external and internal transport system are adequately developed.
While Zimbabwe boasts as one of the most extensive road networks in the region, its condition has deteriorated rapidly. The roads are in poor condition, riddled with potholes and shrubs on road sides, hindering competitiveness in regional tourism.
Road Carnage
Madam President, according to the Traffic Safety Council of
Zimbabwe (TSCZ), over US$ 460 million is spent annually on road traffic accidents, with an average of 40 000 accidents being recorded annually. At least 15 000 people are injured and almost 2 000 killed every year in road traffic accidents.
In Zimbabwe it is estimated that around 1-2% of GDP (gross domestic product) is spent on road traffic injuries annually. Visible potholes and a high fatality rate along the trunk roads provide adequate justification and urgency for improving road infrastructure.
Madam President, between November and December 2019
there was a total of 1178 road traffic accidents, with 95 fatalities and 311 injuries incurred along the major highways. While in January 2020 a total of 3440 accidents occurred, with 166 deaths and 803 injuries recorded. The state of the roads has contributed significantly to the fatalities and number of accidents reported.
The average age of the regional trunk road network is 40 years and many roads have outlived their design life and are in need of urgent rehabilitation. Road accidents occurring on these trunk roads are largely attributed to the poor state of the road network. Many lives are being lost as drivers lose control of their vehicles in attempts to negotiate and avoid potholes.
Travel and Vehicle Operating Costs
Madam President, driving in potholed roads increases consumer costs because it accelerates vehicle deterioration and depreciation. This increases the frequency of the much-needed maintenance and additional fuel consumption.
Freight transport operators have reported an average loss of over
US$7 000 a month on vehicle maintenance due to bad road conditions. A survey done on the cost of maintenance of a luxury vehicle established that on average vehicle suspension maintenance can cost a minimum of US$300.00 for every six months and tyres can cost an average of US$90.00 each. When considering that much of the spare parts and tyres are being imported from South Africa and China, therefore the country is losing millions of dollars in foreign currency due to the poor state of roads.
The negative side to this is the fact that motorists are driving unroadworthy vehicles since the maintenance cost of vehicles is high and prohibitive. Thus, there is further increase of carnage on the roads. It is imperative for responsible authorities to ensure that the state of our roads improves in order to reduce the cost of vehicle maintenance.
Madam President, let us remember that problems of access to
quality transport and logistical services manifest themselves in the form of delays, reduced profit margins and reduced competitiveness. Consequently, high transport costs for moving goods from points of production to final destinations can price a country out of regional and international export markets.
Government Effort to Date.
Madam President, I am aware of government efforts in upgrading
the major trunk roads such as the Plumtree - Mutare highway, the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu highway as well as the Tanganda - Ngundu Highway.
I hope that this move by the government will likely offset the ill
effects of poor road maintenance and re-establish the country as a major transit route in Southern Africa, while increasing revenues from trade and transit fees.
However, this process needs to be expedited to ensure that we reap the benefits of good road network sooner rather than later, and consolidate our position on regional trade in the sub-region.
Now therefore: calls upon Government
- To keep our major roads up to the required standards.
- Make sure shrubs and grasses along our main high ways are monitored and cleared all the time.
- Maintain regional linkages with other countries in the region through upgrading our regional trunk roads.
I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 17th March 2021.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
Sixth Order Read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC-Parliamentary Forum held virtually on 9th October 2020 in Windhoek, Namibia.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. SIPANI-HUNGWE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 17th March, 2021.
MOTION
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS NETWORK ON DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION (APNODE) HELD IN ABIDJAN
Seventh Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Zimbabwe Delegation to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the African Parliamentarians Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE)
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. CHIEF NECHOMBO: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 17th March, 2021.
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
Eighth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Extraordinary Session of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Question again proposed.
HON. KAMBIZI: Thank you Mr. President for allowing me to debate the IPU report, a motion that was raised by Hon. Sen. Muzenda and her seconder. I also want to thank fellow Hon. Senators who debated before, however I want to add more flesh to it. I would like to start by talking about the purpose of the meeting that was held from the 1st to the 3rd November, 2020. The first purpose was to discuss and take decisions on pressing issues relating to the functions of the organisation which is the IPU. The other purpose was to adopt IPU budget and programme of work for 2021. The third reason of the meeting was to elect the IPU President. Mr. President, the Zimbabwe delegation comprised the Governing Council Members, the Hon. Speaker of the National Assembly who was apparently the head of the delegation for the Zimbabwean delegation. We also had Hon. Muzenda from this House and Honourable Vincent Tsvangirayi.
The meeting was chaired by the Acting President Mr. G. Cheng of China. However, Hon. Advocate J. Mudenda also chaired on the recommendation of the IPU Secretariat in instances of technical faults being faced by the Acting President G. Cheng on his connectivity from China. However there were some Presidential elections that were to take place and there were four aspiring candidates Mr. Duarte Pacheco from Portugal, Muhammad Sanjrani from Pakistan, Akmal Saidov from Uzbekistan and Salma Ataullahjan from Canada. Of the four candidates Mr. President, Zimbabwe was rallying behind the candidature of Mr. Duarte Pacheco of Portugal. The reason was that Mr. Pacheco had extensive experience in the operations and functions of the IPU. It is important to note Mr. President that our own Honourable and Advocate Mudenda moved the motion which was adopted unanimously by the 47th Plenary Assembly of the SADC PF held on the 9th and 11th November, 2020. Voting was done online and the voter turnout was 97%. Mr. Pacheco of Portugal was unanimously elected President of the IPU for a three year term.
On that note Mr. President, allow me to wish Mr. Pacheco the President for IPU a successful term of office. Mr. President, allow me to talk about the outgoing President of the IPU Gabriela Barron who gave a report pronouncing all the activities that had taken place during her tenure. It is important to note that her thrust was to engage in Parliamentary diplomacy and building strong synergies for the IPU. It is also important to note that during her tenure, the IPU strongly build its relations with the United Nations. It has also implemented a robust plan and introduced positive initiatives for example Leadership Training for Young Parliamentarians was conducted during her term. In her report Mr. President, Hon. Gabriela Barron urged the IPU to ensure that the voice of Parliamentarians is heard in collective solutions for global challenges. Hon. Barron also ensured that the IPU continue to handle its duties despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. President, the Governing Council approved 2019 accounts which were in compliance with an International Sector Accounting Standards and that IPU’s financial status was sound. The 2021 Budget was also approved but Mr. President, I will not talk about the budget because I feel it was thoroughly debated by the Hon. Senators who debated before me.
Mr. President, I stand before you now very proud to mention that the brief report on the outcome of the virtual segment of the 5th World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments and the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament was given by our own Hon. Adv. J. Mudenda who happens to be a key member of the preparatory process of the virtual segment of the 5th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament.
He briefed the governing council on the deliberations and the positive outcomes of the conference which was attended by 115 delegates. His presentation highlighted the following:
- Multilateralism,
- Robust parliamentary diplomacy,
- Climate change,
- Sustainable development ,
- Health,
- Youth and Gender,
- Democracy,
- Human mobility,
- Countering terrorism and lastly
- Science and technology
The conference affirmed the need to generate strong message of parliamentary leadership and solidarity so that we learn from the lessons of the day and join hands to tackle the daunting challenges facing our world in terms of global health, environment and economic problems, predicated on unprecedented impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Hon. Adv. J. Mudenda also stressed in his presentation that the conference was a seminal platform for deepening price with United Nations and IPU’s partisans and friends.
He also highlighted that participants pledged to reinforce the role of parliamentarians in global governance, underpinned by enhanced multilateralism and international solidarity anchored on the quality of sovereign nations. A report on the Committee on human rights of parliamentarians was adopted. Of particular importance were the issues that related to Zimbabwe and Hon. J. Mamombe. The following allegations against Zimbabwe were tabled:
- Abduction,
- Torture,
- Ill treatment and other acts of violence,
- Arbitrary arrest and detention,
- Violation of freedom of opinion and expression,
- Violation of freedom of assembly and association.
All these allegations were leveled against Zimbabwe. Allow me Mr. President to take this moment to proudly explain that our educated Speaker of the National Assembly Hon. Adv. J. Mudenda explained in crystal clear terms that the principle of subjudice limits Parliament’s possibilities of engaging for the resolution of the case. The Hon. Speaker responded to issues raised in the Report emphasising that in line with this country’s Constitution which enshrines the doctrine of separation of powers, this prohibited Parliament and Parliament could not interfere with the due process.
He however promised that Zimbabwean Parliament will be on the look-out for any further violations of any Members’ rights and he further explained that Parliament would continue to engage the Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians on the status of the court case. He also briefed the governing council on the status of the court case involving Hon. J. Mamombe and explained that Hon. J. Mamombe was out on bail and receiving proper treatment after being certified unfit to stand trial. The Report acknowledged Parliament of Zimbabwe’s response through Hon. Adv. J. Mudenda.
Mr. President, allow me to go onto the Governing Council’s recommendations particularly those that relate to Zimbabwe. The first recommendation was that Parliament of Zimbabwe continues to engage the Committee on Human Rights of parliamentarians through the provision of updates on the status of the case of Hon. J. Mamombe. The second recommendation was that Parliament of Zimbabwe was to continue to engage Treasury to ensure that subscriptions to IPU were paid timeously or else Zimbabwe would be looked at in bad faith.
The last recommendation was that Parliament of Zimbabwe should continue to participate in virtual statutory and ad-hoc meetings of the IPU. All the three recommendations that I talked about above are worth taking note of and even implement them. In the case of Hon. J. Mamombe, it is a matter of engaging the Committee on Human Rights and what Parliament of Zimbabwe can only do is to get updates from the Committee. As I have earlier on said, Parliament did not have powers to intervene into some other sectors that do not involve them.
The second recommendation where Parliament of Zimbabwe was advised to continue paying subscriptions – that is noble and we need to be paying our subscriptions timeously so that we are also looked at in good light as opposed to bad light and that would also stop Zimbabwe from accruing credits. The third recommendation is that it is important that as Zimbabwe and because we are part of the regional bloc, we continuously attend the meetings that are called for by the IPU. Thank you Mr. President and thank you Hon. Senators.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: Mr. President Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 17th March, 2021.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Ninth Order read: Adjourned debate in reply to The Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 17th March, 2021.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I want to remind Hon. Senators that we just moved a motion that this debate be extended and nobody is debating. It baffles the mind as to why we should extend when nobody is debating. May I also remind you that this motion is going to be wound up on Thursday, according to the Standing Orders of Parliament.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR MASHONALAND CENTRAL PROVINCE (HON. MAVHUNGA), the Senate adjourned at Twenty Two Minutes past Three o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 15th March, 2016
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. SPEAKER
CREATION OF E-MAIL ADDRESSES FOR MEMBERS OF
PARLIAMENT
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that the ICT Department has created e-mail addresses for all Hon. Members which will enable them to receive mail and documents electronically from Parliament. Passwords will be configured at an ICT Desk which will be stationed at the Members’ Dining Room from today until Thursday this week, between 12 noon and 16:30 hours this afternoon. Order, Order!
Hon. Member, take your seat?
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
Hon. Mandipaka having been making noise.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Mandipaka, are you listening to the Chair or you are busy there addressing your comrade?
HON. MATUKE: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. NDUNA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 16th March, 2016.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MATUKE: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 2 and 3 be stood over, until Order of the Day, Number 4 has been disposed of.
HON. PARADZA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE VISIT TO ZIMBABWE EMBASSY IN
ADDIS ABABA
HON. PARADZA: I move the motion standing in my name
that this House takes note of the Report of the visit to Embassies of the Republic of Zimbabwe in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the
Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs from 16th to 19th November, 2015.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: I second.
HON. PARADZA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I rise to give a report on our joint trip to Addis Ababa and Gaborone. The
Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs had two delegations that
toured the country’s embassies in Ethiopia and Botswana from 16th to 19th November, 2015. The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, I, Hon. Paradza led a delegation that travelled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the other Members were Hon. Mlilo, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Hon. Makunde and Mr. Gandiwa was the clerk – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! I said order, four times now. I think I shall name and ask the named Hon. Member to leave the House.
HON. PARADZA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Hon.
Marumahoko led another team that went to Gaborone, Botswana on a fact finding mission to our embassies in these two countries.
Hon. Marumahoko’s delegation included Hon. Zhou, Hon. Mpofu and Hon. D. P. Sibanda, with Mr. Manhivi as the Clerk.
In view of the depressing observations made, the Committee resolved to Christian this report the term of a forgotten child. It must be emphasised from the onset that Ethiopia is the hub and capital of African diplomacy, while Botswana is host to our regional economic grouping SADC. Your Committee chose to visit these two hubs simply due to the legitimate expectation for us to appreciate the challenges being faced by our diplomats in multilateral diplomatic stations.
Introduction
Your Committee observed with serious concern that our men and women serving at our stations in Addis Ababa and Gaborone are working under extremely difficult conditions and we were convinced that nothing except the call of national duty and deep patriotism is compelling them to stay put and soldier on.
In short, it is no longer attractive to serve in the Foreign Service, Save for the human capital therein, our embassies in these two capitals are at an advanced state of disintegration, such that there is need for immediate intervention by the highest authority here at home, if the image of this great nation is to be salvaged. We have been in touch with most of our Ambassadors around the globe, and the story is the same, with our two emissaries in Maputo and Dar-e-Salaam having abandoned their official residences due to structural dilapidation and other ancillary defects.
A Brief Background
A brief background, the visit to Ethiopia and Botswana were actuated by the need to gather information on the operating environment at our missions abroad. As you may be aware, our 42 Embassies and Consulates located in various jurisdictions are extensions of the
Government of Zimbabwe as they exist to represent the interest of Zimbabwe as a sovereign nation. All these embassies are beneficiaries of public funds and resources. As such, they are accountable to this Parliament as the supreme representative oversight and legislative body in Zimbabwe.
In more specific terms, Section 299 (1) of the Constitution of
Zimbabwe provides that ‘Parliament must monitor and oversee expenditure by the State and all Commissions and institutions and agencies of Government at every level, including statutory bodies, Government controlled entities, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities, in order to ensure that-
- all revenues is accounted for,
- all expenditure has been properly incurred; and
- any limits and conditions on appropriations have been observed’.
Mr. Speaker, Standing Order 20 (a) of the National Assembly directs
Portfolio Committees “to examine expenditure and administration and policy of Government departments” while Standing Order 20 (b) further compels each Portfolio Committee to, “monitor, investigate, inquire into and make recommendations relating to any aspect of the legislative programme, budget policy or any matter it may consider relevant.” Therefore, those provisions I have articulated above place the embassies through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the direct oversight jurisdiction of the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs which enjoys exclusive competence on overseeing policy implementation by the same.
Objectives of the Visits
The principal objective of the visit to Ethiopia and Botswana was for the Committee on Foreign Affairs to understand, on location, the operational challenges affecting the staff manning our foreign missions. This was instructive in view of the fact that Zimbabwe is the immediate past Chair of SADC which is headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana and also the immediate past Chair of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hence the identification of embassies of Zimbabwe in Ethiopia and Botswana as our first port of
call.
The other objective was for your Committee to appreciate various ways in which our foreign missions are assisting Government’s efforts in attracting foreign direct investment for rapid expansion of the economy as visioned by ZIM ASSET.
Methodology and Operational Strategies
Mr. Speaker Sir, to enhance the objective acquisition and mobilisation of relevant facts and information, the delegation that visited Addis Ababa held meetings with diplomats at the Embassy of Zimbabwe in Ethiopia. Two meetings were held with Ambassador A. R. Chimbindi and all his key staff. Pursuant to the need to add a comparative dimension to the process, the delegation also visited the Embassies of Malawi and Gambia. My delegation also carried out on site inspection of the facilities at the Embassy of Zimbabwe as well as ground frothing of the land which is relatively ‘owned’ by the Embassy of Zimbabwe in Ethiopia.
The Gaborone delegation with Hon. Marumahoko as the team leader used an assortment of information gathering methods, which included meetings with Ambassador T. Mandigora and other senior embassy officials. The delegation also held meetings with officials from other Government Ministries’ departments represented at the Embassy, that is, attachés’ from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce,
President’s Office and the Ministry of Defence. The delegation also conducted a physical tour of the chancery and residences of embassy official. The delegation also met with the UNDP resident coordinator in Botswana, Mr. A. Pederson and a Member of Parliament of Botswana to exchange information and ideas.
Observations by the Committee
Mr. Speaker, the observations we made were both revealing and humbling, but we had a shocking experience as well. The Committee noted with profound sadness that the embassy buildings in the two countries are in such a deplorable state of dilapidation to the extent that they are actually unsuitable for human habitation and occupancy. At both embassies, visitors are greeted by cracked and crumbling walls which at best resembled an abandoned building. In diplomacy, there is an adage which says “perception matters”. Everyone who gets to these embassies comes face to face with the reality...
HON. MUNENGAMI: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. MUNENGAMI: Whilst he is debating, we need to
understand those pictures. We want to know whether that is the embassy or if we can have someone who can help us in explaining so that we know what those pictures are.
HON. PARADZA: Thank you. That is what I am talking about.
That is the Embassy of Zimbabwe in Addis Ababa. –[HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- Just look at the pictures please. You will appreciate what I am saying. Mr. Speaker, everyone who gets to these Embassies comes face to face with the grim reality that these properties have not been given much attention for a good number of years. An illustration in Fig. 1, the entrance to the reception at our Embassy in Addis Ababa depicts a depressing picture of crumbling infrastructure. I think you can see that. That is the entrance.
As seen from that picture Mr. Speaker, the roof at the Embassy is leaking and monumental damages being inflicted to the electrical cables. The carpets have been severely damaged by water which leaks from the roof during rainy seasons. The general state of the buildings at our Embassies does not augur well with the dictates of portraying a positive image of the country. What your Committee saw especially in Addis Ababa can best be described as reckless abandon and gross neglect of the Chancery by the responsible authorities here in Harare.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the state of our Embassies is a gross indictment on our part as a country. This negligence of the infrastructure points to a serious infraction on the damage of our country.
Further to the above, it is instructive to note that by virtue of our President, His Excellency the President R. G. Mugabe, being the immediate past Chair of the AU, our Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mr.
Chimbindi, was the Chairperson of the Permanent Representatives
Committee of the African Union during President Mugabe’s tenure as AU Chairperson.
Mr. Speaker, it was sad to note that other ambassadors would come to pay courtesy calls on Mr. Chimbindi at the Chancery, which was in such a state. The Addis Ababa embassy has no boardroom to the extent that all official meetings are held inside the office of the Ambassador.
Meanwhile, office furniture at the embassy in Gaborone is obsolete. Mr.
Speaker Sir, there is no doubt that such a state of affairs has a strong impression on the perception of our country. This, in our own opinion, is a serious scandal within the diplomatic community, considering that small countries like Rwanda, Gambia, Malawi, Chad and Equatorial Guinea have managed to build new state-of-the-art double-storey embassies in Addis Ababa, at an average cost of US$600 000.
Let me just give you some statistics, Mr. Speaker. The source is the World Bank. Chad, which is in Sub Saharan Africa, its GDP is US$13.9 billion; Rwanda, its GDP is US$7.8 billion; Malawi is at
US$4.2 billion and its population is 16.7 million; Gambia, its GDP is
US$900 million and population of 1.9 million and Zimbabwe…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Did you say the population of Gambia is 1.9 million or 1.9 billion?
HON. PARADZA: The population of Gambia is 1.9 million. Zimbabwe, GDP is 14.2 billion and the population is 15.2. These are the latest World Bank figures. With Equatorial Guinea; those who saw the
President when he went to Addis Ababa for the last summit, he went to the Equatorial Guinea embassy. They were opening their embassy there.
Its GDP is US$15.5 billion and its population is at 820 000.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee noted that the buildings housing our Embassies now pose a clear danger, not only to the staff but to visitors as well. In view of the centrality of the need to portray a positive image of the country and to pursue a vibrant policy in both aesthetic and substantive terms, the Committee recommends that:-
- The Executive must urgently release funds towards the construction of new Embassy buildings or the maintenance of the deteriorating physical infrastructure, technical and office equipment.
- The Committee further recommends that Treasury should liaise with the Ministry of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs for the creation of a retention account with an agreed percentage of the revenue collected by foreign missions and use this money in the maintenance of the country’s properties abroad.
A presentation of various Embassies was shown
An analysis of genesis of the challenges to the maintenance of the chancery in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Mr. Speaker, the Government of Zimbabwe has an MOU with the Federal Democratic Government of Ethiopia in which the two sovereign states agreed to provide, on reciprocal basis, Chanceries for their respective embassies. The two Governments explored the possibility of swapping the two chanceries. To enable the process to be actuated it was agreed that the two respective properties should be evaluated.
While the Ethiopian Government valued its property in Addis Ababa at
US$270 629.51 and that in Harare owned by the Government of Zimbabwe at US$115 853.65. However, the Government of Zimbabwe has up to now not carried out its own independent evaluation of the two properties to verify the authenticity of the two figures.
The Committee was informed that despite numerous requests to the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing until today, no evaluation of the properties has been done by the
Government of Zimbabwe. In this regard, it is difficult to dispute the figures being claimed by evaluators from Ethiopia without putting our own figures on the table.
In view of the foregoing, the Committee recommends that a team of qualified and competent evaluators from the Ministry Local Government, Public Works and National Housing should urgently conduct a quantitative evaluation of the Chancery in Addis Ababa and
Harare so that an expert opinion on their true values can be ascertained. It is further recommended that the evaluation must be done before the end of April, 2016.
Acquisition of land to build the Official Residence and the
Chancery of Zimbabwe in Addis Ababa.
In 2005 the Government of Zimbabwe was offered 2000 square metres of land gratis, by the Ethiopian Government to build its Embassy. The Government then requested an additional 2000 square metres to make a total of 4 000 square metres. The additional land was valued at US$63 678.37. In 2005 the Zimbabwean Government paid a deposit of US$37 844, leaving a balance of US$25 807.37. The transfer of the land was to be finalised upon full payment.
Mr. Speaker, the Committee learnt with shock that the remaining
US$25 807.37 was only transferred to our embassy in Addis Ababa in 2012, seven years down the line. To-date, 10 years later, the 99 year lease agreement has not been signed as Addis Ababa City Council is now reluctant to conclude the deal due to the lapse of time. We were told negotiations were now underway between the two governments at ministerial level in a bid to salvage the situation.
The Committee observed with concern that all the properties surrounding the piece of land have now been fully developed while our stand remains at Ministerial level in a bid to salvage the situation. The Committee observed with concern that, all the properties surrounding the piece of land have now been fully developed while our stand remains the odd one out with overgrown grass as shown by that picture. (showing projected picture on the wall screen). The building you see in the background is the Embassy of Chad which has already been completed.
The construction of the Chadian Embassy was worth US$600 000.
Meanwhile Mr. Speaker Sir, our Embassy continues to rent the official residence for the Ambassador at a cost of US$4 500 per month, totalling US$54 000 per year. In Addis Ababa alone, monthly rentals for the 10 houses occupied by diplomats is US$27 300 per month or US$327 600 per year. Rental arrears stood at US$89 400 as at 31 December, 2015. This means that our diplomats are now in danger of being evicted from these rented premises. This will further damage the image of the country and possibly the morale and work ethics of our diplomats. In the process, this will threaten our national security.
Financial disbursements to the two embassies during the year 2015
Mr. Speaker Sir, during the 2015 Financial Year, the two embassies requested a total budget of US$2.1 million to cover salaries, recurrent and capital expenditure. Of this amount, the embassies had, by the end of September, 2015, only received US$402 000, which was 24% of the requested amount.
The mission in Addis Ababa has two vehicles, a representational and utility vehicle purchased in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Your delegation observed that the vast scope and magnitude of the work in Addis Ababa require two additional vehicles to service the transport needs of so many delegations arriving in Addis Ababa from Harare for either meetings or conferences at the African Union and United Nations Agencies. By its nature, Addis Ababa is a multilateral station where efficient mobility is required on the party of officers, most of whom end up using their own personal vehicles to transact official business.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the situation is even worse in Gaborone where
Ambassador Mandigora’s utility vehicle was bought in the year 2000 when the current Hon. Vice President, P. Mphoko was then Ambassador to Botswana. The Embassy also has a minibus which has been in use for over 18 years. It should be noted that, these utility vehicles are now antiquated and very expensive to maintain.
Whilst the embassies have the option to hire vehicles in extreme cases, the cost of such a choice becomes prohibitive when one does not have financial resources. The vast scope and magnitude of the work in both Addis Ababa and Gaborone require new vehicles since the two countries are multilateral stations when efficient mobility is required on the part of officials.
In view of the foregoing, the Committee recommended that;
National Assembly Foreign Affairs Recommendation Number
3/2016, “at least two utility vehicles be purchased for use at both embassies in Addis Ababa and Gaborone. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development must make provisions for this, either through the supplementary budget or the 2017 National Budget.”
ICT Infrastructure
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee also noted with disbelief that the two embassies have antiquated IT equipment which is used by diplomats and is shared with locally recruited staff. The two embassies require five new desktop computers each, six laptops, two photocopying machines, filing cabinets, office furniture and two shredding machines.
The Committee believes that the security of information at the Embassy is compromised owing to lack of secure ICT infrastructure as well as filing cabinets. A lot of files are unsecured owing to a shortage of filing cabinets.
Two additional officers to each of the two missions, preferably legal and economic experts are required to enable the missions to cope with the requirements of the AU, SADC and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in bilateral issues.
Salary Arrears
Mr. Speaker Sir, the missions’ salary arrears date back from April to August 2015 and as far back as February, 2015 for some officers. The salary arrears for our diplomats in Addis Ababa amount to US$258 195 while those in Gaborone are owed US$242 503.
However, following a new Government directive, salaries for diplomats, with effect from September, 2015, were paid into their
Zimbabwean bank accounts through the Salaries Service Bureau (SSB).
This move has greatly improved the financial position of nearly all our diplomats abroad, most of whom now access their salaries through credit cards.
Security at the Embassies
The Embassy in Ethiopia is not secure as there is only a wire fence. The Embassy employs two guards who mann the area 24 hours, a development not in sync with the Labour Laws in Ethiopia and the International Labour Organisation standards. In Botswana, the situation is almost the same; the CCTV is no longer working.
In this regard, the Committee recommends that:-
National Assembly Foreign Affairs Recommendation Number
4/2016
“CCTV should be installed around the chanceries so that there is enhanced security. The digitalization of security should be accompanied by the procurement of ICT infrastructure for the embassies. The
Committee recommends that this be done by 30 June, 2016.”
Visits to other Embassies
Mr. Speaker Sir, the team that went to Ethiopia visited a couple of other embassies there in order to get a feel and appreciate what other African Governments have done to improve the general infrastructure at their embassies. Visits were conducted to the embassies of the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Gambia. At this juncture, it is suffice to state that we had a humbling experience through the visits as we noted that these countries have constructed state of the art chanceries.
The Embassy of Malawi in Addis Ababa is owned by the
Government of Malawi. It was constructed in 2012 at a cost of
US$1million. The complex houses living quarters. The Government of The Republic of Gambia owns the property which was constructed at a cost of US$500. 000. In addition, five apartments were also built within the complex and each apartment has four bedrooms. The five apartments were constructed at a cost of US$600.000 in 2012. Thus both the chancery and the four apartments were constructed at a cost of US$1.1 million.
13.0. Lessons for Zimbabwe
Mr. Speaker, the Committee would want to applaud the Government for our chancery in Gaborone. However, as has already been alluded to, in Addis Ababa, we are paying rentals amounting to US$327.600 annually for the official residences. The Committee is of the view that we are losing a lot of money on rentals.
Your Committee therefore recommends that the Executive must urgently consider providing funds for the construction of apartments for diplomats serving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A comparative analysis with costs from the construction of similar structures in the Bole area of Addis Ababa showed that US$1.2 million should be adequate for this urgent exercise. In the long run, a lot of savings will be made as we are assured of a permanent stay in Addis Ababa as long as the seat of African Union remains in Ethiopia.
14.0 Investment Promotion
Mr. Speaker Sir, your Committee gathered in line with ZIM ASSET, that diplomats in our foreign missions have adopted a thrust to promote conference tourism here in Zimbabwe.
It was highlighted that many bilateral and multi-lateral organisations were keen on holding their meetings and conferences in Zimbabwe. In other jurisdictions, there is a Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which spearheads relations with the diaspora community as citizens living abroad can be a source of significant investment funds.
The Committee noted that because of its widespread coverage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through our Embassies dotted around the world, may play a significant role in attracting foreign direct investment. This may require the appointment of dedicated officers to spearhead this initiative.
Your delegation Mr. Speaker Sir, submit that our Embassies abroad should balance between traditional political diplomacy with the emerging trend of enhancing commercial diplomacy. It was observed that Ethiopia has a thriving leather and horticultural industry. Ethiopia also has a vibrant aviation industry which is the envy of many in the region and beyond. Zimbabwe could benefit from such success stories and we believe our mission in Addis Ababa should intensify the identification of potential investors who may be interested in pursuing investment options in Zimbabwe. My team noted that our diplomats in Addis Ababa and Gaborone had solid investment ideas that if pursued, were most likely to benefit this country.
Let me just read you a letter from our ambassador in Canada, Ambassador Chideya. We had a meeting with her when she came with a delegation.
2nd February 2016
Chairperson of Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Committee
Greetings
After a whirlwind tour of Zimbabwe by the Canadian Delegation, who included our country on their Zambian League, I wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank you for guiding the dialogue which took place between yourselves; Hon. Harold Abrich and Mrs.
Abrich, Hon. Elias Mudzuri and Hon. Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and the role you played as Chairperson of Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Committee.
It was also very interesting for the delegation to witness the parliamentary democracy as is practiced in our country. Quite far from the prevailing megaphone mindset in North America, the visit has already started to bear fruit in various circles. The dialogue helped greatly in buttressing the fact that Zimbabwe is a peace loving country an experience they repeated over and over again.
Secondly, as you noticed that through the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, much can be done to reinvigorate tourism between Zimbabwe and Canada and reignite the flows of yester year.
Parliamentary delegation with the capital dates to 2007 besides the International Parliamentary Union in Quebec in 2013. New efforts would go a long way in nurturing and enhancing bilateral relations.
With warmest regards,
Florence Chideya
Ambassador
This letter was copied to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Speaker, the team that visited Gaborone commended
Botswana’s legislative and policy reforms. It is persuasive that
Zimbabwe can draw lessons from Botswana’s reforms to improve its investment climate. In Botswana, all those investors who demonstrate capacity to add value and invest in priority sectors generally enjoy more tax and other investment incentives including Value Added Tax (VAT) exemptions on all imported raw materials, 100 percent write off on research and development costs, five to seven percent reduction in corporate income tax for firms whose exports are worth at least US$3 million, duty exemption on equipment and a favourable accelerated rate of depreciation of 50 percent in the first year.
The present Khama administration also offers grants and special access to credit to investors who set up shop in rural areas. There are no import quotas for investors.
The law in Botswana also protects and facilitates acquisition and disposition of all property rights. Investors involved in commercial agriculture have leasehold titles and are able to secured property titles if necessary. Botswana is also a member of the African Regional
Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and is currently working towards harmonizing its legislation with WTO trade related aspects of intellectual property.
Here in Zimbabwe, the Legislative and Policy reforms can be instructive in the implementation of ZIM ASSET as the country only managed growth rates of 3.4% and 3.1% in 2013 and 2014 against set targets of 3.4% and 6.2% respectively. This will see the country failing to meet the target average growth of 7.3% during the plan period
(October 2013 – December 2018).
In this regard and in light of the importance of promoting Foreign
Direct Investment, the Committee recommends that:-
National Assembly Foreign Affairs Recommendations Number
6/2016
“…the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in conjunction with other relevant arms of the State, should urgently consider the appointment at all Embassies of a dedicated Diplomat who will lead the process of identifying potential investors and investment opportunities for Zimbabweans. The expert should also be mandated with the official coordination of Diaspora community most of whom may want to pursue investments options at home.”
Further, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that of Finance and Economic Development must follow up on all existing or outstanding trade protocols and have them implemented without delay.
15.0 Courtesy Call on the Ambassador of Malawi
Mr. Speaker Sir, the team that visited Addis Ababa paid a courtesy call on the Ambassador of Malawi in Addis Ababa. The Ambassador emphasised the need for diplomatic missions to promote trade and investment. The Ambassador also paid tribute to the then Chair of the African Union, His Excellency, Cde R. G. Mugabe. He revealed that President Mugabe’s Chairmanship was one of the most successful in the history of the African Union. He pointed out that under the chair of Zimbabwe; the African Union had regular review meetings that added value to the AU business.
The Malawian envoy said that President Mugabe led a successful campaign against Ebola and the fight against terrorism especially in East, West and North Africa. Furthermore, it was during President
Mugabe’s tenure that the AU organised a very successful Indo-Africa
Summit, the first such indaba and which was attended by a historic 31 Heads of States and Government. This had never happened before and was the largest gathering of leaders of this continent outside Africa. The outcome of this was that an additional US$10 billion was pledged to assist Africa in its developmental programmes over the next decade. Mr. Speaker Sir, your delegation was also informed that under the chairmanship of President Mugabe, the AU was for the first time also involved in organising the Sino-Africa Summit, which was held last
December in Johannesburg.
The Malawian envoy also told your delegation that many SADC priority programmes were placed on the AU Agenda owing to the chairmanship of President Mugabe. As a parting shot, he highlighted that the Chairmanship of President Mugabe, which led to the launch of
Agenda 63, will always be an enlightening epoch in the history of the African Union.
Following a glowing account of the achievements of the African Union Chair, President R. G. Mugabe, the delegation concluded that more than ever before, concerted efforts must be made to revamp the face of our Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This particular Embassy should be polished in order to protect and enhance the image of this great nation.
16.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker Sir, the visit, on location to the Embassies of Zimbabwe in Addis Ababa and Gaborone were an eye opener to Members of my Committee, most of whom came face to face with the harsh reality of the state of infrastructure at these chanceries.
The challenges are too numerous to mention such that one is left with no option but to conclude that our Embassies resemble “…the tale of an abandoned child”.
Notwithstanding these numerous challenges, our Ambassadors and their staff were jovial and displayed great competency in outlining measures that have been put in place to defend national interest. Mr. Speaker Sir, let me take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the United Nations Development Fund and its partners, SIDA and the European Union for funding this trip. I also wish to thank you personally Sir for authorising these trips and also the Administration of Parliament for flawlessly coordinating the visits to Ethiopia and Botswana. As a Committee, we certainly learnt a lot from the visit and there is no doubt that the visits and the information gathered will enhance our capacity in conducting our executive oversight functions. I thank you.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you very much
Mr. Speaker Sir, and let me thank my chair for that report. As you may have noticed when some of these pictures were being taken, I was the only female member in the delegation but I also only had two pictures of me taken because I have never been in a place where I was so demoralised like I was when we were in Addis Ababa. I could not believe that as a nation that has been independent for so long, we could have reduced ourselves to the level that we did reduce ourselves when you look at the embassy.
I want him to go back to our embassy pictures and I seem to have missed the kind of computer that we found at the embassy in Addis Ababa. You know those computers that have a tummy at the back. That is the computer that we found in Addis Ababa. My chair has gone into good detail about what actually happened and there is nothing that he says that did not happen.
However, let me speak to these things. We as a nation as
Zimbabwe pride ourselves for being pan Africanists. We pride ourselves for being this ultimate African person who speaks around issues of sovereignty and pride that we should have in our being African and yet on the other hand we are so bad that we show a picture of an African that is completely and totally not there. I say so because, yes, he is right about the visits that we did to the embassies. He is right about the comments that they gave about the President, however this is the sad part. The sad part is even as I looked at these Ambassadors saying so, I kept going back to the space to which they were visiting our own Ambassador. That is not a place where you have pride. That is not a place that says you are the best African. That is not a place to which you can put together what President Mugabe says about being independent and you go to a place like that.
If you walk into the embassy, it is full of this musty smell. In fact many of the embassy staff were saying they actually feel sick because from where we are centred and where the embassy is, naturally Ethiopia is high up that it makes people have problems breathing anyway. Naturally, for people that are in Addis Ababa, they are asked over time to get out of Addis Ababa so that they can breathe to get their lungs functioning. In our situation, it is so bad that you cannot breathe properly when you get into that particular embassy. The sad part is that you have such committed staff. I have not seen such committed staff like the ones that I saw when we went to these embassies. There is form of patriotism that speaks to slavery and abuse. It is not patriotism.
Patriotism is about respecting individuals and acknowledging their humanity as human beings that need to be treated with respect. What we saw in those embassies is not any form of dignity.
Mr. Speaker, as you walked to the door of the Ambassador, I do not know whether you have been to our grave sites where we have those zvikwangwani, those things that you cut-off and write born: 1975 and dies: 1986. That is what they got and put it on the door written the
Ambassador’s Place – [HON. MEMBERS: A-ah!] – I am not exaggerating. We pictured a whole lot. The difference and that is what is sad about this report in this House because that entire delegation, when we were in Addis, we all appreciated that this was totally unacceptable. There was no excuse for it and it will be a sad day if we sit in this House and we have a person who thinks that we can excuse the kind of behaviour that we saw in Addis Ababa. We cannot excuse it in a number of things.
Anybody who claims to love President Mugabe will not do what we have done in that Embassy because you know you are exposing him to ridicule. In fact, when I saw that Embassy I said, whoever said we should run for the African Union Chairperson position should be fired because when you are poor and you cannot organise yourself, the last thing is to avoid exposing yourself. You do not invite people to your house – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – so that at the end of the day they can see your poverty. Culturally in our families, the person that has the least in the home when it is Christmas time, they cannot even say come and spend Christmas at my house because you are not going to be able to provide for people that are coming. You find that those that have are the ones that always invite those that do not have. In Zimbabwe, we have nothing but we keep inviting people to come and see our poverty or how poor we are.
There is no way you can do to a person that you love, which is why I keep saying that those that purport to love President Mugabe, do not love him. If you did, you would have gone and said, now that you are going to be the Chairperson of the African Union, at the very least, let us make this place look livable because we are going to be the ones that
will be accepting and receiving people that will be coming. Our own Ambassador is the Dean. When somebody comes into Ethiopia, they have to make a courtesy call to our own Ambassador. Look at our Embassy and look at the Malawian Embassy. You will go there, there is a small table by the corner and then there is a small little file somewhere and that is our own Ambassadors. When you walk into the Embassies of Malawi and Chad, you can tell I am getting into a professional space.
You cannot talk of investment when somebody walks into a place like the place that is there. If I am an investor, the first thing I look at is to say, no these guys are not serious and I walk away. Due to the issue of regional integration, people are not forced to deal with Zimbabwe because there is no benefit, particularly in just working in Zimbabwe. You can go to Zambia, Malawi and Namibia. So, if I am outside and the face of what I am going to find in Zimbabwe is the image of what I find in Addis Ababa, I am not being serious. So, in my opinion, there is no excuse for having a situation like that because the places we visited are the places that are at the centre of Africanism and ourselves. We can forget about all these other places but at the very least, we should have done something about the place like Addis Ababa because that is the place that defines our Pan Africanism. That is the place that defines what being an African is and if what being an African is that, then a lot of people will choose not to be African because it does not make sense.
Mr. Speaker Sir, as we made our conclusions and they were very small things, you saw the ceiling that is falling apart. I kept looking at it and kept saying, how much would it take to, perhaps just patch that ceiling. I am not talking about removing the corrugated iron that covers it because there is no proper ceiling or tiling, it is corrugated iron. What will it take to just cover that place and make it livable? It probably will take $10 000. Let us look at the gentlemen that come and sit at this front seat (referring to the Ministers). Let us look at what they have. I understand they have an SUV which is at a cost of about $345 000, a second car in the form of a Mercedes Benz S350 at a cost of about
$145 000, each director has a Range Rover and a secretary.
The reason why things never function in this place, which is one thing which the Chairperson missed because they said they had sent staff back home and never got responses. So, Embassies write and say there are opportunities here. There is a market for goats, for example. Get your women to organise themselves and get goats. No one comes back and sets that up, yet our ministries are clogged with every other director you can think of who has a secretary and personal assistant. You ask yourself and say, if we were to look back – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections] – Yes, I created a Ministry of Regional Integration, talk to me outside if you want me to give you the story of what I did.
If you take just one vehicle, not two from each of these ministries and give them to the centres of your embassies, we would make a difference – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] – But, no because we have become such a greedy nation, it is about me, me, and me. Am I driving a new car, new off-roader, travelling business and first class, do I have my own computer and that has killed us? It is not an issue of us not having resources.
I refuse Mr. Speaker Sir, to acknowledge the fact that we have no money. We are not buying that argument. We have money but just have our priorities in a wrong place. What we think is important is not what is important, and we prioritise things that do not matter. The numbers of delegations, which is really what upsets us. You go to Addis Ababa for example, ask what that Embassy staff does on a day to day basis. They spend most of their time at the airport receiving visitors and delegations that are coming from Zimbabwe, finding hotels and lodges for people to go and stay. That is what takes three quarters of their time instead of doing proper chancery work. They are working to service delegations that are coming from home.
If you ask yourself Mr. Speaker Sir, why we have large delegations travelling each time when they are going away when we have an Embassy like that, it makes absolutely no sense. The last time when we debated the issue about the Executive and the Members of Parliament, we were saying ourselves and we accept it because we have said to ourselves, this is the economy we are in. When we are going as Members of Parliament, we will be dragging our little bags and going to the cattle class. What will you find in Business Class, permanent secretaries and directors sitting in business class flying back and forth and being entertained by people who can hardly take their children to hospital when they get sick? We had harrowing stories about people in these embassies who were saying that they could not afford to take their children to hospital. More so, one of them almost shed tears as they were talking to us. They narrated the ordeal of their children going to school and being told on getting to school to go back home because their fees was not paid up. These children have had to be removed from the international schools where most of the other embassy staff take their children. When they realised that they could not be moving their children from one school to another because of none payment of school fees, they decided to take them to public schools. Can you tell me what you are saying about that person? You however, expect Ambassador Chimbindi to be chairing, as the dean of this meeting, when last night he was talking to his child who was sent away from school.
All I am trying to say today is that as we find solutions to this issue; let them be solutions that are workable. We need to cut our cloth to fit where we are. If we cannot deal with 46 embassies, let us reduce the embassies. In the meantime, let us create fewer embassies, cut down on delegations and also reduce the things that we want those embassies to be doing. Let us identify the priority embassies, and if we are true to the African spirit and African-hood that we have, let us prioritise those places where we have African embassies, if we are talking about regional integration and African trade. We cannot come and insult the Americans and the British when we are spending money trying to pay pounds, in a place where we cannot be EU members and yet, we are failing to prioritise Addis Ababa. Without Addis Ababa, you cannot shout at the Americans and the British because they are not the ones who are sending you to create a place and humiliate yourselves. Do something that will make you a good African and then deal with the issue of the Americans later on. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
*HON. MAKUNDE: Thank you Mr. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to debate. I was part of the delegation that went to Addis Ababa. I know that what has been said is very painful but I think we should be a Parliament that changes things. As a delegation we agreed that when we return home, we should assist each other so that the people working in Ethiopia will be happy. Before I go any further, I want to thank the Chairperson Hon. Paradza and Hon. Misihairibwi-Mushonga for the groceries that they bought with their own money to take to the children out there. When I saw them buying mealie-meal and juice, I was very surprised but because they have travelled before, they know and they are aware that our people out there cannot get these commodities. The luggages of these two Members were quite huge and I want to thank them once again.
As a delegation, we agreed that when we get back home we should help one another and not point fingers at each other as Ministries for the situation obtaining in Addis. Rather, we should work as a Government.
What we saw was that the staff’s morale was full of zeal in the way they conduct their business despite the challenges that they face, ranging from the place they live in, the environment they work in and the antiquated machinery that they use. They still dispensed their work diligently.
What I want to say is that Ethiopia is the capital city of Africa. It is also now the capital city of all challenges. Enemies and thieves are found there and if our enemies are there they are also observing us. So, our Government should be resolute and focus on changing the situation of our people in Ethiopia. Even our security that visits Ethiopia cannot get transport to go to hotels to attend meetings. I think it is very important for our security working out there to be well resourced with cars. Here we have a lot of Ford Rangers. Why not send one Ford Ranger to be used by the security personnel in Ethiopia so that they are able to give us enough protection when we go out there.
We want to thank our Ambassador in Ethiopia for availing his Mercedez Benz to his officers to use when there are delegations at the embassy. He then uses public transport and whilst we were there, we travelled with him in public transport. A person referred to as: His Excellency is of high esteem but as we were travelling, he would reduce himself to our level. He told us that our embassy has no resources as compared to the embassy of Malawi. The Malawian embassy welcomed us and provided us with fruit juice and tea, which we did not get from our own embassy because they had nothing. In the Gambian embassy, if the ambassador is coming in, you will see by the way the people behave. The security will be alert and a lot of respect is accorded to their Ambassador. They have enough space and sufficient personnel to do all that is required to be done. Even his arrival is announced. If we were to emulate such things, that would bring back our dignity.
At the time that we went there, we were the Chairman of the AU. So, we went with authority to the Headquarters of the AU and we were very much respected. All the people who were there, representing the various embassies wanted us to remain the Chairperson of the AU, as already articulated by Hon. Paradza. Our Ambassador was the one who was chairing the other meetings of Ambassadors. Even up to now all the embassies respect and love him. They had very good reports about him.
The house that accommodates our embassy is not ours but it belongs to Ethiopia. Here, they are also using our building. What was not clear to us was whether we should repair the building in Ethiopia or repair the one here. I think that has to be clarified. I think it is up to us to vacate that place and build our own building. We realised that the building cost is very low in Ethiopia. The house is a double storey and some of the floors are not occupied.
The other thing that we learnt is that they are very efficient in tax collection. Even if you visit a Barber, that person will pay tax from the charge. We need also to improve on our revenue collection. I heard that our Minister of Finance and Economic Development visited Ethiopia and learnt something. Therefore, we hope that we will be efficient in revenue collection.
In conclusion, we should unite in our Government. We should not point fingers at each other. We called the Minister of Foreign Affairs and updated him on what we had seen and he also updated us. What I realised is the staff who work at our embassies are too many. I think those who can source equipment like computers should source and send them there. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
HON. ENG. MUDZURI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I am a
member of the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs. I did not visit Addis Ababa or Botswana, but I want to appreciate the report which came from the Committee. From what we read and what we understand, there is a serious level of negligence – HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]–
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Please take your seat. Can the Hon. Member be heard in silence?
HON. ENG. MUDZURI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. From the
report, it is clear that the dilapidated state of the Chancery in Ethiopia shows serious negligence. The previous speaker said anyone who has allowed the AU to run in that manner has no love for President Mugabe but I also think that the President must be aware of such things. It is not only the Ethiopian Embassy. The Zimbabwean Embassy in America is in a similar state. There is the situation of Botswana, Brazil and many countries but what does it mean when an Ambassador is called Your Excellency?
When an Ambassador is called Your Excellency, it means he represents a President of a country; he represents Zimbabwe and he represents whatever Zimbabwe means. I hear a lot of people grumbling and start to applaud when it is only the President who is being said to be good but all of us, including myself look so bad when we talk about these embassies. The law says if you are a Member of Parliament, you must come through your embassy. When you come through your embassy you find out that in those embassies, the officials are demoralised, they do not serve you properly; they do not feel they are at home and that embassy is called Zimbabwe in any country. So, when you come into Zimbabwe in a foreign country and discover that you are not at home, it is like you have been thrown out in the deep end; in some rural road which has so many potholes.
That experience which we find in Zimbabwe should not be found in foreign countries. When we talk of the ten point plan which the President presented to us, to say this is what we should do to resuscitate our economy and come to a scenario where we have that one-stop-shop and people can get ease of doing business. How do we do ease of doing business in Zimbabwe when we have got an ugly face abroad? I want to urge our Ministers to say whenever they are doing their work, they must do proper due diligence and advise Cabinet correctly, because the Minister of Foreign Affairs has a responsibility to advise correctly in Cabinet to the extent that the face of Zimbabwe must look well.
The meanness of our Central Government is seen by its failure to pay our foreign missions. Our foreign missions, some of them have been in arrears for more than three/four months, and that meanness is even seen by refusal to give these Hon. Members of Parliament diplomatic passports as if it costs them anything. That will only show that they are part of Government; they are the third leg of Government. It is so difficult for this Government to offer a simple diplomatic passport to Members of Parliament. So, the meanness should not be taken into embassies. The meanness must remain here. You can see that the meanness of the Central Government comes even in not looking at the state of affairs of our trading levels in the country.
You go to our border posts, you discover that there is serious meanness in just allowing foreigners to come in and go out freely, including Zimbabweans. When you get to Beitbridge border post, you find out that there is serious meanness that the Executive alone is allowed certain free passages but the rest of the citizens do not find themselves free. If you go to Beitbridge border post, when you are crossing on your side you might be ill treated, the moment you go to South African side, you are a Member of Parliament. They start respecting you. So we should change that attitude and make everyone a diplomat. We should change everything and start organising ourselves abroad. We should change everything and make sure that the one-stopshop we talk about in Zimbabwe is done in every embassy and we should change our attitude and ensure that all embassies are properly funded first before we fund ourselves through the luxurious cars we have. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
HON. CHASI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I want to start by thanking this Committee for a detailed and picturesque report which helped all of us to understand precisely the state of affairs at our embassies. I think the issue is very simple and straightforward. We should not as a country tolerate mediocrity such as what we are seeing on those pictures. I think the report that was given was extremely depressing in all respects in terms of the architecture structures that we use as Embassies, in terms of the welfare of our staff. The report simply helped to confirm the rumours that I think all of us have heard before from relatives and friends that are employed across the world at our Embassies.
I think it is important that things should be said as they are. I think that the management...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, can the Hon. Member be heard in
silence.
HON. CHASI: Mr. Speaker, the management at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs is responsible for the state of affairs at these Embassies. I believe that it is incumbent upon the Ministry to ensure that it streamlines personnel at the Ministry and the number of Embassies that we are presently shouldering as a country. It is my fervent belief that each Embassy must justify its existence. I think it is in order that at some point, this House be favoured with details and statistical reports as to what precisely is being done at each and every Embassy.
From the picture that we can see on the wall, it is quite clear that instead of putting the country in a good state, our Embassies are portraying a very bad impression of this country. To make matters worse, I understand that that building is not our building. I think there is an element of serious irresponsibility in looking after somebody’s property and leaving it in that state. I think that we should as a matter of urgency, make funds available, if not for selfish reasons, but simply to ensure that we are not being discourteous to the people that have allowed us to use these premises.
I want to say that when one interacts with our Embassies and talks to the individual staff members as the Committee did on its various visits, the very personal stories that one hears are even more depressing, when our staff are not able to take their kids to school, hospitals or generally to look after themselves, I think it puts us in a situation that is very sad and bad. I wonder whether senior people in the Ministry actually go to those premises and see them physically. If they do so, what view do they take on the situation of accommodation?
I want to wholeheartedly complement the Committee for the detailed report and I fully support the recommendations that have been made. As a country, we need to relook at the distribution of the Embassies, justify the existence of each one of them, and look at the numbers that we employ in those Embassies in order for us to ensure that we have a rational approach to our Diplomatic service. I thank you.
HON. MANDIPAKA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My debate is going to be very short. Allow me to congratulate your Committee
Chairperson Hon. Paradza, for this motion which was also seconded by
Hon. Misiharabwi-Mushonga. It is not far-fetched to point out that this Committee did some wonderful work to come face to face with reality. I want to congratulate this Committee too, for being brave enough and courageous enough to point out what they actually saw, witnessed and what we condemn in the strongest of terms in this august House.
Mr. Speaker Sir, Hon. Chasi who has just spoken has said this House cannot allow mediocrity. I would want to echo the same sentiments that as Zimbabweans, we are a proud nation, proud of ourselves, very educated especially our Executive and we cannot as a nation accept sub-standard work. My first recommendation would be that the Minister responsible for this Ministry should appear before this august House and explain the state of affairs. –[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear]- If it is not one Minister, if there are 10 or 15 Ministers responsible for those Embassies, they should appear before this august House and explain the state of affairs. –[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear]-
Mr. Speaker Sir, our Embassies play a pivotal role in portraying the best possible image that we will ever want as a nation. Once we have Embassies that have dilapidated buildings, Embassies where officials are not paid for six or more months, Embassies where the welfare of our citizens, brothers and sisters that are out there are not being catered for in terms of salaries, I think that will not be well for this nation. As a country, we need to portray a positive image. We appreciate the economic challenges that we face as a country, but from an African way of life, you always would not want to clean your dirty linen in public.
Allow me Mr. Speaker Sir, to divert a little bit and speak in Shona.
Makare kare waiti ukasvika pamusha pasina magumbeze akakwana, vabereki vaitogona kutora mamwe magumbeze vachipa vaenzi, vana vorara vakashama kuti vaenzi vasaone kuti pamba apa panga paine magumbeze mashoma. So, we should do exactly that with our
Embassies. Yes, economically we are poor but let us make giant efforts to make sure that our Embassies are beefed up and we give the proper and correct image of our country.
We want to congratulate the comments by the Malawian Embassy. We are told in the report that our Committee visited the Embassy and they made very good comments about His Excellency, the President. We want to congratulate the Malawi Embassy for that. The Committee came face to face with reality and I am glad that we have other members of the Executive that are here listening. I think there is need on the part of the Executive to move with speed and ensure that we correct this sad state of affairs. From the presentation by the Chairperson that our Embassies have been forgotten, it is the tale of a forgotten child and this has to be rectified immediately.
I would also want to congratulate the Speaker for authorising this Committee to pay such a visit and those that assisted or donated to ensure a smooth travel for the Committee, which Committee has unearthed an urgent matter that needs urgent attention and where we need the Minister to just explain, so that we can at a later stage, ask questions. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order please!
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER
SIGNING CEREMONY FOR A PLEDGE TO PROTECT THE GIRL
CHILD
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I would like to inform the House that tomorrow, 16 March, 2016, there is going to be a signing ceremony for a pledge to protect the girl child. The ceremony will be held in the court yard between 1300 hours and 1600 hours. Thank you.
HON. CHAMISA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker Sir. I rise to also add my voice to this very important discourse on the table.
Firstly, I want to congratulate Hon. Paradza as the Chairperson and also Committee members for such a detailed report and informative report about the state of affairs in our embassies. What is clear is that the pictures that we have seen are but a reflection of our true image. What is clear is that the dilapidated buildings that we are seeing in the Embassies dotted around the capitals of the world are indeed, a clear indication of our internal state of affairs.
Do not just look at these dilapidated buildings without attaching meaning to who we are also governing ourselves. If you go to Ethiopia, an Embassy is a portal of a country, of government and people to the world. If you go to Washington, an Embassy is supposed to be a badge of honour of a country and a people. What you then see when you go to Ethiopia, what you see, Hon. Paradza, is who we are, is what we are. Thank you for being innocent and honest. You have told us who we are as a people and what we need to correct. We need to go and stand in front of a mirror and say to ourselves, what is it that we need to correct?
Part of the way to resolve our problems is to be fair to ourselves and what I am going to say, Hon. Speaker Sir, is not because I love the Minister less, but because I love Zimbabwe more; like what Brutus said about Julius Caesar. You may remember and recall that of all the
Ministers, we have a Minister who has become truant. He hardly comes to Parliament and he tells us he will be busy. Minister Mumbegegwi you are busy, but you are busy doing what when all the embassies are like what they are?
He has been a Minister since 2005. He has been one of the permanent features of our Government, but if you look at the output, this is the sort of Minister who is supposed to be fired immediately. If Minister Mumbegegwi cannot be fired by President Mugabe, we need, as Members of Parliament, to collectively come together and fire him. I do not know, the Vice President is laughing, but this is a serious matter. We need to deal with truant Ministers. Minister Mumbegegwi has just been truant for too long, yet he has nothing to account for his absence in Parliament. He has nothing to account for his absence from duty. These are serious issues. I have seen the grass in Ethiopia at our Embassy, perhaps, they are taking after the style of our Minister when he keeps his beard.
This is not a joking matter Hon. Speaker Sir. We need to be serious about the state of our Embassies. We need to be serious about how we look to the world and before the world. If you just look in Washington, as an example, just recently I got information that our phones were cut off. They cannot even communicate. In this modern day and age you have that kind of a situation, but what it is, is that it is symptomatic and reflective of the Government’s attitude on its people. This is the same treatment you are finding Members of Parliament receiving. This is the same treatment you are finding civil servants also receiving. The Government is just in an I do not care mode.
This is the same situation you will find even in the rural areas where people are starving because of drought. So, what you are seeing at an Embassy is a reflection of what we have failed to do as a
Government and as a people. Our plea, Hon. Speaker Sir, is for us, as Parliament, to forget about our different parties, come together, unite and say enough is enough. We need to restore our honour, our pride and dignity and our patriotism as a people. The only way we are going to restore our patriotism is when we are then able to say to certain people who are undermining the sovereignty of the country, who are undermining the patriotic flavor of our country like Minister
Mumbengegwi, you must simply be relieved of your position.
That is the way to go. We cannot have a Minister who has been in office since 2005 and yet he is not showing anything for it. Look at what is happening in all these embassies? Things are falling apart at the embassies, things are falling apart within the Ministry, and things are falling apart within the country. It is all on account of the behaviour of our Ministers. As if it is not enough recently, he took the President to a meeting which has no respect whatsoever in India. I think there were some little councillors there and non-designated people. Yes, this is a fact, Hon. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Chamisa
mind your language. State what is factual.
HON. CHAMISA: Thank you very much. I will mind my language, but I am glad you have said I should also state what is factual. It is a fact that there are certain things that have not been done properly and we need to deal with those issues. Hon. Speaker Sir, allow me to
say the best way to attract investment for our country is when we invest unto ourselves. When we are able to spruce up and refurbish our Embassies. That is the only way we are going to be able to then attract investment, to then build confidence and honour and to then say to those who want to come to Zimbabwe, this is our face. You have seen us at that face, at that portal. Please, come and visit us so that you are able to invest in our country.
Now, when they see the kind of offices that we were being shown, there is no way, Hon. Speaker Sir, there is going to be investment in that regard. We need to make sure that we deal with certain issues within a short space of time. What are we supposed to do Hon. Speaker Sir, so that I do not waste time? The first thing is the restoration of love within Government. When we love our people, we will love our work, country and the things we do. Once we restore the love, we are going to then see the king of leadership that we require at Addis Ababa level, the kind of leadership that we want to see in Gaborone and the kind of leadership that we would want to see in all the other embassies.
I have no doubt in my mind that the first thing that we need to do is to expunge and extinguish the kwashiorkor of leadership within Government. We need to deal with the kwashiorkor of direction and vision within Government. How do we do that? We must remove embarrassment within Government. Ministers who are not performing must go, but if the Government fails to perform in total, it must also go.
That has to be the direction that we take as a people and as a Parliament.
Secondly, I believe that we must not waste resources. Let us cut down on embassies. We have 49 out of 189 countries. It is still too much. Let us cut down and focus on commercially viable embassies.
The third aspect is for us to zero in on building the United States of
Africa. Let us take the direction of building a United States of Africa.
We may not need all these embassies. Once we unite the states of Africa, once we start talking about the African Union, there may not be any need for all these embassies that are in Africa. We cut down on the resources and expenditures that we also have.
Hon. Speaker Sir, I also believe that it is time for us to look at the whole gamut of our foreign diplomatic relations. Let us go back to the Commonwealth. Why are we shunning the opportunity presented and provided by the Commonwealth? Let us reengage with the whole of the international community. Look at the European Union, let us reengage. The only way we are going to reengage with the European Union is when we stop doing things like we have done with Dzamara, unaccounted for disappearance. We need to respect our media and our war veterans, not to throw war veterans into disarray by throwing teargas unto them. We need to respect our human rights and those who fought for the liberation of this country. No country is ever going to be taken seriously without taking the freedom fighters seriously. Those are the issues we need to address, the Government matrix.
Hon. Speaker Sir, we also need to make sure that we build, within our country, think tanks of international relations and diplomacy so that we are informed on the policy positions that we take as a country. Right now, if you look at the decisions we take, they are not informed by economic priority, efficacy in governance or what is supposed to inform a modern day State.
Having said that Hon. Speaker Sir, I want to say, this is a very important motion, let us take this matter seriously. This is what has to get to the Executive and I am glad the Vice President at the highest level is here. We are asking our Government to take the matter seriously. Let us restore our pride at our embassies, in Parliament, in the capitols of the country and in the villages. How do we do it? We do it by showing a serious exit door to those who are not performing, making sure that we show leadership where it is required and a unity of purpose. Let us forget about MDC and ZANU PF, let us think Zimbabwe. Let us unite our people and take our country forward. Let us do that with the understanding that our people are suffering. The state of the embassies you are seeing is the state of the economy, the state of our social fabric, education and our health system.
How do we restore ourselves? Let us not begin by refurbishing buildings alone. Let us refurbish our minds and our hearts. Let us be focused in providing leadership to this country. Thank you very much Hon. Speaker Sir.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER
CANCELLATION OF ZANU PF CAUCUS MEETING
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MARUMAHOKO): I
have an announcement to make. All ZANU PF Hon. Members who were supposed to attend a Caucus meeting tomorrow are advised that the meeting has been cancelled. You will be informed of new dates in due course.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to add my
voice to the report by Hon. Paradza. I also want to congratulate him for bringing his report so that we can get to know what our face looks like and look at the mirror and say; is this what we want to look like. As I debate this report Mr. Speaker, I want to give you a quotation by an author called Niccolo Machiavelli, who said; “The end justifies the means.” Why do I say so Mr. Speaker? The issue that is currently bedeviling our embassies and all other Government and quasi Government departments is of an economic nature. It cannot be approached in a half-hearted manner, using historic means of dealing with present issues.
We need to use our present day resources, advantage, technical ability and our youthful resources in terms of manpower to use what we have in order to get what we want. Mr. Speaker Sir, as I debate this motion, I would like to say that we should do everything possible to put our best foot forward. As the President was commissioning the Harare Airport Road, he said it was our face to the international community, so is our Airport at Victoria Falls.
More-so Mr. Speaker Sir, our embassies in the far off lands are our face to the international community, that is our best foot forward. How are we going to spruce up those embassies? We cannot be seen to be sparing any effort in our conduct in terms of sprucing up our embassies in order to make sure that the staff live in the comfort zone. This will ensure that their duties are conducted in an optimum manner.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we have to get what we want from what we have.
Time of procrastination and casting aspersions is over. In Chegutu Mr. Speaker Sir, there are more than 49 gold mines and we have got 46 embassies. The end should justify the means, let us make sure that whatever resource is exploited from all these gold mines, at least each of them, goes to each embassy Mr. Speaker Sir. The reason why we should put in the Minister of Finance and Economic Development is for audit purposes and optimum resource distribution.
If we continue to say we want to get the resources, economic emancipation and resource mobilisation through archaic means; where we have Corn Textiles opened at that time, it is going to take us time to get to that. Recently COTTCO was taken over by Government. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development has said he is giving seed to cotton producers for the next three seasons. That is futuristic, yes, we applaud it. What is not futuristic is the optimum resource mobilisation from the exploitation of our God-given minerals.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I might not make sense now, but the end will justify the means. Our embassies cannot go on like this. I went to Zambia once Mr. Speaker, the embassy staff there conduct themselves here in Zimbabwe forming little clubs where they buy a cow, inspect it, slaughter and dissect it, and then sell the meat for their own upkeep. Is this the embassy that we want? If they do that during the time that they are supposed to be engaging other embassies for the good of the country, what time will they indulge in optimum business operation for the good of this nation? Is this the modus operandi that we want? One day, I shall make sense.
Take over those mines and give them to the embassies. Why do I say so? Some of the owners of these mines are erst-while colonizers who are listed on the London Stock Exchange. ACR is one of them. Vast Resources is another. Break Ridge is the next. They make us a laughing stock whilst they call for sanctions in foreign land and yet we are looking so dilapidated.If we were having our embassies back home, taigona kurara nemukaka but not in foreign land.
As we are represented outside our borders, let us leave the duty of the embassy staff to concentrate on their core mandate not of selling peanuts for their own upkeep, not of dodging ZESA in foreign land or ZESA officials there using their diplomatic immunity in order to circumvent statutory obligations so that they can cover the face of our nation. The end will justify the means.
I also add my voice and support the notion that, let us get the Minister to come and give us a ministerial statement because this is of national importance. We need to know what we can do to help him in his endeavors. The economic problems are currently bedeviling the whole nation. However, we should not use our historic, archaic and moribund ways of doing business to try and make sure that we optimally conduct our economic emancipation in this day and age.
I ask and pray that we use this God given finite resource. It is finite in that as it is being excavated, exploited and illicit outflow flouted, it is not going to grow back in the ground. Let us optimally utilise it now and use it for the benefit of this country and our embassies, otherwise we cannot justify the existence of our embassies.
I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity and I say long live Zimbabwe. Long live Zimbabwe with our God-given resources.
Long live artisanal miners. Long live President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. In these problems, we are going to find ourselves and we are going to come out of this economic doldrums because of our God-given resources that we have got.
*HON. MAPIKI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Firstly, I would like to thank the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the findings they made from touring our embassies outside the country.
It shows that there are some people who are not doing their work because if there is a Minister of Foreign Affairs and we have this state of affairs – he should be invited to make a ministerial statement. Our embassies out there are like Mbare Matapi flats.
When we are looking at foreign direct investment from other countries, people will not trust us. This Committee came up with a lot of things. In parastatals, we have directors who have company cars and houses. Their children are sent abroad to do their studies. We are looking at an ambassador who is representing our country out there but he is using an Ipsum and he cannot send his children to school. It shows that things are not well. I think the Minister should be invited to give us a statement. Our ambassadors out there are representing our country. They are the ones who bring us synergies with investors. If they are not taken care of, it is very painful.
I am suggesting that these ambassadors should earn as civil servants and get their salaries from their bank accounts. It is not fair for someone to go for five months without a salary. This will make ambassadors end up being sell outs because there is nothing they are getting in return for supporting their country. They should be able to send their children to school. Five months for their wives without anything new is not proper. They will also not do their work properly. There should be a specific date for their salaries because we are now earning in US dollars. This will assist their families and relatives.
When their relatives die in Zimbabwe, they will not have money to come and attend the funeral. This is not good at all.
We also visited our Embassy in China that period when our Members of Parliament got stranded in China. The building was also not impressive. It was also like Matapi Flats. Our Embassies are not in a good state. Our Minister should be able to investigate that so that we have a good standing in Zimbabwe. We can say that Zimbabwe does not have money but there are some companies like Metalion Gold who are doing mining. They are externalising a lot of funds.
In Zimbabwe, we can use whatever skills available. Metalon gets a lot of grams for example, they can mine 90 kgs but they only remit 50 kgs. Where does the 40kgs go to? Zimbabwe is a very wealthy country.
We can rehabilitate our embassies outside. If people want to invest in
Zimbabwe, they first look at embassies especially in Ethiopia or Malawi. That is where they get the confidence of investing in Zimbabwe. I think it is very pertinent that we should channel our resources towards rehabilitation of our embassies.
If we look at diamonds, Chiadzwa was closed down. The first time Chiadzwa was introduced, we were very happy because we thought we were now going to realise a lot like US$2bn worth of diamonds. We realise that a lot of stealing was going on in Chiadzwa and we only realised it when it was too late. We know that in Zimbabwe our national budget is about US$4bn but with the way we were getting diamonds, we could have done so much as Zimbabwe. When I talked to the people they said the left over’s that we have, we can sell them and the way the money is coming in, it means that we can survive as Zimbabwe. I think that our challenge is that of prioritising. We cannot prioritise our things properly and we cannot manage our things well.
For us to rehabilitate our embassies, it will not take us a lot of money because companies that are coming here – there are a lot of things going on and we do not know what is happening. We do not know the partnerships that we are getting into and then later on we hear that these people are stealing our gold. I think from now onwards we want
Ministers who know what they are doing and stand on their own feet so that we do not involve other nations because if you look at what happened in the diamond industry and what is happening in the gold sector, it means that we have a lot of challenges because if you look at the British companies - what they are getting and remitting to Fidelity Refineries shows that there is a challenge. So, we really have to think seriously.
When it comes to offices, people should not sit on papers. You see a lot of people in organisations with a well structured hierarchy but there is a lot of bureaucracy in these offices. If you look at the salaries that they are getting, you find that a job which can be done by one person, there are a lot of people who do it. When you look at the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, there is an inspector who is supposed to be in charge of one district but these days, there are a lot of people who are doing that job which was done by one person.
We should be well organized because we are losing a lot of money which we should channel to our embassies because they help us in attracting investors into our country. What we see is that our priorities are wrong. We should revisit our priorities because there are a lot of people, especially in these parastatals who are not working but just getting money. I want to support the report of the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs that the Minister should come and give us a statement and we should also criticise each other properly. We should accept constructive criticism because this is our country. I thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA): I rise to give some information because I hear that most of the Honourable Members who have intervened on this motion are worried about the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Currently he is out of the country attending the SADC Council of Ministers meeting in Botswana. That is where he is. Most importantly I would like to give some information relating to this particular debate.
The way of payment at all our embassies changed. All embassy staff receive their salaries at the same time as civil servants receive their salaries. All diplomatic staff receive their salaries every month and they are not in arrears in relation to their salaries. What is problematic and a challenge is the issue of administration funds from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and not from the Public Service Commission to deal with administration of embassies, maintenance and so on.
Fortunately this afternoon in Cabinet, we were seized with the matter of the state of affairs of our embassies worldwide. In that discussion we resolved to begin with Ethiopia so that we change the face of our embassies –[HON MEMBERS: Hear, hear]- The concern expressed by Honourable Members here is quite legitimate because it is the correct status which is there. You are not happy with it but as the Executive we resolved to attend to that issue. You are aware that we have gone through difficulties and the state of embassies did not just begin to deteriorate yesterday or one year ago or two years ago, it is over a period, but now it has been resolved that we do so.
There is one Honourable Member who spoke about the importance of Addis Ababa and it is for the same reason that we are going to begin with Ethiopia to change. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is away and I felt that I should give this information. If he was here he was going to do it but I have done it on his behalf.
Let me assure you that the question of investment – what attracts investment into a country is not the status of buildings but it is the return to capital, investment climate and the ease of doing business which the investor looks at in the country. Those are some of the issues that an investor will take into account before they invest in the country. Most important Mr. Speaker Sir, I would want to assure Honourable Members that we are as concerned as themselves on this issue and as I have said just today, a few hours ago it was a debate which we had in Cabinet and we concluded that we must address this issue and we begin with Ethiopia. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order. I want to bring your attention to the fact that we have no quorum.
[Bells rung]
Quorum formed.
HON. MARIDADI: Thank you Madam Speaker and thank goodness for the quorum. Apart from thanking the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, I also wish to thank the Hon. Vice President for the information that you have given us. It is very helpful but Hon. Vice President, you tell us that you had a Cabinet meeting this afternoon which resolved to spruce up the image of our Ethiopian building. I am saying, Government is about processes and procedures. That is how Government is run. You cannot have a whole Cabinet to determine when you are going to refurbish buildings. That must come as a matter of routine because it is about processes and procedures – [HON.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – Today, Cabinet is going to sit and decide to refurbish Ethiopia, and three months later another Cabinet meeting is going to resolve to refurbish Mozambique. How do you run a
Government like that – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – [HON.
MUTSEYAMI: Beats the benches.] – [HON. VICE PRESIDENT MNANGAGWA: Inaudible interjection.] -.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Member
(referring to Hon. Mutseyami), you are making a lot of noise. If you want, you have to clap your hands
HON. MARIDADI: Hon. Vice President tells me here that it is a question of priorities. You rightly say Hon. Vice President, that this dilapidation did not start yesterday or in 2014, it started long ago and should it honestly take 31 Cabinet Ministers being chaired by a Head of State with two Vice Presidents in attendance to discuss such mundane issues which are operational. Cabinet is there to discuss policy of how to run a Government and the country and not how to refurbish buildings – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] – Again, you tell us that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is attending a SADC Ministerial Meeting wherever he is attending it. For me, that is not priority. The Minister attending a Ministerial Meeting is routine and is not priority, especially with the state of our economy. We cannot afford to fly a minister to foreign lands everyday with the state of our economy. I am going to leave that aside and go back to my original debate.
What you saw in Ethiopia as Members of the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, you showed us pictures and if I take those pictures to Mabvuku or if I show the pictures to people who are vending outside, they will say, so what is surprising, chinoshamisa ipapo chii? Is this not a mirror of what our country is like? Just last week the President said, $15 billion was stolen from diamond minesand we do not even know where that money went to. How do you want to spruce up images of buildings in foreign lands when you cannot look after God-given mineral resources worth $15 billion and they disappear just like that?
Fifteen billion dollars is not small change.
In other jurisdictions, if $15 billion disappears, the following day headlines would say ‘President Resigns’, ‘Vice President Resigns’ or
‘Minister of Finance Resigns’. The whole Cabinet should have resigned – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – How do you continue to run a country when $15 billion disappears under your watch and you behave as if it is normal? It is not normal. This country’s budget is $4 billion …
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Member, please
address the Chair.
HON. MARIDADI: Our budget was supposed to be $4 billion and it was revised downwards to about $3, 7/3, 9 billion. Our GDP, Hon.
Paradza put it at $14 billion but I think it is $12 billion. In the same country $15 billion disappears Madam Speaker, and Ministers continue to come to Parliament driving vehicles worth $300 000 for each, as if nothing happened. Madam Speaker, today Zimbabwe has a population of about 13 million. If you divide $15 billion which His Excellency said disappeared, with 13 million people, each Zimbabwean is entitled to $1 157.86 cents. What it means is that the person who stole that money, if you count that we have here about 75 Members of Parliament including the Hon. Vice President. That person has stolen about $76 000.000 from us here in Parliament as we are seated.
If you say $15 billion disappeared as a Head of State, you must in the same breath be able to say how you intend to recover the money and to bring to justice those that have stolen the money. You do not say $15 billion disappeared and you drink water and you go to sleep as if nothing has happened. It does not happen like that.-[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear]- Madam Speaker, that building in Ethiopia symbolises the leadership in the country. –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- That building symbolises the leadership that we have in this country ...
HON. MUKANDURI: On a point of order.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order Hon. Mukanduri?
HON. MUKANDURI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I think the
Hon. Member should stick to the motion. He is attacking the leadership... –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members. I want
to hear what he is saying. You are not presiding, I am the one presiding and so I have to hear what he is saying.
HON. MUKANDURI: He should attack the mistakes that have
been made if there are any but not to attack the leadership. I think that cannot be taken lightly. –[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear]-
HON. MARIDADI: Madam Speaker, I would have wanted to
respond to him but I am not going to respond because I do not have very kind words for a person of that caliber. So, I will not respond.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ah, ah, order Hon. Member.
You are out of order now. Can you please withdraw what you have said?
HON. MARIDADI: I withdraw.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would you please proceed
with your debate.
HON. MARIDADI: Thank you Madam Speaker. if you go to my
house today, what you see reflects on me. If you go to my house today and you see my wife with blue eyes because I punched her last night, it is a reflection of who I am. If you go into my bedroom and you see one of the legs to my bed broken and one of my blankets is so small that my wife and myself cannot fit in there when we sleep at night one is uncovered, it also shows the kind of person that I am ...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Member. Would
you please concentrate on debating on the issue of the report of the Foreign Affairs Portfolio Committee, not about your house and your wife?
HON. MARIDADI: Madam Speaker, last year the Deputy
Minister of Foreign Affairs, who then was Hon. C. Mutsvangwa said, and this is on record and can be verified, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is hopelessly incompetent. This is on record and I am not manufacturing. I said to myself, why would a Deputy Minister say that about his boss? Looking at what we have seen today, it is a reflection of incompetence and nothing else. So, what it means is that, with hindsight Hon. Mutsvangwa has just been vindicated and he is having the last laugh. –[HONB. MEMBERS: Hear, hear]-
Madam Speaker, when you talk about the situation in Zimbabwe, and you talk about the situation in our Embassies, you are talking about two things. These are the state of the economy and the state of leadership. There is a dearth of leadership in this country and there is no question about that. This is why today I cannot explain to my son who is 19 years old what it means for a country to lose $15 billion and no one is held accountable.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would you please avoid
repeating.
HON. J. TSHUMA: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. J. TSHUMA: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member keeps on
getting lost in the debate that he is supposed to be talking about today. Please, can you make sure that he does not waste our time and stick to item number 4 which is talking about the Embassy in Ethiopia, not his house, children or whatever?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Madambanadzo, you
had a point of order?
*HON. MATAMBANADZO: Yes, thank you Madam Speaker,
for according me an opportunity to raise a point of order. I think the
Hon. Member was saying it in English, but I have heard what he was saying. I think at school, you always laugh at me...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is our point of order?
*HON. MATAMBANADZO: What you should do is to blame
the Minister not the President. What wrong has the President done or the Vice President. You have your President Tsvangirai, why did you not remove him. You can start from there. That is why you are a party of so many factions because there is...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Member, we
have heard your point of order. I think the concerns of the Hon. Members are on the attack on the President. Can you please proceed with your debate and please avoid what you have already said.
HON. MARIDADI: Thank you Madam Speaker. When we were shown those images, they were the images of the Embassy of Malawi, Chad, Rwanda, Gambia and then the Embassy of Zimbabwe. We want to say of those five countries whose images we saw, Zimbabwe has the highest GDP, literacy rate, and was once the bread basket of Africa and yet, those images show the reverse of all that. When you see the Embassy of Malawi, do you want to say is it by accident that they have a building like that or there is somebody who knows what he is doing in Malawi for them to be able to construct such Embassies? In the same breath, when you see our Embassy like that, you say is it because God is punishing us? Is it a coincidence that our Embassy building is like that or there is somebody not doing what he is supposed to be doing?
As Hon. Matambanadzo said in his point of order that I must not blame anyone but blame the Minister who has failed to work, I have already blamed the Minister. The solution now is not to just blame and attack but you must also proffer solution. Here are my solutions: Firstly, we must not have Embassies in all the countries because we are Zimbabwe. Let us have Embassies where it is necessary, where there are measurable outputs. That is what we need to do. Ministers should be accountable to Zimbabwe through Parliament. Ministers should have measurable deliverables and I think the state of our Embassies in Ethiopia and in Botswana are a reflection that the Minister is not capable of doing what he is supposed to do.
As such, my other recommendation is that His Excellency the President must ask the Minister to give him the opportunity to appoint someone else who will do a better job. Failure of which, I think this House, through the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, must then ask the Minister kindly, to come and give evidence, after which they must give a recommendation that the Minister must just resign on his own and avoid the embarrassment of being fired. Because the way I see it, everyone who is in this House, including the Vice President, has realised that the Minister is not capable and as such he must step aside and then give us an opportunity to have someone else who is capable. I think this is the way to go.
Thirdly, Madam Speaker, this country must start to take its people seriously. We cannot have an Ambassador because an Ambassador, unlike what people believe, is representing the country. The ambassador first and foremost, is representing the President because he is appointed by the President. That is why an Ambassador, apart from the President himself, is the only person called His Excellency. One is called His Excellency because we are saying you are not capable of making a mistake in a foreign land. That is why our Ambassador in Ethiopia cannot be arrested.
For the Ambassador in Ethiopia to be arrested or even to be fined, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia will talk to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Zimbabwe and the Ambassador is probably sent back home. He is never arrested because if they arrest the Ambassador in Ethiopia, it is tantamount to arresting the President of this country. So, the Ambassador is a very important person, but that is not how you treat an important person. What it means is that the Government is not caring. It is not even caring about its own President. Our Government is uncaring.
Madam Speaker, an uncaring Government – the way we treat our Ambassador is exactly the same way we are treating our vendors out there. It is exactly the same. The way the Ambassador is being treated is exactly the same way we are being treated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has put so much energy into denying Members of Parliament Diplomatic passports. If he had put such energy into running foreign embassies, I am telling you, our Ambassadors would be sitting in glass houses.
If you write a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs at 2.00 p.m. this afternoon asking for him to give you a waver and get a diplomatic passport, the Minister will respond by 2.30 p.m. and he will deny it and will give you a whole list of legislation and reasons. He will sign the letter himself. Even if he is in a foreign country, they will fax to him, he will sign and will send it back by fax. He is a man who puts energy in the wrong things. So, we cannot have a Government which employs people who put energy in the wrong things. I want to say it loud and clear that when you have been appointed by a person, that person cannot always come after you and say what is going on. If you show those images to the President, I am sure he will faint and he will say vaMbegegwi what is going on? I was Chairman of the AU. Is that what you did to my image? Because those images destroyed the image of His Excellency the President completely and totally. For the same person who has been responsible for destroying the image of the President to then go to SADC purporting to be representing Zimbabwe and the
President, it is a traverse of justice and it must not be allowed to happen.
In conclusion Madam Speaker, I wish to say I am glad the Vice
President is here and I know the Vice President is a man of action.
HON. NDUNA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is now saying in conclusion. He has brought about three issues that he believes are a solution to this issue. I was listening and I thought he would add the two that I need to say. This is what he needs to say. He should make a clarion call. He should ask this House to make a clarion call for the removal of sanctions on this country. The countries he spoke about are not under siege because of sanctions. He should also call for the criminalisation for all those that called for sanctions on this country. This is the reason we are in the current state. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Maridadi please
continue with your debate.
HON. MARIDADI: Madam Speaker, I am glad the Hon. Member attempted to raise a point of order which you have ruled not to be a point of order. He talks about sanctions. Madam Speaker, I want to get into that debate of sanctions.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You cannot get into the
debate of sanctions because of the point of order.
HON. MARIDADI: No, in the context of my debate. It is not sanctions which made US$15 billion disappear, it is not sanctions which are supposed to repair a building in Ethiopia, it is not sanctions which put on the agenda that the Cabinet should discuss about sprucing up a building in Ethiopia. Madam Speaker it is not sanctions that people are not paid on time, it is not sanctions that we have 22 000 people on the civil service salary bill who are not supposed to be there. Today,
Madam Speaker, the Hon. Mariyawanda-Nzuwa said the reason we have a bloated Cabinet is because we have too many Ministers who are employing people without going through the Public Service. That is not a result of sanctions, but it is as a result of Ministers who do not know what they are doing.
Thank you Madam Speaker, my time is up, but I think I have made a clarion call and I want to reiterate that Minister Mumbegegwi must go yesterday. Thank you.
[Time limit]
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Matambanadzo, would
you please resume your seat please.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE,
LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA: Madam Speaker may I appeal to Hon.
Matambanadzo not to feel offended. You will continue tomorrow to debate the motion. Because of other commitments I had promised last week in this House that I would reply to the motion on child marriages.
So, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 16the March, 2016.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE,
LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA): I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 5 to 25 be stood over until Order of the Day, Number 26 has been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
UNLAWFUL PRACTICES OF CHILD MARRIAGES
Twenty Sixth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on rampant unlawful practice of child marriages in Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS: Thank you Madam
Speaker. I rise to give response to the motion raised by Hon.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga on unlawful practices of child marriages. Madam Speaker, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga raised a very salient motion, touching mainly on the need to:-
- Amend the Marriages Act, Customary Marriages Act, Criminal
Codification and Reform Act and Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, such that child marriages are criminalised and the age of sexual consent be 18 years;
- Review the Children’s Act to ensure that the rights enshrined in the
Constitution are apparent and iii) That Government, civic society and the Church adopt and implement a systematic programme of education around issues of child marriages, sexual abuse and patriarchy in Zimbabwe.
This is in compliance with the Constitutional Court judgment in the case of Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi vs the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Others, CCZ12/2015.
Madam Speaker, I will hasten to say that the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs was not merely waiting for a judgment outlawing child marriages in order to act. The new Constitution, as mentioned in the judgment, set the minimum age of marriage at 18 years. The Ministry has since identified all pieces of legislation requiring alignment in this regard.
For the benefit of the concerns raised, I will give a summary of the proposed statutes to be amended in compliance with both the Constitution and the Constitutional Court judgment.
a)Marriages Act
This section provides for solemnisation of the marriage of a minor with the consent of the guardian or of the High Court. This section should be repealed as it is contrary to Section 78 of the Constitution.
Section 21 – Marriage of minors without consent voidable but not void
This section provides that a marriage of a minor which was solemnised without the consent of the guardian or the High Court may be declared to be void by the High Court. This section should be repealed for the reason mentioned above.
Section 22
The judgment makes specific mention of Section 22 of the Marriages Act as being unconstitutional. Section 22(1) of the Act provides that no boy under the age of 18 and no girl under the age of 16 shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage except with the written permission of the Minister. This subsection should be amended to provide that no person under the age of 18 years shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] - Subsections (2) and (3) which envisage that the Minister can give permission to persons under the age of 18 to marry should also be repealed – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] –
- b) Customary Marriages Act
Age of marriage
The Act is silent as to the age of marriage. The Act should be amended by insertion of a provision that no person under the age of 18 years shall be capable of contracting a marriage in terms of the Act –
[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] –
Section 3 – Marriages not valid unless solemnised
The section provides that a marriage contracted according to customary law shall not be a valid marriage unless it is solemnized in terms of the Act. (Although we are all aware that an unregistered customary law marriage is recognised for numerous purposes which include inheritance, adultery and incest). This section should be amended to provide that, notwithstanding the invalidity of the unregistered customary law marriage, no person under the age of 18 years shall be capable of contracting an unregistered customary law marriage.
Offences
Unlike the Marriage Act, the Customary Act does not criminalise the making of false representations or false statements or the solemnisation of a marriage officer in contravention of the Act. The offence of the solemnisation of a marriage by a marriage officer in contravention of the Act of making false representations and false statements should be created in the Act. The Act should also make it an offence for a guardian or other person to enter into a lobola agreement – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] – or other customary marriage arrangement or ceremony in respect of a person under the age of 18.
c) Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act
Section 70 – Sexual intercourse or performing indecent acts with young persons.
In terms of the Act, it is an offence for any person to have extramarital sex with a young person. This section should be amended to remove the reference to extra-marital sex so that it becomes an offence in all cases to have sex with a young person – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear] –
Age of consent for girls
The judgment does not require the legislature to take any action as regards the age at which a child can consent to sex. Indeed, it is the Courts’ view that pregnancies of girls below the age of 18 were a social issue. Any changes to the age of consent would therefore require prior and extensive consultations with the public.
Despite the fact that we have identified the sections that need to be amended, it would be noble to conduct consultations to analyse the consequences these amendments would make on children who are already part of child marriages. It would be fundamental to provide for protective measures in order to cater for scenarios like guardianship rights for minors who have children whilst under age, property rights, inheritance rights and locus standi in marriage for children who are already victims of child marriages. Further consultations in this regard will enable the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to get concerns from stakeholders and map the best protection provisions.
Madam Speaker, I would also like to mention that extensive work on the Children’s Amendment Bill is already at an advanced stage. The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Services, in collaboration with the Inter Ministerial Taskforce on Alignment of Legislation to the
Constitution has already come up with a draft Children’s Bill. In that Bill, a child is defined as any person under the age of 18 years. So, anybody who is under 18 years is regarded as a child. However, we have persons already married away by their parents who are under 18.
As we amend that section, we would want to benefit from Hon. Members on how they want us to treat cases which are already in existence. The Bill will also incorporate the children’s rights as enshrined in the new Constitution.
Madam Speaker, on the need to adopt and implement a systematic programme of education around issues of child marriages, sexual abuse and patriarchy in Zimbabwe. I am happy to advise the House that Government has made great in roads in raising awareness in those issues. A two pronged approach has been adopted namely; raising awareness through the advocacy programmes conducted in all the country’s ten provinces and
Secondly, the Ministry has initiated partnerships between the
Ministry, civic society and church based organisations. The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, in partnerships with UNICEF and ACPDT produced summarised versions of children’s rights in English, Shona, Ndebele and Tonga and these have so far been distributed in Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Matebeleland South, Harare, Bulawayo, Midlands, Manicaland and Masvingo provinces. Capacity building workshops with small groups of children have been conducted under the same programme.
As soon as the consultations are finalised, which I believe that the advocates in this House will also bring amendments and come forward to us and give us their views on how to deal with the current situation where people are already in that situation. The Ministry will instruct the Attorney-General to promptly work at the aforementioned amendments once we are told and agreed on how to move forward. I will conclude by mentioning that the Government remains committed to ensuring that all the Constitutional obligations are carried out diligently and without delay in particular, where we have to protect our young persons. I thank you.
HON. GONESE: Madam Speaker, I think it is within my constitutional right to debate on just one issue – the age of consent. I want to do it when the Vice President is here –[HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections]- I appeal to my brother, my core-pilot the Chief Whip for Hon. Members on your right just to bear with me. I think it is an important issue for all of us.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, like what he is saying,
just one issue.
HON. GONESE: Thank you very much for your indulgence Madam Speaker. I also wish to thank the other Hon. Members for their understanding.
The reason why I stood up is firstly to thank the Hon. Vice President particularly in regard to the amendments which he has promised to bring to this august House. Be that as it may, I believe that on the age of consent, there are just a few points which I wish to make. I do understand and appreciate where the Hon. Vice President is coming from when he talks about the issue of consultations. However, my fear is that there are a lot of people who have been taking advantage of the lacuna in the law.
I believe that for all of us, when we look at the people below the age of 18, whether it is a boy or a girl, we must all appreciate that these are children. They have no business being fathers and mothers. They should be in schools. We would want all our children to proceed to tertiary education. We all know that there are a lot of children who have had their education cut short because if it is in the case of girls, they have fallen pregnant. The point that I want to emphasise is that in the majority of cases, it is because of elderly men who have been taking advantage of these young children. I think that the mischief that we want to deal with when we talk about amendment of Section 70 is the mischief of the older people. I know that there are a few occasions where sometimes we can have elderly women taking advantage of young boys. Those are just minuscule if we compare with the situation where young girls are being abused by elderly men.
I believe that it is imperative for this august House to call upon the Vice President to bring an amendment to that particular Section so that it criminalises having sexual intercourse with a person below the age of eighteen, whether it is a boy or a girl. These consultations should come when we already have a draft Bill. That is the reason why we go for public hearings. The portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs will then move around with that draft Bill.
I am calling upon the Minister to bring the draft Bill now and not tomorrow or next year so that we can deal with that particular problem of the age of consent. We do not want people to have excuses because people have been saying time and again that what is going to happen to those girls who fall pregnant when they are above the age of sixteen and below the age of eighteen. That is what we want to deal with now.
We can only deal with it effectively when we amend the law and criminalise having sexual intercourse and when we are going to have a mismatch between the age of consent and age of marriage. What it means is that everyone is free to have sexual intercourse with a girl above the age of sixteen but below the age of eighteen. It is going to be very difficult to deal with that particular situation. This is the reason why I am saying that we do not want to waste any more time.
If we are going to do any consultations, let us do them when we already have a draft Bill. I do not see what should be the problem. All the adults in this august House, whether it is the Hon. male or female members, I do not think any one of us if you have got a child at home; if you have got a child at home – I have got a fifteen year old daughter, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to look at my daughter as a potential wife at this point in time. Right now she is doing form three.
When she gets to the age of seventeen, she will only be doing form five.
We believe that no one should even contemplate taking someone who has not gone for tertiary education as a wife. For that reason, I am imploring the Hon. Vice President not to delay any further coming up with a draft Bill.
If we do the consultations, let us do them on the draft Bill and not on the issue of the principle. I rest my case.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE,
LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA): I am surprised that my learned brother did not understand the issues of a learned brother.
We are criminalising any sexual relations between any young person or anybody, boy or girl who is below the age of eighteen. Where I said I will seek consultation in the Bill is in relation to those girls who already have kids or who are already married. Are we going to have retrospective application of the law or not? That is the area I am consulting.
My learned brother slipped in understanding matters of legal standing. I thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE,
LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA): I move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 16th March, 2016.
On the motion of THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER
OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
MNANGAGWA), the House adjourned at Twenty Five Minutes to Six o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 11th March, 2021.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. SPEAKER
NON ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have received a non-adverse report from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on the following Bill and Statutory Instruments; Pensions and Provident Fund Bill, [H. B. 17, 2019]. Secondly, Statutory Instrument Numbers 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56 and 57, published in the Gazette during the month of February 2021.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, my point of National interest emanates from the hike of school fees in private schools. We have tried to understand how best it can be solved but there seems to be an understanding that private schools govern themselves. The Education Act also talks about schools and education in this country which automatically have got to conform to that. We have had the COVID period but the hikes are not justified. First of all, children are not going to school, so there is no food in terms of boarding in the schools. There is no sport in terms of transport and all that, and there is no laundry. So automatically the fees are reduced as a result of some of these services that I have spoken about. There is more. There is online which is going on and it is the parents who are paying for the bundles. Not only that, parents they must be commended for they have become teachers too. I know Mr. Speaker, even yourself with your grandchildren, you are now forced to be a teacher because of what is happening and this is not at all new to most parents and grandparents.
Why then do you increase school fees? What justification is there? A lot of parents are not able to talk about this because they feel victimized. I have a number of friends; I also have some of my children in these schools and when you want to ask you fear that your children will be victimised and because of that, you keep quiet and it is not fair. So we now need a position in terms of this but the position is not coming through.
It is my humble submission to your good office, that the Parliamentary Committee chaired by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga interrogates this further because I do not think this House has that time. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education must be there, the private schools trust boards must be there as well and understand the justification because the COVID period certainly has not at all helped anybody in business the world-over. So how unique are we?
The sad thing is that people are now going to their savings. They are going to their savings which are supposed to be something that they fall back on when there are emergencies – funerals and so on. Now, the savings are no longer there and the pensions which they think they must enjoy, some of the people are now using that. That Mr. Speaker Sir, has become a cause of concern and it needs to be further interrogated so that we understand why there is a hike in school fees especially in the private schools. Not only that, even in Government schools as well, because there has not been money coming through. I think we need to represent people honestly as long as they are Zimbabweans. Whether it is a private institution or not, we have the aspect of oversight in protecting the citizenry in those issues. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Mliswa. I think this is a pertinent issue of national interest affecting both the pupils as well as their parents. So I am directing that the Committee on Primary and Secondary Education invites the Minister, Permanent Secretary and the leaders of trust schools to come and justify these increases against the economic situation that has been so negative as a result of COVID-19. So Acting Clerk Mrs. Sunga, will you advise the Committee accordingly so that this is done at the earliest possible time, but not in more than two weeks time.
HON. MAVETERA: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Hon. Speaker Sir, today is quite a sad day for the film industry of Zimbabwe. We have lost one famous actress here in Zimbabwe, an excellent one indeed in acting, Anne Nhira who is popularly known as Vimbai Jari in the film Studio 263. It is quite sad and may her dear soul rest in peace. She was mugged in South Africa…
THE HON. SPEAKER: I did not quite get the name.
HON. MAVETERA: Anne Nhira. She was the main actor in Studio 263, one of the ever most popular soaps here in Zimbabwe. Mr. Speaker Sir, it is quite disheartening and very sad to note that she had actually gone to South Africa to try to make ends meet and also try to pursue her career in acting. This is women’s month where we celebrate women and it is quite sad that she had to lose her life during this period.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we need to look at the nature of the film industry here in Zimbabwe. Truly speaking, if you look at Nigeria and I have said this a lot of times - when it comes to film making, they actually earn a lot of foreign currency on number two after oil, but here in Zimbabwe it seems like we are taking and looking down upon the film industry. I am calling upon the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting services to take it upon themselves so that at least they can then be able to make sure that acting will actually bringing foreign currency for Zimbabwe.
If you look at it Mr. Speaker Sir, she would not have lost her life I would say, but of course God has the final. Truly speaking, if we are going to create a conducive environment here in Zimbabwe for filming, it will go a long way. Mr. Speaker Sir, we appreciate all the funds that are currently there, but they are a bit on the minimum side. The film industry needs a lot of capacity; it needs a lot of money for it to go forward. Today, Zimbabwe is crying about the death of Anne Nhira yet they have not capacitated the industry.
It is not good for us to be crying but it is better than for us to be rectifying issues whereby we are able to make sure that there is a conducive environment. Zvinoreva kuti hatingayeuki bako tanaiwa. Mr. Speaker Sir, it is very important for us to capacitate this industry, also not forgetting the music industry. Just two weeks ago, we were also in another crying mood whereby we were mourning the death of Soul Jah Love, but if you look at it we are not capacitating them. When they die we cry so much, but we are not having the opportunity to actually build them up and also helping them grow.
So Mr. Speaker Sir, I am calling upon the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services to take it upon themselves to capacitate the film industry, the music industry and the arts industry so that it goes on well. May her dear soul rest in peace. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I share your condolences and may her soul rest in peace. I think you raise a very important aspect of our very key sector industry. The potential is there and I would have preferred that you raise this through a motion so that there is debate in the House and the responsible Minister must answer accordingly as to why the industry is neglected. Would you accept?
HON. MAVETERA: Yes Hon. Speaker, I will do that.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Hon. Speaker for recognising me. Hon. Speaker, I raise a point of privilege pertaining to myself being a resident to the north of Harare. The issue here is very simple. The City of Harare service and supply seems to be issued in two batches. One to the CBD and Harare to the north including Hatcliffe is totally forgotten. For the sake of Hatcliffe, it might as well be part of Goromonzi. They receive nothing when it comes to waste. In 20 years they have not had one metre of tar put in and they have no water. These times when it rains people walk barefoot to work so that they can clean their feet and get in the buses. This is unacceptable Mr. Speaker Sir.
My issue is very simple, we are now in a serious situation where we have been shut down for a year but nothing has happened. By the admission at the City of Harare at the end of November last year, $5.5 billion was uncollected in rates and they have done nothing. I have seen nothing to make an effort to collect the $5.5. billion yet in the budget which has been sanctioned and in my case - my rates have gone up 400% from $800 to over $3000. That is the same for all our residents, whether they are in high density or in low density throughout the whole of City of Harare. Why should I pay more money when they are not collecting the debts? They have admitted that 32% of people are paying rates, the rest are not.
The question is why should I continue paying rates, why should I continue paying my rates when the guy next door is not paying his rates, and yet City of Harare - and I would like to include Local Government here because Local Government should be forcing them to collect the rates. It is no use putting mine up 400% so I pay because more people will drop out. Mr. Speaker Sir, there are two issues which are really burning with no one, including people in this House will listen to. We have heard in City of Harare that over 100 nurses have resigned and no one is bothered about that. In the Northern suburbs we have got 4 clinics closed except for Thursday afternoon, but no one is bothered about it. It shocked us when it comes to the workers of the Council - only up to grade 12 have been paid this year. Anyone with a grade higher than 12 has not been paid this year, the last payment was in December.
Asi tinoramba takatarisa chete, tinoramba tirikuchema chete. It is serious and no one wants to fix it. Now in my particular incident and the reasons that I am coming here to Parliament, I have got 3 examples: firstly I have paid my rates up to the end of January, I have no intention of paying my rates again until they make a determined effort to collect the $5.5 billion outstanding. I can tell you now, the rest of the residents in the Northern suburbs are going to do the same as this continues. However, for Hon. Markham, as soon as that final demand comes, we will discuss it because there is $5.5 billion up there and you want me to carry them. I am not paying them one mete more.
My second point is City of Harare were bequest a park in Borrowdale West by an Estate to be looked after as a park. In my area, we have fixed and handed those 3 parks that were redundant by City of Harare to the residents; nothing to do with me but the residents have done a sterling job. In Borrowdale West they failed to get City of Harare to agree to the same conditions of a 3 to 7 year lease. I have the sale contact for that park by City of Harare to a company, yet it was bequest as a park to the City of Harare. Someone in his wealth leaves us a park and we sell it for development. I have a question.
The third thing which really irritates me Mr. Speaker, there is a market at the Racecourse, Mashonaland Turf Club called Stables Market, that is the most hygienic, clean and COVID-19 abiding market in Harare. They have been closed down because the paper work in not in order. There are between 55 and 65 stores - you can get up to a thousand people there and they only work on Saturday. I have no problems of the orders of the papers being wrong, that can be fixed but why close it and why close them when every other market in the Northern areas remains open and they have not even attempted to get a horse permit, an environment permit or obtain a permit.
It appears that this is now going too far so my plea is three fold; firstly, I would beg the Ministry of Local Government to do a land audit on all land sales - 3010 particularly in the Northern suburbs. My second one is I request immediately that the Minister looks into when an Estate gives people, bequeaths something to City of Harare as a party you give it away or you sell it. My last point is very simple, I stated it clearly and I will state it again, I will not pay any rates to City of Harare from the 1st February this year until they start a debt collection and start collecting money from everyone, not just from people like me. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Can I suggest that those 3 pertinent observations, you put them in writing for written question for next week, so that the Minister can answer them in detail.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Mr. Speaker, I stand guided.
HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker, we now have one season gone without young men kicking football, football is a sport and our country as Zimbabwe is expected to compete at the highest level. I implore the Minister of sport and culture to come to this House and produce a report as to what she has been doing from last year and what she intends to do with our children who are losing several opportunities. If we look at Tino Kadewere Mr. Speaker right now in France, he can pay us all as Members of Parliament one month with his weekly wages.
You look at Marvelous Nakamba, he can do even more because his talent might be even higher. A lot of countries have developed - actually soccer players in Ivory Coast contribute a significant amount to the GDP of the Ivory Coast. In Zimbabwe, it seems we are even not aware that there is sport. Right now we expect our cricketers in Abu Dhabi to do wonders, where we are now competing with countries like Afghanistan where there are bombs everyday - 500 Rand is unacceptable. You then blame our team, they are mediocre, they do not understand sport and the like but the local league is not running at the moment. Our athletes, you expect them to go to the Olympic in Japan considering how COVID-19 cases are getting down, the Olympics might be held this year and we expect our children to go there and compete. Actually we have the resources to transport people...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Our athletes.
HON. MADZIMURE: Our athletes, Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of Sport as a sports person herself, an athlete herself a great athlete must at least show that she was appointed to be a Minister because of the special skills that she has and the experience that she has. So, Mr. Speaker, I implore the Minister to come and tell us when our people are going to start to kick football in this country and what she has done from the time when we were denied the chance to host the cup of nations match against Algeria. Those improvements that need to be done to stadiums, what has happened and what is the state of our stadiums right now. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAEKR: Your concerns are shared by the Committee on Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation and they should be presenting a report very soon whereby the Hon. Minister concerned will respond accordingly and give us some timelines. Thank you.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that Order of the Day Number 1 to 11 on today’s Order Paper be stood over until Order Number 12 has been disposed of.
HON. CHIKUKWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC WORKS AND NATIONAL HOUSING ON ZIMBABWE OLD PEOPLE ASSOCIATION’S PETITION ON LACK OF SERVICE DELIVERY BY CHITUNGWIZA MUNICIPALITY AND PENSIONS
HON. CHIKUKWA: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works and National Housing on the Zimbabwe Old People Association’s petition on lack of service delivery by Chitungwiza Municipality and Pensions that had been eroded by inflation.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: I second.
Introduction:
HON. CHIKUKWA: According to Section 149 of the Constitution, read together with Standing Order No. 191 and Appendix E, every citizen and permanent resident of Zimbabwe has a right to petition Parliament to consider any matter within its authority, including the enactment, amendment or repeal of legislation.
On 24 October 2019, the Speaker of the National Assembly informed the House that Parliament had received a petition from Zimbabwe Old People Association (ZOPA) beseeching Parliament to look into the issues of lack of service delivery by Chitungwiza Municipality and pensions benefits which were eroded by inflation. The petition was referred to the Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works and National Housing.
Methodology
The Committee invited ZOPA to a meeting to discuss the issues they raised in their petition on 25 February, 2020. The Committee also invited the Management of Chitungwiza Municipality on Tuesday, 29 September 2020 to respond to issues raised in the petition by ZOPA. The Committee deliberated on the submissions and came up with recommendations.
Committee’s Findings
Submissions by Pensioners
The petitioners were aggrieved that their pension contributions had been eroded by inflation, resulting in some beneficiaries getting between ZWL $30 and $80 per month as their retirement pension payouts. The petitioners complained that while they were still working, they made contributions to NSSA monthly as pension contributions and expected to get meaningful pension payouts at their retirement age. They argued that NSSA and other pension funds such as Local Authorities Pension Fund (LAPF) and Unified Pension Fund collect the contributions and in-turn invested the money so that pensioners are paid decent amounts to enable the elderly to live a comfortable life after retirement. ZOPA complained that the amounts paid to pensioners were inadequate to look after senior citizens, who tend to have ailments such as high blood pressure and diabetes. The pension payouts were insufficient for the elderly to buy food, medication and pay their utility bills.
ZOPA believed that their valuable contributions were invested by the respective pension houses. Much to their dismay, they were receiving meagre payments from these pension houses.
The petitioners wanted pension houses to adjust the payments they were receiving to match the current economic demands. In February 2020 when the petitioners met with the Committee, they suggested that a minimum of ZWL$5000 was required for an individual pensioner’s sustenance. ZOPA accused Chitungwiza Municipality of not remitting the funds they deducted from workers as pension contributions to LAPF.
The petitioners claimed that pension files for some former Council employees were missing from Chitungwiza Municipality offices. ZOPA accused Chitungwiza Municipality of deliberately misplacing the missing files, as a way of depriving employees from getting their pensions and other benefits.
Lack of Service Delivery by Chitungwiza Municipality
The petitioners complained bitterly about the poor state of the road network in Chitungwiza which they said was characterised by potholes. They felt that a lot can be done by the Council to maintain the roads using funds from ZINARA.
The petitioners informed the Committee that most households in Chitungwiza had no tapped water. They claimed that only houses built on low lying areas were receiving water. ZOPA expressed concern that residents were being billed for water that they never accessed.
ZOPA claimed that people were allocated stands on wetlands and when they asked Chitungwiza Municipality why they were settling people on wetlands, the Council shifted blame to land barons. The Committee was informed that there were a lot of illegal settlements in Chitungwiza with some houses built on sewer pipes causing sewer bursts. For most Chitungwiza suburbs raw sewer was said to be flowing along the roads.
The petitioners also said property files of residents went missing at Chitungwiza Municipality. It was alleged that most missing files belonged to deceased persons of foreign origin who came from Malawi or Mozambique and settled in Chitungwiza. It was further alleged that the files were missing for some time, but eventually resurfaced after two or three years with different names, stating that the late home owners had sold their house to the new home owners. ZOPA claimed that the relatives of the deceased were usually not aware of the changes in ownership and blamed Council officials for engaging in such corrupt activities. It was submitted that some residents who were on a rent to buy scheme did not get their title deeds after contributing for twenty five years.
The petitioners further complained that Chitungwiza Council properties were being leased to private players and Council was collecting rentals from such properties. Of concern to petitioners was the issue of stands for recreational facilities which were turned into residential stands. The petitioners felt that the recreational facilities should be used for the intended purposes.
Oral Evidence from Chitungwiza Municipality Management
The Acting CEO, Mrs. Machona admitted that there had been delays in pensioners getting their dues from pension houses due to the current prevailing difficult macro-economic situation in the country. She admitted that pensioners were not getting pensions because the Chitungwiza Municipality was not remitting pension contributions in full to the Funds. She mentioned that the Council had two pension funds namely, the Unified Pension Fund and the Local Authority Pension Fund (LAPF). The little that was being remitted to Pension Funds was the main reason for failure by Pension Houses to pay meaningful pension payouts to pensioners.
The Committee was informed that Chitungwiza Council had managed to settle the outstanding payments with Unified Pension Fund and that the pensioners were now accessing their pension through Unified Pension Fund. The Council was in the process of settling its debt with LAPF to bring its members up to date with payments.
Road Maintenance
In response to the poorly maintained road network, Chitungwiza Municipality informed the Committee that it had last received funds for road maintenance from ZINARA in December 2019 and the disbursements were inadequate to undertake meaningful road maintenance. Council was therefore, using its own funds to carry out its road repairs and the amount was not enough to make any significant impact. The Council indicated that it did not receive any disbursement from ZINARA in 2020. Chitungwiza Municipality established a roads levy as a way to bolster its funds for road maintenance. However, very little revenue has been collected from this levy because residents were not paying.
Water Supply
The Committee was informed that Chitungwiza Council used some of the ZWL$11.1 million allocated by Central Government under devolution funds to address the water situation. Chitungwiza Council Management said that it drilled twenty five boreholes in each ward using the first tranche of the devolution funds. Another thirteen boreholes were drilled using the second tranche of the devolution funds. The Committee was informed that the thirty eight boreholes drilled were still not enough to meet the water requirements for residents. The Management emphasised the need to have a permanent source of water for Chitungwiza and not rely on Harare City Council for its water requirements. The Council had wanted to drill more boreholes but there was no water at some sites. The Council was in the process of installing the solar system for pumping water from the boreholes that were drilled. The Council said it had requested for permission from the Provincial District Coordinator to construct a dam in Chitungwiza as a matter of urgency. The Council was informed that government was sourcing funds to construct Kunzvi, Muda and Nyatsime Dams. Council officials said if Nyatsime Dam could be constructed, it will solve the water problems for Chitungwiza. It was highlighted that Chitungwiza Municipality was receiving 30 mega litres of water per week against a requirement of 490 mega litres.
The Works Manager of Chitungwiza Council explained that non-revenue water was estimated to be 58%. Non revenue water was due to old pipes that burst frequently and illegal connections. Due to low pressure, the Committee learnt that low lying areas receive water once per week while high areas receive water after a period of three weeks.
Sewer Reticulation
Chitungwiza reticulation system was said to be old and had outlived its design life. It was pointed out that the issue of limited water flows was causing sewer clogging hence many blockages in the suburbs of Chitungwiza. The Council was promised financial assistance from Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) to the tune of U$1.8 million for sewer reticulation. The tender processes were underway for the pipes to be revamped in order to meet the requirements of the growing population.
Refuse Collection
In terms of refuse collection, Chitungwiza had only one functional refuse collection truck while the other ones were more than 20 years old and not functional. It was submitted that the Council was unable to conduct door to door refuse collection because of lack of refuse collection trucks. The Council was planning to use some of the devolution funds to buy refuse collection trucks. Chitungwiza Municipality had no proper landfill and was using a dump site which was not a safe and sustainable way for solid waste disposal.
Unreliable Billing System
The Chitungwiza Council officials indicated that the issue of inaccurate bills emanated from the billing system based on estimates and they were working flat out to rectify the problem. It was pointed out that water meters were vandalised making it impossible to come up with the actual readings. Additionally, the erratic supply of water to Chitungwiza forces the Council to bill residents using estimates. The Council informed the Committee that they were trying by all means to have water meters fixed so that they do away with estimates bills.
Missing Records for Properties
On the issue of missing property files, as alleged by the petitioners, the Council availed to the Committee the files which were said to be missing. The Municipality officials explained that the problem of missing files was because of the Council’s Registry which was manual resulting in poor records management. The Committee was informed that the Council was working towards computerising the Registry Department.
The Committee sought from Council Management how frequent residents’ files went missing and the Director of Housing explained that the case that was reported by ZOPA as missing related to Stand No. 8479, Unit K, Seke. The Director explained that the information in the file shows that the stand had changed ownership following a High Court Order under Case No. 6353 of 2008. Council, was ordered to transfer this property into this new person’s name. The Council said they complied and the change of ownership forms were filled in by the Deputy Sheriff according to the order. The Deputy Sherriff signed in on behalf of the first respondent who was Ms. Demetria Tapfuma who was being represented by ZOPA in the case.
The Housing Director further explained that the circumstances in the ‘missing’ file show that at one time, this Ms. Demetria Tapfuma sold the property to the people who are now the new owners of this stand. It is alleged that she was refusing to change ownership and the new owners had to go to the courts and the request was granted in favour of the new owner.
The Housing of Director further explained that the issue of missing files was a very insignificant portion. With regards to the ZOPA group, the Council was presented with two cases of missing files and these were retrieved.
Illegal Settlements
The Council officials acknowledged that there were illegal settlements in Chitungwiza and were thankful that there was a Task Force which was established by the PDC to deal with land invasion. This Task Force was going to deal with every land invasion that was done since 2007 to date. The Council was in the process of identifying wet lands and people who built on top of sewer lines.
The Director of Housing explained that the issue of home ownership and title deeds should be approached on an individual basis. She further explained that Chitungwiza Council was only administering state land and did not have municipal land. Transfer of land was Government’s role and the local authority did not issue title deeds. The Council said they had engaged the residents to come forward and make sure that their home ownership forms and their tenure were in order. They indicated that they always encourage residents to come and make sure that their files were updated whenever there had been changes of ownerships. Council officials complained that residents were not coming forward to update their records. They highlighted that residents should submit home ownership forms, rates clearance certificates and a certificate of occupation for them to obtain title deeds. The Housing Director mentioned that the Municipality was in the process of engaging the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works in order for the land to be transferred to Council. The Council needed a deed of grant so that the Municipality can operate independently and be able to issue title deeds.
The Committee asked the officials if ZOPA had not approached them on the issues raised in the petition before they approached Parliament. Council Officials informed the Committee that they engaged ZOPA on the issues they raised and were confident that the two parties had resolved the issues. They explained that they always consult residents through budget consultations and encourage residents to approach Council and have their records updated.
The officials complained that ZOPA constituted a significant proportion of residents of St Mary’s and Zengeza. The Council’s rent card was pegged at $24 but ZOPA members usually approach the Council every month with requests to pay $10 citing affordability challenges yet they require service delivery. The management said they had Minutes where they engaged ZOPA pertaining to the issue of paying rates and also the issues they raised in the petition. The Committee was informed that at the moment Council was charging $167 but ZOPA members were still paying $10 on the basis that they were old people yet there was no policy which says old people should be exempted from paying rates.
The Acting Town Clerk hoped that the situation at Chitungwiza Municipality would improve after the appointment of the substantive Town Clerk. She also explained that some of the problems affecting Chitungwiza Municipality started in 2011 when employees were awarded huge salaries and the wage bill ballooned to the extent of exceeding revenue collections. This impacted negatively on service delivery. As a result, Council had salary arrears. The Council informed the Committee that it was trying to rectify these problems. It was submitted that Council initially owed workers about ZWL $21 million and the figure had since been reduced to ZWL$11 million. The Committee was informed that Chitungwiza Council was undergoing some investigations and hoped that these investigations will address the problems bedevilling the Municipality.
The Council informed the Committee that for current contracts, the Municipality would withhold 10% of the payment which then will be used to rectify any defects. This would force contractors to meet required standards. Tilco Road was given as an example where the contractor did not perform to satisfaction. The Committee was informed that the road construction works are supervised by engineers but in the case of Tilco Road, the engineer did not do his job resulting in his contractor being terminated.
Committee’s Observations
The Committee observed that Chitungwiza Municipality was not performing to satisfaction considering the issues of raw sewage flowing in the streets, unavailability of water and houses being built on wet lands and sewer pipes under its watch. The petitioners were justified in petitioning Parliament concerning lack of service delivery.
The Committee noted that the allegation of Council Officials selling houses and facilitating change of ownership behind the back of real owners was caused by the poor filing system and lack of explanation of missing files by Chitungwiza Council Officials resulting in speculation. There is need for Chitungwiza Council to have a proper filing system and avoid situations where files go missing.
The Committee noted the need for Government to intervene on the issue of low pension payouts. The Committee urges the Chitungwiza Council to remit pension deductions on time to avoid prejudicing its employees. The Pension Houses must also invest wisely the funds they receive as pension contributions to enable meaningful payouts to pensioners/beneficiaries.
The Committee noted the need for a substantive Town Clerk to enable proper management, decision making and continuity.
The Committee observed that Chitungwiza Council’s engineers should supervise works done by contractors and authorise payment only when satisfied with the works as demonstrated in the construction of Tilcor Road.
The Committee was disturbed with the continuous problem of illegal settlements and home seekers being allocated residential stands on wetlands and on top sewer lines. The Committee urges the Task Force that was establish by the PDC to expedite the process of dealing with land invasions.
Committee’s Recommendations
The Committee, therefore, recommends that:-
- The Chitungwiza Council appoints a substantive Town Clerk by 30 June 2021.
- The Chitungwiza Council should recruit relevant and competent engineers by 30 April 2021.
- The Ministry of Local Government and Public Works in collaboration with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement should come up with a lasting solution to water problems in Chitungwiza by priotising construction of Manyame Dam specifically to supply water in Chitungwiza by December 2021.
- The Ministry of Local Government and Public Works should assist Chitungwiza Municipality in accessing loans for purposes of purchasing equipment considering that the revenue collected by the local authority is not enough to undertake such activities by December 2021.
- The Councillors should monitor and supervise the activities of their Council on a quarterly basis to avoid poor performance by the local authority in terms of service delivery.
- The Chitungwiza Municipality should have an electronic filing system by 30 June 2021 to solve the situation of misplacing files.
Conclusion
The Committee implores the Chitungwiza Municipality to prioritise service delivery from the revenue generated. This will work towards promoting and protecting the basic human rights of the petitioners as espoused in the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: The issues raised in the report are very pertinent and cannot be ignored. The issue of erosion of pension funds by inflation affects the way pensioners live their day to day lives. There should be modalities put in place by the pension houses to make sure that those remittances are not eroded by inflation and this should be done through proper investment of those remittances. Another pertinent issue is that local authorities are not remitting deducted funds to pension houses. This is rampant throughout all the local authorities. We call upon the Ministry of Local Government to make sure that local authorities are remitting deducted funds to pension houses so that when workers retire they are paid their dues.
Then the allocation of stands on wetlands, land reserved for schools and recreation Madam Speaker, this is really sad because a lot of home seekers are being fleeced by land barons. Local Authorities are playing their part in such deeds but then the land barons are playing a major role and I think it is high time Government takes the bull by its horns and bring to book those land barons because they are fleecing those home seekers of their hard earned monies.
Then the neglect of road maintenance in Chitungwiza is attributed to late or none disbursement of road maintenance funds by ZINARA. If we look around the whole country our roads are in a very bad state and it is high time ZINARA releases road maintenance funds timeously so that Local Authorities can do their work properly.
Then the issue of raw sewage flowing in Chitungwiza – if you go to Chitungwiza and you do not vomit, you will actually be strong. Chitungwiza is in a very bad state when it comes to sewer reticulation. Raw sewage will be floating everywhere. I have been to Chitungwiza several times and there is no section where there is proper sewer and no blockages. I am sure this is because of the illegal sale of stands without proper planning such that each and every person is digging their own shallow septic tank which overflows causing environmental nuisance. It is high time that such mishaps are addressed so that the environment is not polluted and there is no outbreak of diseases such as cholera or typhoid.
On the issue of salary arrears, this needs to be addressed as recommended by the Committee. What causes salary arrears is the Local Authority will be collecting less as compared to the wage bill which is fixed, yet the money being collected can go up or go down. Therefore, modalities need to be put in place by the Local Authorities to make sure that the billed residents pay for the services that are rendered. Those are my contributions Hon. Speaker.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I also rise to debate on this report by the Committee on Local Government. Madam Speaker, I just want to firstly raise what I want to call hygienic factors pertaining to this report. I want to think that in as much as the Committee did some work pertaining to this petition, I think there are certain areas where there was no holistic attention to the issues. The first issue that I raise is the question of the pensions that was raised. Madam Speaker, you are aware that this House received a petition which is more or less the same and which was debated and adopted in this august House when ZIPIT presented their petition to this House. One of the things that I had hoped the Committee was also going to do was to take in some of the issues which were discussed and adopted by this august House and factor in pertaining to some of the issues that ZOPA had brought in pertaining to pension. As you may be aware Hon. Speaker, the pension issues are from the time when we had the Smith Commission pertaining to the erosion of the pension values. I thought in my view, this was an attempt to ensure that we come up with a holistic answer to this aspect.
The other issue which I feel is also very pertinent is the state of the roads. The Committee noted correctly that the roads in Chitungwiza leave a lot to be desired. Chitungwiza Council is reported to have said that they have not been receiving or there has been late disbursement of funds from ZINARA. One of the things that I had actually hoped the Committee was also going to do was also to summon ZINARA pertaining to these issues so that in the report we should also have gotten a balanced view because one would not know whether ZINARA had disbursed the money or not and the municipality had not channelled the funds to the rightful purpose of making the roads. The reason why I say this is to try and make sure that whatever we come up with or what we want the Executive to come up with, even the recommendation or the things that we want the Executive to then attend to, we will have gotten the real position. We do not want a situation where the Ministry of Local Government would then come up and say it is because municipality has not done this or that ZINARA had given us a report on money given.
The other issue was that the highest officer in attendance was the Director of Housing because there was no Town Clerk. I was hoping that the Local Government Ministry also needs to attend to the question of the Local Government Board which has not been in place for some time and has had a huge impact pertaining to recruitment and dismissal of senior municipal employees. Any other Local Government will tell you that the complain has always been of high turnover and the non conclusiveness of the disciplinary issues that still remain hanging within the local councils is something that needs the Local Government Board to be set up so that we quickly deal with issues. We cannot have a council that continue without a Town Clerk performing the task.
The last aspect Madam Speaker, which I commend the Committee which they have noted correctly is the question of having water bodies specifically for the City of Chitungwiza. We are aware that Chitungwiza Municipality gets water from Harare and it is a noble thing to make sure that they have a supply of their own. Dams which are there to cater for Chitungwiza – the problem that we have is that for years, I recall some of us when we grew up, we knew that there was talk of several dams which were lined up on the eastern parts of Harare and Chitungwiza, dams like Kunzvi, Musana and others. Nothing has been done and as long as we have a situation where Chitungwiza or even Harare for that matter, the water that we take is the water that is downstream. All the water that we use to clean, wash and all the dirty is taken downstream. We are taking the recycled water and that is an issue which is problematic. It is even worse Madam Speaker, when you then read in the report that sewage is a major problem within the city. It means that the sewage is also flowing to the water source and the urgency of having new water reservoir is of urgency.
The Committee is right on point and I think the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works needs to ensure that sufficient work is done. If we do not do that, in the next few years we are going to see unbelievable sicknesses within the various areas. Right now Madam Speaker, even the borehole waters in Chitungwiza and Harare are no longer safe because those are now the source of drinking water for the residents. In real terms, if you check the tasting of that water, it is no longer suitable for human consumption. This is the reason why it is crucial and important for water bodies, water reservoirs and dams to be constructed so that Chitungwiza can also stand on its own and have water.
In conclusion Madam Speaker, the question of illegal settlements requires also the intervention of the Ministry of Local Government. I think the Committee is correct that things need to be put in order. There are certain things that we have allowed as a nation to continue. Just go through all the peri urban areas of all urban local authorities, the level of illegal settlements which we have given a blessing through political machination and other manner or where people have turned a blind eye whilst land barons have been taking advantage should not be allowed to continue. We need to see justice happening but we also need to see a proper methodology of making sure those illegal settlements are either formalised or a system is made to make sure that they are removed from wetlands. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)*HON. RAIDZA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity to add my voice on the debate on the petition by ZOPA. I would like to talk on the issue of lack of service delivery in Chitungwiza. I would like to thank the Portfolio Committee on Local Government for the report. I am also a member of this Committee. The report is on the poor service delivery in Chitungwiza and it is sad to hear such issues. The first issue is on the scandal on houses of the people of Chitungwiza. There are issues of missing files and sometimes the house would have been illegally sold to someone else. This shows that there is rampant corruption in this city. We urge the Anti-Corruption Commission and other Government departments that deal with the issues of corruption to thoroughly look into this issue of Chitungwiza Town. It is painful when someone goes to the extent of losing his or her own house due to such activities of corruption.
The other issue is on the Chitungwiza Municipality workers. It seems everyone who occupies that office as the Town Clerk will ends up being corrupt. This shows that there is no proper management at Chitungwiza Town Council. Government should try through the Ministry of Local Government, to look into the Chitungwiza issue and put substantive persons in place because those in acting positions are not responsible to what is taking place.
On the issue of roads, there was a problem. Funds from ZINARA were not properly channelled to their use of road maintenance and the fixing of roads in this particular area. What establishes that employees from Chitungwiza had no understanding of how monies were being utilised? We also noted that the person who occupies the office of the engineer had no knowledge or academic qualification to be doing that job. Our recommendation is that we do not expect people without the relevant qualifications to occupy and get paid for a job that they cannot do.
The other issue I would like to talk about is the issue of sewerage. It is our wish that as a municipality, they should be attending to the issue of sewer bursts. We acknowledge that these particular problems do need a lot of funding but in other instances, if they are able to fix let them react to such complaints. Devolution funds should be channelled to the residents for the development of those particular areas. This has resulted in residents refusing to remit any service delivery money because they are not getting any service. Residents saw the dedication and determination to say if council is to deliver on their premise, they are willing to pay for the service. It is our wish that action is taken with immediate effect because there is rampant corruption within Chitungwiza Town Council. Our message to the Minister of Local Government is that he should continue to work hard to stop this rampant corruption within the council. I thank you Hon. Speaker for the opportunity that you gave me.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I just want to add my voice to the report by Hon. Chikukwa on the Chitungwiza report.
As Hon. Chinyanganya has said that the issue of Chitungwiza does not only relate to Chitungwiza alone. It is a cross cutting phenomenon challenge that is across all local authorities, in particular in the urban set up. I anticipated that this report would be tabled today – this is why I have availed myself in Parliament physically because the issues that are being dealt with are dear to my heart, and the people of Chegutu West Constituency have issues that are embedded in this report going to come out –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I ask that you wait for your chance.
The people of Chegutu West want these issues to vociferously and effectively come out arising from my debate. The issue of pensions, contributions, medical aid and other ancillary contributions attached to that are a challenge and a problem. The monies that have been received and deducted from the payslips of workers from time immemorial in these local authorities have been misused by council officials. Forget the councillors because they have been voted into office. What is happening is that the accounting officers of these local authorities, Chitungwiza included and Chegutu municipality as well – they have been taking these monies and utilising them for other things other than the primary intended purpose.
What is the challenge? It so happens much to the chagrin of the workers because as they go to any medical institution, they are not covered. When it is time for them to get their pensions, they are not covered again. That is criminal and fraudulent. It is not right and should be stopped and nipped in the bud because of this report that has been tabled here. If it has been going on, it has to come to a screeching halt.
How does the issue of land and land barons relate to Chegutu on this report? We have people who are living on top of each other. In Shona, vanogara sembeva and kunonzi mbeva dzakawanda hadzina mashe. From this report according to Isaiah 6:1 – when King Hosea died, I saw the Lord. There has to be a paradigm shift or an about turn from the modus operandi of every day arising from the debate that is going to ensue here today. There is land where I come from – 530 hectares and it is called Hiltonvile suburb opposite David Whitehead; you know where I am talking about. It is on the highway. Whereas there are residents and households that only cater for 25 000 people, constituency has grown like any other constituency, it is now encompassing more than 70 000 people.
It means that of those 20 000 houses that....
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order. The report is specific – it is a petition by ZOPA, the people of Chitungwiza. They are listening to this debate and want a solution to their matter. All the people want to debate the specific report of Chitungwiza which has been moved by Hon. Chikukwa.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna, may you stick to the motion. You can refer to your constituency here and there but stick to the motion.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. Here and there, I am going to refer to the land that is lying idle that can either be unlocked for the good order of the people of that constituency that I am talking about and the same issue can be related to Chitungwiza Municipality or council so that the land that is lying idle there, Hon. Madzimure, can also be unpacked in the manner that has happened in Chegutu West Constituency so that the 530 hectares can cater for minimum 200 square metres each; 25 000 people – the backlog there which is 25 000 then can be dealt with expeditiously....
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna, please may you stick to the motion?
HON. NDUNA: Chitungwiza Town Council petition and report has unearthed a can of worms. When it comes to water and sewer reticulation, I want to mirror what is happening in Chitungwiza to what is happening in Chegutu. In 2009, 400 people died because of cholera and typhoid. So the issue of sewer and water reticulation can be solved by monies coming from devolution funds, but the monies are going into a bottomless pit in these municipalities including Chitungwiza.
There is gross abuse by the accounting officers who are the town clerks. You need to deal with the town clerk’s office before you can hand over money from Government. I want to say, arising from this debate, that the Second Republic does not hunt with the neighbor’s dogs, they need to remove what has been entrenched which has caused a lot of fraudulent activities and acrimony in the people residing in the local authorities.
The problems that we see today have been championed by the historic issues of square plugs in round holes. We have town clerks and C.E.O’s who are not supposed to be in places of authority.
The people of Chegutu West have spoken with one voice and fired the town clerk yesterday who has been there for a very long time, who is impeding the issue of residential stands allocation and infrastructural development.
Madam Speaker, I want to also go further and say as councils sit, councilors are elected officials, they have no challenges whatsoever, one who has a challenge is he who has not been elected by the residents because he only comes to get what he can, take what he gets and move on. The city fathers need to deliver to the electorate what they have been voted into office for.
However, the impediment factor is the square plug in the round holes. The quicker we observe that the accounting officers have caused the rot in the local authorities, all these issues can be solved by one thing for sure. By councilors being resolute, taking a stern and a firm position to say we now need a round plug in a round hole, the issue of being impeded by the former republic in the second republic should be a thing of the past. There is nothing that we lose by making sure we put the right people in the right positions.
The challenge, for a very long time is that these accounting officers have been employed along party partisan lines but the local authorities and the city fathers have seen through that thin veil of political petty machinations. Going forward, they have come together and said enough is enough, we need to deliver to the electorate the mandate we have been given.
We have a lot of learned youths out there, in my constituency, I have 6 724 on the voters roll, 18 to 35 years in 2018. Those peopled are endowed with a lot of theatrics and education. Why should we continue to act as though we are archaic, moribund, rudimental and antiquated in this day and age? Why should we continue to repose our trust in the past on these people? These are the issue that we are debating here today, they are our challenge and we need to remove them. They cannot tell us that they have no problem but their voice is thwarted by the accounting officers.
As we are debating here today, the issue of Chegutu is going to be debated in this manner. There is going to be an appointment of the Acting Town Clerk. It is my suggestion that do not look amongst the thieves, look lower and appoint people who want to work for the people so that there is no flowing sewer, no building under power lines on top of water pipelines. Appoint somebody who is going to be in the acting capacity whilst you deal with issues of delinquency, fraudulent behaviour and other issues of the former, I call him the former Town Clerk so that what is happening there can be a show and a wonder for the people of Chitungwiza.
We should not have after today, a petition such as this one anymore. We need to stand up for the people and use this pedestal and platform for the good order of the people of Chitungwiza. The people of Chegutu are just the same as the people of Chitungwiza, they deserve the same good services that we are seeking for the people of Chitungwiza. A committee is going to be appointment tomorrow that should the second, the thing that should happen tomorrow.
It is also my fervent view and hope that the technocrats should unpack the ills and evils of the former accounting officers so that when the people of Bulawayo, Chitungwiza and Victoria Falls see what is happening there – they will definitely say because Chegutu is a centre of everywhere, we need to emulate. There is something good that has happened there and we need to then say…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna, you are left with 5 minutes.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am so happy for the people of Bulawayo, now that there is going to be water ad infinitum, perennially coming from Shangani River. This should be replicated in all other cities, including Chitungwiza. There are dams and water sources that have been on the cards for a very long time. The second republic, through devolution funds and other initiatives has come to deal a blow to the delinquent behaviour of the past, but there is need to hunt with its own dogs.
Madam Speaker, thank you for giving me this opportunity to vociferously and effectively debate on the issues of Chitungwiza, mirroring them with what is happening in Chegutu West Constituency, especially the suspension of the Town Clerk and subsequent firing of the same without looking at petty partisan politics from across the political divide. I thank you.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Madam Speaker. Let us go through some quick points and there are two that I just want to labour on a little bit. I believe it is criminal that pension funds and medical aid should be deducted, not for one year, two years or three years. We are talking nearly 10 years that these funds are being deducted and we have done nothing. The answer is very simple. We must fix it but we do not. We talk about it, we have had the pension fund come in here, we have had this, we have had that and we have done nothing. We have got to fix it and the urban councils, both on pension funds and medical, someone has to go and answer for it.
The second issue I would like just to bring up, the whole urban councils and rural councils in Zimbabwe are factored on a situation where they are supposed to be stand alone. It is one of the few systems that we have in Southern Africa. Recently we have instituted the 5% devolution fund. Stating that they are supposed to be stand alone - you cannot stand alone if you do not bill the residents. Now the residents earlier on in Harare were not getting bills. Here in Chitungwiza they are not getting bills. Who pays a bill if he does not receive it? So that is one of the fundamental reasons why we have a problem in most of the urban councils.
I also want to go on to the issue of land barons. We have talked about land barons, we have talked about illegal settlements and settlements on wetlands. There are two fundamental points which are being missed here. One is the land is being taken up by unscrupulous people, but we have done this but we do not want to fix it. We have done it through the Justice Uchena Report. It is there. Why is it not being released? The Justice Uchena report is comprehensive on all illegal things province by province. It ran for 18 months on public money and we have not released it, but we are still talking about illegal settlements. Until the report is released there are no illegal settlements, land barons and cooperatives. There is no council is stealing and there are no management stealing until we see that report and the answers are in there because one of the summaries he put there is that the intrinsic value of land lost by councils is $3 billion.
On the issues of service delivery, particularly sewerage, I have a problem with that as Chairman of Harare Wetlands Trust. We as Harare Wetlands Trust are concerned and have been concerned for years on the wetlands and the settlement on wetlands. We have lost 50% of the wetlands in the greater Harare catchment area, but on top of that we are still building on wetlands. The sewerage in Chitungwiza is redundant, it does not work. All the sewerage from Chitungwiza goes straight into the river down to Chivero. The same with most of Harare Sewerage. Then we take that water, we throw 11 chemicals in it and pump it back to drink it again, yet God gave us the wetlands to do all that for us. The wetlands are not about pretty biodiversity and frogs and things like that only, it filters the water so it is clean so we can collect the water and maybe use one or two chemicals.
So we are now in a situation here where Chitungwiza has really no infrastructure. It relies on Harare for water. It was built for 100 000 people and it is now I do not know how many hundreds of thousands of people and yet we have the same infrastructure. Yes, we built houses but the services are not there and that is a major issue for Chitungwiza.
Things we can fix which concern me tremendously, the whole lot runs and one of the major things we are missing since the last election is the local government board. The local government board has a very good and strong advisory and acceptance of positions, including that of town clerks. Why do we not have that board? Why is that board not being constituted? So that is the fix and it should be done immediately, because we are also in a situation with the devolution. On the issue of devolution, we have 5% of the national budget going to local authorities. Who issues that? Who acknowledges which projects are more important when we do not have the administration or the legal side done and of the devolution fund of last year, if we all read, we will see that only 50% of what was supposed to be allocated was allocated. So we were short changed and we have major development issues which need to come out.
The second last point I would like to bring up is the issue of roads. The issue of roads is a major issue throughout the whole of Zimbabwe we understand that. However, I would like to point out that in ZINARA’s collection of funds, 18% goes on contract to the people they are contracted with. Why was it done like that? Why was that a contract and not the local authorities? So they get the 18% instead of us paying it to someone we do not even know and then that 18% will force local authorities. If they want to fix the roads, they collect that money - they send 80% or whatever percent to ZINARA so that it is centralised so it can be distributed fairly amongst rural areas and in the urban areas we start with 18% instead, now we have got nothing.
The last point which I would like to highlight and it affects Chitungwiza tremendously is the issue of the subsidy on ZUPCO which accounts for 21% of the local government budget nationally. That alone has stopped all strategic special planning and put it basically at a standstill. I have said it and I will say it again, in most areas on our special planning we are working off maps from before 1980 and that has to be rectified. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. BUSHU: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity to debate on a motion that was put across by Hon. Chikukwa who is Chairperson of the Committee. This petition came through ZOPA, Madam Speaker and their issue really at the beginning was their standard of living had come down drastically and we are talking about people aged 60 and above.
Firstly, these people are very uncomfortable because of the decline in the value of their pensions. Secondly, they are also uncomfortable with the general decline in the quality of life that they are living and this opens up the can of worms, but what we are saying here we would not leave out issues that relate to Chitungwiza town council because Zimbabwe Old People’s Association has brought issues to the fore. What we are looking at here is a petition that also affects many other old people in the whole country. Therefore when we look at this report, we must look at it and say to ourselves how much impact does this issue have on the rest of the country and we are talking about a substantial portion of our people. We are talking about a substantial portion of the people that we must start looking after. Those are the people who have looked after us in the past.
Anyway, the issue is the issue of pensions, pension funds. This did not apply only to the local authorities pension fund which they had come to protest against, it also applies to all the pension funds in the country or to the insurance industry in general. There is an issue that came up in Parliament at some point in time that the pension funds and the insurance industry in general must look at the pensions that people contributed and the incomes that they are getting now that are United States dollar denominated in a lot of cases. That should also help uplift the value of life of the old aged.
Now because of this complaint, we found out that there is an issue relating to municipality that must be taken care of. What we found out also was that generally administration at Chitungwiza Muicipality has been poor for very long. People have complained for very long time, we must look at this and put a closure. We, as Zimbabweans must look at this and say how can we improve the administration at Chitungwiza and municipalities in general, people have complained about this.
We do have legislation that helps the Public Finance Management Act, the Urban Councils Act and the various other Acts that will ensure that public administration is done. Now, when you look at it, water in Chitungwiza is simply not available and in a town like that, we are looking at Chitungwiza as probably the third largest populated urban centre outside of Harare and Bulawayo and we do not have water. We have boreholes being drilled everywhere, there is no simple water reticulation that is safe and sound. In a lot of other areas there was no water reticulation at all before people were allocated stands to live in.
Madam Speaker, this is not good, the same applies to sewer. I remember before Independence, there was a place called Chirambaguwa, I think Chitungwiza is better than Chirambaguwa. Madam Speaker stands were allocated and houses were built along sewer lines, what is going to happen in future. In any case those sewer lines are going to start bursting and what do we have, we have an administration that has got a town planner, they know the Town Planning Act very well. Why did they not implement it? Are they going to implement it in future.
Madam Speaker, this say a lot about our supervision, the roads are terrible to say the least but what can we do. In any case we welcome the fact that His Excellency said that it is going to be attended to by the Ministry of Transport under a special arrangement because it is a national disaster. The issue is what is the municipality doing about this? In particular what are the Chitungwiza people doing about this, all the old people are having to go round potholes and down in potholes, old people are risking their lives which they have defended for a very long time because there are huge potholes in Chitungwiza; it is unfair. These are the same people who are prepared to pay rates, these are the same people who are saying they have been paying rates for a long time and these are the same people who are saying our future children – what is it that is there for them. Madam Speaker, it is sad.
Chitungwiza has a lot of land that is available, we have seen Chitungwiza growing very big but we have also seen Chitugwiza residents building on wet lands. This does not apply to Chitungwiza only , this applies to almost every urban council in the whole country. I want to imagine, I wonder to think that there is one municipality that has been doing well in the area of wetlands management probably Bulawayo. It is a sad situation that has to be corrected and the new ways that wetlands are being dealt with by Central Government is a welcome development.
Madam Speaker, the issue brought up by Zopa started off as a small thing and like what Hon. Nduna said it opened a can of worms. If we look at it again, we have as a Committee presented to Parliament on service delivery by local authorities. I can tell you one thing that report presents again an alarming position for most of other municipalities. It is sad and Chitungwiza has not been left out. We did not make a special report on that but Chitungwiza’s problems have been unearthed by ZOPA. We urge as we work together with the Ministry of Local Government to look at the old report on service delivery by local authorities and also look at the Chitungwiza report. My wish is they must not forget that the issue around pensions and insurance must also be included.
Like they did by responding to the report on Bulawayo and its water problems, like they did in responding to Victoria Falls and now Victoria Falls is a city and by their response to the issues around Hwange, I am sure the Local Government Ministry is capable of solving Chitungwiza. Madam Speaker, I think that it is only fair that issues related to poor service delivery, poor administration and generally poor performance are things that have evolved over a long period of time. With the coming of the new dispensation, we would like to sort out the administration and we should like to see it happening and I believe that the Ministry of Local Government has got capacity and capability to do so. What we are saying is the people are crying in the municipalities and the issue of service delivery and better quality of life has to be delivered to them. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. R. R. NYATHI: Thank you Hon. Speaker, I want to add my voice to the motion that was moved by Hon. M. Chikukwa and seconded by Hon. Chinyanganya concerning the report from Chitungwiza, the Zimbabwe Old People Association. When we listened to the reports that we now being given by the council employees, it is sad to note that the employees were very frustrated and we actually mentioned that their working relationship with the politicians is so bad that one dreads to go to work. So that that is where I think the whole thing starts where somebody is going to work but is not motivated to do the work that one is qualified to go and do in order to upgrade the standards of living of the people that he is working for.
The next thing that I also realised is that as they were speaking, I realised that the funds that are paid by residents for rates do not seem to be channelled in proper manner. If you go to Chitungwiza, you are not able to notice areas, even though there are small to say we set aside a small amount.
Thank you Madam Speaker. So, you need to see an area, though very soon to say from the money that we collected from the rates, this is what we did and we do not seem to see that in Chitungwiza. Probably if you have to see that, you see it on their salaries. There is also one very important issue that I want to share which was also noted by Hon. Mushoriwa when he spoke about Chitungwiza being provided their own dam or dams, which I also think that the same thing applies to Harare. Harare is our capital city and it is our sunshine city for Zimbabwe, but our water systems are very poor. I think that Chitungwiza should have their own dams and Harare should also have dams upstream so that our people are able to get good supply of water.
It is also important for me to note that it appears that our physical planning departments throughout are not doing their duties. I say so because if you look at the water supply, you would say to yourself, when these people were planning for these towns, were they not also planning for water. One might say it is difficult and very expensive to do the dams but the question is, is it expensive, but over time, it becomes cheaper, more affordable and more healthier for our people thereby doing away with all those other problems like cholera and other water borne diseases.
I also want to note the issue that has been very topical in Parliament now and in the papers and this is the issue of building on wetlands. I think Chitungwiza is not spared on this one. I blame it with the relevant planning section where I think that our councils are either directly or indirectly involved in allocation of stands in wetlands. I say so because if certainly one builds a house worth USD500 000 and it is completed and tomorrow somebody comes with a grader or a dozer to say we are pulling it down and yet we were seeing these houses being built every day. Where was the monitoring team to see what was going on?
If the councils are difficult – it becomes difficult for them simply because of the land barons. Why is it that they have not been able to raise it with the Ministry to say please come and redress such a situation? So, this situation is prevailing in Chitungwiza let alone the issue of refuse collection. The report states that Chitungwiza, almost every corner there is refuse, there is no collection of refuse and mosquitoes and flies are multiplying in that area thereby causing a big danger to our people.
May I also talk about sewerage? I think we need to up our dams when it comes to planning of our towns. I understand that much of the sewer bursts have been caused because these sewer lines were built for a certain number of people but as we plan, we should have in mind the growth of the town. We know that they might have planned to say we have got five people per household but because of those that are lodging and the extended families, that house is now occupying maybe ten or so people. This causes some bursts of sewer lines but that being the case, we must start planning for alternative ways of upgrading our sewer lines.
We must be able to see that there is something that is going on than just for us to keep on complaining to say there are sewerages and that we do not have money. A stitch in time saves nine. If we just go one brick at a time we will finish the house. Let us see some action over that side. I want to give an advice to my Hon. Members that let us encourage one another that we also attend some councils meetings whenever the councils are having their full councils meetings so that we can also do our monitoring and evaluation so that we can give our guidance and advice so that everything is under control – that which is under our purview. Some of these mistakes also point to us as leaders that we are not playing our part.
We need to create a conducive environment so that everyone enjoys working around us. We give advice and we work as a team and together, we can always make it. Let us stop this blame game and before pointing our fingers to others, let us ask ourselves what it is that we are doing to improve this situation. So, in conclusion I say let us discourage one another to act in a manner that is not transparent. Let us lead by example as Honourables so that as we lead the councillors and as we also lead our various councils, the employees can see where we want them to go. Leading by example is the best way we can do to redress the situation that we are facing, not only in Chitungwiza but throughout our country. I thank you Madam Speaker.
*HON. ZEMURA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker for giving me an opportunity to contribute to the report which has been tabled by Hon. Chikukwa, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Local Government. What we are seeing is that we have very big stories from this report. What we have noticed is that we have change of ownership of houses of those who passed on. Those of foreign origin are losing properties and their children are not accessing these properties. It is our wish that we have those who would investigate. There must be an investigation department to look into such issues and arrest those who are involving themselves in such activities.
This is a criminal activity that is going on. Property is being stolen. As old as I am, I want my house to go to my children not that a municipality is involved in these corrupt activities that see property being swindled and being given to other children –It is a very painful situation. They also talked about pensions. People work up to 65 years and retire but they do not get their money. It does not even go to Pensions Fund or even Rural District Council Pension Offices where it is kept to benefit those who have retired.
You just retire to go and sit at home. They do not get any remuneration. People are suffering as they wait for their pensions. There is no documentation. Those who collect these monies put them to their own use without the knowledge of those who have retired. They are suffering, grappling in poverty. I have a relative who used to stay in Chitungwiza way back. There used to be very small houses. It means since these houses were upgraded, people are not getting anything from that. People worked for nothing. Nothing came out of it up until they got into retirement. There are a lot of corrupt activities. The employees are criminals. We are here as legislators, we have heard what is happening; a well detailed report with regard to the Chitungwiza issue. What action are we going to take as legislators? Hon. Speaker, we want to see results of the actions that we will have taken as legislators. We have heard the contents of the report, we are supposed to take action.
On the issue of wetlands, I am in the Portfolio Committee on environment. I have been to Chitungwiza before. There were very big houses that were cracking because of the foundations they were built on. These houses were cracking but today we here of a report to say they should stop these investigations until there is compensation fund for these people. The only thing we see is the happiness of those who illegally sold the land to these people. Those who allocated land should be arrested because this was purely criminal. There is no one who is educated in Chitungwiza Council. I think I am better educated than them. Who would allocate residential stands in a wetland? That is ridiculous, it is a very terrible situation which these residents are exposed to. Let us look at the Government’s lands lessons. From way back, Government does not allow building of residential houses on wetlands. We want to see the apprehension of those who committed these crimes and their conviction, they should be thrown into prison.
Hon. Madam Speaker, we heard that one of the land barons collapsed in court after being grilled about the corrupt activities committed. Sin does kill! These people are committing criminal activities. It was even shown on television. People are living in water, some of the houses are being swept away. What we saw in Chitungwiza is terrible, I did not know that a used pumper could inflate to become huge.
Madam Speaker, the issue of Chitungwiza does not require lenient people. Let us deal with this issue once and for all. Let us be thorough, let us be very serious about the Chitungwiza issue. Chitungwiza Municipality needs people who are firm when dealing with such issues. Chitungwiza is a wetland. Most of the areas are wetlands, those underground pipes, because of the type of the soil, they quickly rot and eventually burst.
The reason why we see this rampant and bad situation continuing is because they do not get to experience these sewages, they spend most of the time at work and they only get home at night. They never get to experience this horrible situation of sewage flowing during the day. Those employed at Chitungwiza Municipality should be investigated. Their qualifications should be thoroughly looked at. Those are fake qualifications.
Hon. Speaker Sir, if we look at all municipalities, rural councils are way better than Chitungwiza. We have let Chitungwiza go on like that for a very long period. We should take action immediately. All the people involved in selling State land should be thrown behind bars. These people are enriching themselves whilst the masses are suffering. People are suffering because of wetlands.
Madam Speaker, even the new employees are busy copying bad tendencies of the previous employees. I do not trust anyone within that Council. Let all activities be investigated, even by the Members of Parliament of Zimbabwe. Action must be taken immediately. People are suffering for no reason because of corrupt activities by these corrupt officials from the councils. People have amassed wealth corruptly. There are a lot of big houses that have cracked because they were built in wetlands and those who live in these houses have no knowledge that they built on wetlands.
Let us look at these things and let us not be lenient. We may spend the whole day talking as legislators but in some of these things, we want action to be taken. If we continue being lenient on these corrupt land barons, we are destroying the nation. We can get on the Parliament bus and got to Chitungwiza to inspect what is actually affecting these residents. Surely, we will be beaten. Since long back, people have been complaining about the Chitungwiza situation. There is no law and order among the small and medium enterprises. People are allocated land to do their business as entrepreneurs haphazardly. You cannot even look at it and say this is where it is coming from and where it is going. If we are to go there, let us go there and work together with Local Government to come up with a sustainable solution for Chitungwiza.
It is possible that when you go to Chitungwiza, you might not come back because our own transport might get stuck in mud there. I am saying this because of the bad state of roads in Chitungwiza. Chitungwiza is no longer a town as we thought back in the day. Let us look thoroughly at the Chitungwiza situation and come up with a sustainable solution. Thank you for the opportunity you have given me.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to the report presented by Hon. Chikukwa on behalf of Local Government and Public Works Committee on lack of service delivery and erosion of pension funds petition presented to Parliament by Chitungwiza Residents. I will not waste a lot of time because a lot of things have been said and debated upon and nothing will change that. I just want to highlight one or two things that I thought are of paramount importance.
In the report, there was an issue that came up on refuse collection. The report outlined that there is only one truck to collect garbage in the whole of Chitungwiza Town. That is unbelievable Hon. Speaker. One truck to collect garbage for more than 200 to 300 thousand households is really unbelievable. Where is the money they had deducted from pensioneers? Can we not get that money, buy another refuse truck. I would draw your attention to the idea that was brought to this House by Hon. T. Khupe that we make biogas using that rubbish. There is a lot of rubbish or garbage in Chitungwiza we can use to make biogas and even sell biogas to the residents.
The next point I thought of paramount importance was the issue to do with lack of water in Chitungwiza. I would like to think here lies an opportunity to make money. You supply water to the residents, they pay rates and you make money. In Chitungwiza, there are boreholes and that is free money. Somebody is actually capitalising on that. If you look on television and follow local news, there are people that are charging $1 for a bucket of water or something like that. That is revenue that could be coming to council if Chitungwiza had water.
Let me talk about ICT Hon. Speaker. I think every local authority should be computerised by now. As Parliament, we should, in the next budget, vote that every local council be computerised and every title deed be in the system. That is one way we can stop this missing files, stealing of files, double allocations and when everything is computerised, we will get rid of all these things Hon. Speaker.
Last but not least, let me talk about the recreational spaces that were taken advantage of by land barons. The recreational places were there and drafted for. We need recreational places but because there is no development taking place, there are no kids’ playing grounds and local activity taking place on these recreational places the land barons take advantage. So, if these lands are allocated, let us go in there and develop the places.
Hon. Speaker, Chitungwiza is not a very good example for the people of Magunje. Magunje is only a growth point trying to grow to a town then city status but with what we have seen and heard from the report, I do not think Chitungwiza is a very good example. Let me conclude by saying that should there ever be a chance, it is my thinking, I may be wrong Hon. Speaker, this report could have made a large and bigger impact if this particular Committee of Local Government and National Housing had joined up with the Committee on Environment and Tourism to go and see what is exactly happening in Chitungwiza. Unfortunately, maybe the petition came from pensioners hence so thereby they did not go together. Thank you.
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 16th March, 2021.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that the House reverts to Order of the Day, Number 11 on the Order Paper.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
HON. TSVANGIRAYI: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the Virtual Extraordinary Session of the Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conducted from 1st to 3rd November, 2020.
HON. MUKUNYAIDZE: I second.
HON. TSVANGIRAYI:
Introduction
1.1 The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) convened a virtual session of the Governing Council from 1st to 3rd November 2020 to discuss and take decisions on pressing issues relating to the functioning of the organisation, including the adoption of the IPU budget and programme of work for 2021 and the election of the IPU President. The decision to meet virtually was made in light of the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 global pandemic.
1.1.2 This decision was in line with Article 17.2 of the IPU Statutes, which provides that, “The Governing Council shall be convened in extraordinary session by the President if the latter or the Executive Committee deems this necessary, or a quarter of the Governing Council’s members so request”.
1.2 Parliament of Zimbabwe’s delegation to the Governing Council comprised of three Governing Council Members led by Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda, Speaker of the National Assembly. The other Governing Council Members in attendance are as indicated below:-
o Hon. Tsitsi Veronica Muzenda, and
o Hon. Vincent Tsvangirayi.
1.3 The meeting was chaired by the Acting President, Hon. G. Chen of the People’s Republic of China. At the recommendation of the IPU Secretariat, Hon. Advocate Mudenda chaired the Session in instances of technical challenges with Hon. Chen’s connectivity from China.
2.0 Election of the President of the IPU
2.1 The IPU received four candidatures as follows:
Ø Mr. M.S. Sanjrani (Pakistan, Asia- Pacific Geopolitical Group)
Ø Mr. D. Pacheco (Portugal, Twelve-Plus Geopolitical Group)
Ø Mr. A. Saidov (Uzbekistan, Eurasia Geopolitical Group)
Ø Ms. S. Ataullahjan (Canada, Twelve Plus Group)
2.2 Parliament of Zimbabwe supported the candidature of Mr. Pacheco of Portugal. This was in keeping with the motion adopted by the SADC PF to rally behind Mr. Pacheco given his extensive experience in the operations and functions of the IPU. It is imperative to note that Hon. Advocate Mudenda moved the motion which was adopted unanimously by the 47th Plenary Assembly of the SADC PF held from 9th to 11th October 2020.
2.3 In an unprecedented online vote with a voter turnout of 97%, Hon. Duarte Pacheco of Portugal was overwhelmingly elected President of the IPU for a three year period.
2.4 In this regard, Parliament of Zimbabwe wishes him a successful tenure in office and pledges its full support during his term.
3.0 IPU’s Honorary President’s Report
3.1 In her report, Hon. Gabriella Cuevas Baron, former President of the IPU articulated activities undertaken during her three year tenure as President of the Assembly. The outgoing President’s main thrust was to engage in Parliamentary diplomacy and build strong synergies for the IPU.
3.2 Under her presidency, the IPU strengthened relations with the United Nations, implemented a robust Strategic Plan and introduced positive initiatives such as the Leadership Training Programme for Young Parliamentarians.
3.3 Hon. Gabriella urged the IPU to continue on this trajectory to ensure that the voice of parliaments is heard in collective solutions for global challenges.
3.4 Members extended their appreciation for her energetic and visionary leadership throughout her tenure as President of the IPU. More importantly, they observed her unwavering commitment which ensured that the IPU continued executing its mandate even with the advent of COVID 19 pandemic.
4.0 Financial Results for 2019
4.1 The Governing Council approved the accounts for 2019 after consideration of the reports of the findings of the external auditors from the Swiss Federal Audit Office and Internal Auditor which noted that IPU statements were in compliance with International Sector Accounting Standards and that the IPU is in sound financial health.
5.0 2021 Draft Consolidated Budget
5.1 The Governing Council approved the 2021 Draft Consolidated Budget. Of note, is that the assessed contributions by Member Parliaments will be maintained at the current levels. Accordingly, Member Parliaments were encouraged to pay their assessed contributions to enable the IPU to implement its programmes.
5.2 The Secretariat will continue to source for voluntary funding from traditional partners (International Organisations and Member Parliaments) as well as engaging new partners. Member Parliaments were called upon to consider providing voluntary funding towards specific areas of interest.
6.0 Elections to the Executive Committee
6.1 Ms. Laurence Fehlmann Rielle of Switzerland, representing the Twelve Plus Geopolitical Group as well as Ms. Beatriz Argimon of Uruguay, representing the GRULAC Geopolitical Group were duly elected into the Executive Committee.
7.0 Brief Report on the Outcome of the Virtual Segment of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament and the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament
7.1 Hon. Advocate Mudenda, a key member of the preparatory process for the virtual segment of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament briefed the Governing Council on the deliberations and the positive outcomes of the Conference which was attended by 115 top legislators. In his presentation, he highlighted the following:-
o That the Conference discussed a wide range of topics spanning effective multilateralism, robust parliamentary diplomacy, climate change, sustainable development, health, youth and gender, democracy, human mobility, countering terrorism, as well as science and technology.
o That the Conference affirmed the need to generate a strong message of parliamentary leadership and solidarity so as to learn from the lessons of today and join forces to tackle the daunting challenges facing our world at so many levels not least in terms of global health, environmental and economic vicissitudes predicated on the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
o That the Conference was also a seminal platform in deepening our ties with the United Nations and the IPU’s other partners, in consonant with our theme of more effective multilateralism.
o Participants pledged to reinforce the role of parliaments in global governance underpinned by enhanced multilateralism and international solidarity anchored on the equality of sovereign nations.
o Invited all parliamentarians around the world to study the Conference publication and reflect on the key outcome messages which should spur us towards working together for a better world.
7.2 The Governing Council elected members into the Preparatory Committee of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in person Meeting scheduled for July 2021 in Vienna, Austria. The SADC Group put forward, Hon. Catherine Gotani Hara of Malawi to replace Hon. Margaret Mensah Williams who is no longer Speaker. Hon. Gotani was duly elected into the Preparatory Committee.
8.0 Brief Report on the Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians
8.1 The Governing Council adopted the Report of the Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians.
8.2 Of note, is the case involving Hon. Joana Mamombe on the following alleged human rights violations:
Ø Abduction
Ø Torture
Ø Ill-treatment and other acts of violence
Ø Arbitrary arrest and detention
Ø Violation of freedom of opinion and expression
Ø Violation of freedom of assembly and association
8.2.1 The Report acknowledges Parliament of Zimbabwe’s response through the Hon. Speaker, which elucidates that the principle of sub judice limits Parliament’s possibilities of engaging for the resolution of this case.
8.2.2 In the spirit of transparency and Parliamentary diplomacy, the Hon Speaker responded to issues raised in the report emphasising that, in line with the country’s Constitution which enshrines the doctrine of separation of powers, Parliament cannot interfere with due process. However, Parliament will be on the lookout for any violations of Hon. Mamombe’s rights. Furthermore, Parliament will continue engaging the Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians on the status of the court case.
8.2.3 The Hon. Speaker briefed the Governing Council on the status of the court case highlighting that Hon. Mamombe is out on bail and receiving appropriate treatment after being confirmed mentally unfit to stand trial.
9.0 Future Meetings of the IPU
9.1 The Governing Council approved the schedule of future meetings of the IPU. Of particular note, is that the 142nd Assembly is scheduled for May 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland while the October Assembly is scheduled for Kigali, Rwanda.
10.0 Questions Relating to the IPU Membership: The Specific Situation in Mali
10.1 On 18 August 2020, a group of officers staged a coup d’état and proceeded to arrest the main political leaders, namely President Keïta, his son and Parliamentarian Karim Keïta, his Prime Minister Boubou Cissé, and the President of the National Assembly Moussa Timbiné. The putschists, acting under the banner of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), claimed they planned a three-year transfer of power period to review the foundations of the Malian State. During the night of 18 August, President Keïta resigned.
10.2 Following ECOWAS sponsored negotiations, the process of normalisation has been initiated and should result in the reinstatement of the constitutional order as recommended by the entire international community.
10.3 In this context, the Governing Council approved the proposal from the Executive Committee to take note of the ongoing progress, give its support to the initiatives aimed at reinstating the constitutional order and recommend the provision of technical assistance to the Transition National Council.
10.4 The Secretary General is expected to take steps to this effect and set a roadmap with the transitional authorities.
11.0 Recommendations
11.1 The Parliament of Zimbabwe should continue to engage the Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians through provision of updates on the status of the case of Hon. Mamombe.
11.2 The Parliament of Zimbabwe to continue engaging Treasury to ensure that subscriptions to the IPU are timeously paid to avoid accruing arrears.
11.3 The Parliament of Zimbabwe to continue participating in virtual statutory and ad hoc Meetings of the IPU. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for affording me the opportunity of seconding on the report of the IPU Governing Council. Let me also hasten to say that I want to thank the delegation headed by our Speaker, Advocate Mudenda to participate in several meetings of the IPU and also congratulate him on behalf of the delegation that he happened to co-chair one of the sessions. This Mr. Speaker Sir, explains that we have a wealth of experience in terms of the Speaker amongst our delegation. I know for sure that even in that delegation, the three of them, Hon. Sen. Tsitsi Muzenda is in one of the committees that she chairs as a gender person. I also want to congratulate Zimbabwe that we are also raising the flag high up in terms of representing Zimbabwe.
Let me move on quickly to congratulate the newly elected President of the IPU and the new executive, but perhaps to pay tribute to Hon. Gabriella who made the IPU what it is today. During her tenure, she lifted the flag and the bar high in terms of the IPU as a woman. I happen to have interaction with her. She is a woman of respect. I want to thank the world for having voted for her to lead the IPU. As women, we celebrate her success as a woman who took that institution to another level.
You would see that this was a preparatory meeting Mr. Speaker Sir, in terms of looking at the budget, the programmes that were to be targeted. However, I also celebrate that in the budget discussions, women and youths were mentioned. Developmental activities targeting even sub-regional activities were allocated some kind of support.
On a sad story before I conclude Mr. Speaker, you will notice that there is mention of violation of rights for Members of Parliament, specifically Hon. Mamombe. There was mention of the violation of freedom of association, freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. These are matters that if as a country we work together, we should be able to deal with domestically rather than us being on the agenda internationally and regionally if we do not handle such matters in the right way. It is my fervent hope that we will be able to have this matter dealt with and put to rest so that at the end of the day when delegations, especially the IPU delegation goes to IPU, they will have enough answers. They can get the respect as a delegation, especially in the person of the Speaker who will be one of the spokespersons in terms of the country where they will ask where are you in terms of this particular case. I want to share that this is a good report in terms of getting what others are doing, the support by the UNDP and participation of our delegation.
I think there was mention Mr. Speaker Sir, in terms of affiliation fees. Many a times our delegations go to meetings and only to realise that we have not yet paid subscriptions. It is embarrassing and if the Finance Ministry is made aware that in certain delegations to wherever we are affiliated, affiliation fees or subscriptions are paid prior before departure of the delegations. I want to thank Hon. Tsvangirayi for moving this particular report for the adoption of the House. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MAVETERA: I would like to congratulate and thank Hon. Tsvangirai for moving this important motion. Let me also thank the seconder, Hon. Mpariwa. I would like thank them for attending the virtual meeting. Indeed Corona is not going anyway – it is going to stay with us.
We have got young blood in Parliament and we are happy when we see such young people going to represent us as a country. I applaud SROC for coming up with Hon. Tsvangirai, Hon. Mnangangwa and Hon. Mukunyaidze. These are young people who represented us. What is worrisome, especially on the delegation and participants who were supposed to be going on, especially on the election of the president – I am surprised that we do not have an African President being there so that we are represented in Africa. It is important that we are represented as Africa and having African people coming into place. I acknowledge the position that they gave to the Hon. Speaker.
I would like to applaud at this juncture the Hon. Speaker of this Parliament, Jacob Francis Mudenda. Our Hon. Speaker is one person who has always made sure that whenever it comes to issues to do with IPU or any issues that are meant to capacitate Parliamentarians, he always stands for parliamentarians. However, without considering that he was also appointed and was also co-chair; my worry is why it is that we do not have African people standing in as President.
I applaud Hon. Gabriella Cuevas, she was a very good President and a very gender sensitive woman who showed that she would do well and she was really doing well in IPU. She made IPU get onto the map. Of course, we need to alternate and have a man this time but I just hope that after this term we also have another woman coming in because she really showed that she could do very well. We are hoping that we are going to get another woman coming in. I am not saying that I am not in support of the current President. We were happy as female parliamentarians having a female President for IPU, it was a good step.
However, I applaud the composition of IPU here in Zimbabwe. I think it is worth commenting that it is gender sensitive. We are mainstreaming women into international politics. Now that IPU is coming to Rwanda here in Africa, it is good for us. We are happy because that alone is going to bring a lot of foreign currency and trade here in Africa and makes us feel that we are a good African country. What unites us is that we are Zimbabweans and what unites us as Africa is that we are Africans. I thank you.
(V)HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Often times, we criticise the Executive pertaining to the matter and the methodology they use when they go out there to sign international treaties. One of the things that I feel we are not doing well as Zimbabwe is prior consultation and the other issue before a delegation of Parliament goes to some of these meetings, we tend to get these reports post the meeting. If you were to ask many parliamentarians, they do not even know what IPU is, neither do they know these agendas beforehand that there is a delegation of Zimbabwe that is attending an IPU meeting or SADC or any other international fora for that matter.
For the sake of transparency and democratic aspects, some of these things need to be posted in advance and members need to be aware that we have got a delegation that is going out – the agenda is a,b,c and our delegates are so and so. Members can then help to equip those members who are delegates to these meetings.
The other issue I want to raise is the issue that relates to the human rights violations, especially when it comes to Hon. Members of Parliament. I note in that report, that the Speaker is said to have said that at Parliament we are monitoring and everything is according to the dictates and ethos of the law. I was at the Rotten Row Court today where Hon. Mamombe – I do not know how many times she has been dragged and also denied bail being a Member of Parliament (MP) for some charges which ordinarily in other countries are not worth to deny bail. These are the charges that the Magistrate Court should grant bail, especially for a member of the society who occupies a position of Member of Parliament representing a constituency.
It is wrong in my view for us as Zimbabwe to fail to attend to some hygienic issues and fail to solve some internal discourse and challenges that we face. It is wrong for us to be found every now and then having an issue of human rights violation – MPs being on an agenda of international meeting. Inasmuch as the Speaker might have said the law is taking its course, the truth of the matter is that it puts Zimbabwe on the wrong mark and creates an impression. It may be true that there is human rights violation because if you look at the stature of an Hon. Member, an Hon. Member needs to be treated with honour. In any vein, when you have got a country that arrests and does investigate – in normal democracy, investigations are done. You investigate and establish a prima facie case against a culprit and then you arrest. The courts will then decided on the merits of the case but in our situation regarding to Hon. Mamombe, she has been called to court on several occasion. Right now, even the prosecution is not even ready to bring her to trial but every now and again she has been arrested for other things. For example, recently she was arrested for addressing a press conference but the other people who were there, Prof. L. Madhuku who also addressed the press conference was not arrested.
When we have got a case of that nature happening, it creates a problem. Hon. Speaker, you will recall that Hon. Mliswa was arrested addressing a press conference but he was granted bail that very same day. What are we doing as a country if we allow female legislators to be kept in prison, moreso when we just have been celebrating the women’s day? What message are we sending to the young women about their participation in politics?
This why even if you look in our Parliament today – how many young women do we have, they are less than 10. So what message are we sending out there to our daughters, sisters who may want to join politics and contribute to the growth of our country? It is wrong in my view.
I believe that the Hon. Speaker, instead of just simply saying we are going to talk with the National Peace Commission, we need to see justice being done. We do not want a talk show to say we are going to do this, what is it that Parliament has done? I believe that we would not even want a report to say what Parliament of Zimbabwe has done pertaining to the harassment and the ill treatment of its own Members.
Mr. Speaker Sir, such things will continue and I can guarantee you that the next meeting that is scheduled for Kigali in Rwanda, Zimbabwe again, will be on the agenda because we continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect people to just get used to it – to simply say this is the Zimbabwe way.
I listened in court today when Prosecutor Razor literally smiling and thinking that they are doing justice in punishing a poor young Parliamentarian, yet they are damaging the reputation of this country. We are talking of an Hon. Member without an army, catapult or stones. What security risk would Joanna Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri create?
Mr. Speaker Sir, I believe as a nation we really need to avoid ourselves to be on the agendas of international forums. However, as long as we continue to do this, we will continue to feature. I thank you.
HON. TSVANGIRAI: Thank you Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Members who contributed to this report, Hon. Mpariwa, Hon. Mavetera and Hon. Mushoriwa. In future, I will definitely make efforts to make sure that the report is read on time.
I now move that the report be adopted and withdrawn from the Order Paper.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that Orders of the Day, Number 13 to 14 on today’s Oder Paper be stood over until Order of the Day Number 15 has been disposed off.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON DEFENCE, HOME AFFAIRS AND SECURITY SERVICES ON IMMIGRATION SERVICE DELIVERY AT BORDER POSTS
HON. GWANETSA: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services on immigration service delivery at Border Posts including during COVID-19 lockdown period
HON. S.K MGUNI: I Second.
HON. GWANETSA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. As a way of introduction the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services resolved to conduct an inquiry into the state of service delivery by the Immigration Department particularly at ports of entry and ports of exit. This follows concerns from the public about the declining state of service delivery in the department, particularly at border posts. This prompted the undertaking of the inquiry which culminated into this report. The report provided highlights of the Committees findings, observations and recommendations.
The objectives of the fact finding exercise were as follows:-
- To get an insight into the challenges and experiences facing the Immigration Department in fulfilling their service charter.
- To ascertain if the Department of Immigration was observing World Health Organisations guidelines as per Statutory Instrument 83 of 2003 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- To provide informed recommendations for approved service delivery by the Immigration Department.
Methodology
In March 2020 the Committee received oral submissions on the state of service delivery at ports of entry and exit from the Immigration Department in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage. Realising the need to establish facts on the ground in light of the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, the Committee split into two teams and from 12 to 14 October 2020 visited border posts as follows – Sango border post, Plumtree border post, Beitbridge border post, Chirundu one-stop-border post, Nyamapanda border post and Kariba border post.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee reengaged the Chief Immigration Director in an oral evidence meeting on 16 November, 2020. The major purpose of the meeting was for the Committee to get further clarity on the critical issues that were raised during the fact finding visit. It was also meant to appraise Committee Members on the nationwide state of service delivery at border posts on the challenges the department was facing in fulfilling its constitutional mandate, constitutional rights in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background
In order to have effective service delivery at border posts infrastructure such as roads, commercial offices, inspection bays, housing for the officers, information and communication technology, surveillance technology, truck and baggage scanners are a requirement, a critical requirement for that matter.
The one-stop border post model where clearance is done at one facility is a core border post design concept being considered after a pilot project at Chirundu between Zimbabwe and Zambia which showed good results, cutting wasting time by 30%. The one-border-post concept has advantage of easing congestion at existing facilities, reducing time delays thereby reducing transport costs, increasing coordination between border agencies and simplifying clearance processes to facilitate trade.
The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 has led to unprecedented international border closures and other restrictions. The Government of Zimbabwe closed all its borders and airports to ordinary travels on 30 March 2020. Office counters and doors were physically closed for ordinary travelers aside for commercial vehicles and returning citizens and SADC citizens in transit.
The processing of certificates of origin, import and export licences, rebate concessions and all correspondence were mainly done electronically. Stringent regulations put in place for compliance included mandatory temperature checks, comparisal use of respiratory masks, obligatory hand sanitisation, strict observation of social distances, limiting crew members in cargo trucks, observation of strict transit requirements.
Citizens or residents of Southern African, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) member states transiting through Zimbabwe’s land borders to their homes were to present a covid-19 free certificate issued within the previous seven working days and have had to submit themselves to screening and testing for COVID-19. Once a traveller exhibited COVID-19 like symptoms on arrival he or she would be detained at a holding facility and would be required to pay US$60 for a test.
Seized with the rampant cases of illegal crossings and associated elicit activities at the designated and undesignated entry and exit points, allegations of the degenerating services delivery and the looming effects of border closures due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic the Committee resolved to inquire into the state of service delivery at the border post under the prevailing circumstances.
Findings and Observations
- Border infrastructure
The Committee was concerned about the general infrastructure at border posts which need to be improved especially with regards to commercial offices, inspection bays, office space, housing, bridge development, information and communication technology, and software as well as surveillance technology.
Mr. Speaker Sir, at Nyamapanda the Committee discovered that the infrastructure which was constructed for fewer people back then probably during the Rhodesian era has now outlived its purpose. With only one side catering for both entry and exit passages congestion of both human and vehicular movement was imminent. Long winding queues of heavy commercial trucks were seen stretching further down into Mozambique on the Mozambican side. There was also acute shortage of office space resulting in some offices being used as both offices and store rooms. There was inadequate infrastructure to use by travellers during the border formalities. The clearing hall was very small and it could hardly accommodate more than 10 clients at any given time. The situation was unattainable in light of need to comply with the social distancing COVID-19 regulation. There was no shed at the search bay consequently exposing officers, clearance and their goods to the vagaries of weather conditions.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the shortage of office accommodation was a major observation at border posts such as Nyamapanda, Kariba, Chirundu and Sango. At Plumtree border post the Committee was concerned to note that the Regional Immigration Officer had no office of his own and was sharing an office with subordinates for eight months. At Beitbridge border post the Committee was informed by Immigration Officers that the border redeployment project was failing to take off as there was still talk of financial closure 10 months after the date of the works. However, I am happy to report that as a result of our visits the funds were availed and there is something that is taking place at the border. The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is the busiest in Southern Africa region both in terms of commercial and human traffic. A joint South Africa, Zimbabwe border efficient management system programme was launched in May 2009 but is stalled after Committee and a draft Memorandum of Understanding had been drawn up.
The specific objectives of the memorandum as it were firstly to reduce congestion at the border crossing as you can take note Beitbridge border post caters for the route right across to North, East and West Africa as it is so there was really congestion at the border. To enhance operational efficiency, thirdly to reduce waiting times and fourthly lower transaction cost at the border. Zimbabwe was tasked with the upgrading and expansion of infrastructure using public private partnership options. The plans incorporated the development of one stop border post as a long and as noted this is in place at Chirundu. At Plumtree border post the Committee noted that the border has no proper patrol room, in that case officers on patrol relied on main road since most areas remain inaccessible. The poor state of patrol road infrastructure was also raised at Sango border post, Nyamapanda border posts and at Beitbridge border post. Officers at the stations bemoaned lack of commitment by responsible authorities in respect of the sorry state of the patrol roads. The roads are in such a dilapidated state and it opens up for pourousness.
They openly challenged the Government to urgently improve the networks along the country’s border lines in order to promote efficiency and effective monitoring of human movement along the border; the human movement along the borders is so rampant.
Shortages of accommodation; at Plumtreee border post, the Committee received reports of critical staff accommodation shortages. The station had 18 houses which provided accommodation for 44 members of staff and their families. The Immigration Department at the border post purchased 4407 square metres of residential stands for construction of flats but due to lack of fund construction was yet to be commenced so that situation still remains dire. Similarly, at Beitbridge border post reports were received that members of staff were forced to share accommodation with three or four families per quarter and that compelled other members of the staff to move to rented facilities or elsewhere to retain privacy and have adequate space.
Mr. Speaker Sir, at Kanyemba and Kariba border posts, shortage of staff accommodation was also raised and that available structures were in a dilapidated state. In some worst case scenarios officers were compelled to share rooms even though some officers lived with their families. At Chirundu border post in particular, staff pay rent for their accommodation, despite paying rent for the houses the Committee was informed that the Department Of Public Works had not been maintaining the properties as was expected.
More so, when officers had to be transferred to other regions, the responsible authority would delay cessation of rental deductions, this situation affected the work moral of the employees, thereby hindering effective and efficient service delivery.
Conditions of service; cognisance of the fact that ZIMRA is a parastatals whose conditions of service are determined by a board while Immigration is a department in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage whose conditions of service are determined by the Public Service Commission. Immigration officers complained that their counterparts in ZIMRA received pecks which were much higher than theirs. They hinted that ZIMRA staff enjoyed benefits such as car loans for managers every 5 years, out of station allowances, overtime and union representation. Unlike their counterparts, Immigration officers did not enjoy these incentives despite being the face of the nation particularly in entry points, Immigration is the face of the nation and they also play a critical role when it comes to the provision of security. They are the first point of contact into the country by all travellers including diplomats. The Immigration Department’s essential services cluster was reported to be lagging in terms of conditions of service despite having a staff establishment of less than 600 nationwide.
Their expression was more of the big brothers when they were comparing their conditions of service to that of ZIMRA and conditions of service as prescribed on the Immigration officers which really become very untenable. The Committee was pleased to received report at Beitbridge and Plumtree border posts that the Immigration Department had received sufficient COVID-19 PPEs materials. However, lack of PPEs was a common outcry at Sango, Nyamapanda, and Chirundu border posts while tests kits were critical in determining one’s COVID-19 status, the Committee was indeed dismayed to the state that Kariba border post had not received any COVID-19 kit from the Ministry of Health and this was conducted sometime in October and pronouncement of COVID-19 on 30th March and therefore that laxity was really unprecedended, as a result the situation deterred the Immigration Department from prosecuting foreigners who would have committed immigration offences since courts, police cells, prisons were not admitting foreigners without COVID-19 free certificate. Sadly, there was no effective management of COVID-19 testing as truck drivers were only subjected to temporary check without testing as stipulated in COVID-19 national guidelines.
The Committee was further informed that there was no off road terrain vehicles at Kariba border post to conduct patrols on the lower Zambezi Valley which was said to be a hive of illegal activities when you look in terms of those people coming from Zambia, DRC, Rwanda, Great Lake and everywhere. So, it is really unpleasing.
The Committee was disheartened to find out that the department heavily relied on the ZIMRA land cruiser to conduct their patrols. The vehicle available only was when ZIMRA as the big brother was not using it. If ZIMRA was not there, no patrols, porosity of the border would continue unabated. This situation was deemed unsustainable in light of the rampant illegal activities taking place along the border line. The situation unlike its Zambian counterparts reported that there was not any boat patrol on Lake Kariba which was quite often used by border jumpers. The entire Kariba, no boats on patrol by the immigration officers, so, the laxity was unprecedented. Mr. Speaker Sir, fuel shortages affected the smooth operations of the Border Post, cognisance of the fact that most fuel providers dotted in the vicinity of the border areas were selling fuel in foreign currency, USD, Rands and Pula. The department continued to receive RTGS coupons from the Government instead of the redeemable DFI coupons or DFI Ones. At Kariba border post, the Committee found out that there was no Redan Service Station in Kariba and that the station was compelled to collect fuel from Karoi which is 157 kilometres away and those people were given Redan coupons and yet on site, no Redan Service Station. So, they were forced to drive 157 km and multiply that by two – how much fuel will you have used? The other challenge reported was that Redan only redeemed new DFI coupons yet the station had old RTGS coupons which could not be used anywhere else in the area.
On ICT system challenges - at Nyamapanda and Chirundu Border Posts, the Committee was informed by the Immigration Officers that the computer system experienced frequent down times. The Committee received similar reports at Beitbridge Border Post where Afrosoft backed system was said to have crushed in December 2019 putting the Immigration Department and the whole nation at risk as all entries and immigrant management had to be done manually. Given the high volumes of movement at the ports, officials were not able to collectively identify criminals and some prohibited immigrants using the manual system. Once again, the porosity of the system and criminology, all issues were pertaining to use once again of Afrosoft which was not controlled in the country.
At Kariba and Nyamapanda Border Post, the computer system was in a dire state with no internet connectivity between these stations and other border posts including the national headquarters. This was an appalling scenario that poses serious challenges in assessing travelling history of clients as and when it was urgently needed. The Committee noted that the black book was not computerised and as a result prohibited immigrants were not easy to identify. It was a willy-nilly situation. The Committee was dismayed when it was told that due to lack of internet connectivity, officers were buying airtime and expensive bundles using their own money to send daily returns to the regional office.
At Sango Border Post which also happens to be part of my constituency, the Committee was concerned that with no reliable source of power due to lack of electricity, the station could not use computerised immigration systems and they were being used at the border post. At Plumtree Border Post, the Committee received reports that the computer system Afrosoft again owned by a private entity had crushed in February 2020 and had not been repaired ever since. The Immigration Department further reported that it was still using obsolete passport scan. It really calls for our concerted efforts as Zimbabweans when we are looking in terms of our vital aspect in terms of security.
Porous border lines – at Beitbridge Border Post, the Committee learnt from the Immigration Officers that the 225 kms, if you want to say from Crook’s Corner to Beitbridge, you pass once again into Matabeleland South – the frontier had too many breach points, forward basis and communities along the frontier line were said to be fuelling cross-border illicit activities. At Nyamapanda - the Committee was told that the Zimbabwe/Mozambique Border had no physical barrier and was highly porous with a number of illegal crossing points along the border line, thus creating operational challenges. No wonder why at one time we had people from Ethiopia caught in Gwanda on foot because of the porousness of the border line.
Our security as it were, remains bleak. The demining exercise which had been going on was said to have compounded the situation since previously inaccessible areas were now open to invaders whilst the deminers were doing a great job of demining the area, but to illegal border crossers, it was a blessing in disguise in terms of opening up illegal entry points because smugglers were taking advantage of the safe passage. At Sango Border Post - the Committee was told that the near 200 km straight line was punctuated by rattled trucks weaving in and out of the country, testimony of the presence of vehicular and human traffic entering and leaving the country illegally. The main points that were said to be costly were mostly used for smuggling goods in and out included Crooks Corner, Machichi, Dumela, Malipathi, Dingi among others. This paused potential security risk to the country and at the same time undermining revenue collection efforts, security of great importance, revenue going uncollected and all those are of great concern to a State of the nation. More so, the porosity of the border gave way to illegal crossings of people whose COVD-19 status was unknown and that increased the risk of spreading the virus in the country.
Border Post Management - the Committee received reports that due to absence of a recognised border management authority, ZIMRA again which is a stakeholder, was given the maintenance and repair budget for the entire Ports of Entry and exit premises. The main grievances were that the management was unattainable since most of the expenditure was said to be in the intimacy of the big brother ZIMRA at the expense of other departments at the border post. In the absence of the arbitrator, in the form of a border management authority, this created a big brother mentality, big brother element and an unfair distribution of resource since other departments had no other administrative say in the management of infrastructure and some services at the border post.
Issuance of gate passes to locals - the Committee was informed by immigration officers at border posts that the issuance of gate passes to local residents usually residing within 20 km radius in the border areas was a provisional arrangement meant to benefit the disadvantaged members of the local communities especially school children, those who were indiscriminately unable to procure travel documents. However, the Committee heard that the service was quite openly abused even by the able bodied members of the society who reside in the surrounding areas.
According to the officers at Nyamapanda and Chirundu, those who sometimes secured passes to attend to relational and social issues on the other side of the border often abuse the facility by engaging in criminal activities. They end up being apprehended for various offences and that created operational challenges between Immigration Officers of the either side of the border. It was suggested that the Registrar-General’s Office be centralised in order to cater for citizens living in the very remote area including those near the border in order to curb illegal border crossings due to lack of travel documents and abuse of the gate passes.
Mr. Speaker Sir, on the observations, the Committee made the following observations that firstly the absence of a specific authority that takes responsibility of all management issues currently handled by ZIMRA derailed service delivery in the Immigration Department at border posts.
Secondly, the department was drastically lagging in utilising modern technology such as drones, surveillance cameras, biometric cameras at clearance points, helicopters for effective operations, patrols and security surveillance at border posts. Criminals were therefore taking advantage of this to paralyse operational systems of the Department and thereby affecting service delivery at all levels.
Thirdly, the Department did not have efficient and effective computerised software. Instead, it relied on the service of a private entity Afrosoft whose computer software was no longer compatible with prevailing service delivery requirements and client demands. Consequently, lack of a robust computerised system, compromises data collection and increases the country’s exposure to criminal or illicit activities.
The absence of harmonised or integrated border management system affected the smooth flow of business in the Immigration Department at border posts. The adoption of the integrated system would inevitably standardise conditions of service and boost morale among workers. Maintenance of morale is one of the principles in campaign. Therefore, if morale among the security people is low, we are playing with a very important scenario in terms of security provision.
The country’s borders were very porous as evidenced by the proliferation of illegal exit and entry points. The rise in illegal border crossing cases impacted negatively on the reputation of the Immigration Department in as much as it affected the entire nation in terms of security and loss of revenue. The one-stop border post concept at Chirundu was critical for the Department of Immigration as it has the potential to improve service delivery in several ways. It would go a long way in expediting clearing processes and subsequently decongesting entry and exit points.
There was limited working space at Nyamapanda and Sango Border posts with senior officers sharing offices with junior staff or using storerooms as offices. The officers and staff accommodation require immediate refurbishment at almost all the border posts visited. This impacted negatively on the welfare of personnel at the border posts who happen to be the face of the nation.
The Department did not have adequate terrain patrol vehicles to secure the entire country’s border lines. The Committee noted that securing the country’s borders was critical and there was urgent need to adequately and properly equip border security personnel for effective operation and patrol along the border lines.
Mr. Speaker Sir, there was very low morale among officers. They complained that they were not paid overtime and hardship allowances while their counterparts at ZIMRA were well looked after although the Committee noted that ZIMRA was a parastatal whose welfare was determined by the Board of Directors while Immigration was a Department in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage. Such circumstances were not only demotivating but also a potential to expose officers to corruption.
Border posts such as Nyamapanda, Kariba were overwhelmed by applications for gate passes by citizens living close to the border. The Committee noted that the majority of the citizens did not have primary identity and travel documents and this caused most civilians to resort to illegal crossing or bribery to facilitate their movement. The Department faced serious problems in accessing fuel using RTGs coupons and that impacted negatively on the service delivery particularly on transport operations such as routine patrols, ferrying of detained immigrants and other arrested offenders.
The Chief Immigration Officers in the six border posts visited suggested the use of retention funds by the Department in order to speed up service delivery at remote border posts. Border posts are in remote places so they are requesting the use of retention funds, probably that can ease the operations of the Department.
The presence of mines in some places dotted along the border lines affected effective patrols and other operations in those areas. Border lines, when we look in terms of the history of this country, freedom fighters were using those border lines to cross, therefore, those were the areas that we are concerned about because of landmines. There were health ports at all the border posts we visited. The sanitisation, social distancing were being observed. Truck drivers were subjected to temperature checks with COVID testing witnessed.
At some border posts such as Nyamapanda, Kariba and Sango, measures put in place to contain COVID-19 were rendered ineffective due to limited provision of PPEs, limited working space and insufficient testing kits. This had the potential to expose officers to the disease which subsequently reduced their confidence in carrying out their duties.
Recommendations
In order to improve service delivery in the Immigration Department at all border posts, the Committee is recommending the following;
ü That by 31 July, 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage should push for the Ports Authority Bill to create an authority that will take responsibility, currently being handled by ZIMRA at all border posts;
ü That during the 2021 financial year, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage should prioritise and ensure installation of modern and state of the art ICT facilities by 31st October, 2021 in order to enable effective border patrols and surveillance using drones to gather, on real-time basis, accurate data and intelligence about illicit activities occurring across border lines. This should also include availing resources for integrated capacitation programmes for Immigrations, Customs and security agents at border posts in the use of modern ICT and drones;
ü That by 30th June, 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage should secure robust computer software entirely owned by the Department of Immigration and backed by specialist engineers employed in the department in order to improve on security of data. Relying on private entities compromises the security of both information and the travelling public;
ü That the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in collaboration with other relevant ministries should prioritise the establishment and operationalisation of an Integrated Border Management System that involves the Immigration Department, Customs, security agents and various other stakeholders by 31st July, 2021;
ü That during the 2021 financial year and 2022 National Budget, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should allocate adequate resources towards the repair and re-electrification of the security fence along the border line. More-so, Sango Border Post should be given first priority in the electrification exercise. This can be done through Government entering into a bilateral agreement with Mozambique whose border town of Chicualacuala (Vila Eduardo Mondlane) is being electrified;
ü That by 30 July 2021, the Ministry of Public Works and National Housing should commence projects aimed at redevelopment of all border posts. This should be done with the OSBP concept in consideration. This should include construction and renovation of offices and staff accommodation at all border posts;
ü That during the 2021 financial year, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should release sufficient financial resources to the department of Immigration to secure adequate and all terrain patrol vehicles. This should include funding for the rehabilitation of the road connecting Sango and Rutenga;
ü That during the 2021 financial year, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Public Service Commission should review and improve the remuneration and conditions of service for staff in the Immigration Department. Frontline officers should be awarded incentives such as overtime and hardship allowances commensurate with those enjoyed by their counterparts in the various agencies operating at border posts;
ü That by 31 May 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, through the Civil Registry Department, should further decentralise the application and issuance of primary identity certificated as well as travel documents to places convenient to all citizens, including the underprivileged members of society. Doing so will help mitigate cases of corruption involving immigration officials, at the same time curbing illegal border crossings;
ü That from the 2021 financial year onwards, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage should allocate adequate DFI fuel coupons which are redeemable at service stations operating near the country’s border posts;
ü That by 30 March 2021, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should consider authorising the use of retention funds by the Immigration Department in order to improve service delivery, especially at remote border posts such as Nyamapanda and Sango;
ü That during the 2021 financial year, the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs in collaboration with other stakeholders should prioritise de-mining all areas infested with mines near the borderline, particularly Nyamapanda and Sango Border Posts;
ü That by 31 July 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage should allocate adequate financial resources to procure COVID-19 test kits, sanitisers, fumigation equipment, chemicals and personal protective equipment (PPEs) for the Immigration Department, particularly for use at all the country’s border posts to help contain the pandemic.
Conclusion
Thus, the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services acknowledges the critical role that the Immigration Department plays in the management of migration. It is therefore, the view of the Committee that financial support, adequate tools of trade, decent remuneration packages and various other requirements are key necessities to the Immigration workers at all border posts. Adequate test kits and PPEs should be timeously provided to help contain the ravaging pandemic at ports of entry and exit. Establishment of a Ports Authority, institutionalisation of an integrated Border Management System, digitalisation, upgrade and refurbishment of physical infrastructure to meet international best practices among others, will indeed facilitate the improvement of service delivery in the Immigration Department. The Committee implores Government and all interested parties to expedite development programmes aimed at uplifting the standard of service delivery at all border posts “under the new norm”.
HON. S.K. MGUNI: I would like to thank you Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to aire my views on such a good report which was written by the Committee. I was one of the members who also participated on the mission of visiting the border posts to find out the working conditions of the workers at those posts. I was equally shocked when I noticed some disparities when it comes to service delivery and the upkeep of the workers, especially those in ZIMRA and Immigration whilst they all belong to the same Government. Though they are managed by two ministries, they are under the same government and I see no reason why the upkeep of these workers is so low for some of the officers.
The other thing that I noticed at those border posts was that even the maintenance of the infrastructure is so unappealing that if you look at the sign posts, bill boards and road markings they were so worn out and even the national flag was tattered and torn. When we tried to look across the border you could see light at the end of the tunnel especially on the South African side. I went to Beitbridge, Sango and Plumtree and the markings were clear. There were no potholes on the other side but you could see the negligence of maintaining infrastructure on our side.
Coming to the issue of management, I also noticed that there was confusion pertaining to who was in control of the borders. Since there was no one tasked to control, all the departments deployed there did their own duties without any coordination and that has created rampage corruption which is prevailing on that side. I started by saying we were all shocked to notice serious corruption after having been told that there was corruption at the borders. What we saw on that day was terrible. When we tried to see what was happening at the river, we saw with our own eyes people being assisted to cross the border by our officers but not from Immigration. This highlighted that there was need to have Border Authority that would have control over all the officers deployed at the border post. The Border Authority will have control over all the personnel at the border and that is the only solution that will bring sanity at the border posts.
Even the issue of lack of ICT and many other things lacking at the borders will be solved because people in charge will look closely at all those and I believe our borders will be run smoothly.
I was pleased with the report because it covered almost everything that we thought could be done to improve the service delivery for our staff working at the borders, especially those in Immigration. But the only solution that I would like to recommend is to have the Border Authority that will take care of the border management system. I believe those people will do better by improving service delivery of the Immigration officers or the management of the border in general. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
(v) HON. MUSHORIWA: Let me start by congratulating the Chairman of this Committee for such a sterling report. The issues that have been raised by the Committee.... [Technical Fault]
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mushoriwa, you seem to be having internet problems and we can no longer hear you.
(v)HON. I. NYONI: Firstly, I would like to thank the Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services for a detailed report presented by Hon. Gwanetsa and seconded by Hon. Mguni. The visit covered various border posts inclusive of Beitbridge, the busiest border post in Southern Africa. The Committee clearly highlighted challenges affecting the efficient running of these border posts. Of note, was the issue of infrastructure, accommodation, transport for officers and the actual human resources as well as issues to do with ICT. The Committee clearly identified lack of cohesion at most of these border posts because of lack of which department was overally in touch, hence their recommendation of creating a border to have a creation of a border management agency that will overally be in charge of the border post. I totally agree with this particular recommendation and I am sure this will improve the efficient running of the border areas. However, the bulk of import revenue generated by ZIMRA, which also contributes quite a chunk to the national fiscus, comes from Beitbridge border post. Hence the need to ensure that this border post is given priority above others while others can follow later. My reasoning is that we are aware that on the revenues we are looking at import duties, SETEX, VAT and other revenues. This will go a long way into minimising the revenue leakages at Beitbridge border post. There was the issue of smuggling which is prevalent at Beitbridge and most of these border areas. Particular interest was the area bordering Mozambique and Zimbabwe where the border line is not clearly defined. This makes it very difficult. There was also the issue of capacitation of our officers at the border posts whereby transport was identified as one of the major things that impinge efficiency in carrying out their duties when doing border patrols hence the smuggling going on. This makes it very difficult to be reduced. Briefly I also concur with the Committee that these border posts need urgent capacitation through allocation of adequate resources. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MUTAMBISI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 16th March, 2021.
On the motion of HON. MUTAMBISI, seconded by HON. TEKESHE, the House adjourned at Half Past Six o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 16th March, 2021
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 10th March, 2021.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. SPEAKER
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have got a list of apologies received from Hon. Ministers and Vice President in respect of the National Assembly sitting on Wednesday, 10th March, 202:
Hon. Rtd. General Dr. C. G. D. N. Chiwenga - The Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care on official business but he said the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care will be in attendance.
Hon. O. C.Z Muchinguri-Kashiri – The Minister of Defence and War Veterans Affairs, is away on official business,
Hon. D. Garwe - The Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities is away on official business;
Hon. C. Mathema - The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education is away on official business, the Deputy Minister will be in attendance.
Hon. K. Coventry - The Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture and Recreation is away on official business.
Hon. W. Chitando - the Minister of Mines and Mining Development is away on official business, and
Hon. D. Marapira - The Minister in the Vice President’s Office is also away on official business.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
(V)HON. MAVHUNGA: My question is directed to the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. The Minister of Justice withdrew Statutory Instrument 25 which reviewed the level of fines upwards. What is the Government’s position as regards to those who had already paid these invalidated fines? What is going to happen to those who are in prisons serving the sentences after failing to pay those fines?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Mavhunga, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is not yet here, so I am going to park your question until he arrives.
(V)HON. MUCHIMWE: My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. There is a lot of congestion at most of our toll gates leading to very long queues. What measures are you taking to ensure smooth flow at these tollgates?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRACTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir and let me also thank the Hon. Member, Hon. Muchimwe for that very important question whereby the citizenry are actually suffering, especially those plying our toll gates all over the country and on our major highways.
Hon. Speaker Sir, this has been a challenge especially in terms of connectivity whereby we have seen motorists queuing. As Government, within the last two weeks I actually engaged ZINARA which is in charge of our tollgates and we are seized as we speak. They have introduced what they call the tap card which was giving problems, particularly three or four weeks ago but they have promised that now there is improved connectivity in terms of the point of sale where they have engaged a number of banks to partake in that very important programme. So you will see that ZINARA soon will be introducing the coupon system whereby motorists will have the coupon that they will use on a daily basis. I want to assure the Hon. Member that we have been given a target of 31st March by which ZINARA would have managed the issue of queues. I thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. NDEBELE: I asked the Hon. Minister a similar question last week regarding the expansion of the toll plaza into and out of Harare along Bulawayo Road and he had promised to bring an answer but in his current answer, he did not address that one. When is he going to expand that into a four way plaza like what happened in Kadoma?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Was that an oral question or was it a written question?
HON. NDEBELE: It was an oral question and he has assured us that he will liaise with his team and bring a response.
HON. MHONA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. Apparently, the next sitting day I brought the response to the Hon. Member and I lodged the response with the secretariat, in particular our Clerk. The question emanated from written questions, so I then brought the response and I am sure if the Hon. Member can get hold of the Clerk he will get that response. Thank you very much.
HON. NDEBELE: So it is in the Hansard. So they hid it there, but if he was generous enough he could have answered it in the House. What is the point? He spent five minutes explaining what he did with it, he should just explain now.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, you should not demand but you should request. I rule that you read the Hansard.
HON. NDEBELE: Why are you hiding the answers when you are still a new Minister? Already you are hiding answers.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, do not force the Chair to ask you to leave the House. You are a well rounded person and I do not want to endanger that.
HON. KASHIRI: My question goes to the Minister of Local Government and Public Works. I would like to find out from the Hon. Minister what has happened to the growth point policy. Has there been a paradigm shift in the growth point policy as we have seen them not growing lately? Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
THE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. J. MOYO): Thank you Hon. Speaker. I do not know what he has in mind in particular in terms of what could have changed but our growth point policy is in line with our urbanisation policy where we start at the business centre, the rural service centre and the growth point. All these are intended to create a business environment, a nucleus of a town, a nucleus of a future city and therefore they take the attributes of a modern well developed city and some of the aspects of this is where we excise them from a communal area so that they become an urbanised area where businesses, residential and commercial enterprises buildings especially will have title deeds.
In the communal areas you will not have title deeds unless we do this excision. So our growth points which started, most of them in the colonial era under Tilco; after independence we turned them into centres of administration and every district in this country started having a growth point. Those are the growth points, some of which have grown into towns. I think the most celebrated of those is Gokwe which moved from a Town Board and now is a fully fledged Town Council. We hope that the next step of a growth point like Gokwe is to move into a municipality and each one of them has to have certain attributes that are captured in the Urban Councils Act. So when you are a growth point you are on your road to becoming a town. You are on your road to become a municipality and then you can become a city and that is why we do that excision from the communal areas. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I want to advise all Hon. Members on line that you should have registered your name with the Chief Whips so that I can follow the list so provided to me.
HON. KASHIRI: My supplementary question arose in view of the recent COVID pandemic. We have seen that we are a little bit crammed in urban centres. We would have thought that growth points, if they have grown at the rate they started we would have seen decentralisation whereby growth points will be attracting…
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your supplementary question?
HON. KASHIRI: My question is; is there any plan to accelerate the speed of growth of growth points? Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS [HON. J. MOYO: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir, we are quite sure that growth points grow because of economic activities that take place in a particular area, and given the devolution thrust that Government has done, it is envisaged that with the new thrust that we have been given, we make sure that each local authority comes up with their asset register, they do their valuation roles to see their capacities, some of which is just being latent because it is not being exploited. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development and myself have agreed that this year, part of the devolution funds that used to go for administration, we want every council to have a valuation role; that means assess your assets in terms of the Constitution Section 301 subsection II which allows every council to assess its asset base, its fiscal capacity and you cannot analyse your fiscal capacity until you do a valuation role and understand your assets.
These growth points which are in the centre of an economic activity which is rounded by a lot of either rural commercial area or rural communal area, once they start assessing and they know their assets, their job is to make sure that they now plan for a GDP so what the President announces as provincial GDPs, the base of that GDP for a province has to be the council because the council has the responsibility to look at all the assets that are in its area and that is how we think the economic growth of those growth points will take place.
*HON. MADHUKU: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government. I am pleased by the Hon. Minister’s response. However, I have observed that we have a problem...
*THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Madhuku you are now debating, ask a question.
*HON. MADHUKU: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is on the people who are resettled, those near the growth points. Even if they are allocated stands, I note that these people will be having farming spaces and livestock, this makes it difficult for them to adapt to the new small land that they will be allocated after being resettled.
*THE HON. SPEAKER: You question is not very clear Hon. Member, I hope the Minister has understood your question.
HON. J. MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. This is a very important question, yes growth points are within communal areas and each one of those communal areas surrounding a growth point has a village head under a headman and chief. Some chiefs have now been allocating land to urbanisation when the boundary of the growth point stipulates that this cannot be an urban area and that is a problem we are faced with. We have now been instructed by the leadership to warn those village heads who are abusing their powers and allocating these stands to become urban because it creates an uncontrolled urban expansion which is not well planned, which is not well connected to services such as roads, sewerage or is not connected to water.
So, if we allow this type of growth, it will become messy in terms of our urbanisation strategy, it become messy in terms of service delivery. That work we have said we are going to undertake and we are grateful that we have been granted more physical planners by the Public Service Commission in order to undertake the work of demarcating what growth point boundaries ought to be so that this unplanned urban sprawl can be contained. So, I want to thank the Hon. Member for observing this issue which is resettling us. I thank you.
(v)*HON. DR. MURIRE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Service. What is the criterion or method used in deploying teachers that have finished their degrees whenever there are vacancies?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. E. MOYO): I did not get the question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I think it is the process of registering teachers at the district level - there are some glitches in that regard. In other words the registration is not smooth, what is the Ministry doing about that.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. E. MOYO): He said Public Service.
THE HON. SPEAKER: The question is misdirected, it should go to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. E. MOYO): Thank you very much Hon. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the question. The registration of teachers for employment at district level – yes, it is done through the Education Department, but the Public Service is also involved. However, I am not very much aware of the glitches that the Hon. Member is talking about, it would assist us a lot if those were identified and the Hon. Member put his question in writing so that we can investigate examples given then we can give a comprehensive answer.
HON. DR. MURIRE: Hon. Member can you please put your question in writing for next week so that the Hon. Minister can answer in full?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Ziyambi there was a question on the withdrawal of Statutory Instrument 25, there are people who had paid fines while the Statutory Instrument subsisted, the question is what happens to those fines – will they be refunded or not?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon. Speaker. The process of enacting Statutory Instruments is such that once they are gazetted before they come to Parliament, they become effective and they are operational. Should it happen that Parliament decides that it cannot be passed for one reason or another, the effect that it had from the day it was gazetted is not wiped away, it still stands. If you paid a fine you have paid a fine because the law at that particular moment dictated that, that was what was operational at that moment. I thank you.
(v) HON. MAVHUNGA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My supplementary question to the Minister is why do you not bring the Statutory Instrument before validation in Parliament before they are effective in terms of the application?
HON. ZIYAMBI: Mr. Speaker Sir, the reason why Statutory Instruments are there is, there are certain issues that are urgent or that are allowed Ministers to do. In other words, it is a subsidiary power that is given to the Executive to use to enact laws before they are ratified by Parliament in terms of the Parliamentary Legal Committee looking at it, scrutinising and tabling it before Parliament. If the Hon. Member thinks that practice is wrong, he can move a motion that we must abandon it and proffer reasons why it should be abandoned but what is subsisting in terms of our laws and Constitution that is delegated legislative authority that is given by Parliament to the Executive to ensure smooth running of the country. I thank you.
(v) HON. MUSAKWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development as regards the policy position as far as standardisation of the designs of roads and bridges particularly in rural areas. This follows the washing away of a lot of roads and bridges as a result of storms in these areas and it has affected the people?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and let me also thank Hon. Pastor Musakwa for that very important question. To just elaborate on the parties that are involved in our roads that we have got the State roads, DDF roads Local Council roads and the Rural District Council roads and apparently the owner of those roads is the Ministry which I superintend. I want to thank the Hon. Member which now calls upon the issue of monitoring and evaluation which has just been advent in terms of our policies as a Government to say yes, in terms of standardisation whatever is constructed whether it is in a rural set up, it has to meet specific standards and according to the dictates of this nation in terms of quality.
So, I want to assure the Hon. Member that we have a number of wash aways roads especially because of the incessant rains that we received in this particular season, but in terms of quality going forward, I assure the Hon. Member that in terms of monitoring and evaluation, all projects are going to be monitored and evaluated accordingly. Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My supplementary is, Hon. Minister, are you aware of the Mutare/Plumtree road which was done by Group 5 and before five years the road was destroyed when it was supposed to be 15 years. The company that made that road is now in liquidation. The question is how we are going to be guaranteed and assured that the contractors fix roads properly and within what the contract says because it spoke about us moving forward. We have to make sure that roads are done properly, but here is a Group 5 road which has more capacity than any other company which within five years is damaged. We also took a loan against it and the company has gone into liquidation. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir and let me thank Hon. Mliswa for bringing that very important question and to give a background of that transaction or a deal which actually involves ZINARA and a company from South Africa to form a Special Purpose Vehicle known as Infra –Link whereby ZINARA had 70% of the shareholding and that company known as Group 5 as alluded to by Hon. Mliswa had 30%. Surely, they were given Mutare/Plumtree Road which is actually consisting of nine tollgates in that road. They had been manning that road and the road was funded by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA). As we speak, the loan has not been serviced. These are some of the challenges that are there in terms of the dispute before the courts whereby an amicable solution is being put in place. The road now actually has been exposed because of such anomalies. I want to assure the Hon. Member that the case before the courts takes into account some of the issues in terms of durability of the road which has not been witnessed for a number of years given the short term the road has been constructed.
So, with the issue that I once earlier on raised, the aspect of monitoring and evaluation was the missing part whereby contractors are given a job to do they just do a shoddy deal and they are paid. That causes the drain to the fiscus and also the issue of qualities which are not up to standard. Given the issue of quality as alluded to, Hon. Mliswa, I want to assure you that these are some of the issues that we are seized with as a Ministry. I want to say, yes there is a dispute in terms of loan being serviced by the company that has gone under, Group-5 but above all as citizens we also need quality service to be maintained. Thank you very much.
HON. DR. MASHAKADA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. In view of the quality control issues that the Minister has alluded to, what measures is the Ministry putting in place to make sure that the Chirundu-Beitbridge Road will not suffer the same fate.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order, the Hon. Deputy Minister Machakarika is on honeymoon; perhaps he is counting his trucks.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Deputy Minister Machakarika, do away with honeymoon; perhaps he was praying I do not know – [Laughter.] –
HON. MHONA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir, let me thank Hon. Dr. Mashakada for the question. I want to assure the Hon. Member that so far the companies that have been working along the Beitbridge Road have managed to be on target and as we speak, they are now going into phase 3 of that road. I also call upon the Committee on Transport together with my Ministry so that we do the monitoring and evaluation as a team so that as we then see the works being done we would not sit here and interrogate the quality and the state of the road after we have paid.
Mr. Speaker Sir, this is a local content setup whereby the road is being funded from the fiscus. It then calls upon this august House, Hon. Speaker Sir, to take charge of monitoring and evaluation so that we work as a team. The Chairperson of the Transport Committee together with the Ministry should work as a team so that we superintend over the quality of the work being done.
HON. T. MLISWA: I have a recommendation Hon. Speaker. The recommendation is that the Committees on Transport, Public Accounts and Budget Committee if they can be joined together because there was a lot of money from the fiscus. They should go and see how the money was spent. It is my recommendation that those Committees go together because I was also going to suggest that the Committee on Public Accounts invites ZINARA and its partners. We want to know where the money went to. That is our job to check how monies are being spend, nine tollgates and the work is not being done properly, yet we think we have paid. They should be accountable. Those three Committees, those three lions should go together and see who will survive from there.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you, I am sure the Hon. Minister has taken note.
HON. MAVETERA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. Still on that point, considering the loss that could have happened is there any policy concerning insurance especially on our part as Government so that we safeguard such recurrences. In the contract, is there a clause on insurance?
HON. MHONA: Let me also thank Hon. Mavetera for that question. In any given contract Hon. Speaker Sir, there are performance guarantees and bid bonds. That would also state and take care of such anomalies. I think the only issue is of following up in terms of executing and calling the performance of such very important tools especially when it comes to bid bonds and performance guarantees.
(v)HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government and Public Works. In view of the Government policy that has allowed ZUPCO monopoly in terms transport in the urban set up, what remedial action is the Ministry taking to ensure that school children when schools open next week they will be in a position to get transport. I am saying this because many passengers are now resorting to be carried by lorries and pickups.
Hon. Dr. Labode having stood up to ask a question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Dr. Labode, what is the issue?
HON. DR. LABODE: I want to ask a question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You must be in your list, I have got a list from your Party, so please register but if there is room I will call upon you.
THE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. J. MOYO): I want to thank the Hon. Member for the question. We have a Committee that is looking after the issues of Covid-19. In that Committee, the issues of schools opening and the transport logistics that ought to be done have been analysed and we believe that ZUPCO as the preferred carrier in all urban areas has already made sure that there is a separate allocation of buses for school children so that we do not mix with the travelling public, workers and others who are plying these routes into town. We did it last year when the schools opened for examinations and it worked quite well.
We are busy preparing ZUPCO to make sure that there are buses in each urban area which are allocated for school children so that they travel very well. In doing so, we make sure that the issues of sanitisation; social distancing and also making sure that the students are taken their temperatures before they go into the buses. That we are ensuring and we want to ensure that our children are well protected.
HON. DR. LABODE: My supplementary question is to the Ministry of Local Government. I wanted to know whether the teachers have been vaccinated and also to get a response on whether Zimbabwe has now received more vaccines other than the 200 000 doses that were donated?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Dr. Labode, that is a double barrelled question to two ministries.
HON. DR. LABODE: Okay. Minister of Education, I wanted to know whether the teachers have been vaccinated? The reason why I am asking about the 200 000 doses is you cannot vaccinate if you have no vaccine. That is why I want to know whether the nation has procured the 100 million extra vaccines?
THE HON. SPEAKER: The question does not seem to arise from Local Government.
HON. DR. LABODE: No, it does. He stated about ZUPCO and schools being ready so the teachers also must be ready. You cannot expect the children to be taught by somebody who has not been vaccinated.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I will indulge you Hon. Dr. Labode.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. E. MOYO): The teachers have not been vaccinated and the Ministry driving that process of vaccination is the Ministry of Health. I think the overall Coordinating Committee on COVID -19 has prioritised how that is going to happen. So, I may not be very much aware of the processes within health in terms of prioritisation and the roll-out of the vaccination programme but what I can confirm is that as of now, teachers have not yet been vaccinated. I believe they are going to be vaccinated as the process rolls out.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Deputy Minister of Health, you might have to answer that aspect whether teachers are a priority frontline workers as well as the quantity of the vaccines that are expected.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. MANGWIRO): Thank you Hon. Dr. Labode for that important question. Vaccines that were received were 200 000 enough for 100 000 people. The first dose is given to an individual and the second one will be given in 28 days. So far, we have not reached the 100 000 mark for the frontline workers who were prioritised as follows; doctors, nurses and all those people who work in hospitals, uniformed forces and those who get in medical things, be it collecting dead bodies from anywhere or from roadblocks. We also prioritised journalists, Members of Parliament and those who work in mortuaries as our frontline workers. The process has been going on well but we have not finished. We are realising that definitely schools are going to be opened.
The Committee is relooking at that so that we can also extend the vaccination to the teachers but the teachers were on Stage Two of Phase One. Stage one was the frontline whom I have outlined. Teachers were on Stage Two of Phase One which we are going into. In terms of the number of vaccines that are coming, they are a lot lined up. We are going to pick some more as we go along stage by stage and we have confirmed orders. Sinovac is going to give us about 1, 2 million and Synopharm about 600 000. We are in the process of arranging to pick those and they will continue after we finish the 200 000. What must be clear is we do not want to pile up the 10 million and our speed at which we are doing it may not be commensurate with the amount that we have piled up and we might end up losing.
(v)HON. SARUWAKA: My supplementary question to the Minister of Local Government is, ZUPCO has not been able to cover all the routes in the country. He spoke about urban areas but in the rural areas, there are certain routes that have not been covered by ZUPCO yet the private combis have been suspended. I wanted to check with the Hon. Minister when they are going to allow the return of private combis so that they can provide services to areas where ZUPCO cannot because the coverage of ZUPCO I think is less than 10% of the country because we have many routes that are not covered. So, when are they going to allow those combis in the rural areas?
HON. J. MOYO: ZUPCO is the one which is designated in all urban areas. When the President announced that we had opened inter-city, it is not just ZUPCO which is operating in inter-city. When we say inter-city, we mean all routes outside urban areas and while ZUPCO might have buses going outside urban areas, they are not the major player. The major players are the private bus and combi owners. These are the major players in intercity. The President did announce that intercity was opened and we see them plying both in the central main roads as well as in the hinterland in the rural areas. The private sector is now very busy doing their business. I thank you.
HON. T. MOYO: My question is directed to the Minister of Home Affairs. What is Government policy towards total and unequivocal repatriation of iconic bird statues which appear on our national flag and on our coins? I am referring to those that were stolen during the colonial era. When are they going to be returned to Zimbabwe? Also missing are important Government documents which should be appearing in the national archives. I was surprised to miss some documents in the national archives of Zimbabwe. I had to find them at Rhodes University library written Zimbabwe Rhodesia Government. When do we expect them back in Zimbabwe? I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (HON. KAZEMBE): I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the pertinent question. The question is in two parts. While one part is about policy, the other part is about what is supposed to be done and when we are expecting to get the documents back. The part of policy is very clear because Government intends to ensure that all those documents are brought back to Zimbabwe but as to when exactly becomes a bit specific. I will look into it to see how far that bit has gone and bring the response to this august House next week Wednesday.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Muchimwe, can you be properly dressed. Now you are properly dressed, I can see you. I was worried about your attire.
HON. MPARIWA: My question is directed to the Minister of Justice. When will Government ratify the African Charter on Democratic Elections and Governance? I ask this question in view of the fact that we are less than two years to the general election.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I am laughing Mr. Speaker because the protocol was ratified here in Parliament. We ratified it in this session of Parliament. So I am not sure why the Hon. Member thinks we need to do it again.
THE HON. SPEAKER: It is just memory lapse.
HON. DR. KHUPE: My question is directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development. The Minister issued licences to 25 independent power producers in the last eight years to produce energy in the form of solar, hydro and thermal technology. Sadly, these IPPs are only producing 135 megawatts as opposed to 6000, resulting in power shortages. Does the Ministry have any plans to consider biogas using municipal waste which is all over and causing health hazards in all cities.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the pertinent question. Yes, it is true that the Ministry issued quite a number of licences through ZERA, our regulatory authority to potential IPP companies who had plans to generate electricity from several sources throughout the country but up to now not many of them have produced anything. Some of them were issued with these licences more than five years ago but what has been happening is that the prospectors came and applied for licences without funding. After they had acquired funding, they would then start to look for investors to assist them but most of them failed to attract investors to implement their projects. That is why most of the IPPs have failed to come up with the electricity that they had promised to generate.
Coming to the second part of your question about the municipal waste, through our renewable energy policy, we have got those plans and we are encouraging investors to come and invest in the waste on electricity projects. At the moment, we have not got many. At Mbare, we have such a project where they are generating some electricity from municipal waste which is processed into energy. We are looking for investors in that. It is one area where we can generate more electricity if we get investors into that area. That is what I can say at the moment. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Minister. In Shona they say, chakanaka chakanaka, mukaka haurungwe, okuhle kuhle. I am very impressed by the attendance of Hon. Ministers and their deputies – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order. If you are a husband and you do your job, your wife should praise you. I want to say Hon. Ministers maintain your responsibility accordingly in terms of Section 107 (2) of the Constitution. Keep it up. Thank you.
(v)*HON. T. ZHOU: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My question goes to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. My question is in relation to the opening of schools. The Ministry has issued out the school calendar on the opening of schools from the 15th March. Since private schools were open during the lockdown, are they going to be following the school calendar or they will continue using the calendar that they were using when they were doing online lessons? Thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. E. MOYO): Thank you very much Madam Speaker and thank you very much for the question. That is currently a very topical question that the Ministry is dealing with. We have received a lot of complaints regarding trust and some independent schools that are operating outside the parameters given by the Ministry. We have already drafted a letter to the board that oversees these private schools, which letter I am sure has already been sent because yesterday it was being discussed and sent to those respectively. In fact, if they insist on going against the calendar, they risk deregistration. Thank you.
(v)*HON. T. ZHOU: My supplementary question Madam Speaker is; since these schools have been doing online lessons whilst other schools were closed, are the learners supposed to pay school fees?
HON. E. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker. Thank you very much for the supplementary question. Online lessons in terms of payment depend on the arrangement that the school and the parents have made. Some schools are well resourced to finance to finance that kind of operation without any levy being charged but others are not so resourced and yet they might be having the necessary networks to operationalise online learning. They might need to talk to their parents which many schools have done. It is not the total school fee that is paid as if there is face to face tuition in the schools. Such more levies that parents may arrange with the schools to facilitate online learning in many cases have been happening. That is not regarded as the payment of school fees.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question to the Minister is; there has been COVID for the past year. There has not been any revenue for the guardians and parents sending to school. Why have you increased fees at these private schools? There is no justification and you cannot even debate it because people are not making money. Because of COVID, they have not made money for the whole year but the school fees are being hiked. What is the justification of that?
Secondly, you have allowed the private schools to run their little Rhodesia. They also do not take part with other schools in terms of sport. Churchill for example, is a Government school and it beats all schools when it comes to rugby but now they cannot play St Georges. They cannot play Falcon in Zimbabwe today and yet the best rugby players are largely black. Now, they are also left out of the Zimbabwe national team.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, ask your question.
HON. T. MLISWA: My question is; why is the Ministry allowing discrimination to happen in these private schools through sport and why is the Ministry allowing the hiking of school fees when the revenue has not been there for the entire country because of COVID for the whole year. What is the justification? There is no debate. Tell us why have you said there? It is like you are toothless bulldogs in terms of you attending to these issues. There is no justification whatsoever. There must be no debate, but there must be enforcement.
HON. E. MOYO: Thank you very much Madam Speaker and thank you to the Hon. for the questions. The first one is - why schools have increased fees. It is not Government. It is not the Ministry that increases fees. Fees are increased through an arrangement between schools and the parents. Parents come to a meeting, discuss the budgets that are given and the majority of the parents present in the meeting and constituting more than 20% of the parent body of that school, agree to the fee increase whose register is then submitted with signatures of the people present, and then submitted to the district office with the recommendations and justification. The Ministry merely accedes or rejects what has been agreed to by parents but it is not the Ministry that increases fees.
Coming to the issue of sports segregation, I think I might have to look into that. I may not immediately give a response. I take note and the people in charge of that area will then inform me after making a research on the issues and then I will bring a response.
HON. T. MLISWA: Is the Minister aware that those meetings that are held, parents are forced to agree because they fear being victimised together with their children. I have children who go to private schools and in a way, you feel that if you object you are victimised – that is the truth of the matter. I am speaking for the people here. There is no justification to the victimisation yet we know very well that there is no revenue that is coming to any parent. It does not need a debate but common sense. How come 20 have agreed – it is because they fear their children will be victimised. An investigation must be instituted immediately so that we save these people. For the whole year there was no money and common sense can tell you that you cannot hike anything.
HON. E. MOYO: The issue of victimisation is noted but however, I would like to encourage Hon. Members present and various structures of Government, local Government and councillors wherever they are – councillors are ex-officio members of the SDCs and they represent people. They must represent people’s interest by ensuring that people are not victimised. I want to urge Hon. Members to also conscientise parents on their rights regarding decisions made on the issue of fees. They should not fear anything but should people feel victimised, they need to get recourse from the Ministry and they will be assisted.
HON. MUSHORIWA: My supplementary question to the Hon. Minister is, given that schools have been closed and there has been running expenses incurred by schools, whether or not the schools are operating like security and other stuff, what is the Government doing in terms of helping schools through giving them some resources so that the costs are not passed on to parents who are facing huge economic challenges? Is the Government considering giving the schools money so that they run some of these expenses?
HON. E. MOYO: There has not been any consideration of that kind of grant looking at the number of schools in the country – close to 10 000 and their different locations and circumstances. However, during COVID, some schools approached the Ministry regarding those issues of overheads which are always there, whether the school is running or not the advice was to discuss the matter with the parents and come up with levies to just cover those basic overheads without touching parents full fees because some of the expenses would not really require those fees. We would not want to find everything falling apart when schools open. I think some schools with initiative did just that but however, you find a mixed bag in these schools – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Mliswa – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] – Hon. Mliswa, Hon. Mliswa please may you approach the Chair.
HON. T. MLISWA: May I apologise to Madam Speaker and all women. This is women’s month and we must respect women. I am sorry Madam Speaker. I withdraw my bad behaviour. You must have a relaxed month and we must give you respect. I withdraw that hooligan behaviour.
HON. KWARAMBA: My supplementary question to the Minister of Education is, when schools opened last time after COVID, some pupils went to school but others failed to attend lessons because they feared COVID. Does it follow that those people have lost their places at schools?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Minister, did you get the question?
HON. E. MOYO: Yes, thank you Madam Speaker. This is a question which emanates from a number of incidents that we have and are dealing with as a Ministry. The policy of the Ministry is that if a student is absent continuously without explanation for eight days, the school must institute an investigation by contacting the parents to find out what has happened. It is the responsibility of the parent to also notify the school of what circumstances the child is in resulting in them failing to come to school. There is no automatic loss of a place without such conversation.
In the stated example, we have instituted investigations on the PEDs. We know that there was COVID, people were in different circumstances, some were not well and others could not travel. We expect our schools to be so considerate and not to willy-nilly cancel enrolment of students. However, I know what the Hon. Member is talking about and that is being dealt with by the relevant PEDs where this has occurred.
HON. NKANI: My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. What is Government policy on the ownership of infrastructure and homesteads left on the farms that were previously owned by white farmers but now are owned by new A1 farmers?
THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): There are two categories of infrastructure left depending on the settlement. On A1 farms, the infrastructure remains Government....
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, are you connected?
HON. DR. MASUKA: I hope I am connected now.
THE HON. DEPUTUY SPEAKER: You may go ahead
HON. DR. MASUKA: There are two types of ownership: on A1 farms, the infrastructure remains Government infrastructure to be collectively managed by the Committee of Sevens. On A2 however, Madam Speaker, the allocated beneficiary is then responsible for the infrastructure, on that farm. So, those are the two categories and distinction in terms of ownership of infrastructure.
(v)HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Madam Speaker. On A2 farms where the new farmer takes over the infrastructure, does the farmer pay any compensation?
HON. MASUKA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the supplementary question. As the Hon. Member might have heard or knows, there is the Global Compensation Deed which is estimated at US$3, 5 billion - it is the improvements on all the farms that were the subject of the Land Reform Programme. Government has taken the stance that this is a national responsibility and Government is currently looking for resources, together with the former farm owners in order to meet the compensation obligation.
Therefore, at this stage, the policy guidance is that the beneficiaries of the Land Reform Programme should pay their levies and those levies are indicated annually. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of clarification. Hon. Minister, do those Committees of 7 exist? What we have heard is that they are no longer there and we need to be very clear because they also created a lot of problems.
HON. DR. MASUKA: Thank you Hon. Member for seeking that clarification. In terms of the policy, they do exist - whether they are operational and active, perhaps is another issue. In some instances, they are, but if there are any specific issues and specific areas, perhaps we can look into it and try and advise the relevant district Lands Committees so that we can activate them. They are an important administrative structure in the current Land Reform Programme.
HON. T. MLISWA: The District Development Coordinators - we had a meeting with them and they were very clear that they do not exist. I think you are creating confusing now. However, it would be important for the Minister of Local Government to come in because they fall under District Development Coordinators. As far as we know, they do not exist anymore. If I am not mistaken, they fall under the Minister of Local Government.
With your indulgence, Madam Speaker, it is very important for the Minister of Local Government to come in and clarify that. They were disbanded because of the many problems which had been created. The Lands Committee itself has a number of people who sit on it. The composition of the Lands Committee represents everyone; the chiefs are there, the chairman of the rural district council is there, and so forth. So what is the purpose of the Committee of Sevens again?
THE MINISTER OF LOACAL GOVERNMENT (HON. J. MOYO): The Committee of Seven was a requirement and that requirement, I think in policy as the Minister has said, remains the policy. However, at operations, I think at some point when it was indicated that ‘there is no land without a chieftainship’, the village heads, in some cases where appointed in those areas and that would have come into conflict with the Committees of Seven.
So, I think what is required is for us together with the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement to go and look at what the Hon. Member is analyzing and then we can bring a correct statement and a correct position. Thank you.
*HON. TEKESHE: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. It used to be that when you purchase a car, that garage you would have brought from would immediately process all the paper work and number plates for you. However, right now the car or vehicle will come with temporary plates.
What is the major reason we are not getting number plates and do these temporary plates work the same as the number plates?
*THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMETN (HON. MHONA): Thank you Hon. Speaker. Yes, it is true that the issue of number plates has caused havoc in our country. The number plates that we use in this country are imported from outside the country, which means there is a foreign component that is needed for the number plates to be imported.
However, I am glad to announce to this august House that we are blessed to have the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, Hon. Prof. Murwira who is working very hard with students in various universities around the country to solve the issue of number plates through innovation, science and technology. So, in the near future, I believe the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education will be coming to this House with good news that number plates are now being manufactured locally in order to save foreign currency and solve this problem of number plates.
The number plates that are given when entering into the country are not the same with the number plates that are then put on the vehicle. Furthermore, these temporary plates are not good to our economy because they take a huge chunk on the national budget because if a car has temporary number plates, that car is not registered. When the car is issued with number plates, that is when the Government benefits - especially the Ministry of Transport and infrastructural development, through registration fees. It is our wish that we could be able to manufacture those number plates locally. I thank you.
*HON. TEKESHE: The problem of number plates is a result of Governments failure to acquire the number plates but at the same time, people are being harassed by the police through having their cars impounded and so forth because they do not have number plates. Why is this being allowed to happen when we know that it is the Government that is failing to acquire the number plates? I would like to give an example of an Honourable Senator who collected their car on Friday and on Saturday it was impounded in Mutare. The police should not impound cars that have temporary number plates because it is a known fact that there are no number plates as a result of Governments failure to acquire them.
*HON. MHONA: The issue that he has raised also touches on the Ministry of Home Affairs, but as he has said, I would like to propose that we - the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, work together with the Ministry of Home Affairs so that we have a way forward in resolving this issue, so that people with cars that have temporary number plates can move on our roads freely. I thank you.
*HON. MUDARIKWA: My request to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development is on why we cannot manufacture our own number plates. We have the technology to manufacture the number plates here in Zimbabwe. We used to manufacture our own number plates in the past. If we go to Universities, we have training graduates and the equipment that can be used in manufacturing number plates. This is not a question but just a suggestion.
*HON. MHONA: I would like to thank Hon. Mudarikwa for his suggestion. It is true that we have graduates that are coming out from our universities that if we work hard we can go back to manufacturing number plates in our country. This will help us as a country as we are facing foreign currency shortages to have them manufactured out of the country. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker the Minister is forgiven because he is new in that department but all these experts and scientists that are being mentioned that they will fix these things have always been there. Is it not a question of corruption where somebody must make money out of these number plates that has delayed the process? These scientists have always been there. So the question is, is it not a result of corruption that we have not been able to manufacture them in this country – [HON. MEMBERS: inaudible interjections.] – I do not know why you are laughing but I am sure it is the truth.
There is nothing but corruption and it is a simple answer which does not need a rocket scientist. Hon. Murwira before he was there, these very same technocrats were there. So what will change? Is it not corruption? I know you are not corrupt.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: So what is your question Hon. Mliswa?
HON. T. MLISWA: Is it not corruption that is the source of the problem and not that we do not have scientists?
*HON. MHONA: Thank you Madam Speaker. You have raised a very pertinent issue of corruption, but at the moment I would like to thank the coming of the second dispensation that is working hard to stamp out corruption in the country. I trust that if we work together as a nation we can stop corruption. I thank you.
HON. MURAMBIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. It appears the system of teacher recruitment has been centralised recently. Hon. Minister, do you not see that centralised recruitment is prone to centralised corruption? Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): The decision to decentralise was actually as a result of attempts to resolve the problems that we were seeing with the decentralised recruitment. The process that we are now using is very much impersonal in that people register at their districts and then the names are forwarded to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education at central level. You will also realise that the recruitment that has taken place over the past two to three years has involved large numbers, at one point it was 6 000 and at another point it was about 5 000 and recently I think we are recruiting 3 000. That makes it very impersonal, bureaucratic systems work well when there are impersonal. Therefore, there is no interaction between those who are making the selection on a personal level and those who are seeking to be recruited.
What then becomes important is when did they complete their training, what learning area did they specialise in and then this is merged with the vacancies that are available. So, it is completely impersonal and fights against the corruption that we had actually seen with local recruitment. Most of it is being done electronically which again is helping us with the reduction in corruption. I thank you.
(V)*HON. MURAMBIWA: Thank you, Hon. Minister, you will find that those teachers that are employed are not the ones from our constituencies who would have applied. We receive teachers from other areas, can the Minister please clarify?
HON. PROF. MAVIMA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for the supplementary question. The question tends to contradict his earlier concern basically now he is saying we want people from my constituency being deployed in those specific areas. In many ways saying I want to say that I am retaining pork to the constituency which in itself goes to define what he was concerned about earlier the whole implication of corruption. What I have enunciated says any Zimbabwean who has qualified in a certain time and has the appropriate learning area concentration can be deployed without regard to where they come from specifically. There are many advantages except in situations where we are talking about the infant module where the mother tongue is considered to be important in the teaching at that level.
Otherwise nationally we have better integration and better nation building. If a Zimbabwean can be deployed in any part of the country and they can go and work there. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker allow me to check with the Minister how will this impersonally deployment of teachers then takes into cognisance the infant schooling that he refers to because I just has the occasion to look at the recent deployment. You could ask what is in a name but the names I saw there for provinces in the south were just not convincing that particular fact had been taken into consideration.
HON. PROF. MAVIMA: Hon. Speaker, I am assuming that the Hon. Member is saying that he expected to see southern names in southern places but what is not clear is whether he is also saying there are no southern names in northern or western or eastern places. My earlier contribution was to say it will be a good thing to see a southern name in an eastern place and to see a northern name in a southern place because that contributes to national integration and nation building where a geography teacher coming from Manicaland goes to work in Gwanda that in itself is important.
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. NDEBELE: I need to correct things before they go too far. That was certainly not the import of my question. This is a whole professor, I need him to understand that in the last couple of months, we have been dealing with the mischief of a zero percentage pass rate in Matabeleland and in the flesh he stood in this House and said there is a policy that says at infant level children must be taught by those who are conversant with their home language. So, my question then is the deployment is impersonal, how do we cure the mischief, it has nothing...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele are you connected?
HON. NDEBELE: I am sorry Madam Speaker, I am now connected but it takes away the currency from the question if I must repeat it but I am sure he got the gist. I am not saying Ndebele must each in Matabeleland that is not the import of my question but how does this impersonal deployment system cure that mischief so that we have a supply good enough to take care of our children between the grade zero to grade three level, that is where my question is premised.
HON. PROF. MAVIMA: Thank you Madam Speaker. There were some insinuations and I am not going to go into those. You remember my first response was to say there is an exception where the infant module is concerned. In my initial response I indicated that the infant module is special in the sense that Government policy is to say those in the infant module ECD A and ECD B, Grade 1 and Grade 2 are supposed to be taught in their mother tongue. It is only when we go to the junior module which is Grade 3 and upwards that the language of instruction becomes English for most of the learning areas except the specific indigenous languages.
So, this issue that the Hon. Member is referring to is not relevant. The selection at the infant module takes cognisance of not being from a specific language group or ethnic group but takes cognisance of proficiency in the language of the area so that they can effectively teach in the mother tongue of that particular area. Thank you Hon. Speaker.
HON. NDEBELE: I need clarification Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Order Hon. Ndebele.
Questions without Notice were interrupted by THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of Order Madam Speaker. The Speaker always say chakanaka chakanaka but I also want to say chakashata chakashata. He praised the Ministers for coming today...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Chakashata ndechipi, tirikuteedza mutemo pano apa.
HON. T. MLISWA: The Ministers are not here...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: So, you must withdraw chakashata nokuti hapana chakashata apa.
*HON. T. MLISWA: Chakashata ndechekuti maMinisters who were here have all left. Is it because they do not want to respect you – this is why I am saying it is bad. It is women’s month and I thought they would give you all the respect but when the Speaker was here, they were all seated. This is what I am saying it is bad. I am not happy about it that they all went out and they did not come to ask for permission to go out. That is the procedure when one wants to go out, they ask for permission to go out to say I have got an appointment or I want to go to my office. But they went out like a public toilet. They are disrespecting this House. We must give you the respect which is due. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Some of them had asked for permission Hon. Mliswa.
HON. T. MLISWA: But I have not seen them coming there, you are just saying so because you are a mother and it is women’s month. Hon. Minister Moyo went out and came back and I saw him but others have not come back yet. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Some of the Ministers sent some letters which I have here asking for permission to go out.
HON. T. MLISWA: I just wanted to raise that because it is women’s month because we should respect women who are in positions like you.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, I appreciate that time for Questions without Notice has lapsed but the way you suddenly cut me off like a school boy when I was in the middle of a conversation on matters that we consider very important where I come from...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, I gave you time to ask your question and I gave the Minister time to respond...
HON. NDEBELE: But you cut me short yet I am a sworn Member of Parliament here.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please. I did not cut you short.
HON. NDEBELE: You did. There was nothing hurtful with you giving me a second time to continue the conversation.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: How can we continue when the time has expired?
HON. NDEBELE: My time was taken by a point of order yet I have issues from where I come from.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele you are out of order please take your seat?
HON. NDEBELE: It is women’s month but hazvina kunaka izvozvo.
(v)HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of Order Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, Written Questions when you call a Member’s name, that Hon. Member might find it difficult to unmute when the Hon. Member is actually connected but may fail to unmute. So, if it is regarded that the Hon. Member is absent and he is not there, I think this is not fair. The Minister must go on to give the answer and Hon. Members can supplement and even the Hon. Member himself/herself might then find time and ability to unmute. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Madzimure and I also urge Hon. Members to be ready to unmute and answer to their questions.
(v)HON. NDUNA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. Hon. Speaker Ma’am, it is my humble submission that if your Hon. Chair can look at the participants to actually see if the Hon. Member is there or not. This is going to inform you whether he/she is having challenges in unmuting their gadgets. By their presence on the participants list, that can give the onus on you to actually give the Hon. Minister to go ahead and present the answers.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point taken Hon. Nduna, thank you.
MEASURES TO PAY NSSA PENSIONERS COMPETITIVELY
- 6. B. DUBE asked the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to inform the House-
(a) To explain measures being taken by the Ministry to ensure that NSSA pensioners are being paid competitively.
(b) Why the Ministry, NSSA and IPEC are neglecting private sector pensioners as regards access to the USD COVID-19 allowances.
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MAVIMA): Thank you Madam Speaker. NSSA pension entitlements are calculated based on the contribution period and one’s salary at the time of retirement, subject to the prevailing insurable earning ceiling. The existence of the ceiling curtails the levels of benefits. However, measures have been taken to ensure that contribution rates are self-adjusting in line with the Poverty Datum Line. This will ensure that that contributing member will receive a more meaningful pension at a time of retirement.
In addition, NSSA is also exploring ways of complementing prescribed benefits with non-monetary benefits in-order to improve the welfare of its pensioners. While this is under consideration, NSSA has, with effect from March 2021, started disbursing grocery vouchers for its beneficiaries with priority being given to orphans and persons with disabilities. This disbursement will be rolled out in a staggered way, and all beneficiaries will have received their grocery vouchers by May, 2021. Furthermore, NSSA is reviewing benefits in April 2021 as a way of ensuring improved social protection of its pensioners.
As to the second part of the question, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, basically since the lockdown Madam Speaker, NSSA began paying COVID-19 allowances to its beneficiaries as a way of protecting them from the harsh impact of the pandemic. The allowances denominated in US dollars have been paid at the prevailing auction rate, owing to foreign currency constraints. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Madam Speaker. Can the Minister explain the method that they are using to identify persons with disabilities and the elderly they are giving vouchers? I just want to find out if the Minister cannot come up with a way of paying pensioners a certain amount in US dollars. We know that their pension should be commensurate with the cost of living.
HON. PROF. MAVIMA: Madam Speaker, if I heard the Hon. Member correctly, I would like the Hon. Member and indeed Members of this august House to understand that the resource that we have as NSSA is a resource that in bulk is ZIM dollar. The payments are calculated based on the ZIM dollar denomination. If we then say pensioners are supposed to be paid a certain amount which is denominated in US dollars, that will be a sure way of bankrupting our social security system. I am saying this because if there are large devaluations of the ZIM dollar, then we will have serious problems in terms of the ability of NSSA to pay. So, it makes sense to pay based on ZIM dollar denominations because that will indicate to us our ability to pay. The idea is to make sure that going forward, NSSA should not just be able to pay now but we should be able to pay going into the future and we want to avoid factors that could lead to bankruptcy. Thank you.
UPGRADING OF GWERU GENERAL HOSPITAL TO A CENTRAL HOSPITAL
- HON. B. DUBE asked the Minister of Health and Child Care to explain to the House when Gweru General Hospital will be upgraded to a Central Hospital considering that it is servicing more than 3 million people drawn from Midlands, Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East and Masvingo.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. DR. MANGWIRO): The modalities for upgrading Gweru Provincial Hospital to a central hospital status are in our plans. We have a number of issues that need to be addressed before we accord it the status. The following are the problems that have been identified;
- Limited working space, especially theatres. Clinicians have to give each other operating schedules so that every specialty is accommodated in the two theatres.
- Consultation rooms are limited such that issues of privacy and confidentiality are compromised due to the working space challenges.
- ICU and renal services, we have seen a surge in the number of patients requiring the services in Government hospitals. Three beds in ICU and 4 beds in the renal area are not able to cater for the growing number of patients.
- For ward space, currently in female surgical ward, we are mixing gynaecological with surgical patients compromising infection.
- An increase in the number of medical personnel joining the institution has need for the expansion of accommodation for medical personnel within the institution.
Requirements are;
- Construction of theatre block with four theatres.
- Acquisition of the following equipment; CT Scan, laparoscopy and endoscopy equipment.
- Upgrading staff establishment; super specialities are required.
- 10-bedded ICU unit, 8-bedded renal unit, 10-bedded high dependent unit, 20 bedded wards for females and males and 5 x 3 bed roomed houses for medical staff. I thank you
HON. B. DUBE: I would like to know the Ministry’s timelines for
the planning since a lot of people are suffering and there are people who are travelling more than 600 km to go to a central hospital either in Bulawayo or Harare. This issue must be treated urgently so we need to understand the timelines when, in terms of time, the Ministry is planning to do that upgrade since already other facilities are there including the teaching hospitals. It needs just to have certain standards upped.
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Allow me Hon. Dube to bring the timetable next week Wednesday. Please give me time to go and check the timelines.
Questions with Notice were interrupted by THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64
TABLING OF AUDIT REPORT
ZIMBABWE BROADCASTING CORPORATION FORENSIC AUDIT REPORT
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Madam Speaker, following your ruling on 3rd March, 2020 regarding the tabling of forensic audit reports, I thereby table the comprehensive and forensic audit services to Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, July, 2014 in terms of the Audit Act 9 [Chapter 22: 18]
Report duly tabled.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 3 be stood over until Orders of the Day, Numbers 4 to 6 have been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
DOMESTICATION OF CONVENTIONS WITH REGARD TO STATELESSNESS
HON. MAYIHLOME: I move the motion standing in my name that this House;
NOTING that all persons have a right to nationality as guaranteed by Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
International instruments;
CONCERNED that statelessness remains a human rights crisis
affecting negatively on individuals and families globally with at least
10 million people estimated to be stateless;
RECOGNISING that in October 2013, the UNHCR called for the
total commitment of the international community to end statelessness
resulting in the Global Action plan to end statelessness in 10 years;
ALSO RECOGNISING that Zimbabwe is party to various international and regional human rights instruments including the 1954 Convention relating to the status of statelessness persons which it acceded to in 1998;
ACKNOWLEDGING THAT Zimbabwe is not a party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness;
AWARE THAT that the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013 provides a progressive basis for addressing issues of nationality and statelessness by, among others, providing for the possibility of dual citizenship, especially with respect to persons of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heritage.
NOW, THEREFORE, resolves to recommend:
(a) That the Ministries of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs;
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage and Foreign Affairs work hand in glove to conclude the necessary processes to domesticate the conventions which Zimbabwe is party to with regard to statelessness;
(b)That the Executive immediately takes steps to accede to and domesticate the 1961 Convention on Reduction of Statelessness, the 1990 Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all migrant workers and Members of their families and the 1957 Convention on the nationality for all and ending statelessness by 2024;
- c) That the Executive champions the eradication of statelessness
within the SADC region during Zimbabwe’s chairpersonship of the SADC organ on Politics, Defence and Security by supporting and advocating for the adoption of the SADC Joint Action Plan; and
(d) That the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage urgently aligns the Citizenship Act [Chapter 4:01], Births and Deaths Registration Act [Chapter 5:02] and the Immigration Act [Chapter 4:02] with the Constitution in order to effectively address issues of statelessness in order to contribute to ending statelessness by 2024.
HON. SHAMU: I second.
HON. MAYIHLOME: I will start my presentation with a quotation and I quote: “To be stripped of citizenship is to be stripped of worldliness. It is like returning to a wilderness as a caveman or as a savage. A man who is nothing but a man who has lost the very qualities which make it possible for other people to treat him as a fellow human being they could live and die without leaving any trace, without having contributed anything to the common world” BY HANNAH ARENDT, THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM.
ARTICLE 15 of the 1948 Universal of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a nationality; no one shall be denied the right to change his nationality”.
Countries have signed to international and fegional treaties that ensure every man, woman or child has a nationality. But, 10 million people worldwide have no effective nationality and are stateless. Stateless people are found all over the world.
Introduction
Statelessness is sometimes referred to as an invisible problem because stateless persons often remain unseen and unheard.
They are not allowed to go to school, visit the doctor, get a job, open a bank account, buy a house, buy a car or even get married, or to vote.
Denial of these rights impacts not only the individual concerned but also on society as a whole. It can lead to social tension and significantly impair economic and social development.
What is Statelessness?
In international law, a stateless person is:
Someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of law.
Some stateless persons could be refugees, although not all refugees are stateless.
Many people who have not crossed international borders may still be stateless.
What Causes Statelessness?
Statelessness is caused by a number of factors.
Many stateless people are people born in the countries they currently live in, but are denied nationality. Statelessness is caused by among other things:
- Forced displacement and civil wars
- Conflict of laws
- Transfer of territory especially when resulting from wars
- Migration
- Marriage laws
- Administrative practices
- Discrimination
- Lack of birth registration
- Denationalisation (rescinding nationality)
- Renunciation
Global Context
Stateless people are found in all corners of the world and the majority born in countries where they live their entire lives.
They are not recognised as nationalities and denied basic human rights, the things which we all take for granted like documentation, education, health, employment, property, travel and political rights.
African Context
It is a major problem but statelessness is poorly documented.
The stateless population overlaps with many undocumented persons (nationals) such that it is unclear who is who until put to test through efforts to acquire documentation.
Many people do not realize they are stateless, but merely that they do not have documentation.
Eventually when the reality of being documented as stateless kicks in the damage has been done, several generations would have been affected. Mr. Speaker Sir, during the December period when we were on a break, I conducted feedback meetings in my constituency and I raised this issue to many of my constituents who did not have any documentation, some at the age of 70, 80. I was reminding them that they were stateless and they were deemed not Zimbabweans. That is when it kicked to many of them that they were not regarded as citizens of any country. Eventually, this leads to stress and destruction of family unity, making life meaningless and creates a cycle of hopelessness and degradation.
The African Commission for People and Human Rights published a 2014 study which highlighted the main causes for statelessness and that possible solutions to statelessness lay in addressing gaps in nationality laws.
Statelessness in Zimbabwe
The Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission conducted inquiries on the access to primary documents which are critical in the elimination of statelessness. The following factors were identified:
Migration, historical developments and amendments to the laws, mainly farm workers, mine workers, railway and their descendants who migrated to Zimbabwe in the 1940s and 1950s mainly from Zambia Malawi and Mozambique.
In 1985, efforts were made by the Zimbabwe Government to register some of these persons while others opted to remain as aliens. So we do have second and third generation descendants who remain without documents. In some cases, these persons we consider aliens are not recognised as in their original countries, rendering them stateless.
In 2001, Zimbabwe amended the Citizenship Act which prohibited dual citizenship, but the new Constitution provides for the regularisation of their citizenship.
Children born of single parents or out of wedlock were the parents, especially where the mother has no documents, making it very difficult for children to acquire primary documents. A visit by the DHASS Committee to Matabeleland South, Kezi; we were informed that at Halale Primary school, out of 700 pupils, 300 of them had no birth certificates, including seven from one family.
The Citizenship Act provides for the processing, acquiring citizenship, renunciation, deprivation, loss and restoration of citizenship.
Then there is the Births and Deaths Registration Act Section 10 of that Act provides for the compulsory registration of all births, still births and deaths. A number of challenges are associated with acquisition of birth certificates and the registration of deaths such as travel costs, distance, administrative processes, lack of documentation of parents especially the mother, lack of information of the procedures in acquiring the birth documentation.
The lack of birth registration and documentation leaves children at the risk of statelessness hence denying them the rights to access education, health care, and other services.
The Immigration Act also regulates the status of aliens and the National Registration Act which provides for the registration of all persons within the country.
Migration of parents to neighbouring countries, children are left in the care of grandparents or guardians. As a result, children fail to get birth certificates. On the other hand, children born out of the country, and when parents return, they fail to provide birth records making it difficult for children to get primary documents.
Internal disturbances and natural disasters, the classic case being the 1980s disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, and the natural disasters like cyclone IDAI.
Refugees with children born in Zimbabwe who fail to access primary documents.
Effects of Being Stateless
- Stateless persons are denied birth registration
- No travel and identity documents
- Denied health care at public institutions
- Denied education
- Marriage and jobs
- Political rights
- Property rights
- Even at death denied any records
- Pass statelessness to their children, then to the next generation
How Can we Prevent Statelessness
- Resolve existing major situations of statelessness.
- Ensure no child is born stateless.
- Remove gender discrimination from nationality laws.
- Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds.
- Issue nationality documentation to those with entitlement to it.
- Accede to UN Statelessness Conventions, especially the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
- Grant protection status to stateless migrants and facilitate naturalisation
UN Initiatives on Statelessness
- 1954 Convention relates to the status of stateless persons.
- 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness aims to reduce statelessness over time.
- It provides the framework for very person to acquire a nationality.
- It requires member states to set up safeguards in their nationality laws to prevent statelessness at birth and later in life.
- In particular, it provides for children to acquire nationality where they are born if they do not acquire any other nationality as well as safeguards in the case of renunciation of nationality.
- It limits the states from arbitrary deprivation of nationality if this would result in statelessness. Only three SADC countries have acceded to the 1961 convention.
# I BELONG CAMPAGN
2014 the UNHCR launched a 10 long global campaign # I BELONG CAMPAIGN aimed at eradicating statelessness by year 2024.
- Recognises that the right to citizenship/nationality is a central to human rights.
- Since launch in 2014, 20 states have acceded to the stateless conventions.
As at November 2018, 91 states had acceded to the 1954 Convention, and 73 states acceded to the 1961 Convention with 166,000 people getting nationality, this out of 10 million is still low but a step in the right direction.
Mid Way Events
In 2019, the UNHCR organised a mid way campaign to measure progress, achievements and provide a platform for renewed commitment to eradication of statelessness. High Level Segment (HLS) on statelessness has galvanised commitment to end statelessness by 2024.
As a result, 66 countries submitted 252 pledges at HLS, 13 states in Southern Africa providing 53 pledges, being the second highest number per region in the world.
Sustainable Development Goals SDG 16.9
SDG 16.9 establishes the goal for providing legal identity for all, including registration of birth by 2030, and provides for connection between proof of identity and access to rights and services.
Ending statelessness contributes to SDG targets relating to gender equality, education, health, property.
The world can only be a peaceful and prosperous place if no one State or person is left behind.
SADC Context
Having done so in 1998, Zimbabwe is one of seven countries to have acceded to the 1954 Convention (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia).
Accension to the 1954 Conventions makes Zimbabwe legally bound by the provisions of the Convention which accords stateless persons the same rights as would be accorded legal aliens living in this country.
Zimbabwe, like all other countries in the world do have stateless persons, and like every other country, have persons who consider themselves Zimbabwean but regarded as stateless in other countries.
In 2016, the Parliamentary Forum adopted the SADC Resolution on the Prevention of Statelessness hosted by Zimbabwe with proposed measures including reviewing legislative frameworks, administrative practices, addressing gaps that lead to gaps in legislation, gender equality, granting citizenship to children who would otherwise be stateless, establishing functional birth and civil registration systems and acceding to the 1954 and 1961 Conventions.
In 2016, the Sothern Africa Migration Dialogue followed up by producing conclusions and recommendations on statelessness.
In December 2020, 1700 out of around 4000 stateless people of Shona origin who settled in that country in the 1930s were granted citizenship/nationality largely through the assistance from the UNHCR.
Zimbabwe Context
The Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013 Amendment (No. 20) Act of 2013 provides for a progressive basis for addressing the issues of nationality and statelessness. Chapter 3 of the Constitution outlines that citizenship is acquired by birth, descent and registration, especially Section 43 (2) which entitles possibilities of dual citizenship for persons of the SADC heritage. Statelessness in Zimbabwe maybe traced to:
- Migrant laws
- Internal displacements
- Mozambican conflicts
- Laws that are not aligned to the Constitution
Zimbabwe Position in SADC
Has held several key positions in SADC like Chair of Organ on Politics, Defence and Security;
Must be seen to lead by example.
Zimbabwe made seven pledges to end statelessness by 2024 at the HLS on Statelessness in 2019, which included the accession to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and alignment of Nationality laws with the new Constitution and international standards.
Role of Parliament
- Help with awareness campaigns to bring statelessness to the fore in the eyes of every citizen.
- Carry out oversight to ensure that the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage comply with the relevant laws to prevent and eradicate statelessness.
- Can assist the process by ensuring that national legislation is consistent with international conventions on Statelessness.
- Need to understand fully the causes, implications and roles in the eradication of statelessness.
- National laws need to safeguard against arbitrary deprivation of nationality and that everyone is given a nationality.
- Parliament needs to ensure adequate resources are allocated towards eradication of statelessness.
- Carry out oversight on ensuring that statelessness timelines and targets are met.
- Promote and advocate for the accession of the United Nations Conventions to eradicate statelessness, which by the way as a country Zimbabwe acceded to the 1954 Convention in 1998.
The notice of this motion is therefore a step towards the implementation of the pledges alluded to:
Prevention has been regarded as a bold step towards eradicating statelessness. The first step being identifying stateless persons, determining how they became stateless and understanding the legal, institutional and policy frameworks relating to those causes and offering solutions.
Recommendations are that the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade work together to conclude the process to align the statute book to the Conventions which Zimbabwe is party to on statelessness as well as assessing the level of implementation and domestication of these Conventions and that the Executive immediately takes up steps to accede and domesticate the 1961 Convention on Eradication of Statelessness, the 1990 Convention on Protection of all Migrant Workers and members of their families and the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women in order to contribute to nationality, hence ending statelessness by 2024.
Way Forward
- Urge the Executive to use its positions of influence in SADC to champion issues of statelessness within the region and support for the SADC Joint Action Plan.
- Assess and conduct a one-time amnesty and exercise to address issues of undocumented persons living in the country, particularly in those provinces that were visited by internal conflicts in the 1980s as well as migrant labour.
- Recommend that the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage quicken the process of aligning the Citizenship Act (Chapter 4:1), Births and Deaths Registration Act (Chapter 5:2), the Immigration Act (Chapter 4:2) with the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (NO. 20) (2013) (Act 10.1) which will ensure safeguards to prevent statelessness.
Parliament and the respective Committees to closely monitor and assess the impact of measures taken to address statelessness so that the issue of statelessness remains at the top table of agendas.
Relevant ministries and civil society organisations working with UN agencies to conduct awareness and information campaigns to explain the laws and the impact of statelessness on people. We need to end statelessness in our time. I thank you.
HON. SHAMU: Thank you Mr. speaker Sir. May I begin by expressing my sincere appreciation for giving me the opportunity to second this important historic motion on statelessness raised by Hon. Mayihlome. Mr. Speaker Sir, L. WaRren who served as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said statelessness is the total destruction of an individual’s status in an organised society. When one has no nationality the individual faces an existence characterised by insecurity. You are marginalised. When one is stateless they become the most vulnerable. Stateless people do not enjoy rights such as equality before the law. Stateless people are deprived of the right to work and if employed are seriously exploited. Mr. Speaker Sir, stateless people are deprived of education and even health care. Therefore, statelessness is an evil we have had for far too long. It must be eradicated and eradicated now.
Mr. Speaker Sir, as Hon. Mayihlome stated, Zimbabwe acceded to the 1954 Convention which relates to the status of stateless persons. Now, this convention lies at the heart of the international regime for protection of stateless persons. It provides a set of principles for the treatment of stateless persons. Zimbabwe has however not acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness which provides a comprehensive set of tools for eradicating statelessness. This, Mr. Speaker Sir, is an unacceptable contradiction.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we have Zimbabwe as legally bound by the 1954 Convention relating to the status of stateless persons while on the other hand Zimbabwe is not party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness which is the convention which provides the tools for eradicating statelessness. This, Mr. Speaker Sir, we appeal must be corrected now. Therefore, I do hereby stand to endorse in its totality the recommendations made by Hon. Mayihlome and 2024 is only three years away. We must move with speed. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
HON. DR. MASHAKADA: Thank you Hon. Speaker for this opportunity. I rise to support this very important motion moved by Hon. Mayihlome on the problem of statelessness in Zimbabwe and indeed the whole continent of Africa.
Mr. Speaker Sir, it is without doubt that human beings are not animals therefore, it is important that every human being carries a document or be documented to show citizenship, to show nationality but if you are just living without any documentation you are as good as an animal and the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 clearly provides rights and obligations to protect humanity and statelessness is a major problem affecting human kind.
Stateless people can cause security problems or security risks because they can commit crimes and cannot be accounted for because they do not have documents. Stateless people cannot contribute to the economic development of the country because they are not documented; they are not in the national database. So countries lose, Zimbabwe loses if we are not documenting citizens.
In Zimbabwe we have a lot of stateless persons arising from migrant workers who came in from Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi for many years. Up to now their generations cannot get national IDs or birth certificates because their parents are aliens or foreigners and that must be addressed because they are now Zimbabweans. They have been here for 50 or 60 years. So, they must be able to get documentations and also be able to vote in Zimbabwe. That is the problem of statelessness that must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
The other problem that has worsened statelessness is our Citizenship Act. A lot of people have been stripped of their citizenship yet the Constitution of 2013 guarantees dual citizenship but we have not implemented the Constitution to its fullest. Therefore, many people cannot enjoy dual citizenship, they remain stateless yet they must get national ID documents and passports showing that they are Zimbabweans. So, let us implement the Constitution, especially the dual citizenship provision, so that we do not render our citizens to statelessness unnecessarily. We have a lot of citizens in the diaspora in South Africa, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Those remain stateless if we do not implement the dual citizenship provisions.
The other area which needs attention to deal with statelessness is the Citizenship Act. You find that for a long period of time single headed families, the mother could not go and get a birth certificate for the child because you are asked where the father is and so forth. We need to amend the Citizenship Act
HON. DR. MASHAKADA [Speaking]:... if we have not yet so that even single parents, especially single mothers can go and get national documents for their children. These are measures that we can control at national level, but we also need to comply at international level to ratify and domesticate all international conventions that deal with the elimination of statelessness is concerned. I have heard that we are already party to the 1954 convention that we have ratified but we then need to go a step further the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness because those international instruments go hand in hand in so far as the protection of people from statelessness. Let us go a step further and ratify the 1961 convention and I hope this House will adopt this motion by Hon. Rtd Brig. Gen. Mayihlome.
The other convention that we need also to implement, I know we have ratified the 1951 convention on refugees - it is very good to domesticate and implement that convention because statelessness arise out of refugee situation. So, if we want to eliminate statelessness, we must implement all protocols and conventions relating to refugees such as the 1961 Convention and its 1961 protocol relating to the status of refugees. We also need to implement the AU protocol relating to the status of refugees of 1969, then it was OAU convention. We also need to domesticate and implement the Kampala Convention on the rights of displaced because it is from displacement that these issues of statelessness also arise.
So, Zimbabwe needs to act in so far as the ratification of these international instruments concerning migrants, migrant workers, refugees and stateless persons so that we adopt a holistic approach in protecting stateless people. In short, I want to support this motion and I want to congratulate Hon. Rtd Brig. Gen. Mayihlome and Hon. Shamu for this motion, I thank you.
HON. MUTAMBISI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 11th March, 2021.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: Mr. Speaker, I move that Orders of the day No. 5 be stood over until Order No. 6 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE ZIMBABWE DELEGATION TO THE FOURTH INTER-REGIONAL SEMINAR ON THE PARLIAMENTARY CAPACITY BUILDING AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE SDGS FOR PARLIAMENTS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
HON. MADIWA: Mr. Speaker, I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the Zimbabwean Delegation to the Fourth Interregional Seminar on the Parliamentary Capacity Building and Achievements of the SDGs for Parliaments of Developing Countries, Beijing, China from 11th-19th June, 2019.
HON. KASHIRI: I second.
HON. MADIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker, I am going to present a report on the Zimbabwean Delegation to the Fourth Interregional, Seminar on the Parliamentary Capacity Building and Achievements of the SDGs for Parliaments of Developing Countries, Beijing, China from 11th-19th June, 2019.
Introduction
At the invitation of the National People’s Congress of China and Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Parliament of Zimbabwe sent a delegation to attend the Fourth Interregional Seminar on Parliamentary Capacity Building from 11th to 19th June 2019. The Zimbabwe delegation comprised the following:
- Hon. Sen Chief Mtshane-Khumalo (Chairperson of the Thematic Committee on SDGs);
- Hon. C. Madiwa (Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Women’s Affairs, Community, SME’s Development);
- Hon. A.Chibaya (Member of Parliament);
- Mr. A. Kunzwa (Secretary to the delegation).
Also in attendance of the seminar, were delegations from Combodia, Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Sierra Leonne, Trinidad and Tobego. The purpose of the conference was to foster inter-regional exchanges on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation between Asian and African parliaments. In particular, seminar objectives were as follows:
- To conduct exchanges and cooperation between legislative bodies of the two countries;
- To share knowledge about sustainable development goals;
- To share experiences and best practices on the implementation of SDGs;
- To exchange notes on the role of parliaments towards the realisation of SDGs targets;
- To share experiences of the role of Parliament as a bridge between CSOs and Government;
Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony of the seminar was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Wednesday 12th June 2019. The Great Hall of the People houses the National People’s Congress (NPC) which is the highest organ of state power in China. Welcoming delegates, Mr. Ding Zhongli, the Vice-Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress underscored the critical need for open, inclusive, shared, balanced development and stronger cooperation among developing countries. In achieving SDG’s, developing countries were implored to remain human oriented and development focused.
It noted in particular that since they face various risks and challenges, developing countries need closer international cooperation to secure more consensus, and resources in order to and pool more strength for sustainable development. On the same note, H.E M Chungong, IPU Secretary General stressed the SDGs mantra, “leave no one behind”. As champions of SDGs, and to ensure that no one is left behind, parliamentarians were encouraged to utilise SDG’s self-assessment tools to ensure effective implementation, identify institutional gaps, opportunities identification, and meet set performance benchmarks.
Highlights of Proceedings and Deliberations
System of the People’s Congress; Mr. C Yong (Deputy Director, Research Office of the General Office of the NPC Standing Committee).
Delegates were briefed on how, as the representative of the people, the National People's Congress (NPC) functions and how it represents all citizens and achieve shared inclusive development. Among other things, the Constitution vests State power to the people through the NPC which is the highest organ of state power. The NPC and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections, and are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, supervisory, judicial and procuratorial organs of the State are created by the people’s congresses to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised.
Powers and functions of the NPC include, but not limited to the following:
(i) To amend the Constitution and to supervise its enforcement;
(ii) To enact and amend basic laws governing criminal offences, civil affairs, the State organs and other matters; and
(iii) To elect, decide to appoint and remove from office members of central State organs.
'One Belt, One Road’ and its Implication for Global Development (Dr.Prof. HE Wenping - Institute of West Asian and African Studies)
The concept of ‘One Belt One Road’, derived from the two millennia 'Old Silk Road' which allowed traders of Eurasia to explore and opened up several routes of trade and cultural exchanges that linked the major civilisations of Asia, Europe and Africa. In 2013, the same idea was rejuvenated code-named 'One Belt One Road' and this time China seeks to integrate Eurasia's economic development, linking Europe, Asia and Africa through the sea. Neither the belt nor the road follows any clear geographical line, but they serve more as a road map for how China wants to further integrate itself into the world economy and strengthen its influence in these regions.
Vital to note is that central to this grand idea, is the centrality of diversification of China’s investment pattern, industrial connectivity between China’s industrial structural adjustments and other countries, in particular leveraging on Africa’s industrialisation strategy. Statistics given to delegates indicated that the contribution of China to global growth was at 35.2%, and China is the largest trade partner in 124 countries. The take home message for African delegates, including Zimbabwe delegates, was that parliaments should provide guidance through right laws and engagements with stakeholders, within regional blocs such as SADC, in this grand Chinese project which has potential risks and benefits. It was noted already, China’s trade volume and investment with BRI countries is over US$ 6 trillion and US$ 86 billion respectively. It is vital that Africa should have its fair share in this global trade matrix.
Tour of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).
On 13th June 2019, delegates toured China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), otherwise the world’s largest designer and builder of ports, roads and bridges, port machinery manufacturer and dredging company. It is established in 157 countries.
Delegates were informed that CCCC has many other strategic projects and a few listed below;
- Mombasa-Nairobi SGR Project, Kenya. The first railway constructed in overseas that adopts Chinese standard and Chinese techniques with a length of 479.31km and a contract value of USD3.8 bn.
- Island & Tunnel Project of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the longest cross sea bridge in the world which took seven years from 2010 to 2017 with a total length of 49km.
- North South Highway BOT Project of Jamaica. The first infrastructure concession project outside China, 65km toll road BOT project with a total investment of US$700 million and a concession period of 50 years.
Ensuring Better Food Security through Innovation in Food Systems: Zhang Zhongjun (Assistant FAO Representative in China)
Delegates were advised that the world faced many food security challenges such as under nutrition, overweight and obesity, biodiversity, climate change, food loss and waste. In that regard, concern was expressed that SDG 2 (End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture) therefore would be difficult to achieve as the food system is at cross roads. A call was made for an urgent supply of safe, quality, and nutritious food in a sustainable manner (systematic approach). More important by delegates were informed that China had adopted the food system approach that encompassed innovative solutions with ecological, nutrition sensitive, digital and climate resilient agriculture.
Delegates were further informed that ecological agriculture consists of diversity, co-creation and sharing of knowledge, synergies, efficiency, recycling, resilience, human and social values, culture and food traditions, responsible governance, circular and solidarity economy. Due to climate change, African countries including Zimbabwe have been affected by drought and cyclones, so ecological agriculture can go a long way in improving food security. On the other hand, digital agriculture entails that digital technologies are applied throughout the whole agriculture value chain and it ensures precision agriculture. Chinese farmers use drones for spraying their fields and monitoring of plant development and disease detection. Electronic shopping is also used to connect producers with retailers.
With the thrust towards value addition and beneficiation, African agro-sectors, including Zimbabwe, have to urgently adopt new technology. Given the anticipated population growth and urbanisation, international mutual agricultural cooperation is needed more than ever as there will be a 60% impending food shortage by 2050. China has reached food self-sufficiency through investment in irrigation, agriculture techniques and promotion of infrastructure development. Government has also provided subsidies on organic fertilizers and other soil structure improvement materials to ensure sustainable and green agriculture. It was also submitted that China had realised the need for an awareness of its citizens on food wasting from household to corporate levels. To realise this objective, the Chinese government has rolled out the, “Empty the plate, dish Campaign” in Colleges where students are being sensitised on the need to put food in a plate that you will be able to finish.
Women and Youth Employment and Empowerment (Mr T. Lihua - Public Interest Lawyer).
Concern was expressed that rural youth in most developing countries are leaving the countryside to seek employment in urban areas. It was highlighted to delegates that according to the 2018 report on Income and Consumption Expenditures issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, rural youth employment in both agricultural and non-agricultural industries helped lead to a per capita disposable income of 14 617 RMB for rural residents, of which 5 996 RMB per capita consisted of wage earnings. Wage earnings thus comprised 41% of disposable income, making it the largest single component of disposable income. Delegates were informed that China has a Long-Term Youth Development Plan (2016-2025) which ensures that as youth employment grows, youth employment rights continue to improve. Youth payroll benefits, labour protection, social security, and other rights and interests are being more fully protected. The youth entrepreneurship system is also improving, accompanied by a rise in entrepreneurial spirit.
Further, delegates were informed that advancing the empowerment of rural women and expanding women’s access to employment is the top priority of the Chinese government. It was noted that males comprise 65.2% population and females 34.8%. The number of female migrant workers is increasing each year. Guaranteeing women equal access to labour rights, eliminating gender employment discrimination, and raising the number of female workers in urban work units, was critical to development and gender equality. Delegates were further informed that beginning in 2004, ministries including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security of China jointly implemented the “Sunshine Engineering” plan. Included as part of this plan were efforts to improve the quality and skills of women rural labourers in the countryside, as well as to promote women’s employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in non-agricultural sectors. Similar policies have since been rolled out, such as the 2009 “Notice on Perfecting Small Guaranteed Loans, the Fiscal Discount Policy, and the Promotion of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Employment,” the 2011 “Project to Employ Millions of Handicapped Urban Workers.”
Tour of Yinchuan city
On 15 June delegates toured Yinchuan, a capital of Ningxia, a province in Hui autonomous region. The purpose of the field trip was to enable delegates to appreciate Chinese government in fulfilling Agenda 2030. The delegates toured Runfeng village and a Mining Town in Ningxia. Runfeng village is one of the key projects of ecological immigration which has resettled 1 328 people (317 households) on 22 hectares of land from Banzigou village, Baiya Town, Xiji county. The delegation witnessed a changed life of the immigrants who had been given modern accommodation and decent jobs in a modern type of village. The village has public facilities inclusive of a kindergarten for the children, clinic, and police post and government office. Mining Town, in 1997 more than 40 000 immigrants from six national level poor counties of Ningxia were resettled.
Delegates made the observation that the project had become a model of poverty alleviation and development for other regions to reciprocate. These initiatives, targeted first the country’s poor ethnic minorities. In 2017, the farmers average income reached 11 976Yuan (US$1 842) which is about 23 times more than they got before these initiatives. Ningxia is one of China’s twelve commodity grain production bases and one of the top ten pastoral areas. The region has ensured competitiveness in sustainable agriculture, industry and tourism resources. For African countries such as Zimbabwe which are still grappling with achieving high agricultural productivity after resettlements, a number of best practices can be drawn from this Chinese experience.
Tour of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province
Delegates also toured Hangzhou, which is the political, economic, cultural, education, transportation, financial center of the province and most importantly e-commerce center of China. Hangzhou is an emerging technology hub and is home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba. Hangzhou has a per-capita income of 49 832Yuan and has 2 844 high-tech enterprises. The Internet economy has become a new economic growth point of Hangzhou driven by high-tech enterprises like Alibaba. The delegation visited Alibaba Group which was established in 1999. The company was established based on the belief that the Internet would level the playing field by enabling small enterprises to leverage innovation and technology to grow and compete more effectively in the domestic and global economies. Since launching its first website - helping small Chinese exporters, manufacturers and entrepreneurs to sell internationally, Alibaba Group has grown into a global leader in Online and mobile commerce.
BABA’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. It provides the technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help merchants, brands and other businesses to leverage the power of new technology to engage with their users and customers and operate in a more efficient way.
Recommendations
- Government of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Agriculture to urgently engage local FAO representative on the South-South initiative to ensure Zimbabwe adopts a sustainable food system approach.
- Government of Zimbabwe is encouraged to send a delegation to China to take a leaf from the Chinese devolution model which has ensured ownership by the people of all development initiatives.
- Government of Zimbabwe must adopt modern technology in agriculture to boost food security.
- Government to perfect its comparative advantage in key sectors such as tourism, beef and tobacco industries and join the global trade through the Belt and Road initiative.
- As part and parcel of leaving no one behind, the government should put in place incentives for companies to employ disabled persons so that they are economically active, productive and depend on their own income and lessen state burden. I thank you.
HON. KASHIRI: Firstly, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to support the report tabled by Hon. Madiwa on the IPU Parliamentary Capacity Building in China. Hon. Speaker, the report is quite clear. I just want to run through some take home points which I thought were critical and clear from the report, the one-road concept that was read in the report. I think this is the way to go for African Parliaments. We should engage regional stakeholders like SADC who, if we collude, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana in the Southern region and become one major force and adopt this concept we will go a long way.
Hon. Speaker, I then further looked at the global trade market that was also alluded to in the report. This is a very good concept. It is a very good idea and I believe if Zimbabwe adopts and gets into action and participates in this global trade market, we will have food security. We will also have worked towards our SDG 2 which talks about food security. This will definitely end hunger and achieve improved nutrition for the country.
Mr. Speaker Sir, you cannot ignore the digital technology which is a way to go as it is now talking about the fourth industrial revolution. I think we have heard many times our Hon. Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education talking about the fourth industrial revolution. This is the way we should be going.
The use of drones as explicitly mentioned in the report and the monitoring of diseases by hi-tech equipment is also very good. So, in a nutshell Hon. Speaker, I would say let us adopt the recommendations of the Committee. I thank you.
HON. MADIWA: I move for the adoption of the report.
HON. MUTAMBISI: I second.
Motion with leave, adopted.
MOTION
RESTORATION OF THE MOTION ON PROVISION OF NON-MONETARY BENEFITS TO GOVERNMENT WORKERS
HON. MADHUKU: Madam Speaker, I move that the motion on the Report of the Privileges Committee on allegations of Corruption raised against Hon. Mliswa, Hon. Chikomba, Hon. Ndebele and Hon. P. D. Sibanda which was superseded by the end of the Second Session be restored on the Order Paper in terms of Standing Order No. 75. This is to allow the Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Senator Chief Charumbira to properly close the debate on the motion.
HON. KASHIRI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON MUTAMBISI: I move that the rest of the Orders of the Day be stood over until Order of the Day, Number 1 has been disposed of.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON WOMEN’S AFFAIRS, COMMUNITY, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT ON THE CONSOLIDATED BUDGET PERFORMANCE REPORTS FOR THE MINISTRY
Twenty-Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development on Budget Performance Reports.
Question again proposed.
HON. CHINGOSHO: Mr. Speaker, in seconding the well-detailed report of the Portfolio Committee on Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development presented by the Chairman, Hon. Chido Madiwa, I would like to commend that the report is the first of its kind where a detailed analysis of a Ministry and its performance is presented. In my seconding the report, I am going to make six brief comments;
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development is a huge Ministry which needs to be split into two ministries. Before, it used to be two ministries; Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development and Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises Development. As big as it is, the Ministry’s budget allocation is too little and the release of the allocated funds is erratic and is affecting the Ministry’s implementation of its planned programme. Bulk release of the allocated budget funds is therefore recommended.
The Ministry has too many vacant posts of ward development coordinators especially in Matabeleland North and South Provinces, which makes it difficult to implement the Ministry’s programmes effectively. Thanks to the new measures being taken by the new Permanent Secretary where interviews to fill the vacant ward development coordinators posts have been done.
The Ministry’s district offices furniture and transport leaves a lot to be desired. There is need for more funds for the Ministry to have its own offices which are furnished and at least have one vehicle per district. At present, the Ministry staff at district and ward level rely on lifts from other ministries and departments.
The Ministry’s only two training centres, which are Jamaica Inn in Mashonaland East Province and Roger Howman in Masvingo Province need to be upgraded and well equipped. It is recommended that the training centres be increased so that each province has its own training centre.
Last but not least, the Ministry is encouraged to produce its quarterly reports timeously and not to produce all of them at once at the end of the year. This makes it difficult for the Portfolio Committee to exercise effectively its oversight and monitoring role. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MADIWA: I move the motion that the Report of the Portfolio Committee of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development on the Consolidated Budget performance Reports for Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development be adopted.
Motion put and agreed to.
On the Motion of HON MUTAMBISI seconded by HON. MADIWA, the House adjourned at Twenty-four Minutes past Six o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
HON. KWARAMBA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege. Yesterday 8th March was International Women’s Day, marking the global commemoration of International Women’s Day under the theme #Choose to Challenge.
As the Women’s Caucus, we have chosen to challenge the status quo in women representation in all sectors at decision making level. In celebrating Women’s Day, we the Members of the Caucus, will continue to push for implementation of section 17 of the Constitution which provides for gender equality. We will soon be bringing before this House our 50:50 position paper in light of the low representation of women. We are happy that our listening President, Cde E. D. Mnangagwa has given his nod to 30% women’s quota in local government. This is just a starting point but we would like a 50:50. We would like to see this implemented as it lays a basis for more women to be in decision making positions.
I would like to wish all female Members of Parliament as well as spouses of male MPs here present and Parliamentary secretariat, a happy women’s month. Remember all men are products of women. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you very much Hon. Kwaramba. I am sure we join the Women’s Caucus and indeed, the entire nation and world at large in the celebration of the International Women’s Day.
(v)HON. JAMES CHIDAKWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege. The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education was allocated $200 million for the provision of free sanitary wear to school girls in the 2020 National Budget. Now that 2020 is gone, and in line with the mandatory constitutional requirements of transparency and accountability, I would be glad if you could ask the Minister to issue a ministerial statement in regards to-
- How the money was utilised?
- How much sanitary wear was bought?
- How many schools and girls benefitted?
- Who were the suppliers of the sanitary wear?
- Was any consultation done on the type of sanitary wear to buy and;
- Whether there is a clear guideline in the implementation of the programme.
I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I recommend that you ask that question tomorrow to the relevant Minister so that it is dealt with immediately.
HON. BITI: Hon. Speaker Sir, I rise on a point of privilege specifically directed by the Public Accounts Committee to raise this point. Hon. Speaker Sir, this relates to the meetings of Committees. At the present moment we are being hampered in that we can only do online meetings. Some Committee’s work depends on interviews of external bodies that we oversee. In the Public Accounts Committee, we oversee the Government itself, parastatals, local authorities and bodies and institutions covered by special forensic reports and value for money audits. So our work as Committees is being crippled by the absence of physical meetings in view of the relaxation of COVID-19 laws and the movement from level 4 to the new liberalised levels, we ask Hon. Speaker that we be allowed to meet; consistent with the law, not more than 30, including the guests and ourselves physically so that we can do the important work that constitutionally we are obligated to do. I thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Biti, I thought you made an observation. As far as meeting outside the boundaries of Parliament is concerned, like visiting some parastatals and so on, I think the current protocols by Government and WHO is to allow us now to proceed accordingly. However, if you want to meet here in Committee rooms we are restricting you Hon. Members and Committees to meet in the National Assembly and in the Senate only. If you are to meet in your Committee rooms, you should not be more than ten. So the Clerk of Parliament will give you a written directive accordingly so that you can act in that manner – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] -
HON. BITI: Thank you Mr. Speaker, may the Lord continue to guide you in your future and your promotions.
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of privilege Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your point of privilege?
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I am raising this on Rule 60 on a matter of public importance. Hon. Speaker, I do not know how I can bring this across politely but it is a fact that there was little love lost between the previous administration and the people of Matabeleland and all those that live in it. That saw a lot of painful things Hon. Speaker visiting us as a community, one of those was denying our youth access to vocational skills, I am rising to bemoan and also to implore your office to request the Vocational Skills Training at Ntabazinduna, the one that was taken away to train police officers, the one that currently lies as a white elephant, that it be given back to the Ministry of Youth as it is the only Youth Training Centre on vocational skills in Matabeleland North; so that our youth are able to access life skills at that vocational centre. Whatever happened then seems to have happened at the highest political level and to disentangle it, we must operate it at that level. I implore your office to appeal to the Executive to return the only vocational skills training centre for our youth back to the ministry because Matabeleland North has no Vocational Skills Training centre - other provinces have 5 or 6. Youth from as far as Binga are made to travel up to Gokwe to access skills training. I am glad the second republic Hon. Speaker has pledged to put to an end whatever was happening between us - those who live in Matabeleland and the previous administration. I thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, let me warn Hon. Members when you raise issues of national interest by appealing to the Chair. Do not mix up my role as Speaker of this Assembly and what the Executive needs to do. Some of these issues are better directed to the Executive directly either by a question during question time, oral or written – [HON. NDEBELE: Inaudible interjections.] – Order Hon. Ndebele, I cannot act as a Commissar to go and plead the case of Hon. Members. While I sympathise and totally agree with your observation, but I cannot act from this Chair accordingly. So, my advice – [HON. NDEBELE: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Ndebele either you hear me or you hear yourself. I was going to suggest to you Hon. Ndebele to do full justice to this issue. You may raise a motion that will be debated fully and get our Parliament to pronounce itself on the matter accordingly, because it is quite a substantial matter that should not be left to some negotiations between the Chair and the Executive.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, may I add to Hon. Kwaramba’s point of privilege and also as yesterday was Women’s Day, Abraham Lincoln says, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe it to my mother”.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You are now debating.
HON. T. MLISWA: To just add, I just thought it was Women’s Day and I thought I would...
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, if you want to add, come up with a motion please.
HON. T. MLISWA: Okay Mr. Speaker Sir, my point of privilege is to do with the Missing Persons Act. The Missing Persons Act states that after two years there has got to be a declaration that somebody who has been missing is dead. We seem not to be seeing it being enforced by the Ministry of Home Affairs. I say this because on this day the 9th, six years ago that is when Itai Dzamara went missing. We have spoken about this many a times in Parliament and there was supposed to be a report back from the Executive pertaining to where the issue is. I thought about the mother and the wife yesterday to say for how long are they going to be in agony and I think it is about time it was brought to its logical conclusion.
The Missing Persons Act also allows procedures to be taken and also the wind up of the estate as well. It important that we also hear what has happened to that and it is an issue which the Second Republic would be more than happy to dispose of because it about us reforming and a lot of issues. For me, I really thought about the wife and the mother yesterday to say, the agony that they are going through as a family is a bit too much and I think it must get to a point where we say yes he is dead and they are given a death certificate. The estate is wound up and life moves on. We seem to be holding them on to something that they are not in control of. As Parliament, we must be seen to be representing everyone in terms of national interest and to many others who are in the same predicament as well, can it also see its end. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: We will advice the Hon. Minister of Home Affairs to take the necessary steps to have closure to this issue.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I move that Orders of the Day, Nos. 1 to 9 be stood over until Order of the Day No. 10 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PROVISIONS OF STANDING ORDERS NO. 44 AND 107
HON. MUTAMBISI: I rise to move the motion standing in my name that this House suspends provisions of Standing Orders Number 44 and 107 in respect of the adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Address.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. In moving my motion on the suspension of Standing Order Number 44 in respect of the adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Address, I have to categorically state that this is not an ordinary motion in the sitting calendar of Parliament. It is a respectful address which must be accorded the decorum that is very befitting of all its characteristics. The time limit for the motion on the adjourned debate in reply to the Presidential Address expired at a time when some Hon. Members were still eager to contribute and offer their gratitude in respect to His Excellency, the President for the speech that he was pleased to address to the joint sitting of Parliament. It is against this background that I crave the indulgence of this august for the suspension of the said Standing Orders so that the debate on this motion is conclusively done. I therefore, move that the provisions of Standing Orders Number 44 be suspended in order to allow further debate on the adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Before I put the question Hon. Member, it is my hope that the debate will be concluded this week. In future we may not allow the waiver because we need to stick to the rules and orders as well. As Whips, I indicated in the Committee of the LCC that you have to stick to the Orders and I hope you have lined up the Ministers to respond so that you can conclude this debate on Thursday.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. In seconding this particular motion that we need to restore the SONA on the Order Paper, it is necessitated by the fact that most of the Hon. Members who wished to debate have not done so adequately and I think the opportunity for them to have issues that connect to their constituencies and in the communities be given in this space of time. I am glad that you have targeted Thursday as the date that every Hon. Member who wish to debate on the motion will do so. I thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to move that Orders of the Day, Nos. 1 to 23 on today’s Order Paper be stood over until Order of the Day No. 24 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
HON. NDIWENI: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC- Parliamentary Forum, held virtually from 9th to 11th October 2020 in Windhoek, Namibia.
HON. MAKONYA: I second.
HON. NDIWENI: Thank you Hon. Speaker.
1.0 Introduction
1.1 The 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum was held virtually from 9th to 11th October, 2020 under the theme: "The Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Accountability During a Pandemic: The Case of COVID-19. In this regard, National Parliaments shared their interventions towards mitigating the exigencies brought by the COVID -19 pandemic.
1.2 The Speaker’s delegation from Zimbabwe was led by Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda, Speaker of the National Assembly. It comprised the following Members of Parliament: -
o Hon. Tambudzani Mohadi, Member of the Standing Committee on Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Infrastructure;
o Hon. Goodluck Kwaramba, Member of the Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Women Advancement and Youth Development and Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus;
o Hon. Dought Ndiweni, Member of the Standing Committee on Democratisation, Governance and Human Rights;
o Hon. Anele Ndebele, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment; and
o Hon. Joyce Makonya, incoming Member of the Standing Committee on Human and Social Development and Special Programmes.
2.0 Official Opening Ceremony
2.1 The 47th Plenary Assembly was officially opened on Friday, 9th October 2020 by the Vice-President of the Republic of Namibia, His Excellency, Nangolo Mbumba, as Guest of Honour.
2.2 Hon. Vice-President Mbumba, recalled that in August 2018, during the 38th SADC Summit, President Geingob, then Chairperson of SADC, declared that the SADC Parliament would among other things, not only help buttress the governance architecture of the region, but also be a key driver of the regional integration and developmental efforts.
2.3 The Regional Parliament would provide a vital platform for the citizens to directly link up with their elected representatives and give input into SADC’s regional integration agenda. It is, therefore, imperative that the transformation of the SADC Parliamentary Forum into a Regional Parliament be expedited.
2.4 In her address, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax, the Executive Secretary of SADC, indicated that the transformation of the SADC PF into a Regional Parliament was at an advanced stage in line with the August 2019 decision of the SADC Summit of Heads of State and Governments to allow for a roadmap towards the Transformation agenda. Dr. Tax anticipated that the process would soon be finalised culminating in the submission of proposals to the SADC Summit scheduled for March 2021.
3.0 Submissions by Heads of Delegations on the Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Accountability during a Pandemic: The Case of COVID-19 and Address by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director
3.1 The Plenary Assembly received submissions by Heads of Delegations on the adopted theme for the 47th Plenary Assembly Virtual Session. The theme received reports of predominant devastation of livelihoods due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, Hon. Speakers/ Heads of Delegations shared their country experiences on how their National Parliaments had responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
3.1.1 In his submission, the Hon Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe outlined how Zimbabwe had limited the coronavirus casualties primarily through His Excellency, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s initiatives to focus on prevention rather than cure. These interventions were spearheaded by the relevant Ministries and Directorates. Government declared COVID-19 as a ‘deadly pandemic’ on 17th March, 2020 and concomitant lockdown measures were put in place since the pandemic had been declared a national disaster.
3.1.2 Furthermore, Government promulgated several Statutory Instruments to bolster the legal framework in combating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 32 Statutory Instruments were gazetted with the Parliamentary Legal Committee (PLC) scrutinising them for their constitutionality. All of them were constitutionally compliant.
3.1.3 The Parliament of Zimbabwe drew an important lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic that in cases of emergency arising from force majeure, Parliaments cannot afford to sit back and leave everything to the Executive. Parliaments must exude innovative leadership in actualising their constitutional mandate of representation, oversight and legislation.
3.2 The Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organisation (WHO), implored Members of Parliament in the SADC Region to unite and build resilient health systems as the best defence against any health emergency. Dr. Ghebreyesus stressed that unity among the region’s lawmakers regardless of political affiliation as well as collaboration by Member Parliaments is the best defence against COVID-19.
4.0 Adoption of the Report of the Executive Committee
4.1 The Executive Committee tabled its report for consideration and adoption during the 47th Plenary Assembly Meeting.
4.2 Update on Transformation of the Forum into a SADC Regional Parliament
4.2.1 The Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe presented for adoption the Strategic Lobby Document which guides the strategic lobby initiatives ahead of the SADC Council meetings scheduled for March 2021.
4.2.2 To eliminate discordant voices within the Region on the Transformation Agenda, the Plenary Assembly resolved to resuscitate the lobby initiatives whose mandate is to elicit the requisite support at both the political and administrative level in the SADC Region.
4.2.4 In this regard, the submission by Zimbabwe on its lobbying initiatives, including the unqualified support given by the Executive on the transformation process, was indeed well received by Plenary Assembly.
4.2.4 In a related matter, Plenary Assembly received an update on the report by the Consultant, Mr. Kevin Deveaux, a Canadian lawyer and former Member of Parliament who facilitated and reviewed the Transformation Agenda and Roadmap. Technically, the Consultant’s report is in sync with the Plenary Assembly’s thrust on transformation, hence the need to provide a common approach to lobbying up to March 2021.
4.3 Update on the Official Residence of the Secretary General
4.3.1 The Plenary Assembly adopted a recommendation to dispose of the official residence of the Secretary General, situated at Erf 3422 (1), 66 Erosweg, Eros, and resolved that a new property situated at Erf 2052, Klein Windhoek, 89 Joseph Mukwayu Ithana Street, Ludwigsdorf, Windhoek, Namibia be purchased. The residence will be purchased through a mortgage loan from a reputable bank in Namibia.
4.3.2 This process should see the finalisation of the matter concerning the Secretary – General’s residence which has hamstrung the organs of the SADC PF, for a long time. Plenary Assembly noted and appreciated Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda’s tactful chairing of the ad-hoc Committee which handled and finalised this matter.
4.4 Secondment of Staff from National Parliaments
4.4.1 The Plenary Assembly noted and appreciated the secondment of staff from the Parliaments of Angola, Malawi, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Nine (9) staff members have been seconded by their respective Parliaments to various organs of the Forum on a cost-sharing basis in line with the revised Secondment Policy. Other countries will share the remaining slots on the Forum’s administrative paradigm.
5.0 Motions Adopted During the 47th Plenary Assembly Meetings
5.1 Motion to Ratify the SADC Parliamentary Forum Special Rules of Procedure for Virtual Meetings, In Case of Force Majeure
5.1.1 Following the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in working arrangements for all regional and international organisations such as the SADC Parliamentary Forum, the Plenary Assembly debated and adopted the Special Rules of Procedure aimed at avoiding paralysis of business due to inability to convene physical meetings. The Rules are aimed at being innovative and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and teleconferencing software such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype as an adaptation strategy to the COVID-19 pandemic.
5.1.2 Motion to Amend Article 8 of the SADC PF Constitution to Introduce an Oath or Affirmation of Adherence by SADC PF Representatives
5.1.2.1 Plenary Assembly adopted the provision for an Oath or Affirmation of Adherence by SADC PF Representatives (Members of Parliament). This will be done to enhance accountability to the Forum and promote the SADC identity amongst SADC PF Members of Parliament
5.1.3 Motion to Amend the SADC PF Administrative Rules and Regulations to Align with Namibian Employment Laws Governing Local Employees other than those Holding Managerial Positions
5.1.3.1 The Plenary Assembly adopted a motion which synchronised the Administration’s Rules of Procedure with the Namibian law placing non-managerial local staff of the SADC PF to be employed on indefinite contracts whilst holders of managerial posts can serve two five-year contracts. The motion stated that diplomatic privileges shall apply only to Regional Staff of the Forum in accordance with the SADC Protocol on Immunities and Privileges (1992).
5.1.4 Motion by Consensus during to Support Hon. Duarte Pacheco as the Next Inter- Parliamentary Union President
5.1.4.1 Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda, Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe, moved a motion to support the candidature Hon. Duarte Pacheco of Portugal for the position of President of the IPU. The motion noted the solid professional antecedents that Hon. Pacheco possesses. Subsequent to this support, Hon. Pacheco won resoundingly and will serve as the next President for the next three years.
6.0 Recommendations and Way Forward
6.1 It is recommended that the diplomatic interventions on the Transformation Agenda to SADC Countries be resuscitated. The missions will include the countries that have expressed dissent on the establishment of a Regional Parliament, including those countries that have new administrative configurations post-elections such as Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles and Tanzania. This Lobby Team comprising the Hon. Speakers from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be led by Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda.
6.2 The Lobby Missions to take advantage of Mozambique’s unreserved support for the transformation of the SADC PF into a Regional Parliament. The team to lobby the current Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mozambique, Hon. Veronica Macamo Dlhovo, who is the immediate past President of the SADC PF. The missions to begin in November 2020 to March 2021. This whole process will logically culminate in the Lobby Team being on the side-lines of Summit in March 2021 to ensure that they are ready to clarify any matters that might arise during Summit deliberations.
6.3 Parliament of Zimbabwe to arrange Courtesy Calls with both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to appraise them on the developments on the Transformation Agenda. Both Ministries are to remain in sync with the Executive’s supportive position on the transformation of the SADC PF into a Regional Parliament.
6.4 The Plenary Assembly recommended the strengthening of interventions on the challenges brought in by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Portfolio Committees on Health and Child Welfare and the Portfolio Committee and Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to ensure that there are safety nets that are put in place towards the welfare of the public during COVID-19 induced exigencies. Members of Parliament to contribute on the need to ensure that resources are channelled towards mitigating the effects of COVID-19 epidemic.
7.0. Conclusion
7.1 Hon. Esperanca Laurinda Francisco Nhiuane Bias, Speaker of the National Assembly of Mozambique and President of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, concluded the Plenary Assembly by urging delegations to continue the enhancement of lobbying strategies for the transformation of the Forum into Regional Parliament. Credit is also acknowledged to the Secretary General and her team at the SADC Parliamentary Forum for successfully putting up a well-polished 47th Plenary Assembly Meeting.
7.2 The Hon. Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe was privileged to move all the motions during the 47th Plenary Assembly Meeting. In earnest, the Lobby Team headed by Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Nzwidamilimo Mudenda, has to continue its mandated mission to ensure that all countries in the region are symmetrical regarding the Transformation Agenda. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: Point of order Madam Speaker. I just want to register dissatisfaction with the way this report was brought to this House. You know, it works well and in good spirit for everyone that sits in the SADC PF to be alerted beforehand that our report is going to come to the House. Why? We are a national delegation and when we go there, we go there united as one team. This happened several months ago. It would have been nice for the Hon. Member to liaise with us so that we refresh our memory. He has just read a report. Reading a report is one thing but for others to stand up and support, and throw light reflects on your report, helps the other members. It throws light on them and gives meaning and life to the report but in the absence of such, we were booby trapped.
I was just told here and the Hon. Member is new on that SADC PF team. Please, I want you to make a ruling so that we nip this behavior in the bud. If we start dividing each other on partisan lines and you do not tell others in time, it is not what we want in this House. I was only told today. Hon. Kwaramba was only told today and we protested but the Hon. Member went ahead to give that report. This will bring division amongst us if we are to go outside and people will be surprised to see us not talking to each other. Please Madam Speaker; I want you to make a ruling. It is unfair to us and other Members of this House because this report was brought in an unsanitary manner. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, if you are saying Hon. Kwaramba was also told today so it is not on partisan basis.
HON. NDEBELE: I am saying it is wrong for him to say it has been on the Order Paper for several months. How many motions are on the Order Paper to this day? It does not make sense and we must stop that.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon Ndebele, please may you approach the Chair.
HON. NDEBELE: It must go on record that if we continue like this, we are making this House a circus, simple.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please may you approach the Chair.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, you just asked me to withdraw sentiments to the effect that this report was brought in on partisan lines. I withdraw that and I move that we discuss the report at a later date even on Thursday.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for that.
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday 11th March, 2021.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that the House reverts to the first Order of the Day.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
RATIFICATION OF THE KIGALI AMENDMENT TO THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL ON SUBSTANCES THAT DEPLETE THE OZONE LAYER
THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY (HON. N. M. NDLOVU): Madam Speaker, on the 22nd November 2020, I gave notice to move a motion standing in my name that;
WHEREAS section 327 (2) (a) of the constitution of Zimbabwe provides that an International Treaty which has been concluded or executed by or under the authority of the President does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by Parliament.
WHEREAS the 28th meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, held on 15th October 2016, in Kigali, Rwanda, adopted an amendment to the protocol, now termed the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which amendment entered into force on 1 January 2019. The main aim of the Kigali amendment is to phase down the production and use of Hydroclorofluorocarbons (HFCs). Phasing down the use of HFCs is expected to avoid up to 0.3 degrees Celsius of global temperature rise by 2100 while continuing to protect the stratospheric ozone layer;
WHEREAS Zimbabwe is a party to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and is desirous of becoming a Party to the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on substances but imports them for use in refrigeration and air conditioning appliances for domestic, commercial and industrial applications; the Government has already made great strides phasing down HFCs by promoting the use of zero Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP) and very low Global Warming Potential (GWP) alternatives to HFCs such as hydrocarbons through the training of refrigeration technicians and customs officers who monitor and control HFC trade. The country therefore stands to benefit by ratifying the Kigali Amendment as this will enable us to access technical and financial support.
Background
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is a well established Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) that is successfully preventing massive damage to human health and the environment from excessive ultraviolet radiation from the sun by phasing out the production and consumption of substances that deplete the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol has been amended several times, most recently by the Kigali Amendment, which is the fifth in a series of amendments to the Protocol, and was adopted to phase down HFCs, which are mostly used as substitutes for Ozone Depleting Substances (ODSs). Although HFCs are not ODSs, they are powerful Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that have significantly high Global Warming Potentials (GWPs).
Committed to addressing the stratospheric ozone layer depletion and climate change, which continue to be threats to development. Zimbabwe participated at the historic 28th Meeting of the Parties (28th MOP) to the Montreal Protocol which took place from 10th to15th October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda. The 28th Meeting of Parties resulted in the adoption of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The Government of Zimbabwe ratified the Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol way back in June 1992 binding the country to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of ozone depleting substances (ODSs).
The Montreal Protocol has put the ozone layer on the road to recovery by phasing out nearly 99% of the ODSs that were in use prior to 1989 and in the process, has also mitigated climate change. Under the Kigali Amendment, parties will phase down production and consumption of HFCs, creating the potential to avoid up to 0.3ºC of global warming by the end of the century. The main aim of the Kigali Amendment is to phase down production and use of HFCs.
Overview of the Kigali Amendment
The Kigali Amendment will require parties to the Montreal Protocol to gradually reduce the use of HFCs by between 80 to 85% in the late 2040s for developing countries and 2036 for developed countries. The Kigali Amendment entered into force on the 1st January 2019.
Justification for ratification
Madam Speaker, besides the major objective of addressing the adverse impacts of global warming, there are particular incentives for Article 5 parties (developing countries) that ratify the Kigali Amendment.
The financial mechanism
Article 10 of the Montreal Protocol established a financial mechanism to provide financial and technical cooperation including the transfer of technologies to support Article 5 parties’ compliance with the protocol. Part of this package is the Multilateral Fund (MLF), which amongst other things, meets the agreed incremental costs of Article 5 parties. The 28th Meeting of the parties made a number of key decisions about MLF support for Article 5 countries that ratify the amendment.
Flexibility
Article 5 parties will have the flexibility to prioritise HFCs, define sectors, select technologies and alternatives, and elaborate and implement their strategies to meet agreed HFC obligations based on their specific needs and national circumstances following a country-driven approach.
Support for enabling activities
There will be support for enabling activities for institutional strengthening (National Ozone Units), import and export licencing and quotas (Regulations), Article 7 data reporting, demonstration projects and the development of national strategies for phasing down HFCs.
Extra financial support for fast starters
Extra financial support will be available to provide support for Article 5 parties that make a fast start to phasing down HFCs. Zimbabwe has already benefitted from this facility as CAPRI, a refrigeration appliance manufacturing plant in Harare received financial assistance to convert to ozone and climate friendly technology.
Legal Requirements
Section 327 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe empowers the President or his representative acting under his authority, to conclude or execute international treaties. In terms of subsection (1) of section 327, the definition of “international treaty” includes protocols and agreements. Instruments of this nature will only have a binding effect on Zimbabwe if approved by Parliament.
NOW THEREFORE, In terms of Section 327 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, this House resolves that the aforesaid Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer be and is hereby approved.
HON. MUSARURWA:
Background
The Committee on Environment, Climate and Tourism was sensitised on the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol from 3rd to 4th July 2020 at Kadoma Hotel and Conference Centre. It learnt that the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the ozone layer was signed on 16 September, 1987 and entered into force for developed countries in 1989. Montreal Protocol is aimed at the protection of atmosphere from pollutants. The protocol is based on the “precautionary principle”. Precautionary principle states that when an activity causes some threat or harm to the public or the environment, general precautionary measures should be taken. This principle is applied when a scientific investigation proves that there is a possible risk in doing some activity. Thus, it seeks to gradually reduce and eventually eliminate the production and consumption of man-made chemicals collectively known as ozone depleting substances (ODS).
ODS are mainly gaseous substances that contain chlorine and/or bromine atoms. ODS do not dissolve in water, are very stable, do not burn easily and have long residence time in the atmosphere of up to 100 years. A few examples of ODS are chloro flouro carbons and Hydrochloro-flouro carbons used in refrigeration and air conditioning, halons used in fire-fighting, methyl bromide used in fumigation of tobacco seed beds and grain storage facilities.
Domestication of the Montreal Protocol and Implementation Strategies
Statutory Instrument 7 of 2011 cited as Environmental and Natural Resources Management (Prohibition and Control of Ozone Depleting Substances and Ozone Depleting Substances Dependent Equipment) Regulations, 2011 prohibits the importation of ozone depleting substances, controls their imports and exports as well as imports of products and equipment containing ODS and appliances whose functioning relies on continuous use of ODS normally referred to as ODS dependent equipment. The nation introduced regulatory and trade controls, economic incentives and disincentives, good refrigeration practices, training for service technicians, training of customs officers in monitoring and controlling ODS trade and CFC recovery and recycling activities to gradually reduce and eventually eliminate the production and consumption of ODS.
Amendments to the Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol has been amended four times: In 1990, the London Amendment, in 1992 the Copenhagen Amendment, in 1997 the Montreal Amendment and in 1999 the Beijing Amendment and Zimbabwe has ratified the Montreal Protocol and all the previous amendments.
Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol
The Committee was made aware that the phase-down of HFCs under the Montreal Protocol has been under negotiation by the Parties since 2009 until a successful agreement was reached during the 28th Meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol held on 15th October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda. It is the fifth amendment to the protocol, entered into force on 1st January 2019 and was adopted mainly to phase down the production and use of hydro-fluoro carbons (HFCs) which are mostly used as substitutes for ozone depleting substances. Although HFCs are not ODSs, they are powerful greenhouse gases that have significantly high or very high global warming potentials.
The Kigali Amendment includes specific targets and timetables to replace HFCs with more planet-friendly alternatives, provisions to prohibit or restrict countries that have ratified the protocol or its amendments from trading in controlled substances with states that are yet to ratify it, and an agreement by rich countries to help finance the transition of poor countries to alternative safer products.
The Kigali Amendment divided the world economies into three groups, each with a target phase down date. The richest countries including the United States and those in the European Union will reduce the production and consumption of HFCs from 2019. Much of the rest of the world including China, Brazil and all of Africa will freeze the use of HFCs by 2024. A small group of the world’s hottest countries such as Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have the most lenient schedule and will freeze HFCs use by 2028.
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the single largest real contribution the world has made so far towards keeping the global temperature rise "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at the Paris climate. As pressure mounts on governments world-wide for less talk and more action to address climate change, the Kigali Amendment is indeed, a commendable move that adds momentum to a series of new global climate change agreements, including the Paris Agreement.
Ratifying the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol
Ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol will allow Zimbabwe to:
- Contribute to the global efforts under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to protect the ozone layer and in so doing, combat and slow down climate change.
- Access financial resources under the multilateral fund mechanism of the Montreal Protocol to transition to more climate and ozone -friendly technologies and safer products, particularly in the refrigeration and air conditioning sectors where these HFCs are commonly used.
- The finances will be used to implement projects and activities, raise awareness amongst private sector players and conduct the necessary training.
- The resources will partly be for institutional strengthening and capacitating the relevant institutions such as ZIMRA, the ZRP and Customs officials to enable identification of products with high global warming potentials in accordance with Article 7 of the protocol.
- Gain a competitive advantage in the regional and world markets in products from our industries after adopting new technologies.
- Technologies are cost-effective and lead to an improvement in the quality of end products, including in energy efficiency.
- Have flexibility to prioritise HFCs, define sectors, select technologies and alternatives and elaborate and implement strategies to meet agreed HFC obligations based on their specific needs and national circumstances following a country-driven approach.
- Develop an electronic registry and data reporting tools for all controlled substances.
- Review of national policies and legislation to control HFCs and HFC appliances.
- Identifying alternative refrigerants markets.
Barriers to Adoption of Zero or Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants
- The unavailability of new refrigerants with zero or low global warming potential and technologies in the country.
- The high costs of new refrigerants and technologies where they are available.
- Lack of awareness on benefits of zero/low global warming potential alternatives
- Lack of proper refrigeration and air conditioning technician training in new refrigerants and technologies.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The Committee recommends the approval for ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer. The approval of the amendment will signify the nation’s drive towards promotion of low emissions development pathways in line with the National Development Strategy to achieve improved climate action. I thank you.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity that you have given me to add my voice to the motion moved by the Minister of Environment and Tourism seconded by Hon. Musarurwa, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Environment and Tourism.
According to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, it says; ensure healthy and promote well being for all at all ages. SDG 3.9.1 says that Government should avoid and promote those policies which facilitate the health of the general populace and people should avoid emission into the air and also pollution of water. It is important that the Zimbabwean Government ratifies the Montreal Protocol and also the Kigali Amendment; these are very important protocols which were ratified by our Government, because of the disastrous effects of climate change. Climate change has witnessed several disasters which are affecting the developing world and yet the contribution to the depletion of the Ozone layer by the Third World Countries is very limited.
We saw Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe which led to the deaths of more than 700 people in Zimbabwe. If we were to include those that were affected in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique the number is above 2000.
So, it is important that our Government has ratified the Kigali Amendment. This is crucial because the Ozone layer has to be protected so that people will not be affected by those natural calamities and disasters which are a result of the depletion of the Ozone layer.
There are several benefits of respecting those protocols - there are financial benefits from the multilateral funds and Zimbabwe has already benefited. We have had the Capri refrigerator Company that has received some funds as a result of this protocol which was signed by the Zimbabwean Government.
These are incentives for countries to avoid the depletion of the Ozone layer. This is very important because we need to protect our habitat. Once companies emit, especially in the United States of America and China, I am sure everyone is aware that the former President of the United States of America did not want the USA to participate in these protocols and now with the rise of a new President, we are going to witness a reduction in the ozone layer. We need to commend the Zimbabwean Government, especially our President, E.D Mnangagwa for ensuring that all these protocols are respected. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: First and foremost, I want to state that in principle, I do not have a problem in terms of having the ratification of this protocol. However, the challenge that I have is in terms of how Zimbabwe and how generally these protocols are negotiated.
It is true that the Constitution allows His Excellency the President and whomever he would have assigned to negotiate on behalf of this country and then bring for ratification to this Parliament. My fear is that there is no sufficient ground work that is being done or at the very least, there is no carry over during the process of negotiations. One would be happier to understand what would have happened during the pre-negotiations and pre-negotiation period. As it has been said, there have been about four amendments that has happened to the Montreal and until we read the Kigali Amendment.
I want to understand form the Hon. Minister, what did the Executive do in terms of collating information from the various stakeholders in Zimbabwe and Africa in general. The Kigali Amendment categorised nations into three groups. I do not have a problem with the rich countries being given the deadline they were given, but to then say that Zimbabwe and Africa who are experiencing the adverse effects of global warming due to the Ozone depletion should be put in the same category with China – I think it is queer. I believe that Africa and Zimbabwe in particular slept on duty because we were supposed to have looked out in terms of the countries that are contributing to the depreciation. Yes, they are the rich countries but China is also up there and you cannot then compare China and Zimbabwe.
The second issue which I think is critical - this amendment was done in 2016 and we are now in 2021 – that is five years. The Government has been quiet, it has not been doing anything in terms of bringing this amendment. There are two questions that arise: first, when the Executive went and signed this protocol, was it sincere, genuine or they just signed because everybody was going to ratify it? If they were genuine, the question that arises is: what has been happening in the past five years? Has there been a carryover or a question of inclusivity consultations that has been happening to warrant this delay of five years? Is it that Zimbabwe has now been reminded by other countries that it has not ratified the Kigali amendment and then all of a sudden, we were then forced to see this being on the Order Paper?
The other aspect Madam Speaker is the question of benefits. It is not enough for the Hon. Minster to come to this august House and say we have benefited from the multilateral fund. What we need are facts and figures - we need to understand what it is. How much has Capri benefited and apart from Capri, what other financial benefits have accrued to Zimbabwe? As Zimbabwe we are experiencing the raw aspect of global warming due to ozone depletion.
Hon. Moyo has talked about the cyclones that have hit us, the number of droughts that have also hit us. We want to say, whilst we are bending backwards to say we are going to agree, to say we are going to bear the sins of the rich countries - the question is how much in terms of compensation have we really gotten as Africa or as Zimbabwe, which is a case in point? I want to believe that Africa and the developing world are being forced to bend backwards so much at the expense of its people. This is the reason why I am saying the Hon. Minister in terms of benefits that we have actually heard. We really needed you in presenting this to then say the tangible benefits Capri got - $3 million or $5 million over such a period, so that at least we appreciate that something is actually coming back to Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, as I said when I started - in principle, we do not have a problem in terms of having this protocol rectified. We are simply saying in future, we need two things to happen – consultations prior to the signing of these things and secondly we need to have the speed action in terms of bringing such documents for them to be ratified rather than to wait for five years. Five years in my view, is too long. Madam Speaker I thank you.
(v) HON. S. BANDA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to also contribute on the issue of the Montreal Protocol. Hon. Speaker as far as I know, all of us want to protect the ozone layer, and indeed the ozone layer has to be protected at all cost. However, I only have a few points that I want to check from the Minister. There are what we call hydrofluorocarbons and these are compounds which contain hydrogen. Remember if we go into water and see what the constituent of water is, hydrogen is also there. When we want to treat water, we also use chlorine. If any urban or rural council does not have chlorine, Hon. Speaker, they would not be able to protect their water. Equally, we also have these tablets that we use in the rural areas. We just put them in the water and then the water is clean. There is also what we call chlorine which is found in toothpaste.
So once we ratify this protocol, Hon. Speaker, it may mean that we may not have water to drink or toothpaste to wash our teeth. Further, Hon. Speaker, the hydrofluorocarbons are also found in air conditioning, refrigeration and even in green houses. So I believe Zimbabwe, at the level that we are, if we just ratify this protocol, things like greenhouses will stop using carbons, so it means even our horticulture will be affected. Let us say if you are in hot areas and tourists have gone to Hwange or are visiting Victoria Falls and it is too hot, they will not be able to enjoy the fresh air that may come from refrigeration or that may come from the air conditioning.
So Hon. Speaker, I also call for further consideration and research on this very critical issue. I support that the ozone layer should be protected. However, it should not be at the cost of us in Africa, because I do not believe that we are emitting as much gases and carbons as is being said since 1987 when the Montreal Protocol was established to 2016 when the last change was made through the Kigali Convention. I believe that there is more research that has to be done before we ratify this protocol. Thank you Hon. Speaker.
(V) HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I want to add my voice and first and foremost congratulate the Minister for bringing this motion and agreement for debate before ratification in the National Assembly. Having said that I also want to say it is your Committees that are charged with playing oversight on the Executive in the manner that is going to see the Executive bringing in monthly and quarterly reports to Parliament which will be laden with information that speaks to the amounts in terms of usage on the monies or on the resources that would have been accumulated as a result of resources received for climate change and climate change programmes and modalities.
Madam Speaker, I just want to applaud the United States of America as one of the developed countries which is one of the champions in terms of ozone depleting substances in terms of discharging them into the atmosphere together with other developed nations and other industrialised countries such as India. So the coming on board of the United States really gives a lot of vigour and comfort in that they get to pay for their sins.
Having said that, Madam Speaker, I would like to go into some brief background on issues to do with exactly how ozone depletion came about, what it consists of and exactly how we can use our vision 2030 and our education 5.0 to mitigate the effects of this ozone depleting substances. Madam Speaker, ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s. This issue is not only coming to Zimbabwean Parliament today. It could have come into our Parliament long back, even before the Montreal Protocol of 1987.
Madam Speaker, there is a steady lowering of about 4% in the total amount of ozone in the earth’s atmosphere which is the ozone layer, and a much larger screening time decrease in stratospheric ozone around the excooler regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. This is what brings our debate to the fore today.
There are also spring time polar tropo atmospheric ozone depletion events in addition to these stratospheric events. This we need to know. The main cause of the ozone depletion and the ozone hole are manufactured chemicals as has also been alluded to by Hon. Banda, especially manufactured halocarbon refrigerants, solvents and propellants. The foam blowing agents that is fluoro carbons, the CFCs and the HCFCs and the halons referred to as the ozone depletion substances. These compounds Madam Speaker transported into the stratosphere by turbulent mixing after emitted from the surface mixing much faster than the molecule can settle once in the stratosphere they release atoms from the halogen group through the proto-dissociation which catalyses the breakdown of the ozone into oxygen and both types of ozone depletion were observed to increase as emissions of halocarbons.
The ozone layer prevents most harmful wavelengths of ultraviolet light from passing through the earth’s atmosphere. The wavelengths cause cancer that which we have seen as sunburn and permanent blindness and cataract in some instances which were projected to increase dramatically as a result of the thinning of the ozone. I want this to be inculcated into the minds and hearts of Members of Parliament as to the reason why it is prudent just and right for us to ratify such protocol.
These were projected to increase dramatically as a result. As I have alluded to, the thinning of the ozone and these concerns led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987. This is also a response to Hon. Mushoriwa to say this is not a yesterday’s issue, this is a 1970 issue and the bringing in of this protocol by the Hon. Minister is quite timely. It could not have come at the right time than this one and I make a clarion call that there be a call for ratification of the same. The ban came into effect Madam Speaker of these CFCs in 1989. The ozone levels stabilised by mid 1990 because of these bans in 1989 and began to recover in the 2000 in the age that we are in today as the shift of the jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere towards the southern pole has stopped and might even be reserved, recovery is projected to continue over the next century and the ozone hole is expected to reach pre 1980 levels by around 2075.
Madam Speaker, in 2019 NSSA reported that ozone hole was the smallest ever since it was first discovered in 1982. This is quite applaudable. Now turning to Zimbabwe as to how our NDS1 that is 2021 up to 2025 can actually enrich our participation and our benefit out of such a protocol. The Hon. Prof. M. Ncube, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development has actually given Z$30 million to the Ministry of Transport and Air Zimbabwe in particular to pay off which amongst other debts includes the inclusion of our aviation sector into AITA. AITA is an aviation board that regulates the movement of aircraft in the global community. It does not only regulate the movement, but it also monitors and sees who is over flying whose air space because they have radar systems and satellite systems...
(v) THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna you are left with 5 minutes.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker that issue is going to conclude shortly. It also uses satellite and radar systems to monitor aircraft even if they land in Zimbabwe or they do not land in Zimbabwe that overfly our air space. Why do I mention this? You have seen what is caused a contrail layer; it is what is left behind by an aircraft big or small that is using after burner or which is using a lot of gases emitted from it as fuel that helps depleting the ozone layer in the atmosphere which this aircraft is overflying.
If we are able to detect these aircraft and know which country they come from, we as Zimbabwe can get payment for such happenings in order to compensate the depletion of our ozone layer within our atmosphere. So, I applaud the Minister of Environment for coming with this protocol and I applaud the Minister of Finance for allowing the aviation sector to also benefit Zimbabwe in compensation of ozone depleting substances in order that we actually play our part in this sector especially on the Kigali amendment. The people of Chegutu West have sent me to vociferously and effectively debate on this Kigali Amendment Protocol and I thank you for giving me this opportunity and I send their love from Chegutu West constituency.
HON. GABBUZA: Thank you Madam Chair. When you listen to Hon. Nduna’s debate and the Minister of Environment, together with our Chairman of the Portfolio Committee, clearly you see that some of these protocols are just a lot of technical words which have no practical application on the ground especially a third world country like Zimbabwe. These are some of the protocols that we are just called, invited, we sign and we go home; no wonder why the Minister had 5 years before he brought this to Parliament. These are some of the protocols we just enter into without scientific backing or scientific evidence or research. We just hear what other scientist have researched the Americans, the British, they tell us about global warming and our own background scientist have no evidence and have no capacity to verify what they are just reading in textbooks.
Madam Speaker, why am I raising this, if you look at our history as a country we are just following things that other people have done and we have not engaged our own scientists or capacitated our own scientific research institutions to verify some of these policies and issues that are brought to us. I will give you some examples, what happened to jatropha, the whole country was running around about growing jatropha, some people even shared their own farms to grow jatropha. What happened is that we have not seen any diesel coming out of jatropha and the way it was talked about? Remember Madam Speaker in the 80s there was fungal tea everyone was drinking fungal tea. Everyone was drinking fungal tea and everyone was saying a lot that it treats cancer and all these other diseases but where were our scientists to tell the world that this thing does not work because there is no evidence to scientifically justify it. Zvihuta, I do not know what other name was used in English but everyone was growing zvihuta and eating them. We were told that they treat cancer, and the eggs are very important. The Israelites and the children of Moses when they were moving to Israel ate them and everyone was healed and our scientists were quiet.
I am sure almost 90% of the farmers in this country were busy growing zvihuta but after that nothing happened and it just quietly died just because our scientists are not doing their job. We are not capacitating our research institutions who would have told us long back that these things do not work. I can go on and on Madam Speaker, the question I am trying to raise with the Minister is do we have evidence that there is global warming in this country? If we talk about climate change, what is climate change and let us start from there.
It should be a record of weather studies over a long period of time, but do we have those records? If you say the climate has changed, it is changing from something which was there to something which is new and over a long period of time, but if you look at our situation as a country, how many weather elements are we capable of measuring. Go to this big weather station around Harare in Belvedere. It is supposed to be the country’s largest, but it is in a sorrowful state and the equipment there is almost redundant and there is nothing.
If you go to many other weather stations that practically worked in the olden days, they are no longer as efficient as they used to be. If we say the climate has changed, where are we getting the evidence if we have not been measuring the weather elements over a long time? If you go through the Zimbabwean weather records, unless we depend on the world meteorological services, most of our weather focusing is based on what South Africa is saying and what other countries are seeing from their satellites. As a country, can we positively and acceptably saying the weather elements have changed when we have not been measuring anything if we do not have the capacity?
All those things that Hon. Nduna was saying are things that we read in text books. There is an ozone window but where is the ozone window – it is in the Antarctic. Out of this world, out of this continent of Africa .Antarctic is right on the southern pole. If you go through all that information you will clearly see that we are just following what other countries are doing but as a country, we do not have the capacity to measure. The chloroform carbons, the gases that are supposed to be accused of destroying the ozone layer, as a country can we rightly say as of now we can measure carbon dioxide which is in the atmosphere in Zimbabwe? Can we measure the CFCs that are being generated by any industries around, but we have to wait to be told that no, the gases are so many and they are producing a lot of disruptions to the ozone and they also follow suit and sign these protocols.
What I suggest could be the best when we go to these conferences where there are signing ceremonies, we should push these developed countries to say you are the people generating the CFCs, why do you not give us the capacity to measure what you are saying is responsible for the disruptions because certainly, they could have the capacity but we do not have that capacity and we are expected to just sign. Why do we not push them to say can you capacitate our Belvedere Weather Station and all other stations in the country so that we are able to say effectively temperatures are increasing in the country, but we do not have that evidence and we just say the world is warming? It is called warming in America but are we sure it is warming in a country like Zimbabwe when we have not measured anything?
So, Madam Speaker, I do not want to say I support, or I do not support because whether we sign or not – somebody says the people of Chegutu West, but to me as a representative of the people of my area, I do not think these protocol affects anything other than just join the band - wagon like all others because certainly we do not verify and stand on scientific evidence to try and convince anyone that we have signed in Zimbabwe. We have reduced so many percentages of our emissions because we do not have the capacity to measure. If it has been measured, the figures that we are given by somebody else from a satellite image and its current level of development does not just measure gases?
Madam Speaker, I do not want to say I support or I do not support, to me these are some of useless protocols that never benefit Third World countries. The next thing is do not emit carbon dioxide but we need carbon dioxide to generate electricity at Hwange Power Station there. If we stop generating carbon, which means we should stop generating the energy and once we stop that we will be forced to bring energies but at our level we are far inadequate in terms our energy capacity. We do not have enough of the coal powered stations but now we are told to stop the coal fired stations, move on to hydrogen and other clean energies. We move on to these but we are still not having the capacity to generate the little that is there.
We have a lot of coal reserves in the country and what will happen to all of those things. These are some of the things that when our Ministers go out, they must critically analyse, if need be, they must not sign. They must bring those protocols and have a scientists’ conference with our local scientists and see how best we go around some of those things because they will hit us in the future. They will certainly Madam Speaker and mark my words and very soon we will be told not to use our coal reserves because they generate a lot of chloroform carbons which destroy the ozone layer and next we will be importing energy from them. Madam Speaker, I just wanted to raise these issues. They may not be popular but that is what I think is in position. I thank you.
(v)HON. DUTIRO: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker for giving me a chance to contribute. It is true that we lack knowledge with regards to climate change as well as weather patterns as we do not have the machinery that is necessary to do the job . That shortage of machinery and knowledge about what is happening with regards to the weather has dire consequences for the masses as it results in hunger. People are also exposed to natural disasters. There is also shortage of water because dams have nothing. We have no option but to follow those measures from nations that are well equipped and funded. It is important for us to also add our signature to these two agreements as we will be able to add a voice when we are part of them. There is nothing we can do given that one is not part of that union. For example, our Meteorological Department has equipment that they have not received from |Germany just because of a small amount left. We do not have that amount. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY (HON. M. N. NDLOVU): Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. I want to thank the Hon. Members starting with the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on, Environment, Climate and Tourism for a very detailed report that she presented. I also want to thank the entire Committee with whom, I must acknowledge, we have worked very well in trying to share knowledge on these pertinent matters. I also want to extend my gratitude to the Hon. Members who have made their presentations today. Diverse views were presented as well as areas that I think I might need to clarify a bit so that the august House will be fully briefed.
I think most of the Hon. Members were really in support and there is no need to go right behind their contributions. I will just highlight what Hon. Mushoriwa made reference to. The first issue that he raises is that the negotiation process does not seem to carry Zimbabweans but he also says, why did it take so long for the ratification to get to Parliament. For starters, this is a House of representatives whom I believe represent the views of the people as Hon. Nduna also highlighted.
Also it is important that as we interact in global platforms, especially on pertinent issues, we are part of the voice, we should not allow ourselves to be affected by what other countries decide. It is important that we become part. The importance of ratifying such protocols is that we then have the flexibility which I have spoken about to decide on our implementation of protocols on the basis of our unique circumstances.
Madam Speaker, I must admit that the Department of Climate Change which are the custodians or the ones pushing these protocols, have had the disadvantages of being moved a couple of times. I think in the last five years, they have moved to three different Ministries. That has taken away the momentum, although it has also given Government time to consult widely including the main companies that are affected by ratification of this nature.
As I highlighted Madam Speaker, merely we are looking at the companies that are into manufacturing of refrigeration components. I noted that some Hon. Members were now talking a lot about carbon emissions. This is ozone depleting substances that we are talking of as well as the HFCs which are used mainly in the manufacture of refrigeration components.
What has been happening to Capri and I want to thank Hon. Mushoriwa for highlighting that the figure was not raised. They have received more than US$400 000 to migrate into technologies that are friendly to the ozone layer as well as to the climate. They are not closing but we have facilitated that they acquire technologies that are friendly to the ozone layer and they have migrated smoothly. No one can say today that they cannot find a Capri refrigerator. We have been able to get that support.
Madam Speaker, over the last five years, we have received more than US$3 million worth of support to the cause of ozone protection. Hon. Mushoriwa went on to highlight that he has a problem with us being grouped in the same group as China. I do not know Madam Speaker how I can respond to that, suffice to say that officially, China today is regarded as a developing country. This has had effect even on other issues that are climate change related because as much as they are major contributors to emissions, they are regarded as a developing country and this is how this was classified.
Madam Speaker, I think I have touched the issue of the amendment being in 2016 and it is taking time to come here. I want to believe that we have the opportunity to consult widely as well as educate key critical stakeholders. I think I have touched mainly on what Hon. Mushoriwa had highlighted.
Hon. Banda has reservations mainly on refrigeration for horticulture products. I think I have already highlighted that refrigeration is not being replaced. We are only looking at cleaner and smarter technologies that can be used. Hon. Nduna, I think went quite far in explaining the key advantages of ratification as well as the dangers of continuing on the path that destroys the ozone layer.
Hon. Gabbuza’s view is that this is not scientifically based and that there is no evidence of both global warming and climate change in Zimbabwe. Madam Speaker Ma’am, I do not know if there are many Zimbabweans who still believe that climate change is a myth.
Madam Speaker, let me just highlight two issues....
HON. KASHIRI: On a point of order Madam Speaker. The IT Department is letting us down ….
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKR: Order, you do not have to unmute your gadget Hon. Kashiri but you have to raise your hand first, then when I recognise you, that is when you unmute your gadget and speak.
HON. M. N. NDLOVU: Thank you Madam Speaker. I was just highlighting some of the clear evidence about climate change and global warming which Hon. Gabbuza was disputing that it exists.
Firstly, issues of climate change have no boundaries Madam Speaker. We cannot deal with them us as Zimbabwe and say we believe we are not emitting, therefore we cannot be part to these protocols. The effects of climate change we are experiencing are clearly not a result of our actions but we are affected one way or another. It is therefore important that we are part of the global discourse that seeks to address the contribution to these adverse climate conditions.
Secondly, when you look at the global temperatures over the last 100 years, they have increased by close to 2ºC, which is quite worrying. However, following the efforts of the Montreal Protocol dating back as from the 70s as has been highlighted, there is clear evidence that there is now repair of the ozone which had been depleted. It is only right as a country that we move together with such progressive nations to protect our ozone and eventually we will be able to deal with climate change related issues.
I also want to give confidence to Hon. Gabbuza that we do have scientists who give us empirical evidence that we make use of when we make these decisions. I am happy that he is also quite aware of the challenges that we are facing particularly from our Meteorological Department and part of the support we are receiving. Right now, we will be receiving about 20 automatic weather stations from institutions and countries that are in support of these protocols because the responsibility of protecting our climate is faced by us all, including Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, I think Hon. Dutiro was also in support. I do not think there is much benefit of going through the points that were raised suffice to say that he also called for the Meteorological Department which I must also highlight as I conclude my response that we are working closely with Treasury and very soon we will be getting support to make sure that our Meteorological Services Department has the capacity to give us the early warning signals that we so desire. Thank you.
I therefore move for the ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 2 to 13 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 14 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
LEAVE TO MOVE RESTORATION OF THE MOTION ON PROVISION OF NON-MONETARY BENEFITS TO GOVERNMENT WORKERS ON THE ORDER PAPER
HON. MADHUKU: Madam. Speaker, I seek leave of the House that the motion on provision of non-monetary benefits to Government workers which was superseded by the prorogation of the Second Session be restored on the Order Paper in terms of Standing Order No 75.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
RESTORATION OF THE MOTION ON PROVISION OF NON-MONETARY BENEFITS TO GOVERNMENT WORKERS
HON. MADHUKU: Madam Speaker, I move that the motion on provision of non-monetary benefits to Government workers which was superseded by the prorogation of the Second Session be restored on the Order Paper.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON MUTAMBISI: I move that Orders of the Day, Nos. 15 to 17 be stood over until Order of the Day, No. 18 has been disposed of.
HON. MAVETERA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON YOUTH, SPORT, ARTS AND RECREATION AND THE THEMATIC COMMITTEE ON INDIGENISATION AND EMPOWERMENT ON THE STATE OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRES, THE EMPOWER BANK AND SPORTING FACILITIES
HON. TONGOFA: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and the Thematic Committee on Indigenisation and Empowerment on the State of Vocational Training Centres, the Empower Bank and Sporting facilities in Zimbabwe.
HON. MAVETERA: I second.
HON. TONGOFA:
1.0 Introduction
Youth participation is a critical political and socio-economic development issue. Section 20 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe exhorts institutions of Government to take reasonable measures, including affirmative action programmes to ensure that youths have access to appropriate education and training and opportunities for employment. In the same vein, the Zimbabwe National Development Strategy 1 (January 2021- December 2025) recognises the youth as “a valuable resource” which should be allowed to build and strengthen own qualities to facilitate growth and flourishment into responsible citizens. The Government has established Vocational Training Centres (VTCS) to provide entrepreneurial skills training in areas such as agriculture, hospitality and tourism, welding, motor mechanics, business studies, carpentry, building studies, clothing technology, cosmetology, and domestic electrical installation. Additionally, the Government established the Empower Bank to provide social and financial solutions to the financially excluded youths who have limited or no access to capital.
Sport is a widely acclaimed development tool and a social connector. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda recognises sport as an enabler of sustainable development. This includes its contribution towards the empowerment of youths and communities, realisation of peace as well as health and social inclusion targets. The Government of Zimbabwe established sporting facilities around the country in order to nurture young talents into career sportspersons, thereby reducing high unemployment levels amongst the youth which is largely attributable to lack of skills.
Pursuant to the oversight role of Parliament, the Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and Thematic Committee on Indigenisation and Empowerment conducted a joint inquiry into the state of VTCs, sporting facilities and the Empower Bank.
2.0 OBJECTIVES OF THE INQUIRY
The key objectives of the inquiry were to:
2.1 assess the state of learning facilities, equipment and accommodation at VTCs;
2.2 familiarise with various programmes and projects being implemented at VTCs to promote youth empowerment;
2.3 assess the state of sporting facilities and level of the country`s preparedness to host international matches; and
2.4 assess the level of financial support rendered to young people by the Empower Bank.
3.0 Methodology
The Committees undertook the following activities as part of the inquiry:
3.1 It gathered oral evidence from the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and Ministry of Local Government and Public Works on the state of VTCs and sporting facilities;
3.2 It also gathered oral evidence from Zimbabwe Football association (ZIFA) on progress made towards the refurbishment and upgrading of stadiums in line with Confederation of African Football (CAF) requirements;
3.3 It received oral evidence from Empower Bank on the nature of financial support rendered to young people;
3.4 analysed written submissions from Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation; and
3.5 conducted field visits to VTCs and sporting facilities from the 6th to 10th of July 2020 as shown on the tables below:
Table 1: VTCs and sports facilities visited by Group 1
DAY | PROVINCE | ACTIVITY |
6 July 2020 | Masvingo | Mushagashe Training Centre
Mucheke Stadium |
7 July 2020 | Midlands | Zvishavane Vocational Training Centre
Mandava Stadium |
8 July 2020 | Mat South | Pangani Vocational Training Centre
Empower Bank- Bulawayo branch |
9 July 2020
|
Mat North
|
Umguza Vocational Training Centre
Barbourfields Stadium |
10 July 2020 |
Midlands |
Mkoba Stadium
Kaguvi Training Centre |
Table 2: VTCs and Sport facilities visited by Group 2
DAY | PROVINCE | ACTIVITY |
6 July 2020 | Manicaland | Magamba Vocational Training Centre
Sakubva Stadium |
7 July 2020 | Mash- East | Rudhaka Stadium
Tabudirira VTC |
8 July 2020
|
Harare
|
National Sports Stadium,
MufakoseYouth Interact Centre, Empower Bank- Head office |
9 July 2020 | Mashonaland Central
|
Chaminuka Training Centre
Bindura Urban Vocational Training Centre |
10 July 2020
|
Mash- West
|
Mashayamombe Vocational Training Centre
Kadoma Vocational Training Centre |
4.0 Committees’ Findings
4.1 Oral Evidence from the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation
Dr T. Chitepo, the Secretary for Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation informed the Committees that in line with provisions of Section 20 of the Constitution, the Ministry established various youth empowerment programmes and projects across the 10 provinces of the country. These include youth enterprise support and financial inclusion initiatives such as the Empower Bank, VTCs and other service centres aimed at capacitating youths through practical business exposure. In addition, the Ministry created production and incubation hubs specialising in motor mechanics, horticulture, cosmetology, dairy and livestock production.
The Secretary highlighted that the Ministry adopted the VTCs Master Plan in October 2019. She noted that the Master-Plan outlines infrastructural requirements for VCTs and a curriculum review programme in line with modern trends and current developments, amongst other key issues. The curriculum review programme would be conducted with support from the Chinese Government.
The Secretary further informed the Committees that with regards to sporting facilities, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) had conducted stadium inspections in November 2019. In its subsequent report, the CAF stipulated areas of improvement which included security turnstile gates, a levelled pitch, sitting bays, doping rooms, press conference room, official dressing room, first aid kits, flood light 1200 lux, commentary position, photographer area, VIP section as well as ablution facilities. She noted that the Government had already released financial resources amounting to ZWL$37.6 million towards upgrading Barbourfields, Sakubva, Mandava and National Sports stadiums in order to promote sports and tourism in the country.
4.2 Field Visits to VTCs
4.2.1 Enrolment Levels
During the field visits to VTCs, the Committees discovered that the demand for vocational education was overwhelming. This was due to the fact that a majority of students who sit for Ordinary level education examinations come out with less than five subjects passes that are a requisite to proceed to Advanced level of education.
However, the Committees noted with concern that enrolment levels at VTCs were below institutional capacity due to inadequate learning infrastructure. Mrs N Tembo, the Acting Principal of Zvishavane VTC informed the Committee that the institution had the capacity to enroll up to 700 but currently enrolment is at 450 students only. The same trend was observed at Mashayamombe VTC where the enrolment has been on the decline from 500 to 55 students. Mr B Musatya, the Principal of Mashayamombe VTC in Mashonaland West Province bemoaned that the institution had lost a significant number of female students due to drop-outs. Consequently, female student enrolment had drastically dwindled and in some programmes ceased thereby undermining its relevance in terms of empowering the girl child.
- b) Learning infrastructure
The Committee observed that learning facilities and buildings at most VTCs were in a state of deterioration. This was evident at Mashayamombe VTC where the administration block had no window panes, ant mounds were razing down doors and wood infrastructure as a result of lack of utilisation. Additionally, the Committees were dismayed to note that buildings at Panganai VTC in Insiza District were even collapsing. The deplorable state of the buildings pointed to failure to attract students by Mashayamombe and Panganai VTCs. Furthermore, it indicated the lack of effort by responsible authorities to conduct routine maintenance works which ultimately contributed towards the running down of existing infrastructure at VTCs.
- c) Training equipment
Obsolete equipment was a serious challenge across the VTCs toured by the Committees. It affected training programmes such as agriculture, carpentry, textiles and clothing and automotive trades. The worst affected institutions were Mashayamombe VTC in Mhondoro Mubaira District, Magamba VTC in Mutare, Kadoma VTC in Kadoma, and Bindura Urban VTC where obsolete equipment was reported to be generally affecting the learning practice of students and undermined the quality of graduates. Mr A. Musariri, the Principal of Chaminuka VTC informed the Committee that the institution was still utilising equipment donated by Germany 30 years ago.
The Committees noted that most of the courses offered at VTCs are not technology intensive which discourages prospective students. A case example is Mushagashe VTC in Masvingo which lacked computers, or internet connectivity. However, it was encouraging to learn that Zvishavane VTC had received a donation of 22 desk tops from Boltrec Engineering Private Limited.
- d) Student Accommodation
The acute shortage of accommodation was touted as a serious challenge affecting students enrolled at VTCs. According to information gathered by the Committees at Umguza, Zvishavane, Mutate and Bindura Urban VTC, only 15% of students enrolled at centres could be accommodated on-campus. Further to that, the Committees noted that dormitories at most VTCs were constructed immediately after the attainment of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. Due to the wear and tear, ablution facilities at Chaminuka VTC in Mashonaland Central Province were an eye-sore whilst the bedding facilities at Mashayamombe VTC were make-shift old rusty spring beds without any mattresses.
Moreover, the Committees learnt that Bindura VTC had only done two enrolments from 2014 to 2016 and cancelled other enrolments to pave way for construction of trainees hostel and renovations to the learning facility. These construction works were funded by the Freda Rebecca Mine and the Bindura Community Share Ownership Trust. However, completion of the construction projects stalled due to withdrawal of support by the two funders after the community had failed to meet the deadline. The Committees were also informed that Zvishavane VTC had partnered with Mimosa Mining Company which fully funded the construction of a girls hostel at the institution.
- e) Projects
The Committees noted a trend of underfunded projects during the visits to VTCs. Most VTCs had projects which were either semi-finished or stalled due to the inadequacy of financial resources. VTCs such as Bindura, Chaminuka and Mushagashe were struggling to fund their projects. The Committees learnt that central government support had a number of bottlenecks ranging from late disbursement of funds to bureaucracy. An illustrative example is Bindura VTC’s pinnacle project which never took off since 2016 due to lack of financial support from the central government. Officials at Mushagashe VTC informed the Committee that despite submitting bids to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development for the past five years, no allocations towards the centre’s projects had been made through the National Budget.
During the field visits, the Committee toured dairy projects at Kaguvi and Umguza VTCs. The Committee was informed that adequate infrastructure for the two dairy projects had been acquired through the support of Dendairy and were potentially profitable business opportunities. However, both centres were struggling to source cow feeds as local suppliers were charging in foreign currency. In fact, the Committee found out that the Umguza Dairy had 20 heifers, Vet clamp, Spray race, two-point milking machine, four cows abreast milking parlour, a 70 metre borehole, biosecurity, feed storage facility, six milking cans. Unlike Kaguvi`s dairy project, Umguza dairy had a total daily output of 80 litres of milk which was delivered to Dendairy after every two days.
- f) The fate of students post-graduation
The Committees found out that most graduates from VTCs were experiencing challenges in acquiring start-up kits to pursue business enterprises, hence the skills acquired were not being utilised in local industry and the market. Graduates from the automotive trade and agriculture programmes at Magamba VTC were failing to meaningfully join the mainstream economy owing to lack of adequate business start-up kits. The Committees noted that this state of affairs undermined the essence of the comprehensive youth empowerment architecture model through business development.
4.3 Empower Bank
Mr S. Mhembere, the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Empower Bank informed the Committees that the entity is a registered deposit taking micro-finance institution wholly owned by the Government of Zimbabwe. The bank provides social and financial solutions to the financially excluded population with greater focus on the youth, particularly focusing on youth-led businesses and agriculture projects, asset finance, guarantees and savings accounts cutting across urban, peri-urban and rural Zimbabwe. Since 2020, the newly-established bank has lent over $9 million, with 1 500 youths benefiting from the loan facility. The interest rate is 5 to 7 percent depending on the nature of business. However, its services were centralised in Harare and Bulawayo only. A proposal was made for the bank to conduct community reach-out programmes in order to raise awareness to young people in rural areas on its services. The Committees further established that Empower Bank was being run by an Acting Chief Executive Officer for the past five years and that its Board of Directors lacked a substantive Chairperson which affected its efficiency and effectiveness. It was still in a loss position due to start-up costs, payment defaults and constrained business owing to hyperinflation and the COVID-19 pandemic effects. The Committee was informed that US$ 5 million capital injection was required to meet business growth and new minimum capital requirements for the microfinance bank.
5.0 State of Sporting facilities
The Committees were apprised by the Secretary for Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation on the minimum Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Confederation of African Football (CAF) requirements expected for a stadium as follows:
(i) A levelled green pitch clearly marked in white;
(ii) Flood lights 1200 lux covering pitch uniformly;
(iii) Official dressing rooms;
(iv) First aid and medical treatment and stretcher carriers;
(v) Doping control room;
(vi) Media tribune, press conference room and media facilities;
(vii) Spectator facilities;
(viii) A photographer area and camera positions;
(ix) Signage and bucket seats;
(x) VIP parking area and;
(xi) One commentary position.
The Committees conducted visits to sporting facilities after being condemned by the CAF for failing to meet the above requirements. The Committees visited Sakubva in Mutare, Mandava in Zvishavane, Barbourfields in Bulawayo, Mucheke in Masvingo, Rudhaka in Marondera, Ascot in Gweru and National Sports Stadium in Harare respectively. The Committees established that poor sporting facilities had not only made it difficult for the country to host major international competitions, but resulted in loss of revenues that could have been generated from these facilities. The main challenge with sporting facilities is lack of maintenance and that most caretakers who are responsible for the day-to-day maintenance either have little or no expertise in stadium maintenance.
The Committees also established that the current set up of the Sport and Recreation Commission is solely focused on sport development outside facilities. Currently, there is no expertise on the ground to look after the turf for instance. Furthermore, the Stadium Management Board at the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works has completely failed to execute its mandate and is no longer in existence. In the same vein, both the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and local authorities who own stadiums do not have a strategy in place for the countrys stadia. The Committees also noted that devolution funds had not been channeled towards maintenance and upgrading of sporting facilities by local authorities who own them.
A visit by the Committees at Mucheke, Ascot and Mucheke stadiums revealed why these stadiums did not meet 80 percent of the CAF requirements. The pitches were humpy with weeds outgrowing the lawn and lacked markings. The absence of the following critical items compounded the situation; flood lights 1200 lux, official dressing rooms, first aid and medical treatment and stretcher carriers. Furthermore, there were no doping control rooms; media tribune, press conference rooms and the ablution facilities were not safe for use. The B-Arena at Ascot stadium had also been converted into residential stands by the Gweru City Council which demonstrate the local authority’s lack commitment towards sport development.
The Committees’ findings at Mandava, Barbourfields and National stadium also confirmed why these stadiums could not meet the CAF requirements. At the time of the visits, work was underway to replace the turf, separate VIP area with the rest of the ground and refurbishment of the media and doping control rooms. The Committees noted that these three stadiums did not have facilities to cater for people with disabilities, bucket seats and floodlights 1200lux. It is pertinent to note that the Committee was impressed by the progress made in upgrading and refurbishing the Mandava Stadium through funds from the Mimosa Mining Company. The stadium had met 98% of the CAF requirements, but what was still outstanding was the purchase of flood light 1200 lux and the total amount required was UDS$ 90 0000.
6.0 COMMITTEES’ OBSERVATIONS
The Committees made the following observations:
6.1 The shortage of human resources was a serious challenge which exerted too much pressure on employees as they were being forced to multi-task in order to plug the gaps across all the VCTs visited.
6.2 The equipment and infrastructure in most VTCs was obsolete, an anomaly which affected the learning practice of students, thereby compromising the competency of graduates, particularly in the areas of agriculture, carpentry, textiles and clothing, automotive trades. Additionally, the Committees were disheartened to observe that the existing infrastructure at VTCs was in a state of disrepair which indicated the lack of goodwill to exercise routine maintenance and housekeeping activities by officers.
6.3 Despite the fact that VCTs have the capacity to take more than 80 percent enrollment of students into tertiary education per annum, most centres had incomplete or white elephant projects due to lack of financial and other resources or in some cases, late disbursement of the same.
6.4 Students at VTCs suffer due to the acute shortage of secure accommodation facilities with conducive and effective studying environments as on-campus facilities could on average cater for 15 percent of the enrolment.
6.5 The lack of access to start-up capital grossly impeded the entrance of graduates into the local industry and mainstream economy thereby undermining the very essence of establishment of VCTs.
6.6 The Empower Bank has operated for more than five years without a substantive Chief Executive Officer which undermines its efficiency and effectiveness.
6.7 Although the Empower Bank aims to provide loan facilities to youths across the country, its services are currently accessed in Harare and Bulawayo and not yet decentralised to rural provinces of the country.
6.8 The country lacks a clear stadia management strategy. While the Sport and Recreation Commission is largely focused on sport development and outside facilities, there is currently no expertise to maintain the turf in stadia, for example. The Stadium Management Board which used to be under the administration of the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works was no longer in existence.
6.9 The failure by stadiums to meet FIFA and CAF standards was largely due to poor management of sports facilities and lack of prioritisation by owners. For example, all local authorities had never set aside any amount from devolution funds towards upgrading and refurbishment of sporting facilities.
6.10 All the VTCs and football stadiums have not set up enough facilities to cater for people with disabilities
7.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Committee made the following recommendations:
7.1 The Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in collaboration with relevant Government departments should ensure that all VCTs have substantive Principals by 31st October 2021. Acting Principals must be given first preference subject to merit.
7.2 The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should mobilise adequate financial resources for VTCs and sporting facilities maintenance and development. The Ministry should allocate 80 percent financial resources to VTCs through the National Budget in order to enable these institutions to sustain their operations by 31st December 2021. Additionally, the Ministry must allocate adequate financial resources to the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation to ensure that all sporting infrastructure meet international standards within the same timeline. Furthermore, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should explore other financial resources mobilisation initiatives such as Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) and tax incentives in order to stimulate investment in VTC facilities and sporting infrastructure by 31st October 2021.
7.3 The Ministry of Local Government and Public Works should ensure that at least two percent of the devolution funds is directed towards the development of VTCs by 31st December 2021.
7.4 The Ministry Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation should regulate all VTCs and sporting facilities to ensure that they cater for people with disabilities by 31st July 2021.
7.5 The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should appoint a substantive Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Board of Directors to strengthen operations of the Empower Bank by 31st June 2021.
7.6 The Empower Bank should decentralise its services to district level and conduct awareness campaigns to ensure that all eligible beneficiaries access its services, including youths in rural areas and students in VTCs across the country by 31st December 2021.
7.7 The Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and Ministry of Local Government should appoint a Sports Management Board and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the usage and maintenance of sporting facilities by 31st July 2021.
8.0 CONCLUSION
The strategic importance of VTCs, the Empower Bank and sporting facilities to the socio-economic transformation of Zimbabwe cannot be underestimated. VTCs empower our youth with entrepreneurial skills to venture into the small and medium business sector which currently contributes significantly to the country’s domestic product (GDP). Closely linked to that, is the critical financing role of the Empower Bank which provides the much- needed business start-up capital for the youth. Similarly, excellent sporting infrastructure attracts better performance resulting in abundant socio-economic benefits such as employment creation and revenue generation, amongst others. Thus, there is an urgent need for a coordinated approach to the management of sporting facilities in Zimbabwe by the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, and Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
(v)HON. SARUWAKA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Using the 2019, school examination statistics from ZIMSEC, a total of 206 623 students set for Ordinary level examination, of which 59 879 representing 33, 9%, passed. This means 146 744 could not make it. Of the number that passed, those who wrote from schools, there were also 3 336 that were writing from other institutions, those that would have failed previous years who also passed. The total number of those that passed, those from schools and those from outside school brought the number to 63 215.
Out of 63 215, only 51 862 proceeded to advanced level. This left 11 353 to join the 146 744 who had failed bringing the total number of people that wrote exams in 2019 at ordinary level who could not proceed with their advanced education to 158 097, which is roughly 160 000. This is the number annually that is ejected into the wilderness by our education system as it stands today. These 160 000 young people, these exclude those that proceed to advanced level but fail to go to tertiary education. They deserve an opportunity to get some skills to help them face the future.
Therefore, this is where the vocational training centres come into play, where life skills in agriculture, motor mechanics, carpentry, the garments making industry, food industry, and welding and other life skills are imparted to them at these vocational training centres.
Madam Speaker, this is the case for the vocational training centres and this was the motivation behind the visit - to see how well these institutions are catering for this important section of our population – the youths. This is a large group of energetic potential innovative and productive group which can contribute to the economic fortunes of their families and the economic development of this country. Failure to harness this volatile group can spell disaster to the whole nation as they can easily slide into drugs, crime, prostitution and other vices associated with idleness. As you know, Madam Speaker, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
Madam Speaker, I was in the group that toured Mushagashe in Masvingo, Zvishavane VTC, Umguza in Matabeleland North and Kaguvi in Midlands Gweru. What we found out from the tour was very disappointing to say the least. My Chairman has included every institution in his presentation. They depicted more of abandoned villages in a war ravaged zone and would easily be mistaken for something else not institutions of learning. I underline mistaken because these are institutions of learning but you do not necessarily associate them with learning when you look at the state these institutions are in.
What was apparent from our visit is the general kwashiorkor of resources to help these institutions function effectively. What was even more disturbing, Madam Speaker, is the revelation by the Mashayamombe VTC Principal in Mashonaland West that girls fell victim during the National Youth Service Training at these VTCs at the turn of the century and this affected the enrolment of girls. This being a month in which we honour women it must be used to underline our commitment as a country to respect women and not abuse them.
VTCs, Madam Speaker, are vital cogs in the development of human skills in this country and should never be looked down upon by anyone, more so those in Government, not least those holding the purse for VTCs from the basis of the expansion of the blue collar industry responsible for spelling development in the industrial revolution our country so desperately wishes to embark on in order to extricate our population from the debilitating poverty we are living through.
We have a great opportunity, Madam Speaker, to turn the fortunes of this country through VTCs now that the formal economy is not working well. VTCs can revive this great country if they are adequately funded. In fact, Madam Speaker, looking at the number of students ejected by our education system annually, Government must actually be looking at establishing a VTC in each and every constituency, not district or province but at the constituency level because we have got enough youths that are churned out by our education system that deserve to go through some learning in terms of acquiring skills. This will give each child a chance to fight poverty. The current number of VTCs is a far cry in terms of adequacy. These VTCs must be fully funded and equipped by the State. Other organisations like what Mimosa is doing at Zvishavane can chip in to assist but the primary role of funding these institutions must lie with our Treasury.
Our trip also looked at sporting facilities to see progress against the CAF guidelines in order to make the stadia usable for international matches. Our team visited the Mucheke, Mandava, Barbourfields and Ascot stadia. All these stadia are council owned though Mandava has a special arrangement with Mimosa company where the maintenance and upgrade is done by the platinum producing company. It was clear from the visits that there is a general neglect and decay of the facilities in the country attributed to lack of resources because councils are relegating sport in their budget. They are treating it as a non priority. They claim that they are concentrating on refuse collection, water reticulation, roads, health, education etcetera, even though there is no evidence of such service provision anywhere in the country.
At Ascot there is no ground to talk of. It is sad to note that these facilities used to be the pride of our country where athletes used to exhibit their skills much to the delight of their communities. Those were good old days, Madam Speaker, now gone with the wind. To cut a long debate short the sport facilities in Zimbabwe must be revamped. Sport is a mega billion business with the potential to turn around the fortunes of this country. The starting point is the establishment and maintenance of sporting facilities meeting international standards. We must not allow the sabotaging of those endowed with finance by those bent on destroying these facilities for their selfish ends. The treatment facing those who built on wetlands where houses and shops are demolished must be listed also on those who build on areas reserved for sport facilities.
What we saw at Ascot stadium is shameful, Madam Speaker, and I plead with the authorities to use Ascot as an example by clearing the settlement in the B arena. All the master plans for towns and other settlements normally reserve land for sport and I want to appeal that this land must be respected and used for sport. Let me take this opportunity to appeal to all MPs here that we go out to our constituencies and identify projects built on sport fields for compilation into a document which we then present to the Minister of Local Government for the demolition of any structures build on sport facilities so that we pave way for communities to enjoy sport within their localities.
This might appear radical, Madam Speaker, but the benefits we get from producing in international stars, the wellness and health benefits of a community that takes part in sport is more than what we gain by building on these designated sport fields.
The other area we toured, Madam Speaker, as part of this programme was the empowerment bank. I do not wish to comment a lot on empowerment bank beyond what the Chair has already presented except to say that these skills at times appear as half hearted measures by our Government to be seen to be doing something yet they are doing absolutely nothing to fund youth projects and initiatives. Without funding to our youth the chance of our youth making it in life is very little. So I appeal, Madam Speaker, that the recommendations regarding empowerment bank that have been presented by our Chairman must be taken seriously and action taken as soon as yesterday. I thank you.
(V) *HON MAGO: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the Government for coming up with VCTs so that our youths will be equipped in skills. What pained us as we toured the centres; it looks like there is neglect of these VCTs as alluded by my Chairman. If we look at Bindura VCT, it was only constructed up to roof level which is now dilapidated. We were referred to the principal there by security guard because there is nothing that is taking place there.
The VCT in Mashonaland West at Mashayamombe, nothing is taking place there despite the fact that money has been poured there. Instead of development, it is like we are going in circles. The VCTs also have shortage of trainers. There is need to look at the trainer/pupil ratio in these VCTs; for a province we need 15, district needs four trainers, and for satellite we do not know the number. It looks like these VCTs are neglected. Coming back to Mashayamombe VCT, it looks like there are no girls there. When we inquired we found out that they have an enrolment of 101 boys and 35 girls.
This did not go down well with us as female Members of Parliament. On further inquiry we learnt that there were reports of rape cases and that is why there are few girls. We were shocked that a Government institution has cases of rape to the extent that girls do not feel comfortable to be enrolled there. Mutare VCT still has an acting principal which shows a neglect of VCTs on the part of Government. This is not an incentive to workers although the acting principal was working whole-heartedly to the extent that if we had the powers we would have made him-a-substantive. About 80% of school leavers are enrolled in VCTs but the places are looked down upon and neglected to the extent that the students who are channelled from there do not get respect in the industry despite getting good training in skills. The machines are outdated to the extent that they are not useable in the modern industry where there are new machines.
The fees that are paid by students at these VCTs are banked centrally. When they need the money for development they do not get the funds. If it were possible they would be allowed to keep the funds that they get from their projects for further development. Students who graduate from these colleges cannot start their own businesses because of lack of capital. They are supposed to get money from the Empowerment Bank which is poorly funded. The bank only managed to give 1500 youths countrywide. This might look as a big number but when they further break down you will find that per province probably 5 youths were given money. This bank must be really supported by Government so that youths will become empowered. The youths are the future of the country. If we leave them like that we will end up having a lot of robbers. The students who graduate from VCT also help the country, they are just like engineers and doctors from other colleges who after completion go out of the country but these ones are here to stay.
In conclusion Hon. Speaker, when it comes to our stadiums, I think the Government must be pro-active and not wait for them to be dilapidated first. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
(V) HON. C. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker for affording me this opportunity to also buttress on what has been said by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee Hon Tongofa seconded by Hon. Saruwaka. It is very important that I am a youthful Member of Parliament, who is a leader today. It is very important that we need to inculcate mindset that our youths are leaders of today and leaders of tomorrow. To begin with Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the national critical skills orthodox 2018 which said we have got an overall gap of skills which stand at 68%. What it means is we have got a mysterious which can be solved by our VCT.
Secondly, I want to say in education there is a more of ecosystem, we have got our primary schools starting from ECD and our secondary schools, universities and also parts of the ecosystems as Vocational Training Centre. We cannot do without Vocational Training Centres. These centres are for people who need to do their specialised activities which is very important rather than to have people with masters, MBAs and Honours who are selling airtime and are spending 24/7 on social media doing nothing.
Vocational Training Centres are very important because they are part of education ecosystem. Thirdly if we look at our National Development Strategy 1 which is from 2021 to 2025, if you go to page 148, it talks about human capital development in innovations as engines which will drive NDS1 and the country progress towards Vision 2030. Believe me, Vocational Training Centres are part of human capital development so there is no doubt that Vocational Training as outlined on page 157 are very important because they are also part of our National Development Strategy.
I need also to highlight the courses at these VCT centres, we talk of motor mechanics, plumbing, welding, carpentry and immediately after finishing the course that person is already ready to enter into a market. In Bulawayo we do not know about the Empowerment Bank and as a youthful Members of Parliament, I cannot refer my youths in Mpopoma, Pelandaba to go to Empowerment Bank because I do not know where it is and surely something must be done in terms of awareness and visibility because we are saying those products from VCTs must be capacitated from Empowerment Bank by getting initial outlets so that they can start their businesses.
On another note also Madam Speaker you realise that the welfare of teachers at these VCTs are not up to standard. It is either because of their age and also the lack of seriousness because of the way they will be closed. Maybe it is because of their salaries. So, I propose Madam Speaker. that salaries of those teachers must be looked into so that whenever you go to any vocational training centre, you can see that you can get some sort of a qualification by generally looking at the teachers.
Lastly, allow me to talk about the sporting facilities. If you can identify talent through these sporting activities, and we need to spruce up our sporting facilities so that those who cannot go to university level can go to sporting facilities in our wards or in our constituencies.
I support a sporting ground or any other activities in each and every ward so that you can identify our local talent at that low level and then feed them into the national strategy. Government has to do something about that so that at least our locals can benefit. This is in the spirit of devolution. I totally support all the recommendations from the Committee but what is key is to now implement. We do not want to just come up with clear recommendations and leave them in a shelf. Let us make sure that we implore and we take everything from this report and implement it for the sake of our youths who have more energy. Surely this energy must be channeled to activities so that they can feed into the national development which is very important and very clear. As was said on page 148 and on page 157 we need to do something to empower, capacitate and support the innovation from our young people as in the spirit of 5.0 which our Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education always talks about which has industrialisation and modernisation. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I just want to add my voice to a report by Hon. Rtd. Major Tongofa and seconded by my brother Hon. Saruwaka. The issue of vocational training centres is key and this is what I am going to touch on first and foremost. Secondly, I am going to touch on sports as an economic development to be championed by the youths who are by the way the majority of this country.
I introduce my input as follows: where I come from in Chegutu in particular, we have ages 18 up to 35 quantified in 2018, 6 724 and out of that, you will find that not all of those kids or those youths found themselves into tertiary education, in particular, in universities or in other higher places of learning. What I want to put across are the benefits of vocational training centres. One way would be better chances of employment.
You would remember Madam Speaker or during my time when I was still at school, you would leave school as a school leaver and when you go into employment as a school leaver, you will find that the same person that you were at school with who was of another colour or race, white to be particular, would be your boss but they would not have done very well at school, but they made sure that they hold their practical skills as in apprenticeship somewhere at a workplace that is owned by their parents. So, there is better chances of employment when you go through vocational training. This is where you find that there is better chances of getting employed and economically empowered when you have a lot of skills that have been passed on from generation to generation by your kith and kin Madam Speaker and by vocational training centres and by apprenticeship.
There are higher learning levels when somebody comes from a vocational institution. That is the second issue. The third issue is the increased job satisfaction. You are doing what it is that you want. The fourth issue is improved flexibility and mobility. We owe it to prosperity and to the future. We need to enhance the visibility of our youths by the establishment of vocational training centres so that they have the improved flexibility and mobility. They are endowed with a lot of energy as Hon. Moyo has alluded to.
This generation Madam Speaker, certainly has a lot to offer because they are youthful, agile, malleable and they are looking forward to the future. Fifthly, there is lifelong learning from vocational institutions. So, this is what we need to pass down to our generation especially the people of Chegutu West Constituency that I have alluded to.
The sixth issue is a positive influence on child education in the families like the kids from black Smith vana veMapostori to be precise, they pass on their lifelong skills or their artistry skills of black smith and shoe making.
So this is a positive influence that can be passed on through vocational training. Also the vocational training provides mental health and societal benefits Madam Speaker Ma’am. It is my thinking that with all these benefits, there is need for vocational training which is meant for school leavers. There must be vocational training for those who want to have more hands-on approach than the academic route especially if they know what industry they want to move into as I have alluded to. If there is a school lever who wants to work in a child care for argument sake, for art and design for example, then a vocational training centre could be better for the career progression than ‘A’ level combining practical learning with subjects and theory content.
Often vocational training takes part in the workplace environment. School leavers have the ability to apply knowledge to real life skills and situation straight away as well as learning interpersonal skills through working in a team environment. As I have said, it has some way of cohesion and making sure that there is teamwork with colleagues. Vocational training also is designed to meet specific needs of employers and job seekers. This means that students develop the skills and knowledge that employers want. This will increase their employability and livelihood of finding a job after completing their studies. That will be a better way of adjusting and likely to find a course that will help them towards their dream job Madam Speaker Ma’am.
I have one James Ngulube who I paid fees for during his ‘O’ level, not that he was not gifted in academics. I talk about him because he is an acclaimed football player who has also played for Ngezi Platinum and he is now plying his trade at Mbabane Stars in Swaziland. So, a lot can be gained from vocational training and sports. It is an economic benefit that can actually see my Constituency and our country getting a lot of development economically through support of sports and vocational training centres Madam Speaker.
I want to conclude by saying we pull it to prosperity. In the same way that Government has allowed the companies like NRZ to have private vocational training centres and machine shops in order that they capacitate our youth through apprenticeship, it is time in the same way that we have Government schools and trust schools. Government allows private players to have private vocational centres and take a cue from ‘Yours Truly’ who is also trying to help the health delivery sector by establishment of accident victims stabilisation centres by the community where I come from. The community has come hand-in-glove with each other and builds their own health institutions so that they can augment and complement Government efforts in the health delivery sector.
So, it is much more along the same lines that I now encourage to enact an Act that regulates and promotes the private sector to complement the work being done by the vocational training centres. This will make sure that we get a lot of graduates after the Bill that seeks to harmonise the qualifications of our higher and tertiary institutions together with the vocational training centres.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to vociferously and eloquently debate and add my voice to this report using the words of the people of Chegutu West Constituency that have commissioned me to present this debate. I thank you.
HON. TONGOFA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
(v)HON. SARUWAKA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 10th March, 2021.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: Madam Speaker, I move that the rest of the Orders of the Day be stood over until Orders of the Day, Numbers 33 and 37 have been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
CONDOLENCES ON THE DEATH OF HON. MIRIAM MUSHAYI
Thirty-third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the death of Hon Miriam Mushayi.
Question again proposed.
HON. I. NYONI: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me the opportunity to wind up the debate on Order Number 33, on the passing away of Hon. Miriam Mushayi. It is perhaps a coincidence that I am winding up today considering that yesterday was the International Women’s Day. They were niceties that were exchanged on social media particularly highlighting the importance for equal opportunities for women with men. This takes me to the debates that were highlighted by the Hon. Members of Parliament. It was very clear that Hon. Mushayi was a heroine in her own.
From my own point of view, I am sure most of you here and elsewhere are with me, that the particular constituency Kuwadzana East, we look forward that the replacement will be a woman. Therefore, it is up to the various political players to ensure that the niceties that were shared on social media are respected. Thank you to all Hon. Members who debated this important motion.
In conclusion, I would like to move that this House adopts the motion that the House;
EXPRESSES its profound sorrow on the untimely passing on after a short illness on Monday, 7th September, 2020 of the late Member of Parliament for Kuwadzana Constituency, Hon. Miriam Mushayi;
PLACES on record its appreciation for the services which the late Hon. Member rendered to Parliament and the nation at large;
RESOLVES that its profound sympathies be conveyed to the Mushayi family, relatives and the entire Kuwadzana Constituency, put and agreed to.
MOTION
RECAPITALISATION OF DDF
Thirty-Seventh Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the recapitalisation of the District Development Fund.
Question again proposed.
HON. CHINGOSHO: Madam Speaker, before I close the debate on the need to recapitalise DDF, I want to thank all the Hon. Members of this House on both sides who strongly supported the motion, resulting in DDF being given the recognition it deserves. Although it did not get what it was expecting according to its budgetary requirements, DDF during this new dispensation financial year got its deserving recognition in both urban and rural set ups.
You will bear witness with me Madam Speaker that before the debate in this august House, DDF was almost forgotten and many people including the Hon. Minister of Finance himself did not quite understand the important role DDF plays in our rural and urban development. At this juncture, I want to thank the Hon. Minister of Finance for responding positively to the call on recognising DDF in this current financial year by allocating reasonable funds to DDF despite the many constraints faced by the nation which included the unbudgeted for natural disasters like COVID-19 and cyclones, which demand a lot of financial support.
There is no doubt that the important role that DDF is playing now in the rural and urban areas in repairing damaged roads, bridges and drilling boreholes is a clear demonstration that DDF is a department that deserves a lot of financial support in the next budget years to come. With these few remarks Madam Speaker, I now move that this House adopts the motion that;
MINDFUL that the District Development Fund provides services to a wide range of clientele which includes among others Non-Governmental Organisations and private individuals all over Zimbabwe;
ALSO MINDFUL that DDF is mandated to facilitate rapid and equitable sustainable rural development and assisting in ensuring adequate food security;
DISTURBED that DDF has been incapacitated in fulfilling its mandate due to dwindling financial resources, obsolete equipment and dilapidated infrastructure;
CONCERNED that the lack of resources at DDF further disadvantages vulnerable communities in terms of development, maintenance of infrastructure, water supplies, tillage services, equipment for hire during rehabilitation and construction of roads thereby impacting negatively on service delivery;
NOW THEREFORE calls upon the Executive to:
- a) Recapitalise all sections of the District Development Fund so that the department fulfills its mandate and enhance service delivery to its clientele.
- b) That adequate funds be availed for the sustenance of DDF operations countywide by year end, put and agreed to.
On the motion of HON. MUTAMBISI, seconded by HON. MPARIWA, the House adjourned at a Quarter past Six o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 4th March, 2020.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
VISITOR IN THE SPEAKER’S GALLERY
THE HON. SPEAKER: Allow me Hon. Members to recognise
the presence of Reverend Father Kembo, who is Parliamentary Liaison
Officer on behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference. Welcome Father.
– [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.]-
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have received apologies from the following Hon. Ministers; Vice Presidents, Hon. Chiwenga and Mohadi, Hon. Muchinguri –Minister of Defence and War Veterans, Hon. Matuke,
Deputy Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Hon. J.
Moyo, Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Hon. Shiri- Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement, Hon. Dr. Gumbo, Minister for State in the President’s Office, Hon. Mathema, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Hon. S. Nyoni, Minister of Women’s Affairs, Hon. S. B. Moyo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Matiza, Minister of
Transport and Infrastructural Development, Hon. Matemadanda, Deputy Minister of Defence and War Veterans, Hon. E. Moyo, Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Hon. Marapira – Deputy Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement and Hon. Chitando - Minister of Mines and Mining Development.
NON-ADVERSE REPORT FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL
COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to announce that I have received a Non-Adverse Report on the Forest Amendment Bill [H. B. 19, 2019] from the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
HON. KASHAMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege and my point is for the past three weeks, Hon.
Speaker, Parliamentarians and the public at large have been collecting coupons for diesel but there is no product at the service stations. We want to know, is there any arrangement so that Parliamentarians will be able to do their work as mandated by the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, that question was raised by Hon.
Sacco last week – [HON. MEMBERS: It is different.] - Order, order! Can I indulge the Hon. Member; it looks like it is something different.
HON. KASHAMBE: We are saying for the past three weeks we have been getting coupons but there is no product. Our coupons are specifically for Puma alone and there has been no fuel for the past three weeks from Puma service stations and Puma is still selling those coupons to the public even right now, but there is no product for the public at large. So we would like to know for us Parliamentarians to execute our duties better.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I still believe that the question is really an extension of what was asked last week and it has to be directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development to explain. That is one aspect. The other aspect is to see how we can rationalise the Puma coupons and perhaps engage CMED so that you can try to get your fuel just across here. Thank you.
HON. K. PARADZA: On a point of order.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You raise a point of order when there is a debate.
HON. K. PARADZA: Sorry, point of privilege.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, order, order. We need to be procedural. You have your Deputy Chief Whip here and I had said I have got a list, so I need to follow the list first and then if you are an excess questioner I can call upon you.
HON. TUNGAMIRAI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege. The tobacco marketing season is fast approaching but we have no clear road map on how farmers will be paid in terms of retention in United States dollars – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is a question. Ask your question.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My point of privilege has been said by the first Member. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you for your indulgence.
HON. K. PARADZA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. In terms of our dress code, I see do you now allow Mandela shirts in here because the way Hon. Murayi is dressed is not proper. He is sitting there. Can you stand up? Is that dressing? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Sit down – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]- Order! – [HON. MEMBERS: That is a colonial mind.]- Hon. Molokela order! Can we have order Chief Whip?
Hon. Molokela, this is the second time I am asking you to hold fire.
I was saying I want to interpret Article 76(5) of the Standing Orders as guided by the Deputy Chair of Committees, Hon. Mutomba. the attire for male Members shall include the following:
- A suit, - [AN HON. MEMBER: There is no tie…] - Aaaah, I am going to kick you out of the House now.
- A jacket and a tie
- Safari suit. That is all – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] – Order, order. Hon. Murai’s attire is on a knife edge. It is not like what Hon. Biti normally wears. I advised him to put on a tie because he would look elegant but he went out and took off the tie. Because it is on the knife edge, I rule that the Hon. Member should retain his tie and come back – [AN HON. MEMBER: Ko jacket?] – and a jacket of course – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
HON. T. MLISWA: I would like to bring to the attention of this House on a disease which is called theileriosis or January disease. The matter was asked before. This disease has killed a lot of cattle. The reason why I am bringing this up is, I think we need to declare a national disaster on the number of cattle that have died. I say so because the entire national herd….
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, in terms of privileges, it must relate to privileges of members. You can ask a question to the relevant Minister.
HON. T. MLISWA: The reason why I am saying this Mr.
Speaker Sir…
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have ruled. Thank you.
HON. TUNGAMIRAI: My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate Change and Rural Resettlement but since he is not around, I will direct my question to the Leader of the House.
What is the Government’s policy on how it is going to re-distribute land …..
Hon. N. Ndlovu having been moving around and greeting Hon.
Members.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order. Hon. Member, this is the second time that you are on a greeting spree – [Laughter.] – [AN HON.
MEMBER: She is a Chief Whip.] - Oh you are a Chief Whip. – [AN HON. MEMBER: Deputy] – Alright, my apology – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - Thank you Deputy Chief Whip.
HON. TUNGAMIRAI: What is the Government’s policy on how
it is going to re-distribute the land acquired from the downsizing programme? – [HON. MEMBERS: Taurisa.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Can you repeat your question?
HON. TUNGAMIRAI: What is the Government’s policy on how
it is going to re-distribute the land acquired from the downsizing programme?
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order. In terms of Section 107, we have a situation which we are constantly talking about and there is no movement whatsoever. This is the agricultural season. The President has appointed three Ministers in charge of agriculture; one Minister and two Deputy Ministers and they are not here. Most of the questions which will be asked here relate to specific ministries. There is no way the Leader of Government business can be so intelligent to annunciate whatever is going on in these ministries. I say so because the country is facing a lot of challenges; the Minister of Energy is not here, the
Minister of Mines is never here, Hon. July Moyo who is the defacto Prime-Minister is not here yet we have got stadium issues in this country and he is responsible for that but he is not here to respond to these issues.
How honestly can we go back and make progress in this country when the very same appointed Cabinet Ministers are not here. Not only that, some of them are probably the worst bunch of Cabinet Ministers ever appointed since 1980. We always had respect of Ministers who would respect this institution. They do not respect your Chair Mr.
Speaker and it cannot continue like this and allow tax payers’ money to go to waste when we should be going back to the constituencies to tell the people what the Ministers are saying yet they are not here to respond to any of the issues when every portfolio in Government is facing challenges. This cannot continue. The Deputy Ministers and Ministers are not here. Why can they not respect this institution which is responsible for oversight? They do not account. They are busy disbursing money like Hon. July Moyo.
How do we come about with a solution that we tainted the
Zimbabwe that we have? It cannot continue – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. The Hon. Deputy Minister of Lands did not tender his apology. Hon. Leader of Government Business, there is no excuse for them not to be here. You can attempt to answer.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): The reason why
we are downsizing is to ensure that the majority of Zimbabweans who want agricultural land get it. The land will be given to those on the waiting list who have applied and we will also reserve some for some of the investment that we want to undertake.
HON. TUNGAMIRAI: What percentage of this land does the Ministry intend to distribute to youth since they were young when the land was taken? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Switch off your microphone. Order! When you go to statistics, you must bring that question in writing because it needs research.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, the Government embarked on a land audit and they were going to audit the land first. Look at who is utilising or not utilising and for what reasons and also check on multiple farm owners. It is on record that the former First Lady has more than 12 farms and this Government has done absolutely nothing when the policy on land is one man, one farm.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your supplementary Hon.
Member?
HON. T. MLISWA: The question is what have they done about the land and why are they not repossessing the farms from the former First Lady when it is supposed to be one man, one farm against the Government policy? – [HON. SIKHALA: That is not policy!] - It is a policy question! – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – [HON. SIKHALA: Do not be abusive to widows! My sister here is a widow and I defended her when she lost her husband.] -
Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga having stood up to respond to Hon.
Sikhala.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Misihairabwi-
Mushonga, please allow the Hon. Minister to respond. – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Mr. Speaker, I have
just been abused. I am a widow and I do not know why or how I am getting into this conversation and I think it is just abusive. He should withdraw the statement Mr. Speaker.
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker Sir, if my statement that I defend widows has insulted anyone including my sister Hon. MisihairabwiMushonga. I withdraw.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I want to thank the Hon. Member for the question which is very important, I must admit.
Government indeed embarked on a land audit and our President is very clear that our policy is one-man, one-farm or one-woman, onefarm. I happen to be the Vice Chairman of the Lands Committee in Mashonaland West and the Chairperson is here and will testify that we are repossessing farms from multiple farm owners. I thank you.
*HON. CHIKOMBO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, my question
is directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development. The Hon.
Minister is not here, so I will direct my question to the Leader of the
House.
For the past months, we did not have any electricity. So I want to know what plans the Government has for the past nine months or there is nothing because the Minister of Energy and Power Development does not have electricity and is not here as well. – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
I want to thank the Hon. Member for his question in connection with shortage of electricity in Zimbabwe. He wants to know what the Ministry of Energy and Power Development is doing in terms of
electricity.
Yes, our electricity supply is low and we always talk about it. A number of reasons caused that but as a Ministry of Energy and Power Development, for the country to have the little electricity that we have, it is because we are buying electricity outside the country from South Africa through Eskom, from Mozambique in Carbora Bassa and EDM – that is where we are buying our electricity from. As you are aware that the whole southern African region is affected by this shortage of electricity, at times Eskom of South Africa also faces the challenges of low electricity which also affects us as Zimbabwe.
Coupled with that, we are encouraging citizens to embark on renewable solar energy. Companies who are able to generate solar energy, some companies like Pepsi, Econet had installed solar plants at their premises – we are encouraging companies who are able to generate their own energy from solar because we have a lot of sun in Zimbabwe – that is what we are encouraging. We have a Renewable Energy Policy as Government that is going to be launched very soon and we are encouraging the use of renewable energy.
As Government, again we have ongoing projects at Hwange Thermal Power Station, that is Units 7 and 8 Extension. It is being constructed right now and we believe that the first unit will be operational next year in 2021 and the other one in 2022. We will be getting 600MW in addition to the supply that we have and on top of that, we are also encouraging independent power producers who want to construct mini-hydro power stations in all our dams. We are encouraging that all the dams that can generate hydro power should be utilised and IPPs should engage in that. There are a lot of things that we are doing. We have a big list of what we are planning to do as a Government so that we increase electricity supply. Thank you.
*HON. CHIKOMBO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Firstly, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister for telling the truth that we do not have enough electricity in the country and we have always said that we do not have enough power in the country. Thank you Hon. Deputy Minister. The problem that I have observed is that she continues explaining plans that are going to be done. My question is that the power shortages that are currently obtaining in the country are as a result of the fact that we do not have people who have the right ideas and we do not have resources to alleviate the problem.
*THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Hon. Member, you told your story but can you ask a proper question?
*HON. CHIKOMBO: The power shortages that you alluded to... *THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, address the Chair.
*HON. CHIKOMBO: I am saying that according to the explanation given by the Deputy Minister, is it because we do not have enough resources or we do not have the right ideas which would ensure that the country has enough power?
*HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. We have enough natural resources. We are generating power, we have enough sun. We are working on generating power through renewable energy.
We are also working on renovating the Hwange Thermal Power Station.
We are expecting to get 600mw on completion at the Hwange 7 and 8 Extension project. We also have mini hydro projects taking place around the country. We encourage those who have resources, who have money to generate power for their use so that we can save energy in this country. A lot is happening in Zimbabwe. The list is endless, I cannot explain all the things that are happening. However, my point is that we are trying our best to make sure that we increase power generation. The
IPPs that I referred to, we encourage institutions like Government departments, clinics, hospitals and other entities to ensure that they have solar plants which will add to the national grid. I thank you.
HON. TOFFA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My supplementary question to the Hon. Deputy Minister is, she spoke about encouraging people to invest in solar power or green energy. What is her Ministry doing to make sure that it is possible and there is ease of doing business with regards to acquiring or importing solar equipment or resources? Mr. Speaker Sir, currently there is duty on batteries, on cables and there are very high rates when you want to acquire a licence for a solar plant. How is the Ministry assisting or encouraging people, when there are such hurdles in the way? Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the supplementary question on what the Ministry is doing to encourage the processing and application of licences or whatever, as regards electricity issue. As a Ministry, we are launching the renewable energy policy very soon which spells out that in as much as we can, we are encouraging people to go the renewable energy way. We have incentives in place where we are saying some of the equipment for solar energy like solar plants batteries which are made by lithium are imported duty free. Those are some of the incentives that we have. Also on the licencing issue, we have the ZERA which processes the licences. Before, the licence processing would take more than six months to process but we are reducing the period to about a month. That is what we are trying to come up with. You will see a lot of developments as regards the processing of power licences. In the duty payments, I think I mentioned about the duty that we have advocated with the Ministry of Finance that some of the equipment that we need for solar plants is brought in duty free. I cannot specify which equipment exactly but I remember the lithium batteries which are specifically meant for solar energy. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
*HON. KARENYI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to pose my supplementary question to the Deputy Minister. I notice that there is price increase of 300 percent despite the fact that there is no electricity. What does it mean? How can you improve without providing service? As Government, you have effected that increment, however the nation does not have enough power, what does that mean to the nation?
*HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. The Hon.
Member asked a pertinent question regarding the increase of electricity.
You would notice that in the past year, the tariffs that were charged by ZESA were very low. In other cases, you will discover that the tariffs were so low compared to other countries in the region. ZESA had not effected any increment since 2011 until the past year (2019). There were no tariff increments because ZESA was not permitted to increase the tariffs. However, because of viability challenges, ZESA could not operate, could not pay for coal for Hwange Thermal Power Station and the company could not even pay its workers. We are importing electricity and ZESA did not have enough money to import electricity. In other words, ZESA was on its knees, so we decided to effect a tariff increment, which would ensure that operation costs are met so that all services that are provided by ZESA are given to the public.
Even after the tariff increments last year, the cost reflective tariffs were not enough to cater for the operational costs of ZESA to pay for all resources that were needed by ZESA. However, the increment that is being effected was done so that ZESA will be able to pay for electricity imparts; procure coal and to pay for all the services that it needs to provide electricity to the nation. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. CHIKWINYA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. You
would have noticed that the amount of interest to engage the Hon. Minister with regards to issues of energy is quite high. I therefore propose that the Hon. Minister of Energy may come to Parliament with a
Ministerial Statement explaining the holistic approach under which the Government is tackling the energy crisis, especially the issue of renewable energy. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Deputy Minister I hope you got the
request. You were requested to prepare a comprehensive Ministerial Statement to indicate the holistic approach to the energy crisis. So can we have that statement next week?
HON. MUDYIWA: We will do so Hon. Speaker.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is
directed to the Leader of the House in the absence of the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. I want to know the Government policy with regards to pension reviews as well as cost of living adjustments for pensioners to keep them abreast with their colleagues that are still at work.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I recall this question was asked and we have ongoing negotiations within the tripartite negotiation forum where the negotiations are happening. So, it is a question that is under discussion and the Hon. Member will be advised when the negotiations are concluded.
*HON. P. MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is
directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, and in his absence to the Leader of the House. My question is, we have the Beitbridge-Chirundu road, what is Government policy in terms of rehabilitation of the road before the rains come, because each and every year we find potholes on that road and it is impassable.
THE HON. SPEAKER: That question is a specific question.
HON. GOZHO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development. Minister, why is Government taking long to find a permanent solution to the fuel crisis?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVLOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Mr. Speaker. The
Hon. Member asked a very pertinent question on fuel issues. The problem has gone on for some time now, appearing as if there is nothing being done. Like I said at one time, the fuel industry, we have got the Ministry of Energy which is responsible for ensuring that there is fuel in the country and that the fuel is available at the service stations for the motorists to get the fuel but we also have the Ministry of Finance as a stakeholder and a key player in the fuel industry. If you are talking about the Government, you are not asking about the Ministry per se but it is the Government that you are asking. So, I think the Ministry of
Finance will also answer – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – What we are doing is that as a Ministry we are ensuring that there is fuel in the country. I can assure you we have got plenty of fuel at our depots but some of the processes that are involved in having the fuel at the service stations are beyond the Ministry’s control. I think I cannot pre-empt what measures we are taking at the moment. This morning the Permanent Secretary was involved in several meetings- in the country there is a lot that has been going on in the fuel industry. Some underhand dealings that are going on and as a Ministry we are seized with all those matters, but unfortunately when I came to this parliamentary session, I had not met with the Permanent Secretary to discuss what has come out from those meetings today. It would be premature for me to say anything about those meetings. I think maybe by tomorrow we can have the answers after discussing with the Permanent Secretary what has come out with the Ministry, but the challenge that we are having is that as a country, we are not producing and we are not exporting to get the much needed forex to pay for the fuel. That is all I can say. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. May I suggest that Hon. Deputy Minister, when you make your Ministerial Statement next week, you include the issue of fuel supplies in consultation with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development as you have indicated. Thank you.
HON. SIKHALA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: After my ruling hazviiti. Wait for the
Ministerial Statement.
HON. NKANI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, we need to hear the question properly. Hon. Member can you repeat your question.
HON. NKANI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. What is the Government policy regarding the repair and rehabilitation of our major roads? I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, that question was asked two weeks ago.
HON. MAGO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minster of Local Government and Public Works. The country’s infrastructure is decayed, including sports infrastructure like stadia, halls and public buildings. In view of the CAF ban on our stadia why did Government allow this situation to get to boiling point?
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No point of order. Allow the Minister to answer.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. CHOMBO): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Thank you very much for the question you raised about the decay, as you say, of the National Sports Stadium. If you look back on the budgets that we have been submitting form previous years, you will notice that maintenance of stadiums has not been given priority. There has been fighting for the same financing and the financing that we have been given as a Ministry has not been enough for us to be able to maintain the stadiums. Also, for your own information most of the stadiums are maintained by the local authorities, although they fall under the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works. In addition to that, right now we have put in place a mechanism where we are maintaining the National Sports stadium and also hoping to maintain the Barbourfields Stadium. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. I stood down the point of order from Hon. Mliswa. On explanation, I think Hon. Mliswa was correct. We ask for a Ministerial Statement and we are hoping that should come tomorrow.
HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I am not accepting any point of order.
We wait for the Ministerial Statement.
HON. HAMAUSWA: It is not on that issue.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You cannot raise a point of order in the
air alright?
HON. HAMAUSWA: It is related to the issue Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, no. Thank you.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Okay, a point of privilege – [Laughter]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. You cannot raise a point of privilege now.
HON. HAMAUSWA: At least hear my concern. My issue Mr.
Speaker Sir is that we have requested a Ministerial Statement on water…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Member.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Let me finish Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON.
MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, no. Please take your seat.
HON. HAMAUSWA: My suggestion was…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Take your seat! Sir – [HON. MEMBER:
Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MASENDA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Tobacco selling season is fast approaching. I would like to ask, what is Government policy on the payment of tobacco farmers in foreign currency and allowing a proportion of the payments to be accessed in foreign currency?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON.
HARITATOS): Unfortunately, this question is rightly answered by the Ministry of Finance. It is not part of our mandate to decide what portion we paid in foreign currency and local currency – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] -
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): As of now, we do not have a
new policy with regards to the payments for tobacco but what is obtaining is the policy that we had in the previous tobacco season, that is where we are going to split the payment in foreign currency and in RTGs.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: My supplementary question is, is there any consideration on the exchange rate at which farmers will liquidate their nostro accounts when they sell their tobacco?
HON. CHIDUWA: What I would want to add which is not yet announced is that as of last week we had a meeting with tobacco farmers. What is left is for us to announce the new position with regards to how the proportion is going to be split between the foreign currency component and the RTGs.
With regards to the follow up question, if farmers want to liquidate their foreign currency component, they will make use of the interbank
rate.
HON. BITI: I have a supplementary to the learned Hon. Deputy Minister of Finance. Tobacco farmers incur inputs in US dollars. They sell their product at auction floors in US dollars. There is no legal basis or law that authorises the Reserve Bank to expropriate their foreign currency. We would like the Minister to assure farmers and this House that there will be no expropriations from tobacco farmers and that they will get their raw foreign currency after a sale at the tobacco auction floors –[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. CHIDUWA: I am not sure if we can call it expropriation but I think for us as a Government, what is going to be followed is Government policy. The farmers are going to follow Government policy and that is it - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
*HON. BITI: Hon. Speaker, a policy should follow the law.
There is no law which allows the Government to take tobacco farmers’ money and converting it from US dollars to the local currency. We do not want a policy that violates the law. The law should be followed.
Whoever sells his tobacco using US dollars should be given US dollars.
That is all we ask Mr. Speaker Sir - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order.
*HON. CHIDUWA: The money that was supposed to circulate is the local currency. We migrated from the multicurrency system and we adopted the use of local currency. What is legal is using our local currency. Any other currency is illegal - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: My supplementary question is, considering the regulations that were announced by the RBZ allowing those who sell fuel to sell in US dollars, that is not happening to those who sell tobacco. My observation is that there is policy incoherence within the Government especially looking at those who supply fuel and those who sell tobacco.
*HON. CHIDUWA: I do not see any conflict regarding Government policy. The issue to those who observe what is happening is – every month we use US$100 000 000 to import fuel. This means that throughout the year we use a minimum of US$1.300 billion on importing fuel. The fact that there is policy incoherence is not necessarily the truth. There is no conflict.
There are some people who have their US dollars and even farmers who also have US dollars can go and buy their fuel on designated service stations. So there is no conflict.
HON. MARKHAM: My supplementary is on exactly the same issue but going to the Zimbabwean dollar side.
What is Government policy in making money accessible to the farmers once it has been deposited in the bank account, particularly the small scale farmer who has no access to any banking facility to get their money in RTG even Ecocash because as soon as you use Ecocash, you would have lost 30% of the value on top of having it exchanged at the bank rate which makes the farmer totally unviable.
It is further complicated because he has got a small crop, he brings it into town and he has to sell it in order to find some cash to go home. What is Government policy to help those farmers access their own money?
HON. CHIDUWA: If I got the question right, he is saying there are some farmers who do not even have access to Ecocash or mobile money. Surely for us in terms of digitalisation, we said we want to embrace the use of digital money. So if there is any farmer without a mobile number, I am sure you can advise them to have a mobile number.
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Deputy Minister, I
think try to endeavour to answer the question in a manner that can direct to some solution.
HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – The issue is, how are the small holder farmers going to be able to access their money?
We are saying, largely at the moment most of the transactions that are happening are happening via the use of mobile money and for the rural farmers - obviously in most rural areas, we do not have banks. So for the majority of rural farmers, they will make use of mobile money as
I said. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order let us not belabour the point. I am asking the Hon. Deputy Minister to look into the matter and see how those disadvantaged rural farmers out there can be assisted. I think that is the compromise, let us look for a solution accordingly.
Some Hon. Members having stood up to pose supplementary questions.
Order, order, I have closed the debate. You want a short one?
*HON. KARENYI: Thank you Mr. Speaker, my question that was not clearly answered by the Hon. Deputy Minister is that when Hon. Biti posed his question it was not clear. The question was, when tobacco is being sold it is being paid for in US$. So after it has been paid for in US$, why is it that we want to pay the person in ZWL$ and in USD$?
Since it is paid for in cash US$, why should the tobacco farmers not be paid in US$?
*HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. As I alluded
before, the policy as I am speaking is what happened last year but farmers and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had engaged each other and resolved that we should come up with a new policy. So we will let you know when we have agreed as to how we are going to do it. – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: No further supplementary questions. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – No, no! I think that it is now Hon. Munetsi and Hon. Chinyanganya who must come in now.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is
directed to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. In his absence, I do not know if I am allowed to redirect it to the Minister of
Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development – I know that he will be able to answer it.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your question Hon. Member?
HON. MUNETSI: My question is, in schools we used to have what was called per capita grants. Do we still have that policy because it used to help schools a lot.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, can you assist - you cannot.
THE MINISTER HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION,
INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): Mr. Speaker, I do
not know.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker but I did not quite understand the question. He did not specify what per capita grant he is referring to, if he can expand a little bit.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you Hon. Speaker, I can explain what
per capita grant is. May I explain?
THE HON. SPEAKER: You may proceed.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you. Per capita grant is money that
was allocated to a student at a school so that they can be assisted to buy text books, et cetera. Every student used to get an allocation from
Government; per school and per child. Do we still have that policy?
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Mr. Speaker, our secondary schools are still supported by Government in terms of provision of text books. Hon. Members will recall that one of the largest budgets that we passed in this august House pertained to primary and secondary education. I thank you.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, my
question is directed to the Minister of Industry and Commerce. What measures are being taken by the Government to ensure that there is compliance with the Competition Act considering the fact that there are monopolies in the industries such as fuel, for example by Green Fuel and also in the food industry by Innscor and Simbisa Brands.
THE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE (HON.
- KANHUTU-NZENZA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I really want to thank the Hon. Member of Parliament for that very significant question. That question is being addressed by the board of the Competition and Tariffs Commission. We are currently in the process reviewing the decision making process within that board and this is one of the key issues that we are tasked with. We are taking this matter very seriously. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My
supplementary question relates to the genesis of the original question to the extent that why are we allowing monopolies and one of the examples given was in the fuel industry. I will direct my supplementary to level. Mr. Speaker, why does the Government force me to buy blended fuel in therefore promoting one particular monopoly? Thank you.
HON. DR. KANHUTU-NZENZA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
The question was very specific and it requires – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
Order please.
HON. DR. KANHUTU-NZENZA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I will
answer the question in two levels. Firstly, it must be put in writing. Secondly, it is also a question that must be addressed by ZERA. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Members.
HON. SIKHALA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. The question by Hon. Chikwinya was saying why are citizens of Zimbabwe or motorist being forced to compulsorily buy blended fuel? Why do we not have an option for those who want to buy blended fuel or not and that blended fuel is being supplied by one cartel. Why are we forced, all the citizens of Zimbabwe, to support one cartel – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order please. I agree
with the Minister that you have said why are citizens? It means it has happened to somebody – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Members, order please.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Let me clarify.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Sit down before you clarify – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order please. I am saying if you seek for a clarification, it is still okay but if you repeat the same question, you must put it in writing.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I will clarify
on two points. The first point is that it is not true that it is a specific question because it is Government policy that consumers and motorists consume blended fuel. It is Government policy and I am asking the rationale of that policy which relates to a monopoly as from the original question. The second issue is that it must be answered by ZERA.
Government acts in unison and precedence was set today. If the Minister cannot answer on behalf of ZERA, she can defer the question to the Minister of Energy. There are two issues, first it is not a specific issue, it is policy and secondly, if she cannot answer she will refer to the Minister of Energy who controls ZERA.
HON. DR. KANHUTU-NZENZA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I
specifically said this is a question of ZERA that was referring the question to Energy and I will do it again. I will refer the question to Energy as I have done before – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members please.
Hon. Khumalo, order please.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
What I got from the question is that why is there monopoly in the blending of fuel and why are motorist being forced to use the blended fuel without an option to use unblended fuel. Let me answer the last question first. When we take up the decision to do the blending with ethanol, it was meant to increase on volumes. I think we are aware that we are having a serious shortage of fuel in the country. So, if we do not blend our fuel, that will demand so much on the forex that we need to buy the fuel. So, that is why we had a policy to do the blending.
Currently, we are blending at 5%, at some point we went to as far as 20%. We do not have enough fuel in the country, so there is no choice for motorists to choose on whether they want to use the blended fuel or the unblended.
On the question of monopoly – I do not think there is a monopoly there. We have Green Fuels; we also have ethanol from Triangle where we have sugarcane fields. If we got many players to do the sugarcane plantations, we welcome them to participate in the ethanol business. I thank you.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My
supplementary question is that does the Minister not think that there is a conflict on the policy? On one side; we are blending fuel to sell in foreign currency and to increase the fuel which is in short supplies – that is policy number 1. Policy number 2; we now have garages selling in USD, what is the point of using local content when we are selling everything in USD to the motorists who cannot choose whether there is pure fuel or 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% ethanol. So, is that not a conflict in policy with the Government?
The Hon. Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development having taken time to respond to the question.
*HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order! The question asked by Hon. Markham is very clear - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
HON. T. MLISWA: The supplementary question that was asked by Hon. Markham to the Deputy Minister - it is now five minutes without the Minister answering. We are wasting time.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: There is a point of order by Hon. Madzimure.
*HON. MADZIMURE: My point of order is that the question that was asked by Hon. Markham that we are blending fuel and we are selling that blended fuel using forex – that question should be answered by the Hon. Deputy Minister as a policy question. I thank you.
HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. If I got the question correctly, the Hon. Member is asking why people are made to pay in USD for the blended fuel. What I can say is that I am not aware that we have got a policy where we are selling fuel in USD – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
In Zimbabwe, fuel is sold in the local currency but we do have selected garages who sell to the guests of the State like diplomats and
NGO’s who buy in foreign currency. We do not have any other service stations that sell in forex. Whoever is selling the fuel in USD is going against the law because the law of Zimbabwe is that we sell our fuel in the local currency and not in the USD.
Even though there is that blending, there is still the foreign currency component where we import the fuel so the foreign currency is also needed to pay for the imported fuel – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order! May I suggest that because the Minister of Energy and Power Development was asked to make a statement - I hope those issues will be addressed by that statement. The Minister of Energy and power Development will have to address those concerns. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. Mr. Speaker, the first question arose as a result of the monopolies which are there. It was directed to the Minister of Trade and Industry. You then referred the one on energy to the Minister. May the Ministers listen because it is important?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa we have referred
that to the statements.
HON. T. MLISWA: It is a point of clarity which is important.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: On which one, the one I have
ruled upon? I think I have ruled that the statement will cover monopolies on energy. I think we are through. I do not have to entertain any other clarification.
HON. T. MLISWA: Does the Minister know what her statement must have because there were many issues which were asked. The issue on the ethanol monopoly is that Minister, there is Green Fuel which is given a monopoly to bring ethanol and you talked about Triangle. Triangle only comes in when Green Fuel has failed to supply. The question is why do you give monopolies to a company which has no capacity? I was the Chairman for the Energy Committee. We did this.
Triangle only comes in when Green Fuel fails to supply to the Government.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, can you address
all those when the Minister has given us the statement.
HON. T. MLISWA: No, but I am trying to get the Minister to understand where the monopoly is. The contract is with Green Fuel.
When Green Fuel fails to supply Government, then Triangle comes in. The question is why they give somebody monopoly when they have no capacity. This is where the issue is. Will the Minister be able to respond to that? Not only that, Green Fuel were supposed to comply with the 49/51 Indigenisation Act at the time. Why did they not comply?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, can you please
present that question when the statement has been presented.
HON. T. MLISWA: In the statement we want her to address the issue why monopoly is given to a company without capacity, Minister. Triangle only comes in when Green Fuel has failed. So why do you give them the monopoly? That is my question.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Member.
Can we proceed please? I think I have ruled on that one.
HON. A. MPOFU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement. May the Hon. Minister enlighten us on Government policy regarding the need to retrain and reorient our extension officers, especially so that they can effectively address issues of climate change and be able to harness opportunities offered by new technologies in agriculture. Thank you.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITOTIS):
Thank you Hon. Speaker and thank you to the Hon. Member. Indeed Hon. Speaker it is critical. Technologies change daily and as a Ministry we have an ongoing programme to continuously retrain, re-educate and re-capacitate our extension officers on a month to month basis. In Shona we say kudzidza hakuperi and that is definitely the case when it comes to agriculture. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: My question is directed to the Deputy
Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement. Mr. Speaker Sir there is a disease called Theileriosis, commonly known as the January Disease. What is Government doing to ensure that there are vaccines available to treat this? A lot of cattle have died and it is more of a national disaster. A national disaster is not only when people die but the level and the amount of cattle that have died, it is only important that we declare it a national disaster, but Government must come in with interventions.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Go straight to the question
please.
HON. T. MLISWA: So what has Government done in terms of providing the vaccines so that we eradicate this disease?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITOTIS):
Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir and thank you to the Hon. Member for the question. Indeed Hon. Member, we did have a major problem the last two years. Our major constraints have been foreign currency.
I would just like to correct the Hon. Member and inform you that the January Disease is treated not by vaccinations but by dipping chemicals. So we did have problems with both dipping chemicals and vaccinations with regards to the procurement over the last two years, but I am very happy to inform the Hon. Member that through our donor partners, out of the 60 districts that we have in our country, 28 districts have current dipping and vaccine systems in place for the next six months as a bare minimum.
We also have the other 32 districts which will be catered for by the Government. Unfortunately as I mentioned, we do not have unlimited budgets and certainly we are still constrained within the other 32 districts, but we are indeed receiving in bits and pieces some form of revenue and it is our hope that we catch up to indeed insure and guarantee that all 60 districts have dipping facilities in place.
In addition to that, Hon. Speaker, with regards to vaccinations of anthrax as well as the control of FMD, we were fortunate to receive US$1 million which was paid to the Botswana Institute of Vaccinations which allowed us the release of 800 000 doses for us to combat anthrax and it is my strong belief that we are on top of things with a few exceptions of course.
With regards to the vaccines and the treatment of FMB we are also relaxing which means that we have entered into a grey area now that our cattle are allowed to move on a case to case basis in certain provinces.
Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker thank you for that response from the Minister, but just yesterday I was with the heads of department for the Veterinary Services and they clearly said that there is $17million which is due to them in terms of coming up with vaccines. Not only that, the issue which is important is that most of the cattle and meat that we are eating right now is full of disease and it has repercussions on our health later on. What is Government doing to stop the selling of these cattle until the diseases are eradicated? That is the reason why you see people being sick because of what we are eating. There has got to be a situation where Government stops the selling of cattle until a point where the disease has been eradicated. What is Government doing to address this issue because disease are there; the meat is being eaten which has disease.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO): I
think he has heard your question.
HON. T. MLISWA: What are you doing to also remunerate the veterinary doctors who never go on strike but equally are doctors in terms of their salaries as well?
HON. HARITATOS: I would like to thank the Hon. Member for
the three questions that were supplemented there. Firstly, I would like to comment on the money that is owed to the veterinary department. What I believe the Hon. Member is asking is money owed by the public to the veterinary services. I stand to be corrected but I think that is the –[AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] - The money that is allocated to the Ministry is allocated through Ministry of Finance through our budgets. We do allocate money internally but money specifically comes from the Ministry of Finance with intended beneficiary. As a Ministry, we are making every effort to ensure that our Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) is in fact capacitated with the rightful amounts of funding that is required to fight and combat such a serious problem that we have in our country.
Secondly, with regards to cattle that have diseases, it is our hope that the public listened to the Hon. Member asking this question because the problem and the answer relies with the public. We say when you slaughter cattle, you should do it formally. The disease that the Hon. Member is referring to come from cattle that are slaughtered illegally and therefore it is important for the public to understand that there are serious health repercussion if they consume cattle that have disease. However, as long as the cattle go through a formal system, there is no way that those diseases will find a way to the public.
The last question with regards to remuneration of our Vets, unfortunately this falls within the domain of public service. We do not directly pay the veterinary services or our employees. These are paid by the Civil Service Commission. I do agree with the Hon. Member that definitely, these should be looked into and reviewed urgently.
HON. T. MLISWA: What guarantee do we have that the meat
which is being sold in the supermarkets has no disease? Can you give us a guarantee as a nation that the meat which we are buying in the supermarkets or butcheries has absolutely no disease?
HON. HARITATOS: As I mentioned, if these cattle are slaughtered formally, this is a multi-stakeholder approach. We have the
Department of the Veterinary Services at every slaughter. We have the Rural District Council at every slaughter. We have an association that promotes the cattle in Zimbabwe – forgive me I have forgotten the name of the association but they are all part of this. These provide checks and balances. As long as the cattle are formally slaughtered, it will stop any form of diseases being consumed but if there are any cattle slaughtered in the informal sector, certainly it is for us to police it to engage the ZRP to ensure that practice is minimized.
HON. S. BANDA: There was a question posed earlier concerning education per capita and we did not get a satisfactory response from the
Minister. Therefore we seek extension of time. The Minister of
Education is now in the House available to give us an accurate response.
HON. C. MOYO: I second. We did not get an accurate response.
Motion put and negatived.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE
TEMPORARY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER
PRESENTATION OF MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
Order, order Hon. Members. There are two Ministerial Statements that were requested by Hon. Members from two different Ministers. I now wish to give an opportunity to the two Ministers to present the
Statements.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
ISSUANCE OF COPPER EXPORT LICENCES
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL
HERITAGE (HON. KAZEMBE): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. On
Tuesday, 26th September, Hon. Ndebele invited our office to make a Ministerial Statement on the logic of granting of copper exporting licences to registered entities in Zimbabwe that does not produce copper.
The Hon. Member alleged that the granting of copper exporting licences to particular entities promoted vandalism of some of ZESA’s infrastructure specifically for transformer oil and copper cables. Mr.
Speaker Sir, I have brought the Ministerial Statement.
I wish to start by thanking the Hon. Member for the question and agree with him that vandalism of critical infrastructure especially that of our public utilities has become a national problem.
Mr. Speaker Sir, allow me to take this opportunity and inform the
Hon. Member that copper dealer’s licences are issued in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 of the Copper Control Act (Chapter 14:06) which is administered by my Ministry. The Act further regulates copper acquisition, disposal, record-keeping and copper possession. However, when it comes to the sale and export of all minerals, copper included, it is the prerogative of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. The said Ministry is responsible for the issuance of export licences as provided by Section 43 of the Minerals Marketing Corporation of
Zimbabwe Act (Chapter 21:04). In this regard, my Ministry is charged with the duty of physically verifying the consignment by matching with the accompanying documents.
I would like to also acknowledge the fact that our copper mines are now dysfunctional. Nevertheless, it is critical to highlight that
Zimbabwe has other sources of copper which include obsolete industrial, domestic or household equipment. For this reason, copper dealers licences continue to be issued for the purposes of regulating players involved in this business. More importantly, the issuance of such licences is based on strict regard to legitimate sources of copper.
Mr. Speaker Sir, may I also state that my Ministry through the Zimbabwe Republic Police’s Criminal Investigation Department has a specialised section called the Minerals, Flora and Fauna Unit which deals with mineral related crimes. I am happy to mention that through such specialisation, the ZRP working with related stakeholders has been able to detect and arrest several organised criminal syndicates and individuals vandalising public infrastructure and stealing copper across the country.
Furthermore, a number of strategies aimed at curbing such illicit activities continue to be adopted. I wish to advise the Hon. Member that some of the strategies put in place include the setting of a multistakeholder taskforce comprising the ZRP, ZESA, TelOne and NRZ to look into the issuance of copper dealer’s licences as well as dealing in scrap metal.
In addition, we continue to appeal that deterrent sentences be passed to all criminals convicted for vandalism and theft of public utilities infrastructure. This will go a long way in sending a strong message to all such criminal elements not to vandalise or tamper with our public utilities infrastructure. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir, the Hon. Minister ably defines the Copper Act, Section 4 under his Ministry and he equally talks about Section 33 of the Minerals Act in which the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development is equally responsible. He equally says that their duty is to verify all this and also further admits that there is no copper mining in the country. Whilst there is no copper mining in the country, the only source of copper are some of the gadgets that are there and so forth.
My question to the Hon. Minister is that all these sources of copper that he talks about, do they first go to his Ministry to say, ‘I have got an element of copper from my house or whatever which I want to dispose of which is quite important’, because of the situation which has arisen which is of vandalism in terms of the transformers. Mr. Speaker Sir, we now need to know the source of the copper and that is very important. It is not good for us to give them a licence and not know where the source of the copper is yet there is no copper mining. So it is critical that the Hon. Minister establishes how sure he is that the copper or licences that they have given to these small dealers at the end of the day is coming from other credible sources and not from the transformers.
The other issue is how much copper does the country export in terms of quantity to see whether it is really useful for us to keep giving these licences. Is it making any business sense? How much does the country generate from a forex point of view, from the copper that is being sourced through other means other than mining and so forth?
I would like the Hon. Minister to also further explain why the multi-taskforce which comprises of ZESA now is also not able to verify the copper, whether it is coming from the transformers or from another source. Now that you have got a multi-taskforce that is responsible for this, is it not prudent to have a centre in each province that before they sell the copper they come and show the copper for us to know that the copper has not come from the transformers? I thank you.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to raise
two issues arising from the Ministerial Statement. Number one issue concerns the issue of the form of copper being exported – if they are exporting it in raw form. I would want to ask the Hon. Minister what they are doing to try to make sure that the copper is processed in Zimbabwe. When it is processed in Zimbabwe, it is also going to minimise the incidences of vandalism.
There is another aspect which is also not copper but it is related to what the Ministerial Statement is speaking to. We have now a lot of car scrapes from the ex-Japanese but it looks as if the Government has no policy to make sure that those car scrapes are recycled. It seems the Government is not giving licences to those people who would want to export car scrapes from Japan giving an argument that in Zimbabwe we do not manufacture cars. It requires now the Government to come up with a clear integrated waste management policy which includes managing electronic waste because some of the gadgets the Minister referred to are electronic gadgets. We would like to know what the Minister is doing to make sure that there is cooperation with other ministries towards a well integrated waste management policy that includes electronic waste. I thank you.
HON. C. MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Surely considering the unemployment rate which stood at 99.9%, the increase or the degree on vandalism and surely ZESA statistics on vandalism, do you not think it is high time to review the section which is allowing that?
Thank you Mr. Speaker.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I have three issues and the first issue is that we are not a copper producing country. My question is, is it possible to have joint operation between the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Mines to curtail the issuance of copper operating licences or copper export permits to completely annihilate that part seeing we do not produce? We used to have Mhangura Copper Mine and it is now closed. Is it not possible for them to jointly curtail the issuance of copper export permits completely?
The second issue, aware that 600 thousand copper cabling and network and there has been vandalism of transformers that could have catered for 600 thousand people to put them up to 1.2 million subscribers, this elongated copper network of cabling that has been vandalised has stopped or it has impeded upon electrification, both rural and urban of our nation. This is a gloomy picture that I have tried to paint. Mr. Speaker, my clarion call and request is that the Home Affairs Minister charged with security, would it not be possible for him to employ technology, in particular to police the remaining electricity network together with his friend the Minister of Energy using drones which can carry payload that are being used by the progressive nations like the US to carry lethal payload? Could we not arm those drones with video cameras in order that we monitor the remaining cabling on our network?
The third and last issue that I seek clarity on Mr. Speaker Sir, is the issue ....
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Make that the last one but be
brief Hon. Nduna because you are seeking clarification. You are not lecturing the Minister.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for your protection. The last issue that I seek clarity on is the issue of alternative means and ways of dealing with our power transmission network instead of continually laying copper and aluminium cables which are prone to theft. Is it possible that the two ministers have alternative sources of cabling; fibre optic is one of them that I seek to know if they can include that in terms of transmitting power so that we can reduce the vandalism and the appetite for copper and aluminium? I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank the Hon. Members for the pertinent questions that were raised. With your indulgence Mr. Speaker Sir, what I seem to be seeing here is that maybe we do not appreciate what the Act says. What I am hearing now and most of the questions that were raised have nothing to do with the Act. With your indulgence, I can summarise the Act then I can answer the question.
First and foremost, I appreciate the concerns raised by Hon. Members that of vandalism of our infrastructure especially the theft and vandalism of transformers and cables. This particular Act, in fact attempts to deal with that exactly because it tries to regulate people who are allowed to handle or to deal in copper, not raw copper.
If I may start by defining the copper that is being referred to in this Act. Copper in this particular Act means electrolytic copper which has been drawn into the form of a code, which means those wires; any copper conductor, section or tubing – again it is a finished product; any article, product containing copper which under subsection 2 is declared to be copper for the purposes of this Act and includes any such electrolytic copper, copper conductor, section, or tubing article or product which is called a second hand or has been subjected to smelting or other treatment. Basically, we are talking of copper that has been processed.
Secondly, I also heard that some Members were referring to questions with regards to exports. I thought I made it very clear that when it is about exporting copper, it is now under the Ministry of Mines. This Act only deals with those people who are dealing in copper finished products within this country. What this Act does, for example the dealers licence. A license in such form as may be prescribed may be issued by the Minister in his discretion upon application made in writing and such a licence shall entitle the holder thereof to carry on the trade of business of a dealer upon the premises specified in the licence. It confines you to the address that you would have included when you apply for the licence.
Secondly and most importantly, every dealer – this is now specifically to respond to Hon. Mliswa’s concerns; every dealer shall provide and keep or cause to be kept, a register consisting of one or more books herein referred to as the register of all transactions relative to his business. As such, a dealer and person who is or has been a dealer shall retain such a register for a period of three years after the date of the last entry. What is supposed to be included in that register? The nature and weight of such copper that has either been acquired or sold. The date and time of the delivery to him or his agent or employee and where the purchase or acquisition was effected or delivery was made to an agent or employee of such dealer, the name of such agent or employee and in that register also you must include the name and address of the person from whom such copper was purchased or acquired. In the case of any copper sold or otherwise disposed of by the dealer concerned, the metal and weight of such copper, the date on which it was disposed, the name and address of the person to whom such copper was sold or otherwise disposed of, or such other particulars if any as may be prescribed. So, I could go on and on, and that register compels you to keep all the documents as to where you got the copper from, the amount of the copper and to who you sold the copper to.
Now, prohibition against the sale or purchase of copper. No person other than a dealer or a licenced dealer shall sale any copper to any other person including a dealer or a licenced dealer unless he produces to such other person such documentary evidence of his title to sale such copper as maybe prescribed or a certificate of clearance. If you go through that Act, you clearly see that it is trying to address your concerns to ensure that. Again, for you to get that licence you have to be vetted. You must be clean of any criminal records and the rest. So in my view Mr. Speaker Sir, this Act attempts to deal with vandalism in that not everybody is allowed to deal in copper products without a licence.
The other questions that were raised by Hon. Nduna who was saying are there no other alternative ways of transmitting electricity. Honestly, that has nothing to do with the Copper Act. That is something else which falls under the Ministry of Energy, even the policing that he referred to – policing of property of an entity like ZESA is the responsibility of ZESA. I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I rise as a follow up to the various clauses that have been quoted by the Hon. Minister. For example Hon. Minister, you begin by defining copper for the purposes of this Act and in that definition you include copper tubing. As you were winding up, you set out the conditions under which a sell of copper can be done and that is to an authorised dealer but if you look at our hardwares and I am trying just to highlight the gaps in the law. If you look at our hardwares, they are full of copper tubing for the purposes of plumbing. So I can walk into a hardware at any given time and purchase copper tubing for the purposes of plumbing then be found with stolen copper somewhere and then claim that I bought it for the purposes of tubing.
The second issue according to your definition when you say dealer and I talk Hon. Minister on the basis of experience, there are industries that use copper for the purposes of their industrial work, smelters for example. These are not necessarily copper dealers but because in a smelter you have power transmitted in a copper cable and when these copper cables have been done with, they are sold as scrap metal. It then gives a gap at law to the extent that the smelter is not a dealer but he is disposing copper as scrap metal which scrap metal can then be mixed with other copper which has been stolen under household purposes. ZIMASCO and ZIM Alloys have such copper and Zimplats has such furnaces that use copper.
As the Minister indulged us with the basic question by the Hon. Members especially from the mover of the motion that how do we policy domestic copper which has a direct bearing on the transmission of power to our households especially that which is obtained from transformers; we want the Hon. Minister to zero in his answers to that extent. Lastly Hon. Speaker, what I want to say is that I am seeing resistance from the Minister. Perhaps he is throwing the ball back to us as legislators that you must simply refine your own law. There is resistance that we should continuously issue people with certificates to trade in copper when we are not a copper producing nation. That form of resistance and to change your mindset will continuously get us exposed and ZESA for example, will not recover from the vagaries of vandalism and theft.
We should simply bar people from trading in copper and see what the consequences are. Who is going to be affected because for example in Zimbabwe, we only have CAFCA which is situated here in Harare who are importing copper for the purposes of manufacturing cables? They are the only ones and why do I need a copper cabling certificate. It simply means you are promoting me to be a dealer and that dealership now exposes me to be able to steal ZESA cables. That will be my point of observation.
HON. T. MLISWA: I think Hon. Chikwinya would not have put it any better. The question that I ask Hon. Minister is that the so-called dealers that are being given licences, how much do they contribute to the forex in the country? How many people do they employ compared to the transformers which have been stolen and vandalised. To me we need to talk about that because when you are then taking action, you are taking action based on figures that the copper which is exported is so much worthy and is helping the country on this. We also calculate the transformers which have been vandalised, how much it is. In a nutshell, what do we lose for you probably suspending for three months while you also verify on these dealers whether they are authentic or not. In those three months, you will see that the transformers which are being vandalized, the numbers will go down and that I can bet you. So it is my challenge Minister that bite the bullet, suspend and you will see the reward of this. You have nothing to lose. We have diamonds and gold. What is copper at the end of the day when we are not even enjoying the money from diamonds or gold anyway? So what is copper?
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I am sorry that when the Ministerial Statement was read I had just stepped out but I am grateful to other Hon. Members for holding fort. From what I have seen, a good job has been done out of the whole thing but just one or two for the Minister’s consideration. It is not just ZESA cables by the way. This also affects Telone lines and my position is, if the mandatory sentence is ten years and it has proven not to be deterrent enough, what is the
Minister’s plea to this House in terms of increasing the number of years that one gets jailed for because this is disruptive to business and the smooth social communication. When I initially requested for this statement I had requested in my wisdom that it should be a joint statement from the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Mines so that we adequately take care of the export bit that Hon. Members keep raising here. Without necessarily setting the cat amongst the pigeons, I want to ask the Minister if he is ready to confirm if one or two entities that have or that hold these copper trading licences if one belongs to the sitting Vice President Hon. Kembo Mohadi and if the other belongs to the former Vice President, Joyce Mujuru? Thank you
Hon. Speaker.
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
Hon. Mayihlome, order please!
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Let me start by responding to Hon. Ndebele’s questions. The first one being that what is my plea with regards to sentences. My plea would be the stiffest sentence that can be applied. In other countries, people serve as long as 30 years in jail for such crimes. So, if we could follow suit, I think that would be deterrent enough. The second question was that, do I know whether some licences belong to Vice President Mohadi and former Vice President, Joyce Mujuru. My answer is I have no clue whatsoever.
In fact, I do not even know any licence holder.
The other question was an allegation that I am being defensive and I am being resistant. I refuse totally and comfortably. I am not being defensive Mr. Speaker Sir. I was simply trying to …
HON. NDEBELE: Hon. Speaker, I just want to put it on record that the first time I requested for this Ministerial Statement, I pleaded that when the Minister brings it to this House, he canvasses or he addresses companies that hold to those licences by name. I knew where I was going.
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. The request that we received did not include those details that are being referred to. In fact, I have it. The statement that I have received from Parliament requesting the Ministerial Statement did not include those details and it is there.
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. NDEBELE: You know what is causing all this Hon. Speaker. It is because this request has been sitting on their desk for more than six months and the desk has been sending these. So, in the process of back and forth, my important request has been lost as a result. I want to repeat this. Ministers must always remember that they preside over a delegated authority; authority delegated by this House. Whenever they take time to respond to questions, we lose out on a lot of important facts. I would not blame the desk because that request for a statement has been sent several times and my request to Ministers is that delegated authority must be treated with the utmost care and due regard. Thank
you.
HON. T. MLISWA: My point of order is really about the ruling that you must make. Does it hurt the Minister to bring a list of all dealers? We hold people accountable; that is our job. At every level, we hold people accountable. As such, I implore your good Chair to submit a list of all the dealers and how much money they are generating in terms of foreign currency so that we are able to appreciate what they are doing so that when we are making a decision, it is an informed decision which is logical. This is because there are figures involved and so forth. Not only that, how many do they employ. That then tells us exactly why it is necessary to keep this licence. I do not know Mr.
Speaker Sir if you can indulge the Hon. Minister to submit a list of the dealers and all that.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Member. I
think this is a new request. Probably the Minister may also respond.
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. The question
raised that I am being resistant, no I am not being resistant. If this House realises that there are gaps within the law, it is in the powers of this House to amend those laws. We are amenable to what makes our country tick so I am not resistant at all. The issue of the list you have already dealt with Mr. Speaker Sir. I am not sure if there is another question that I have not responded to.
Hon. Mliswa asked a question why we should maintain such a law if there is so much vandalism. We have to go back and do a cost benefit analysis. At the end of the day, we must also realise that scrap copper is also usable. All the scrap copper, especially from TelOne, there are times when other entities want to dispose of their copper legally and there are people who also want that copper so that they can redo it, smelt it and make new products from that copper. We need to do a proper cost benefit analysis to say how then do we deal with such cases. Mr.
Speaker Sir, point taken and we will look at it. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: My point of order to the Hon. Minister is that two names were brought up by Hon. Ndebele and it is on record. If it goes on record and he does not attend to it, the notion and the thinking of the people would be that he is protecting them. So that is why I am asking the Minister …
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order please. I wanted to
address that one. I think it was a new requirement which was not in the request.
HON. T. MLISWA: It just helps everybody. It gives transparency and protects the so called heavy weights.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I think Minister, the issue was
around licences. Because the licences are given to people or organisations, can you in the near future bring a statement on these licences?
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I raised two questions which the Minister did not answer. One I said, is the copper which the Minister referred to being smelted in Zimbabwe? The second one was, when was the act which the Minister based his Ministerial Statement on designed when we had no upsurge of the ex-Japan car scraps. So I was suggesting that is it not also possible when they are going to think about this Act and the issue of giving licences to copper dealers to also think about how to deal with car scraps from ex-Japan that are actually becoming a menace to our environment. At the same time there is no clear policy that guides disposal of car scraps which I think is really directly related to the issue the Minister was supposed to address.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): There
are other two Ministers that are going to give us Ministerial Statements, I want the Minister to respond then we go the next one.
HON. C. MOYO: I highlighted the issue of ZESA statistics of vandalism and he did not mention anything about that. I think it is very prudent when he is going to bring that list of names, he must also provides the degree of vandalism nationwide, I think it is very important then we will be able to take a decision thereof. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: It is unfortunate I gave you a
chance and you were not even here.
HON. NDEBELE: But now I am in the House.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can the Minister respond
please.
Hon Ndebele moving to speak at the Table.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele you are
disregarding the Chair now. You are challenging the Chair.
HON. NDEBELE: I want to add something so that he brings it in his statement.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Sit down.
HON. NDEBELE: Aiwa ndini ndabvunza mubvunzo wacho – [HON. MEMBERS: Gara pasi.] – aiwa handisi kugara pasi mhani iwe.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member can you sit
down I gave you two chances. Go back to your seat.
HON. NDEBELE: I have an addition and I want it to be added when he gives his Ministerial Statement.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I will give you that chance can
you respect the Chair, please go back to your seat – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections] –
HON. NDEBELE: Kana yavanyaya yezvibhakeraka.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, I will order you
to leave the House.
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL
HERITAGE (HON. KAZEMBE): On the question of whether we
know that copper is processed locally. Mr. Speaker, the answer is as Ministry of Home Affairs or as police; we would not know whether copper is being processed in this country, that question will be best answered by the Ministry of Mines or Industry and Commerce. The other issue with regards to car scraps, again it is a bit of a complex question because scrap metal from a car does not necessarily lead to copper. So, I am not so sure if it falls under that. Maybe the copper from the car, it becomes a bit tricky so, I do not think it falls under this Act. The degree of vandalism, I know the Hon. Member asked us to include it in our statement but I am not so sure Mr. Speaker if that also falls under this Act because I would like to think that ZESA, under the Ministry of Energy would be the best ministry because they keep those statistics because they are the ones who lose the transformers. Otherwise we promise to bring the list that has been requested on Wednesday.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
NOVEMBER 2019 EXAMINATIONS FOR UZ MEDICAL
STUDENTS
THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY
EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): Thank you Hon. Speaker I am giving a
statement on the issue of 5th year medical students who did not write their examinations in the November/December 2019 examination period at the University of Zimbabwe. Hon. Speaker, the medical students at the University of Zimbabwe wrote to the university telling the university that they are not ready to write their examinations. The university then had already its timetable for writing examinations. On the 22nd of November, 2019, the students approached the High Court to try and make sure that the High Court makes a decision that these students should not write examinations. So they took the university to court and said their complaint was that the university was trying to make them write examination when they do not want to write those examinations – [HON. MEMBERS: They were not ready and they did not want are two different things.] - I know exactly and I am in touch with my ministry.
The High Court made a decision that this had to go back to university processes. As you know, the law of academic freedom tells us that the supreme decision maker is the Senate which is the supreme academic body of a university and they decide who writes and who does not write after hearing students’ cases. So the students were re-directed to follow process. When they went to Senate with this case, the university made a decision to agree with the students that you cannot force students to write examinations, you cannot do that. There is no way students can be forced to write examinations, if they say we do not want to write; there is no way you can make them write.
Why, it is very simple, if you have a student driver, and the student driver says do not put me into this car, I am not yet ready, you cannot force them to drive, it is a quality issue. So, the university agreed with the students on the conditions that they laid out to say improve this and that before we write. The university agreed with them and said okay we will look at those conditions. Now, Mr. Speaker, the question of examinations is a serious quality issue and there is no way one cannot take a serious look at whatever complains there are about examinations. This is medicine, this is life and when students sat they are not ready, then they are not ready. There is no case whereby the university would force them to do things. I gave an example of a student driver - if they say do not put me in this car I cannot drive, you do not do that. – [AN. HON. MEMBER: So what is the way forward.] - Mr. Speaker, I guess
Hon. Members wants to know. So, the case which is there is that the University of Zimbabwe is in the process of making the conditions that were asked by the students to correct the situation. Therefore, we are waiting for that process to take place.
Hon. Speaker, the University of Zimbabwe and the Government of Zimbabwe which superintends over it and this House which superintends over that University as an arm of State, takes quality stringently. This quality is assured through the Senate of the University and we give them a chance to do their work. That is exactly what we do; we do not interfere with academic processes at the University. So they are doing their work and we are also waiting to be advised about where they are on this issue.
The University of Zimbabwe, the Government of Zimbabwe and I am sure the Parliament of Zimbabwe is committed to quality education, and that we cannot compromise on any issue especially if a medical student says, ‘I am not ready’, we take that very seriously. That is why the University sided with the students to say okay, you are not ready, we are not ready. So, this is a very clear matter, an academic matter which is in academic hands and we are in the process of waiting for the academic process at the earliest possible time. I thank you.
HON. MAMOMBE: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker. I think the Hon. Minister Prof. Murwira, with all due respect, was clever enough to run away from the nitty gritties which is the background of the matter. He is not mentioning the reason why students were not ready for the examinations. It is not like the students refused to write examinations; they were in their final year, imagine 5 years being at university studying medicine, then in your final year, you just decide you do not want to write an examination – that is not possible. The Minister is missing a point. They were not ready because they were incapacitated for 12 weeks when the senior doctors who were supposed to be supervising them were demonstrating because of the conditions in the health sector and the Minister is not addressing that point.
Hon. Speaker, demonstration or protest is a fundamental right that is articulated in our Constitution, in Section 59. So the students had a right to be demonstrating but now, the students went to court and were granted the permission of not writing the exams because they were not ready, that is number one. This happened in August 2019.
What I want to address is that when this happened, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, together with the University administration took those fourth year students and jumped them over to fifth year as a way of managing the gap that was there. After writing the examinations in November and December, those fifth year students were supposed to be deployed in hospitals. So instead of doing that the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education went on to take the students who were in the fourth year and jumped them over and now they are the ones who are in the fifth year.
Without also due diligence, the Hon. Minister is talking about the quality of education – how then do you talk about quality of education when you are taking a fourth year student who was also affected and did not even write their examinations. You took them over to the fifth year – what is quality. The Minster is not addressing the fundamental issues here.
Secondly, we are in March, 2020, this incident happened in August 2019, definitely if the Ministry had students at heart, by now they should have a decision on what is supposed to happen to these students. For me as a Member of Parliament, I also represent students as our constituents, as students they are our constituents and we are concerned about them. I am saying he is concerned about the quality but what is going to happen to these students who have spent five years in their academic field and only today to be barred from attending lectures and writing their examinations because they were protesting.
Hon. Speaker, when I raised this question last week, I was looking at the time frame, these student doctors have been learning for the past five years, they need to finish their exams, it was not up to them, it was not an option but it was the crisis in the country. The crises that we have in this country, right now, there are no doctors and these students are supposed to be deployed in the hospitals.
As I conclude, the request for a Ministerial Statement from the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education was obviously to talk on the issue of quality. Why did the Ministry make the fourth year students to jump over to fifth year without due diligence, without the quality that he is referring to.
The second issue is on the issue of time frame – for how long are these fifth year medical students who were supposed to graduate last year in November/December going to wait. How long are they going to wait for their issue to be addressed, these are the students who have spent five years at school. We want this issue to be addressed, we are not here to play, we are here for business and we will bite the Minister if he does not act.
HON. SARUWAKA: The Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education in his presentation referred a lot about the quality of the product we produce at our universities and he was saying he could not force the students to write because of quality issues. So, is the quality determined by the students or the quality is determined by the examiner? If the students are not ready and the examiner wants them to write does that mean that if they write the examiner is just to make them pass or through assessing the quality the examiner will fail them if they do not meet the quality.
The Minister was referring a lot of students stating that they were not yet ready. Is the Minister at liberty to advise this House the issues with regards to students not being ready? Are they so concerned by the welfare of the children that when they say we are not ready, they just say okay come when you are ready. What are the issues? The Minister must speak to the issues why the students were saying they were not yet ready.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I also want to raise some areas for clarity from the Hon. Minister. I was one of the Members who were tasked by the Committee on Higher and Tertiary
Education to go and find out what was happening last year in December. What we discovered was that not only fifth year students were affected, but the whole School of Health Sciences was affected.
Students who are in their second years would be expected to conduct their lessons on bed side, meaning that they are supposed to be studying conditions of patients. So because of the strikes that were going on, on the side of senior doctors, they were not able now to do those bed side tutorials. This is why the students said because we were not able to do the 11 to 12 weeks bed side tutorial, we cannot be able to write examinations.
We also managed to consult the Dean and other authorities at the Parirenyatwa Health Sciences School. They said the other problem was they had about five or four courses they were supposed to conduct on bed side tutorials, now they do those in rotations. So you would find a situation where one student who was in fourth year had conducted only two and was left with other two rotations. They were saying if we go on with the examinations we are only going to write two rotations. If we write two rotations we are not going to get the certificates of having completed the degree. So they were saying we cannot write now and then we come back and write the following year. The question now is, when they were going to write two rotations in December, who was also going to incur the costs of finishing the other rotations?
The other issue now is, as the strike by doctors continued they were not taking new patients, meaning those who were conducting bed side tutorial were not able to get new experiences because they continued studying the old patients without being exposed to other circumstances for them to have the practical experience for us also as a nation to be happy with the quality that is being produced. It was going to be dangerous to the patients because they would have been exposed just to limited experiences. So they had those problems.
We also had other complications because we were going to have now first year up to sixth year students, meaning the universities were going to be constrained in terms of capacity. They were going to be constrained in terms of accommodation and in terms also of the available teachers.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can you conclude please.
HON. HAMAUSWA: What we also want to know from the Hon. Minister is, why the Ministry took so long to provide a lasting solution to this crisis because at the moment, the crisis might continue and we might end up having a seventh year medical treatment which becomes very complicated. The issue is, we are in March and the Minister is still waiting for the way forward from the university.
As much as the University Senate is independent in deciding when and how the students should write the exams, the Constitution clearly says, all institutions including the lowest level are accountable to Parliament. This is the accountability that we are expecting the Minister to make sure that the universities are accountable to Parliament so that we uphold the Constitution. Also, we want to know from the Hon. Minister when are we going to know the condition and the way forward of students, not only the fifth year but also those who are in second year onwards? Has the situation improved, is Parirenyatwa Hospital taking new patients such that our students are now satisfied that when the time arrives to write the examinations they would have learnt something that is really convincing?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, can you
conclude.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I am finishing – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I think you
have been heard. Let others contribute.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I am left with just one thing. I am wrapping up. Thank you Hon. Speaker – [AN HON. MEMBER: He is making another presentation.] - No, I am not presenting. I am not the Minister yet. My last issue, is when we consulted the Dean he was saying the lag time between learning and writing examinations can also affect the results. So when they are going to write examinations after March or end of March, what is going to happen to the things that they learnt last year? Are they going to repeat – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] - No, the students have raised their concerns.
We want to know what is going to happen to ensure quality.
HON. ZENGEYA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker. I have got only two questions to the Minister. My first question is, Hon. Minister, who is then going to incur the costs, the schools fees considering the prolonged period that the students are going to be at school? Why am I saying so is due to the economic constraints that we are facing as a country?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Member. You are
supposed to find out; you are trying to follow up. Do not lecture, just ask your questions and that is all.
HON. ZENGEYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. Let me go straight to my point. I have got two questions that I asked. I said, who is going to incur the payment of the school fees considering the prolonged period that those students are going to be at school. Secondly, considering the continuous strike that is going on by the doctors, who is going to do the monitoring or evaluation of the students while they are taking their studies? I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I just want to plead with this House to provide the leadership that is…
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can you find out from the
Minister. Members are not supposed to lecture here. You are supposed to seek clarity.
HON. NDEBELE: Hon. Minister, I want to seek clarity on whether this particular Senate that you said makes supreme decisions at the university is not punishing students for following stipulated dispute resolution mechanisms because what I see is, they followed an architecture that this House has prescribed. The High Court is a court for all and then given the fact that the same Senate has proven to be vindictive, Minister, as a political accounting officer and a whole professor for that matter that we have faith in, are you not going to come up with a sunset decision to say on this particular date the students must sit for their examinations without fail?
I do not envy you for your job Hon. Minister, but I just want to clarify one thing. It is a clarification please.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: But do not debate please.
HON. NDEBELE: I want to check with you because I have not been following. Is this a fresh Senate or it is the same Senate of old rat fast tread – the PhD for the former First Lady – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I want to know. I have every right to know because that has an impact on quality. You spoke about quality. You raised the quality cap.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member can you address
the Chair.
HON. NDEBELE: Is this the same Senate that granted Grace
Mugabe a PhD without writing a thesis?
HON. TSUNGA: This is very serious matter and it is not a laughing matter at all. We must be seen to be serious….
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member can you seek
clarification please.
HON. TSUNGA: But this background is very important.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Just seek clarification. Do not debate anything.
HON. TSUNGA: It does not look like some people are taking this matter seriously. Nonetheless, this is a huge problem whose magnitude has far reaching consequences. I think it is also more traumatic on the part of the students, institute and the part of parents whose children ….
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is your clarification
Hon. Member?
HON. TSUNGA: Having said that Mr. Speaker Sir. May I ask a few pertinent questions? The first one is, we need to how many students have been impacted by this problem so that we appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
As my colleagues have already indicated, the Hon. Minister has to be clear as to the reasons why the students were unable to be examined in the first instance because that was not mentioned in the Minister’s statement.
Thirdly, what is the time horizon when we can expect to have the students finally sit for their examinations? When are we going to have those conditions that in the first instance made it impossible for the students to write?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, do not repeat
what has already been said.
HON. TSUNGA: Finally Mr. Speaker Sir, we want to know whether this has happened before and how it has been tackled before or it is the first time that it is happening. If it is the first time it is happening, it is an indicator of serious maladministration on the part of those concerned.
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: I really wish to thank the hon. members for asking those questions for clarification.
The students went for a court process and they were given their justice according to the Constitution so no law was broken. Absolutely, no law was broken. A student comes and says I do not want to write then you say yes you cannot write. The issue is, we should always stick to due process and not invoke emotions for no reason. We are then having to say what happens to the parents – these are adults who made decisions – [HON. MEMBERS: Aaaah!] – Yes – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] - My duty as the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education is to make sure that higher education runs properly and that all students are treated properly and make sure that all students are given a chance to write their examinations when they are ready to do so. There is no policy which forces the student to write examinations.
You cannot do that because it has an impact on quality.
If they were calculating a certain route, I do not know of that route but it looks like it failed. Let me also be very clear that there is no Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education who do not do things in the interests of higher and tertiary education or individuals – in the interest of higher and tertiary education that produces good doctors. It basically means that we have to stick to academic rules and academic freedom.
That is why the Constitution talks about academic freedom.
There is nobody except a professor of medicine who can say this is good or this is bad. Only the professor of medicine will tell us that they are ready. This is not a political or social process but an academic process – [Hear, hear.] - Therefore, it means that….
HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – My point of order is that there is a danger that the Hon. Minister might mislead this House – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order please!
HON. HAMAUSWA: There is a procedure that has to be followed – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – There are a number of hours – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member may you sit down.
HON. HAMAUSWA: No, no. Hon. Speaker it is unfair.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have ruled.
HON. HAMAUSWA: No, no. It is unfair – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Hon. Speaker, the academic matters are left to the academic authority and therefore we respect the academic authority – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. HAMAUSWA: No, no. It is unfair – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – There is one thing that I have to explain.– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – There are number of hours each university works over – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – There are a number of hours expected by a student before they write examinations….
THE TEMPORARY CHAIR: Hon. Member please respect the
Chair. Go and sit down – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. HAMAUSWA: No. Hon. Speaker! - [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – I want to explain something that is very important – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
Why should I sit? Why? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. KHUMALO): Order,
order Hon. Mliswa may you sit down please? I want to make a ruling on this matter.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I just want to say that the way the Hon. Members of Parliament are arguing shows that there is so much vigour in this; I wish they addressed their entire wealth to the way that they are arguing now. I do not think that we would be poor at all.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order, Hon. Members.
I had asked the Hon. Member to sit down because he was out of order. Then I wanted to call him back, Hon. Member may you continue with your debate and Hon. Members do not make noise.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I was saying
there are a number of contact hours that are expected for learners to go through before they sit for examinations. I also explained that they were supposed to do bedside tutorials which are four rotations and the students have done just two. So, there is no politicking that is going on but the students were saying that they have not completed the expected contact hours. By forcing them to sit for examinations without having completed the contact hours was tantamount to affecting the quality of education – that is my point.
My plea is that the Hon. Minister should not mislead this Hon.
House.
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker
and I wish to thank Hon. Hamauswa for the clarification which exactly agrees with what we said. We never force anybody to write an examination – never, it is never done. I am a full professor and in my professional career, I can tell you that I am the highest academic authority in my discipline and we never force students to write examinations.
Therefore, in good time after following up …
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. Hon. Speaker, these are national issues. The Hon. Minister does not have to be emotional – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – You need to calm down; the amount of emotion that you are exhibiting shows us that you made that decision.
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I am just
passionate with education. I am very passionate and I want to tell you that I am very happy to be able to answer all these questions from Hon. Members because they help us to explain a situation. So, we do not take those questions for granted, they are very important questions.
So, Hon. Speaker – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, order please! I have another Minister who has a statement please, may we proceed with speed.
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: So, basically Hon. Speaker, I really agree with the Hon. Members that this is a very important matter. It is so important that you cannot force a student to write – never, it is a matter of rights. The timetable is going to be set by Senate as the academic authority of the university. The students were never expelled – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – They were never expelled, they are our registered students and they are going to write when Senate decides that it is the right time for them to write – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MAMOMBE: On a point of order Hon. Speaker. I think the issue here is not about the Hon. Minister forcing the students or not but it is the circumstance. The Hon. Minister is hiding behind a finger. He is not explaining to this House why the students refused to write the examinations; why the students were not ready to be writing the examinations. That is number one.
Hon. Speaker, the Hon. Minister is stating that the Senate will set a day to write the examinations. Hon. Speaker, right now the students that we are referring to are at home. They still require the 12 weeks lectures – who is addressing that? Which examinations are they going to be set for when the students are still at home? They are not attending any lectures and they are not attending any practicals. So how are they going to examine them? This is the same problem that we have, can the students return to school and learn then they can set examinations for them. This is the point and the Hon. Minister is not addressing any point here. We need the students to return to school and you then set examinations Hon. Minister – address the background!
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Hon. Speaker, whatever the
background is, the students were not ready to write. We are therefore, going to address all the conditions that were supposed to be there according to the students’ letter. These things do not take one day but at the same time we are saying, higher and tertiary education first and foremost students need to be disciplined.
Therefore, Senate – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – It is also our right to determine. Therefore, if they are not yet ready to write – they will not write. They will write when they are ready and they are not expelled at all. They are our students and we want them to be at university. I want to answer to a question that said, ‘We skipped fourth year’. No, they completed their fourth year and are proceeding to fifth year. We cannot block them because they did not boycott any class. Therefore, we cannot disadvantage them, if there was a strategy to block the stream of students – it cannot be blocked. This country is more important than individuals. We agreed with the students that they were not ready to write. So they did not write, I do not know where the problem is – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Absolute academic authority is with the University Senate and that is it. If I interfere with it, I am interfering with the academic process – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order Mr. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: No point of order.
HON. NDEBELE: There is something I want addressed immediately, on a point of order. Minister, you cannot say the academic freedom lies with the University Senate when you instructed all universities in this country not to have a February intake. You have personally instructed that February intake is banned, so where is academic freedom now. Universities are not going to have February intake throughout the country, where is the academic freedom? Your children go to outside universities and our children are forced to take gap years here.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I will ask you
to go out. That is out of order. Hon. Minister, can you proceed?
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Mr. Speaker, I go back to the issue of our students. We will make sure that we will make conditions right for our students to start writing but we cannot push on issues of quality. The conditions are set by Senate, period. That is it. We are going to respect academic freedom and no political interference at universities, let senate do whatever they do. I urge Hon. Members to know that universities on academic matters operate independently. This Minister stands for academic freedom. The Chancellor who is Dr. E. D.
Mnangagwa stands for that academic freedom – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members please.
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: When academic freedom beats you
back, you will agree. Academic freedom is hitting back. That is what it is doing. These are the results of the academic freedom, it hits you back. Let Professors do professors’ work.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
MEASURES TO CURB THE HIGH COST OF DATA BUNDLES
AND ALLEGED DATA DISAPPEARANCE
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY, POSTAL AND COURIER SERVICES (HON.
MUSWERE): Thank you Mr. Speaker. This is a Ministerial Statement on measures to curb the high cost of data bundles and alleged data disappearance – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – To begin with, all tariffs in Zimbabwe both wholesale and retail are regulated. In regulating tariffs, POTRAZ uses the cost based principle which is the most objective criteria for determining tariffs. Accordingly, as a way of curbing – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. ZENGEYA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. It seems there is no quorum in the House.
Notice having been taken that there being present fewer than 70 members, the bells were rung for Seven Minutes and a Quorum still not being present, THE TEMPORARY. SPEAKER adjourned the House
without question put at a Quarter past Six O’clock p.m. pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order Number 56.
NOTE: The following members were present when the House adjourned: Hon. Chibagu, G.; Hon. Chipato, A.; Hon. Chitura, L.; Hon. Dzepasi. G.; Hon. Dzuma, S.; Hon. Gandawa,M.A.; Hon. Gwanetsa,
K.K.; Hon. Karumazondo, M.T.; Hon. Khumalo, S.S.; Hon. Maboyi,
R.M.; Hon. Machingauta, C.; Hon. Madhuku, J.; Hon. Madiwa, C.; Hon.
Madziva, S.; Hon. Makoni, R.R.; Hon. Maronge, C.; Hon. Masango,
C.P.; Hon. Masenda, N.T.; Hon. Mavetera, T.A.; Hon. Mayihlome, L.;
Hon. Mguni, H.; Hon. Mguni, S.K.; Hon. Mhona, F.T; Hon. Mkandla,
M.; Hon. Mkaratigwa, E.; Hon. Mliswa, M.T.; Hon. Mliswa, T.P.; Hon.
Moyo Priscilla; Hon. Mpofu, A.; Hon. Muchimwe, P.T.; Hon. Munetsi, J.; Hon. Murambiwa, O.; Hon. Murire, J.; Hon. Musiyiwa, R.; Hon. Muswere, J.; Hon. Mutambisi, C.; Hon. Mutodi, E.; Hon. Mutomba, W.; Hon. Mutseyami, C.P.; Hon. Ncube, E.; Hon. Ncube Ophar; Hon.
Ndiweni, D.; Hon. Ndlovu, N.; Hon. Nduna, D.T.; Hon. Nguluvhe, A.;
Hon. Nhambo, F.; Hon. Nhari, V.; Hon. Nkani, A.; Hon. Nkomo, M.; Hon. Nyabote, R.; Hon. Dr. Nyashanu, M.; Hon. Nyere, C.; Hon.
Paradza, K.; Hon. Raidza, M.; Hon. Rungani, A.; Hon. Saizi, T.; Hon.
Samson, A.; Hon. Shirichena, E.; Hon. Singo.L.; Hon. Sithole Josiah; Hon. Svuure, D.; Hon. Tsuura, N.; Hon. Tungamirai, T.; Hon. Zengeya, V.M.; Hon. Zhou, P.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 4th March, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the Senate that all Senators are required to log-in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their name on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance register.
I would also want to remind Hon. Senators that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: If I may welcome the Ministers, especially the newly appointed ones. You are welcome to the Senate. I can see my dear father, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Hon. Mhona – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – Also from the women, I can see the Deputy Minister for Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Hon. Maboyi – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] –
I only have one apology from the Deputy Minister of Defence and War Veterans, Hon. Matemadanda. Presently, we have Hon. Daniel Garwe, Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities; Hon. Mhona, Hon. J. Gumbo, Hon. Maboyi, Hon. Machingura, Hon. Mutsvangwa, Hon. Soda and Hon. Muchinguri.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
*HON. SEN. SIPANI-HUNGWE: Thank you Madam President. My question goes to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement but in his absence, I will direct my question to the Leader of the Senate. This year the Lord blessed and gave us a lot of rain. We have crops and we are seeing that we are still in the midst of the rain season. How far has Government gone in fixing dysfunctional driers so that we are able to dry our seeds? What is Government’s position with regards to those farmers who have driers? We know there are farmers who have driers on their farms. Some of them are no longer functional and they need to be repaired. What is Government saying with regards to that? Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Thank you very much Madam President. I would like to thank Hon. Sen. Hungwe for a very important question on the harvest that we are all anticipating as farmers and as a nation. The crop is very impressive everywhere we are going. Cabinet is working hard on the particular issue. The Minister of Agriculture went around the country and is still doing so, looking at the harvest and issues of storage of the huge harvest we are anticipating as a nation.
The Cabinet is also looking into the issue of shellers and dryers. Some of the farmers would want to use the same fields for winter wheat, so that is a very important question. The Ministry of Agriculture, through the Government, is working hard to focus on that. Some of the dryers have been acquired and the Minister is going around assessing the crop and the infrastructure, making arrangements to assist each other. We want to make sure that we do not get any hindrance as we are anticipating as big harvest.
We want to make use of our foreign currency to buy other things and we are glued on making sure that things like combined harvesters, dryers and shellers are available. It is our concern to make sure that farmers are assisted to take their produce to the GMB without challenges. Government will make sure that farmers are paid and we will make sure that we get rid of any delays. As soon as they deliver their produce, we will make sure that they are paid. Thank you very much.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF MAKUMBE: Thank you very much Madam President for giving me an opportunity to ask. My question is directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development. This season throughout the country we got good rains and our dams are full. Minister, what is the situation as to the issue of mini-hydros in the country to our dams?
THE MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. ZHEMU): Thank you Madam President. I would like to thank the Hon. Sen. for the question. Government has plans to make sure that there is a hydro power plant at all the dams that are being constructed so that there is electricity production. Also, looking at farming activities in these different places, when water goes into a dam, there is need for some mechanisms to allow for irrigation. So the Government has plans to make sure that there is hydro power generation at each and every dam across the country.
*HON. MOEKETSI: Thank you Madam President. My question is directed to the Leader of the House. How far are Government’s plans of building houses for those families that have been affected by the construction of houses on wetlands?
* THE MINISTER OF NATIONAL HOUSING AND SOCIAL AMENITIES (HON. GARWE): Thank you Madam President. I want to thank the Hon. Sen. for the question in line with people who are staying on wetlands and river banks. The Government has good plans and there has been a committee set up by His Excellency, headed by the Vice President Hon. Chiwenga. It is looking at how prepared we are as a Government when it comes to emergency disasters emanating from irregular settlements.
Firstly, we are evaluating the number of affected people and looking at places to settle them. When we get the land, we will send the planners to go and service the land. In line with vision 2030 that says everyone should be settled where municipal services are provided, we will resettle people in those areas. Those in flooded areas we are settling them in other areas in tents whilst we are preparing the place we have talked about so that by October, everyone affected will be staying in good places. That is the Government plan. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: Thank you Madam President. I was listening to what the Minister was saying, he was saying irregular and not illegal. Something which is irregular is illegal. Hon. Minister, you are talking about irregular settlers and only giving attention to urban areas but in rural areas. we also have those irregular settlers. In rural areas, there are people who are affected and there should be a policy enacted to cater for all these irregularities.
*HON. GARWE: Let me thank the Hon. Senator Chief Charumbira for his pertinent question. He referred to irregular and illegal. Both are not good, people were not settled well. Our plan as Government is not only looking at urban areas but also rural areas. For example, in Domboshava, especially the Show Grounds areas, you can not differentiate whether you are in urban, squatter camp or rural areas. However, we are visiting those places; we have a law which is going to be launched by His Excellency called the Zimbabwe National Human Settlement Policy. This law is going to affect most people because wherever a person is settled, there are laws that should be followed first before settlement of people.
The last time I was in this august House, last year 2020, we discussed about that policy. So, this is going to touch urban, rural, peri-urban areas and the whole of Zimbabwe. Wherever people are settled, there are things that should be in place before people are settled. In the areas where chiefs are heading, we have problems of headsmen selling land and pocketing the money. However, we want to work with you chiefs so that people who are buying land illegally will be prosecuted. People in the rural areas are selling the chief’s land illegally. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. KOMICHI: Thank you Madam President for affording me this opportunity to ask my question. The Minister has articulated a very good plan. However, may the Hon. Minister expand further on the timelines as to when is the programme going to be conducted considering that the rains are still upon us. There are already other people who were displaced and are suffering; some are even staying in holes.
HON. GARWE: Thank you Madam President. I want to thank the Hon. Senator on the question of timelines that he has asked. On the roadmap, there are people whom we have placed in different groups. The first one is that of people who have been settled in River basins, those are in danger of being swept by the rivers. So as the Ministry of Local Government, through the Civil Protection Unit and Government, we are busy right now evacuating those people to temporary tents.
The second group is that of people in wetlands and those people have settled in places where churches, schools, community halls and clinics were supposed to be. Our aim is that wherever a person is staying, proper servicing should have been done. The Local Government Ministry has given us land which has already been serviced through the workmanship of the physical planning department, the engineers. For example, in Mbare, there is land like that given by the Ministry of Local Government to construct high rise flats.
Yesterday, we were doing a ground breaking ceremony because we want to construct flats so that we settle people there who are in danger. I cannot really give you the exact timelines but we have already started. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: I would like to go back to the Minister of Housing and Infrastructural Development. We truly know that there are councils that are greedy who take people’s monies and place them in wetlands. We also have land barons in this country who are stealing from people giving them State land. What measures have you put in place for those land barons who have sold State land?
*HON. GARWE: Thank you Mr. President. We have State Land in this country which is under the Government and no one has authority to sell State Land to the people. His Excellency, the President, last month gave a statement with regards to that issue which is now a policy to date that everyone who got land to build for residential stands from land barons should get their money back from that particular land baron. Selling State Land illegally is a crime. These land barons are being arrested. I cannot say their names but I am sure all of us know that land barons are being arrested because they took State land and sold it to people illegally. They never considered water and sewer issues and that is illegal, building residential stands in wetlands – all those activities are illegal. You cannot give people wet lands to build houses on. We have been working closely with the Minister of Tourism and Environment to make sure and see to it how best we can maintain wetlands. If we build houses in these wetlands, the water will disappear, our dams do not have water, and we need that water. Those who live in Bindura understand better. If you go to Mazowe Dam, up to today, there is no water. No one in this country is allowed to sell State land, land that is under the Chiefs as well as the Government because that is a crime.
*HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you very much Madam President for giving me an opportunity to ask a question. We are very happy with the steps that are being taken by the Government towards the land barons who are selling State land. What I wanted to hear from the Minister is that we have not seen those who have been sentenced and thrown into prison. These land barons should give back money to the people they sold the illegal State land to. If they bought State land for 20 000 to build a house and they build a house, what exactly are you getting paid for? Is it the house or the land?
*HON. GARWE: Thank you very much Hon. President, I would like to thank the Hon. Senator for his question. His question is divided into three phases; he said that we have not seen someone who has been arrested. There is another department that is responsible for that. Ours is to look at the road, sewer and electricity that is where we come in. His Excellency the President made it clear that land barons will compensate people they sold land to.
*HON. SEN. FEMAI: Thank you very much Madam President. Firstly, Madam President, allow me to congratulate Hon. Minister Mhona for his appointment to the position of Minister, hard work does help, he is a hard worker and serious in discharging his duties. I could see that coming that he was going to be a Minister because of hard work. My question goes to the Minister of Agriculture; there is a disease that killed cattle in this country, called theileriosis. What policy is there to alleviate this problem?
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SREVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Thank you Madam President, I would like to thank Hon. Sen. Femai for his question that is directed to the Minister of Agriculture because they are the ones who are responsible and they are the ones who have got such programmes to make sure that January disease, real name theileriosis, is addressed. That issue was included in the budget to help eradicate tick borne. Government will make sure that all those things are in place so that the problem is alleviated. Agritex is moving around and if you make a report to Agritex, they are willing to assist. Also report to Veterinary Services so that they quickly attend to that before the spread of the disease.
In the previous year, cattle died, in our culture, cattle are a form of wealth and as Government, it is a matter of great concern if cattle die. Government is working tirelessly to end this.
*HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: Thank you very much for these plans you have as Government to alleviate this January disease. What plans do we have because last year, a lot of cattle died and this year we are getting the same message and people are not getting any assistance to alleviate this? What exact plans are there to avoid death of cattle? Some of the cattle carcasses are now finding their way to butcheries.
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Thank you very much Madam President. I would like to thank Hon. Sen. Mudzuri for his supplementary question. This is a disease that has been affecting a lot of cattle in this country.
The President introduced a programme focused on people being assistrd with cattle dipping. A lot of people are aware that the President introduced a programme around the country and in different provinces giving people cattle. We are yet to reach a point where those who have lost cattle are compensated.
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: Thank you very much Madam President. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. Hon. Minister is it possible for the elderly to be taught how to drive using automatic cars since most of us are old and our bodies no longer allow for the operation of manual vehicles?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you very much Hon. President of the Senate and thank you very much for congratulating me on my recent appointment as Minister. Thank you very much Hon. Sen. Chifamba for the question.
As we are all aware of the dictates of the laws of country, the Executive is there to uphold and make sure that your request comes to pass.
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: Thank you so much Madam President. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development but before I pose my question, I would like to join Hon. Sen. Femai on the message that he just delivered to you. I concur with Hon. Sen. Femai totally on your appointment.
Currently, the state of our roads in Zimbabwe is very pathetic and has been worsened by the rain season. We are having problems when travelling because of potholes. What is your immediate plan to attend to this problem? Probably, can you also give us the long term plan that you have so that we have reliable roads in the country? Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you very much Madam President. Let me also hasten to thank Hon. Sen. Komichi for that very pertinent question which also gives me the platform to address on a fundamental Government policy. For those who have been following, His Excellency Cde. Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa declared a state of disaster for our roads, which actually means that as Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, we have taken over control of roads.
However, despite the declaration by His Excellency, as a Ministry we are also mandated by the supreme law, the Roads Act (13:18) also mandates us to take charge in particular Section 5 of the Roads Act, from local authorities or rural district councils if they neglect or fail to administer their duties. According to the state of declaration by His Excellency, we have a programme that is known as Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme. The programme will address what Hon. Sen. Komichi requested for the House to be appraised on (i) in terms of the short term measures and (ii) the long term measures.
The short term measure is the one that started on 1st March which is going to run for 60 days. This one is going to address the emergency works that entail the washaways, cleaning of drains and apparently the Ministry is seized as we speak, in trying to address and prioritise roads that would fall under Phase 1. However, Phase 2 would also entail re-graveling of roads whereby it is also going to run for about six months. In terms of funding, I know that one would ask whether this is adequately funded.
As we speak, Phase 1 has been funded by Treasury and I want to appreciate that, so that we take charge of the emergency works. Phase 3 entails the rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads and is also going to take another six months. Last but not the least, is the completion of bridges that were done and abandoned some time back. So in fact, Phase 4 will run into February 2024 and the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme will run for three years commencing on 1st March up to February 2024.
However, a plea to this august House is, as we then conduct our work as a nation. This is a disaster that entails working together now, that is necessarily to say the Ministry but as we then pass through relevant and different rural district councils and local authorities, we also require the support of the citizenry so that as we then partake that work we also work together with the citizens. Let us own our roads, the roads are ours and let us take charge of them. I thank you.
HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: Thank you Mr. President. I also join in congratulating the Hon. Minister on his recent appointment. He was also the Chairperson of the Budget and Finance Committee and was very good in the execution of his duties. I hope that he will continue to shine and not go down. You used to do well as a Chairperson and so, you should not reduce the standard that you have already set. When it comes to potholes – I come from Masvingo; halfway from Masvingo to Harare, there are potholes some of which are big but nothing is being done about it yet there is a Ministry and Government agencies which are responsible for that. When it becomes an emergency, those potholes will not last for three days. When it comes to performance-based management, I think you should give us a standard that potholes should not last for two days on the road. Cars are being damaged and accidents are happening because of potholes.
You should come up with a strategy where if one travels from Masvingo, those in Mvuma should be able to give an update on potholes. I think there should be localised pothole updates to warn motorists that there is danger ahead because cars are being damaged and people are dying.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you Mr. President. I want to thank Hon. Chief Charumbira for your question. You went on to proffer your advice on how we can move forward. I want to thank you because the issue that you raised has been discussed with our provincial road engineers and agreed that there should not be potholes that are known by name. We do not want to give names to certain potholes.
I would like to thank the President for his programme because we are now busy refurbishing our roads. When we started on Monday, that is our low-hanging fruit and that is what we are running with. The challenge that we have is the incessant rains and we cannot fix some of the potholes because of that. You might think that we are taking long but I know that engineers have indicated that potholes cannot effectively be fixed when it is continuously raining. Now that the rains seem to be ceasing, we are promising this House and the nation that we are not going to have such big potholes. The problem of having those potholes is that we were not maintaining our roads. I think the Government is there to maintain roads so that we do not lose lives due to potholes.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in terms of Standing Order No. 62
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that time for Questions Without Notice be extended by 15 minutes.
HON. SEN. MUDZURI: I second.
*HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: Is the work that is being done by engineers being monitored? We have seen a lot of shoddy work being done on the roads in this country. There is actually more damage done to the road than fixing it and the repairs are only temporary and lasts for a short while. May there be engineers who monitor the work that is being done on the roads. May we have a plan on what they anticipate to do because we are seeing that things that are being done are not sustainable.
*HON. MHONA: Thank you very much Hon. President of the Senate. I would like to thank Hon. Mudzuri for the question that he asked. Those who were following the programmes lined up for this year, His Excellency the President came up with the Monitoring and Evaluation Policy. The previous years, no one was monitoring the work that was being done but now because of this policy, we are going to monitor and evaluate each and every project. We are going to have personnel who are going to monitor all the projects which are done in this country so that we do not have crooked people who just do shoddy work and leave it.
HON. SEN. KAMBIZI: Thank you Mr. President. My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement and in his absence, the Leader of the House can do justice to the question. My question is; what is the Government doing to plug and curb abuse and misuse of Command Agriculture inputs by beneficiaries who are channeling those inputs towards the black market and even opening agro-shops selling diesel, fertilizer and chemicals? I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): I thank you Mr. President and I want to thank Hon. Sen. Kambizi for that question. The policy of Government through the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement is to make sure that all inputs are actually channeled to the right use which they would have been put for. I am happy that as a leader in this august Senate, I would implore the leaders in this Senate that when you see where there is misuse and abuse of these inputs, it should be reported to the law enforcement agencies because it is against the laws of this country. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. MOEKETSI: Thank you very much Mr. President. My question goes to the Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development. I would like to thank the Hon. President for allowing the opening of schools. My question is, what plans do you have as we look forward to the opening of schools in regards to sanitization. As we speak right now, there may not be running water in these schools. What plans do you have for these children to resume learning? Thank you.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. MACHINGURA): Thank you very much Mr. President. Thank you Hon. Senator for that good question. It is our wish that when children resume learning, they are not killed by this pandemic. Our position as Government is we do not want children to contract this virus. All our institutions of higher and tertiary education were directed by the Government to make sure that learners have adequate disinfectants to keep them safe from Covid 19. That includes disinfection of premises. We are blessed as a nation because most of these universities and polytechnic colleges are manufacturing disinfectants and sanitizers.
I am happy that you looked at both the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. There are plans to make sure that learners resume learning, making sure that WHO regulations are put in place to protect the learners. Thank you.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Mr. President. My supplementary question to the Minister is: when learners resume learning, will teachers be vaccinated by then? Children may be exempted but teachers need to be vaccinated so that they are protected from the pandemic.
- MACHINGURA: Thank you Hon. President. I would want to thank the Hon. Senator for the question. I do not have an adequate answer for that particular question to say will all teachers be vaccinated by then. Vaccination is done in phases and the first phase concentrates on front line workers. As we know, teachers are in the second phase of this vaccination. Thank you.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in terms of Standing Order Number 62.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum held virtually on 9th October 2020, in Windhoek, Namibia.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
MOTION
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS NETWORK ON DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION (APNODE) HELD IN ABIDJAN
Second Order read: Adjourned on motion on the Report of the Zimbabwe Delegation to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the African Parliamentarians Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE).
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: Mr. President Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
Third order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Extraordinary Session of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: Mr. President Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Fourth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Mr. President Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
On the motion of HON. SEN. MUZENDA, seconded by HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA, the House adjourned at Two minutes to Four o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 16th March, 2021.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 4th March, 2021.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
COLLECTION OF MIFI DEVICES
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to advise Hon. Members who have not yet collected their MiFi devices from ICT department that they are encouraged to collect them from Office Number 402. Further to that, Hon. Members are reminded that data is being sent to their e-mails.
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. SPEAKER: I also have to remind the House that all Hon. Members are required to log-in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their names on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance list.
Furthermore, Hon. Members are advised that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Mine is both a motion on national interest but also with your direction, I may need to have your ruling upon it because I do not remember it happening before. Yesterday during Question Time, I raised a question with the Minister of Justice because the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education was not in the House, in connection with issues to do with school fees. The concern that I raised is provided for in the Act, that any school that intends to increase school fees or set school fees within a year needs to get the approval of the Permanent Secretary.
In response, the Minister of Justice said it is only Government schools and not non-governmental schools and I tried to engage him to say the Act is clear that non-governmental schools are still under the purview of the Ministry of Education. A lot of parents have been raising this issue with us as Committee because the school fees that are being put up by both private and mission schools, people cannot afford them generally. You are creating an elitist situation in which even those that can afford a little bit are unable to take their children to school.
I also raised the issue that, in asking schools to put an application with the Permanent Secretary, you also would deal with the issue of the prorate because if the school term is not going to be the usual school term, then the school fees has to be in relation to the prorate. The Minister of Justice at that point said to me trust schools, non-governmental schools are governed under contract law. I know I have the actual Act. Section 21 is very clear. When we did the amendment, we said the Commission which is the Competition Commission would be responsible in circumstances where there has been that violation but the application still needs to go to the Permanent Secretary.
I am concerned that the response of the Minister yesterday would get schools to start thinking that they do not have to make an application. This is why I said I am not sure procedurally how that would happen because we need a formal correction of the position that was given by the Minister because it is fundamentally wrong and it will set a very bad precedence in terms of what is happening in the schools right now. It is one of the issues that is really topical in this nation currently. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and I stand guided by you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: The best way to deal with that issue is to make a written question in which you quote the relevant Act accordingly and you will have more interface in terms of the interpretation of the Act. Meanwhile, I suggest that you have a second or third legal opinion on that interpretation so that when you deal with the matter – I know you are a budding lawyer but there is no harm in getting second opinion so that you are fully armed to debate the issue next Wednesday.
Hon. Misihairabwi, there is another element that you have not included in your inquiry. The question of schools demanding payment in foreign currency, that is an issue that is also a thorn in some parents because they are not earning in foreign currency. Why were the schools demanding payment in foreign currency? Perhaps you might need to couch your quest so that we have a full understanding of what the position of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: I stand guided Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, my point of national interest is to do with devolution. I want to dwell on few sections of the Constitution, but key points. Section 264 is about Devolution of Governmental powers and responsibilities.
‘1. Wherever appropriate, governmental powers and responsibilities must be devolved to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities which are competent to carry out those responsibilities efficiently and effectively.’
Section 264 (f) is about to transfer responsibilities and resources from the national government in order to establish a sound financial base for each provincial and metropolitan council and local authority.
- General principles of provincial and local Government.
- a) Ensure good governance by being effective, transparent, accountable and institutionally coherent;
- Provincial councils
1) There is a provincial council for each province, except the metropolitan provinces, consisting of- I will go to 1 (e) all Members of the National Assembly who are elected in terms of Section 124 (1) (b) from the province concerned;
(f) The women Members of the National Assembly who are elected in terms of Section 124 (1) (b) from the province concerned.
The reason why I am bringing this up is whilst there is an argument for the amendment of MPs not to be there, the Constitution reads differently. My concern is that the provincial councils are supposed to be in place as per the Constitution, with Members of Parliament being in there. Already, the devolution funds are going there. One of the issues again Mr. Speaker Sir, which is critical is Section 270 - Functions of provincial and metropolitan councils. The most critical one is 1(e), monitoring and evaluating the use of resources in its province.
You recall Mr. Speaker Sir, and I was motivated and inspired by you when you raised it when we went to that Victoria Falls Pre-Budget Seminar. The Minister of Local Government was there and he did concede that he needed to ensure that he does not disburse money before these structures are put in place, because it was unlawful and it remains unlawful. It remains unconstitutional as well because these councils are not there who are supposed to be monitoring funds. So devolution money is just going and no one is monitoring.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we are supposed to be part of it, even though people do not want MPs to be part of this, the Constitution is saying otherwise, it is saying we must be part of it, until the Constitution is amended. You then ruled that Hon. Ziyambi and the Attorney General must come up with the position pertaining to this. The position still is not there. The biggest game changer in this country is the devolution, but the monies are not being monitored according to the Constitution because the provincial councils are not in place. This is also one of the reasons that led the former President and the late R. G. Mugabe out of power. It was because of the issue of devolution that he was not following the Constitution. This particular one of provincial councils was critical to that.
We are here and nothing has happened, as the House that ensures that the laws are followed, what are we saying to the people? Who is monitoring, evaluating this money? Central Government must allow the structures which are mentioned in the Constitution to play their role. I do not know why we have been quiet about it and yet corruption is happening because no one is monitoring and evaluation the resources for each province.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I do not know how best we can deal with this, but it has become a source of corruption in a big way. The local authorities as you would appreciate have been the talk of poor service delivery yet money is going there through the very same tenets of the Constitution which ensures that resources go to them. Your guidance and ruling is critical because we cannot as Parliament sit and watch the law not being followed.
THE HON. SPEAKER: My ruling at Victoria Falls Pre-Budget Seminar has been responded to. Indeed, there has been some conversation between the Minister of Local Government and Public Works as well as the Minister of Finance and Economic Development in consultation with the Attorney-General. Views that we expressed at that Pre-Budget Seminar have been taken on board, resulting in the Minister of Finance and Economic Development acknowledging the need for a legal framework to be in place in order to ensure that devolved funds are accounted for in terms of the structures that must be in place.
If you read the the National Strategic Document No. 1 under Devolution, you will see that acknowledgment where the Minister of Finance and Economic Development has said expeditiously, we need that legal framework to be there.
In tandem a Constitutional Amendment (No. 2) Bill is now in place. It has been gazetted and if you look at it carefully, it will address some of these gaps which unfortunately have taken too long to be addressed so that by the time the devolution funds would have been devolved and distributed to the provinces, that constitutional amendment should have been in place. The only mistake that we did as framers of the Constitution was, if you go right at the beginning of Section 264, the framing of subsection 1 creates a weakness in that it says, whenever appropriate, there is no time line. Governmental powers and responsibilities must be devolved to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities which are competent to carry out those responsibilities efficiently and effectively.
I think that clause gives allowance and it has given allowance, when you say whenever appropriate, when you decide when it is appropriate, but having said that, I think the response by the Executive shows a positive development and I am sure any time now, Constitution Amendment (No. 2) Bill will be tabled to the House to correct the situation accordingly. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: I do follow you. Whenever appropriate is the same as when funds are permitting, but now when you have funds and whenever that is in place, should those structures not be in place? The reason why I am saying this, should those provincial councils not be in place? Whoever they feel is competent, they have disbursed money. Should there not be a structure despite the amendment coming through, but it is not yet here and it is not yet law. How then do you reconcile an amendment which is coming which is supposed to change the law and the law which is there? Which one comes first? Common sense, the law which is there must be able to be seen working.
I know being both a lawyer and a teacher, I think you understand where I am coming from. It is simple that the provincial councils are not there, money has been disbursed. So it still answers the question ‘whenever’. So now it has arrived whenever is everything in place - appropriate Government powers, responsibility. They have disbursed this money without the structures again. So who then does the monitoring unless there was no money in place, unless there is a suspension, but money is still going but the Constitution also talks about provincial councils sitting. I am told, if I am not mistaken, some are being paid but I have not had myself, maybe other Members of Parliament can tell me whether they were ever called to provincial council meetings.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Mliswa. You are now engaging in a debate which I think will be better responded to by way of a written question so that the responsible Minister disbursing the funds would then answer to your queries which are reasonable, but what the amendment of the law is doing now, including the Constitution, is to address the mischief which you have identified. The mischief is being addressed like what the English would say, you want to close the stable when the horses have bolted. That is the mischief you are bringing across and that will be better answered by the Hon. Minister concerned, but I hear you, the mischief is definitely there.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
LEVEL OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY RELATED TO SEXUAL AND GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN THIS COVID-19 PANDEMIC
THE MINISTER OF WOMEN’S AFFAIRS, COMMUNITY, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT (HON. DR. NYONI): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. May I, on the onset, express my gratitude to the Parliamentary Committee on Women Affairs, Community Small and Medium Enterprise development for a very comprehensive and informative report that they presented in relation to visits that they carried out to ascertain the level of public service delivery related to sexual and gender based violence in this COVID-19 pandemic.
We acknowledge that this is a time of great anxiety, uncertainty and stress for many as normal life routines are changed. Women and girls who constitute the greater percentage of GBV survivors find themselves trapped in homes with abusive husbands, fathers, brothers and family members with limited access to protection and support services.
I concur, Mr. Speaker Sir, with the report as we have indeed witnessed unprecedented incidents of rape during this period. The Victim Friendly Unit of the Zimbabwe Republic Police received 1 222 cases of rape in the third quarter of 2020 and in the fourth quarter they received 1 274 cases country wide. Alarming figures of rape of girls below the age of 18 were as follows:
Age Group (years) | Number of reported cases (4th Quarter comparison) | |
2019 | 2020 | |
0-7 | 129 | 134 |
8-12 | 223 | 239 |
13-15 | 293 | 292 |
16-17 | 191 | 235 |
Total | 836 | 900 |
A total of 836 girls, 17 years and below, were raped in the period October to December 2019 and in the same period in 2020, 900 girls were raped and these were reported cases. We still grapple to understand the real magnitude in view of unreported cases as the Committee has rightfully pointed out that most cases go unreported at the community level.
My Ministry therefore commits to scale up community level awareness raising with the aim to encourage report of such incidents especially where minors are the victims. The community has to know that it is criminal to withhold such information as well as failure to report abuse and rape of minors.
Equally disturbing are cases of teenage pregnancies from across the provinces. These cases were experienced from January to the 5th of February 2021.
Province | Teenage Pregnancies | Child Marriage |
Mash West | 27 | 85 |
Masvingo | 61 | 49 |
Mat South | 290 | 65 |
Bulawayo | 1 | 0 |
Harare | 0 | 0 |
Manicaland | 13 | 13 |
Mash East | 26 | 28 |
Mat North | 0 | 24 |
Midlands | 66 | 74 |
Mash Central | 4475 | 1436 |
Total | 4959 | 1774 |
A total of 4959 got impregnated in such a short period and this means that nearly 5 000 of our girls risk losing their educational opportunity if they do not pursue re-admission. Most worrying is the 1774 who are in matrimonial union before their 18th birthday. They have lost opportunities and have also become vulnerable to other forms of violence, assault, which include economic and emotional abuse.
An Hon. Member having passed between the Chair and the Hon. Member speaking.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Gwanetsa, you may not cross between the speaker and the Chair.
HON. NYONI: We take note of recommendations and observations of the Committee. The Committee expressed concern on the transport challenges being faced by survivors in accessing services at one stop centres and shelters. May I inform the House that my Ministry now has a facility to support movement of survivors to access GBV. Through the spotlight initiative, we are providing fuel to our district office and this is to specifically facilitate the movement of GBV survivors to enable their access to all the necessary services that the survivor may require. Initial uptake was low due to limited awareness, but as awareness has increased on the availability of this service, there has been increased uptake by the survivors. However, this is currently only in the spotlight districts and all one-stop centres and we are making frantic efforts to ensure that this facility if made available nationwide.
Key institutions such as the police and other stakeholders have been engaged to accommodate the movement of victims to access GBV services. The ZRP Victim Friendly Unit has made efforts to ensure that police officers manning roadblocks have been advised to allow passage to women survivors of GBV who are travelling to seek services.
In addressing the challenge of increasing cases of GBV, we have ensured that partners continue to offer GBV services by having these declared critical and essential services. The Ministry has facilitated clearance of GBV service providers to enable them to continue to offer services throughout the country, even during the lockdown. Our one-stop centres and partner-run shelters continue to offer gender based violence services. In addition, there are one-stop shop centres, the Ministry is implementing mobile one-stop centres which are taking services to the people. These have been well received and examples are in Chegutu District where we have the first 12 days of mobile outreach they managed to assist 223 gender based violence survivors. Toll free lines have been expanded by the civil society partners to make sure that even those that do not find it easy to travel can signal the need for service and a partner can reach out to them.
We take note on the observation made by the Committee regarding the need to ensure disability friendliness of our service centres, namely Gwanda. May I take this opportunity to inform the House that my Ministry carried out an assessment to establish the friendliness of our services to people with different forms of disability and this was noted. As we expand services, we are learning from our experience and continuously improving our standards. We have ensured that all our one stop centres are disability friendly. We have also gone a step further and provided training in basic sign language to our officials at these centres.
My Ministry has recently set up one stop centre in Bindura and Epworth and these have been made disability friendly. Similarly, we shall be rectifying omissions done in the previous set up of one stop centres and upgrade them to be disability friendly.
May I also inform the House Mr. Speaker Sir, that it is our plan that we establish at least one stop centre in each province and further strengthen coordinated multi-sectoral gender based service provision at district level. This year we shall be setting up two additional one stop centres; one in Bulawayo at Mpilo General Hospital and the other in Mashonaland East. I am glad to state that we are increasingly getting resources from Government towards these initiatives and that promotes sustainability of our efforts and inventions.
We also shall be ensuring that there are enough rooms for our service providers to ensure privacy and confidentiality as they execute their work. Our purpose is to observe the best interest of the survivor and indeed do no further harm through a survivor centred support system. My Ministry has noted that one of the major causes of gender based violence is poverty and lack of economic empowerment. We have been working with the partners as rightly indicated. Msasa is offering livelihood skills whilst a survivor is administered in the shelter. As the Ministry, we are making deliberate efforts to include women survivors of gender based violence to benefit from facilities that we administer such as Women Development Fund. Once they have a skill, we support them to develop a viable proposal for eligibility to accessing such facilities. The Ministry believes that prevention is better than cure. May I take this opportunity to also update the House on some of the legislative issues which my Ministry is working on which we think will contribute towards prevention.
The first one is Sexual Harassment Bill and Gender Equality Bill. The Ministry received a set of draft principles for the Sexual Harassment Bill and Gender Equality Bill from the Zimbabwe Gender Commission. The Bills are expected to criminalise the offence of sexual harassment and provide frameworks for gender equality. As part of the law development process, consultations are very critical and the Ministry is at an advanced stage in organising consultative meetings with law based women’s organisations at national and regional levels. We have a roadmap and we think that by May we would have submitted the principles to Cabinet.
The next one is the Anti Domestic Violence Council now under the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. May I bring to the attention of the House that the Anti Domestic Violence Council is now being administered by the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. It has moved from my Ministry.
The next one is the mandatory sentence for rape. The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs administers the Criminal Code Reform Act and it is spearheading the amendment of the Act to include mandatory sentencing for sexual offences. The drafting process has begun. However, the drafters have identified that most relevant stakeholders on the proposed law were not consulted, hence there was need for further consultations.
We continue to encourage the sharing of information about how to report and where to get help to enable survivors to get gender based violence and access to a holistic service that our Ministry is offering such as help psycho social support, legal and police services. Where they cannot be provided under one roof, we are coordinating a multi sectoral approach with identified partners providing specific services throughout the country. District specific referral pathways have been developed. Referral pathways provide basic information on what constitutes sexual gender based violence. The nearest service is available as well as contact numbers. These have been translated into various languages and simplified as much as possible for the benefit of our populace.
Most importantly, we must remember that according to Section 52 of our Constitution, every Zimbabwean citizen has a right to personal security and bodily integrity. Freedom from abuse or fear is a right to every victim and child who witnesses domestic violence. It is our collective responsibility; each one of us has a role to play to ensure that gender based violence does not happen, and in the event that it happens we encourage survivors to seek help.
My Ministry will continue to work with and coordinate our stakeholders to ensure that GBV services remain available. Hon. Members, a request was also made for us to respond to the consolidated financial performance report and I wish to highlight the following;
- Submission of Financial Report
The Ministry in 2020 has been submitting financial reports
accompanied by programmes and activities carried out in each particular quarter. The reports were showing achievements and challenges faced each quarter by each department. The report included the Ministry mandate and all its planned activities for the year, what has been done and what was still pending.
- Release of funds from Treasury
The releases were mainly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Treasury tried its best to support the Ministry with funds which we manage to procure seven vehicles and a balance of the other seven vehicles are expected to be procured in the 2021 Budget releases. The money for the vehicles is awaiting transfer into the Ministry account as all the payment processes were done.
Release for programme three was erratic due to the fact that most of the funds were allocated for the construction of work space. The necessary bid documents which were needed for the release of funds took time to be obtained. The tender procedures required to engage suppliers took a long time and were completed in December, 2020.
iii. Roger Howman Training Centre Revenue
The revenue for this training centre has been affected by two
factors. The first one is COVID-19 lockdown; no activity or training could take place. The second one is that there are boxes of election material which are occupying the classroom blocks. The centre was left with no classrooms for us to use to provide its services. Efforts have been put for the removal of those materials and even requested ZEC to pay rentals but seem to be fruitless. After easing of the lockdown, it is the Ministry’s hope that these boxes will be removed to enable resumption of programmes in this centre in order for the centre to get its revenue. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I am disappointed that the media seem not to be around because you have made very important statements about the welfare of the girl-child and women. Clerk-at-table, can you make sure that there is proper coverage including by our own media people.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Mr. Speaker, I have got about eight points of clarity that I seek to have from the Hon. Minister –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Member. The forum is for as many Members of Parliament as possible. Can you synthesise your eight points to only two so that others have the opportunity to also seek points of clarification.
(v)HON. NDUNA: You have made it very difficult for me Mr. Speaker, however I am going to try.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You are well schooled in English, please synthesise.
(v)HON. NDUNA: I want to know how the Hon. Minister is going to deal with the Minister of Education in-so-far as the issues of returning the girl-child home because of none payment of fees as this is one of the other causes of rape at home. How is she going to deal with the issue of deficit in housing with the local government which has seen overcrowding of people, which is housing the girl-child with the parents, grandparents or relatives in one room? How is she also going to deal with the Minister of Agriculture in-so-far as ZINWA and the boreholes are concerned? The deficit of water is one such cause. That is the first one.
The second one is ...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Member. Do not undermine my intelligence. You have asked three questions for clarification, you have to stop there.
HON. TOGAREPI: In the report by the Minister, I heard something like Harare and Bulawayo did very well by recording something close to zero. Is it true that there was enough education for these people to come out or report those cases because we have more violations of the law; the sexual harassments and so forth in urban centres more than in the rural areas in my view? So, how come these cities with their large population do not have such cases? Is it an accurate assessment or there was something wrong in the observation that was made, either by your Ministry or whoever gave you that piece of information?
(v) *HON. GONESE: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker. I want to begin by commending both the Portfolio Committee and the Hon. Minister for bringing these very important issues for our attention. My point of clarification relates to the cases of rape which the Hon. Minister referred to. I want to find out what efforts the Ministry has taken to make a follow-up to ascertain the outcome of those reports. I know that usually cases may be reported but sometimes because of various reasons like poor investigation, poor prosecution, sometimes witnesses not turning up, some of those cases do not result in conviction. I want to find out what the Ministry is doing as a follow-up to find out what is the outcome of those cases.
THE MINISTER OF WOMEN’S AFFAIRS, COMMUNITY, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT (HON. S. NYONI): I do not understand what he wants me to follow up.
HON. GONESE: To find out what will be the outcome of the report they gave, because you made reference Hon. Minister to reported cases of allegations of rape and I am now referring to the outcome. Previously, a lot of those cases actually resulted in conviction because such cases people get acquitted because of various reasons which are poor investigation and others - so I want to find out whether the Ministry is making a follow-up to find out what the outcome of those cases has been and what steps are being taken to ensure that those cases which are reported are prosecuted.
The Hon. Minister having indicated that she cannot clearly hear what Hon. Gonese wanted her to do.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Gonese, you can write that on our chat platform and the Minister will go and do the fact finding and come with the response later.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. Let me begin by actually expressing my appreciation for the presentation and respond rather to the report of the Committee, Hon. Madiwa. I think many times we have bemoaned the absence of responses and the knowledge shared by the Minister in terms of us getting back to the people so that everyone else is knowledgeable and I want to appreciate that. Thank you Hon. Minister, through you Madam Speaker for the responses and the information.
Perhaps really just for the Minister to shed light where she mentioned that survivors must seek help in terms of GBV if they are victims. Today I am not a victim but I may be a victim tomorrow, the same as you or anyone else out there. What are the modalities in place for the public that they would know in terms of access to this particular information so that it reaches out to the people and where they can actually seek the help? Perhaps that was not very clear in terms of the presentation.
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. Thank you Hon. Minister for the presentation. In your presentation you indicated that some girls are now in matrimony under the age of 18, what have you done as a Ministry to make sure that the perpetrators are brought to book?
HON. DR. LABODE: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam for this opportunity. I want to thank Hon. Minister Nyoni for a very elaborate report. Hon. Speaker in the past two weeks, Hon. Madiwa the Chair for the Committee raised an issue of teenage pregnancies and child marriages. The following week, we received a report from Hon. Misiharabwi-Mushonga the Chairperson of Education Committee, bemoaning the same issue that they discovered a lot of school drop outs at primary schools due to pregnancies. Today Minister Nyoni has also emphasised on that.
What I am saying Madam Speaker is that we have received reports and we all know one of the reason why we have such a huge number of one in five young people getting pregnant below the age of 18. It is because of a law in Section 36 of the Public Health Act that restricts a person under 18 years from seeking something that will prevent them from getting pregnant while they are sexually active, that is where the problem is. Oliver Mtukudzi said in one of the songs, kuseri kweguva hakuna munamato Minister, shandisai mazano. We know children are dying because of getting pregnant and are unable to deliver because they are too young. They are dying because of abortion but we have decided – tichangochema, zviri right, we need to do something. Thank you Minister for a brilliant report.
(v)*HON. CHIKUNI: Thank you Hon. Minister for the report. My worry now is because of lack of awareness of the GBV victims’ assistance which will lead to corruption and abuse of these funds by Provincial and District Officers. Who will follow up to check if the resources are used for the intended purpose and in this case gender based violence assistance
*HON. DR. NYASHANU: Thank you Madam Speaker for according me this opportunity. I want to thank Hon. Minister Nyoni for tabling this report in this august House. I want to add my voice on the issues raised. The Ministry which she is leading is very important when we are focusing on the issues to do with women and the girl child, but I want to plead with her that the job is not properly done. There are many things which must be looked into by this Ministry but in our constituencies, we see that there are many loopholes and a lot of things need to be done.
I want to tell her since we have met in this august House that your Ministry is not performing properly. We do not see your representatives in different constituencies, showing that they are doing what they are expected to do on issues to do with gender based violence, violence on women and children. We must work on finding ways to end gender based violence, not to reduce the rates of gender based violence. When the mother is being violated, the rights of a child are also violated. Therefore, we are saying Minister you have got a lot of work to do. We want to see your subordinates, your core-workers doing a lot on the ground so that we can eliminate GBV. Thank you.
HON, T. MLISWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. My point of clarity is I did not hear men or boys being mentioned in terms of the GBV. Is it just women because men are being beaten by women and young boys are being abused. So much is happening as the desperation of the husband not being there and young boys under the age of 16 are taken to fill the gap. I did not hear that. We have graduated to a point where it is the women who are beating up the men more than the men beating up the women. I did not hear of such statistics because men are shy to go and report to the police because within the community they will be a laughing stock.
Men do not want to be exposed and in our language and culture, chakafukidza dzimba matenga. Men are suffering and young boys are suffering. The Minister can tell us in terms of their findings and their research where we are at as a country in terms of the abuse of women by men, the abuse of small boys by women and so forth. I just wanted clarity on that. Thank you.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I would like to thank the Hon. Minister for bringing up her report on this important issue affecting women, community affairs and gender in the communities that we serve. Like what Hon. Nyashanu has just said, the representation by ward coordinators in the constituencies that we serve is very low. In some instances, it is less than 20% and we think that awareness really becomes an issue. Women and girl children out there are just not aware of their rights and they are not aware of where they should go.
Some of the statistics might appear to be impressive, but perhaps it has to do with inadequate reporting or inadequate gathering of information. I also want to implore or appeal to the Hon. Minister that the shelters for women and girl children should be put up in every district if possible. In my case, this has been under construction and this is the second year now. These are NGOs, Msasa Project is trying to assist, but we are not seeing the Government doing something about it. We urge the Hon. Minister to take this as a very important aspect of her Ministry that the shelters are run by the Ministry. NGOs can come in to assist because they may come with their different agendas. We implore that all districts should have sufficient ward coordinators and they are educated appropriately.
The Ministry is very huge and only encompass anything you can think of in the community and really touches on this particular Ministry. We applaud the work that they are doing but I think they are limited in terms of resources. Again mobility - each time we want to take them for projects, they appeal to you as the Member of Parliament to carry them because they would probably have one vehicle and where there are so many wards, it is difficult to cover everyone and go to other areas. So they need to be resourced adequately. I thank you Madam Speaker. *HON. ZEMURA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I would want to start by thanking the Minister for the report which she has presented. I have a concern that a lot of children were abused during the lockdown and this was not entirely their fault or anyone’s fault. It is because of the environment which they found themselves in during the COVID-19 period. Girls from Form 1 to Form 4 were pregnant and we were forcing some of them to go and write their examinations despite their pregnancies. The abuse that was forced on women during the lockdown period - we urge the Ministry to come up with the statistics. The majority of these girls dropped out of school and their education has been affected but the boys wrote their examinations. This means that the women are disadvantaged in terms of education. It is my plea that whilst the girl child has delivered, they should be allowed to attend school and be given breast feeding time. This was caused by COVID-19 war. I thank you.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. May I thank the Hon. Minister for the presentation. May I seek clarification on two issues, the first concerns capacitation of officials working for one-stop shop? To what extent has your Ministry benefited from the 2021 Budget? Now that the Minister of Finance is now here, what has the Ministry benefited in as far as purchasing of off road vehicles is concerned.
The second and last question is that I heard shocking statistics of the number of teenage pregnancies in Mashonaland Central when there is zero cases in Matebeleland North. What could be the reason in your analysis or from the study that was done?
(v)HON. MAHLANGU: My question is, is it not proper to allow children to use protective measures so that they protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and HIV. Thank you.
HON. MAVETERA: I want to take this opportunity to applaud the Hon. Minister for coming up with the Sexual Harassment Act principles. I am sure that is a step in the right direction. Thank you very much Hon. Minister. However, let me now seek clarification. The first one is to do with sexual harassment. If you look at it Hon. Minister, what is it that you are doing in terms of rape cases? Have you made a follow-up? For example during this COVID period, what is it that you have done as a Ministry so that at least we do not get a lot of people coming up and reporting and then they withdraw because of certain issues. What plan have you put in place so that at least we get a conclusion when it comes to rape cases in this country?
The second issue is we have had a statement from His Excellency whereby he said that there is going to be a provision of 30% in local councils. What is it that you have done as a Ministry to make sure that this is implemented and executed towards making sure that we get 30% women representation in local councils – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I do not know if may be my memory is a bit skewed. Did we not pass a law in this House that young girls could be pregnant and go to school? Has that not also made it worse? I thought we passed a law in this House. The reason why I am raising a point of order is that some of the laws that we pass as Hon. Members here, come to eat us again. We debated strongly on it and there was a law, so because there is a law, what stops a young girl from being pregnant when knowing that she can go to school?
I am just trying to remind the august House that we passed a law here that young girls could be pregnant and go to school. May we just think about that? Was that good for us to pass that law? We passed that law in this House. So what stops them from being pregnant when they are young knowing that they can go to school. It is a law, they cannot be arrested and they cannot be stopped from going to school. So, some of these laws do put us into trouble. Let us really think about it.
THE MINISTER OF WOMEN’S AFAFIRS, COMMUNITY, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (HON. DR. NYONI): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank the Hon, Members for the questions they have asked and some have also proffered very good suggestions. The first one I think came from Hon. Nduna who asked a question about what we are doing together with the Ministry of Education for non-payment of fees, overcrowding in houses and also the Ministry of Agriculture for lack of water.
The answer is that we all have common responsibility. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, I think has also to make sure that the girl child is facilitated. On the overcrowding of housing and that it is now causing the young people to get pregnant; I would like the House to know that Government is now doing a lot about housing. Very soon we are going to see improvement especially in the towns and growth points. We want to acknowledge that in the inner cities, it is very true that there is really crowding which may cause young people to get pregnant because there is very little privacy.
The Chief Whip asked why I think Bulawayo and Harare had low figures and yet there is so much violence and so much promiscuity in those towns. Madam Speaker, this was just for these statistics which are huge and frightening. They were only for two months and were given to us by the ZRP, but I want to agree with the Chief Whip that it is not conclusive. It does not mean to say that Bulawayo and Harare do not have these criminals. It just means that during this time of the survey, this is what came out and I do not think that we need to relax just because of that.
Hon. Gonese, I want to thank you for your question and really apologise because there were a lot of echoes. Should you write your question down, we will be able to answer. Hon. Mpariwa, your question was survivors must seek help at one-stop-centres, how do they get to know where to go. The Ministry tries to communicate through our officers, the media, our website but I want to agree that we are not doing enough, we need really to do more. Now we are making arrangements that we need to put pamphlets out there so that people know in each village, district what is gender based violence and if it happens, where do you go and also put some phone numbers so that they can report.
It is very important also that we send messages of non-tolerance of gender based violence and that gender based violence, the survivors and the services that need to be given and stopping it is a responsibility of everyone. The Deputy Chief Whip asked that girls in matrimony, what have we done to the perpetrators? Madam Speaker, I think there is a law that when people report, the police will take the case. What we have really done is that we have victim friendly police that take these cases, but I want to admit that because there are just so many cases, some of them delay until justice is not done properly.
I think we want to applaud the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and also the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development that we are now having victim friendly courts in every district and I think this is going to help. We want to encourage that perpetrators need to be brought to book because if perpetrators are not dealt with, this makes people think that this is child’s play.
Hon. Labode also had echoes, but I think she really made more comments than questions. Her question was, what are we really doing? We have statistics all over about abuse and gender based violence, what are we doing and her emphasis was that we need to do something and we need to do more. I would not agree with her more.
Hon. Chikuni talked about lack of awareness. I think I have already said indeed we cannot have enough awareness. The Ministry is aware of this and I want the Hon. House to be aware also that the lockdowns that we have had the whole year last year has really blocked communication in terms of reaching out to the people but a lot of efforts are being made and we need to do more to make sure that awareness is built.
Hon. Nyashanu, thank you very much. You are right when you say we are not very visible on the ground, because if we were doing what we were really supposed to be doing on the ground we would be breaking the lockdown. There was a lockdown, we were not allowed to go out, our officers were not allowed to go to communities and they were not allowed to hold meetings. I want to appeal for your understanding that once the lockdown is lifted, please call us to your constituency. We will be there and our best will be done.
Hon. Mliswa, thank you very much and you are right that I did not mention more about men but when we talk about gender based violence, when we talk about gender, we talk about both men and women, but maybe what you should have said is that we should have really disaggregated the statistics and said of these 300, so many were women and so many were men. I want to agree with you that we are having a society where both men and women are victimising each other and sometimes you have woman to woman or man to man and it is all gender based violence and we need to condemn it in its entirety. It does not matter whether it is done by a woman to a man or a man to a woman, it is wrong because we need to respect each other.
Hon. Mayihlome, the coordinators are very low. I think I have answered this. Yes, they are very low. I think Hon. Members will also be aware that we are still recruiting so that we have more ward coordinators but if they are there and their work is not visible, I hope you understand that it is because of lockdown and thereafter we will make sure that they move. You also mentioned that you see private partners and not Government. There is no private partner or NGO that can work a Ministry’s programme without the agreement of a Ministry and we do not want to duplicate, so that if Msasa Project is building a shelter the Ministry also comes there to build a shelter. That is a duplication of resources. So I think what we need to do is to make sure that what Msasa Project is doing is according to the regulations of Government but Msasa Project is in Umzingwani because we have various partners and we allocate them various areas.
Hon. Zemura, thank you very much also for your question that girls get pregnant, what is now going to happen to them. You are correct Honourable that this really reduces the number of educated girls and some girls do not really dare to go back to school. They get discouraged, shy and they need a parent, they need communities to encourage them to pick up from where they have fallen. You are right that the boys will go to school. I think yes, let us encourage those boys to go to school so that we should not punish the boys and punish the girls because we will then be destroying the society. What we should really do is that both of them, when they have fallen, we must as society help them to rise up, to get up and to go back and resume their education because education for children is very important, but I agree with you that when a girl gets pregnant, it is very rare and very difficult for her to keep up with the boys.
Hon. T. Moyo, thank you for your question and I am glad that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development is here. Yes, we did budget for one-stop-centres and I am glad that our budget, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development gave us but as always, it is not enough and we hope that as we want to expand the programme, we budgeted not only for the one stop centres but also for off road vehicles so that we can reach out; thank you very much. We have got seven and we still have seven to buy. The budget is there but we need more money for one stop centres and for the strategies that we have put to present GBV such as economic empowerment for women.
What is the reason that we have more child marriages in Mashonaland Centres and less in Matabeleland North – this is something we are still going into; some of it could be overcrowding or cultural differences or even overpopulation. We are working very hard to ensure that this trend in Mashonaland Central is reversed.
Hon. Mahlangu, you said since young people engage in sexual activities they get pregnant and get diseases – should we not allow them to have prevention. I think this is a catch 22 question. I remember this question is still being debated; do we allow our children to have access to contraceptives or do we need to have sex education. I think that is a debate that is ongoing.
Hon. Mavetera spoke about harassment, whether we have made any follow up on rape cases. Yes we have and a lot of rape cases are very complicated because the courts have not been functioning at full throttle. Because of that, a lot of these cases have delayed. The more they delay, the more the people feel discouraged. I know of people who have travelled from the rural areas to the courts in town only to find the courts closed. I think we need to make sure that these people are followed up and they do not give up until the perpetrators are brought to book.
We want to thank His Excellency on the 30% of local authorities. A lot is being done. My Ministry through the Gender and Mainstreaming Department are trying to work with all stakeholders, civil society and also political parties to ensure that more women are involved in politics and we hope that this 30% will be achieved.
Hon. Mliswa, you said we made this law here – was it not encouraging; I do not think so. I think what we were trying to do is to really deal with the victims and not the prostitutes because if children then decide to go and get pregnant, I think that is different from children that really want to go to school and are disciplined but circumstances like lockdown or anything else forced them to do that. I think we need to protect them and make sure that they then go to school and that their future is not spoiled because of the mishap that was beyond their control. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(V)HON. PHULU: I would like to thank the Hon. Minister for a comprehensive report on gender based violence (GBV) during this lockdown period. One knows that it is an unsolicited report and we would like to thank her for that. There are a lot of things that I wanted to dwell on but they have been covered. I will zero in on one item.
Perhaps time has come for us to zero-in on GBV which we are seeing on the internet. We see people being assaulted and all sorts of drama. The clubs are watching and celebrating what is in fact GBV or domestic violence. In their investigations in the Ministry, do they have a unit that follows up or recommends on instances of violence that we see happening online because people violate each other online on a regular basis. That is my concern and to also underline the concern raised by Hon. Mliswa to say, disaggregation of statistics as the Minister has pointed out would be very important because the boy child and men are also suffering. We would want to see how these statistics are moving.
In terms of the recommendation, the action part of this report resides in other ministries. We would want to hear other ministries such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education responding to this report in terms of what steps they are taking to deal with these issues.
HON. TOFFA: I would first of all want to thank the Hon. Minister for presenting this important report to us which is eye opening and quite shocking considering that it is a report from two months.
What effort is your Ministry or Government going to take to alleviate and support the families from which these children come from? I know we are just talking statistics and people have asked about what would be done but I am looking at the situation we are in now. What are we going to do to help these children? We are talking about gender based violence. If Government does not come a step forward, I can see more GBV coming up because obviously the parents are going to be fighting, blaming each other and because people live from hand to mouth and cannot even afford to help themselves, now there comes this extra burden where this child needs maternity, food – the young girl needs to buy baby clothing and so forth. I would like to suggest that Government quickly looks into this. They have the statistics of the young girls and obviously know where they are because you would not just come up with numbers and maybe speak to the Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Finance to see how you can actually help. This must be a concerted and joint effort to help the situation, like other Hon. Members have said that it was not planned. It just happened and we need to seriously consider and make sure that the young girls who engaged in sexual activities must have access to SRHR health facilities. Madam Speaker, whilst the Minister spoke about following up rape after an Hon. Member had asked, I think this needs to be looked into as a matter of urgency because sometimes a young girl has been raped. Surely, we know that a young girl cannot carry in most cases to full term. We need something to be done so that the girls can have abortion.
THE HON DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon Toffa, you do not have to debate. Please ask your point of clarification.
HON. TOFFA: I was proffering a solution. I have already asked my question to say, what will Government do with regards to the young girls that are pregnant and the welfare of the whole family needs to be looked into so as to avoid further gender based violence?
HON NYAMUDEZA: I would like to thank the Minister for a good report. My question is that, have you ever considered roping in traditional leaders and councilors to help you on gender based violence awareness campaigns?
HON TSUNGA: I too join my colleagues in thanking and congratulating the Hon Minister for a beautiful report which is quite informative and providing some introspection into those tasked with ensuring the safety of our young girls. My point of clarification relates to the increased instances of transactional sex that our young girls are engaging in recent years including trafficking that we have also seen in recent years and months. What is her Ministry doing to increase access, ownership and control of sustainable livelihood activities by women and girls in an effort to reduce gender based violence because in many a case, such indulgence in transactional sex is a result of the absence and lack of activities by young girls and women.
HON. M. M. MPOFU: Is there any counseling session for those who have been abused because due to the lockdown, there was a lot of child labour taking place in the homes? There was a lot of conflict between children and parents because of staying together for a long time.
HON. MAPHOSA: My issue has been slightly touched on by Hon Mpofu but my clarification is; is there support for the victims, for instance let us say their issue has been taken to court and it is now over. Is there support system for the victims after reporting and when they go back to their relatives and friends where they would have been abused? What support systems are there so that those victims are not further victimised when they get home?
My second clarification is on the police side when people are reporting GBV. I have noticed that the police do not do what they were doing before, to say when you want to report about the issue, they say please go back home and even in the courts they now say, go through the courts. I want to understand if the Minister can or if she can refer me to the Ministry of Home Affairs to say, is there a policy or a circular for every issue that comes to the police station to do with gender based violence that might not be treated as a civil matter but as a criminal matter because some of it would have been injured or morally let down.
HON. DR. S. NYONI: Let me thank Hon Members once again for the questions that they asked and also some of the suggestions that were made. The first question was on the support for the need to disaggregate statistics and also to work very closely with other ministries such as Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Health. I think this is very important and the point is taken.
Hon Toffa, you are right that there is need for the Ministry to make an effort to work with families and the comments that you made. Your point is also taken that we need to work very closely with the Ministry of Social Welfare because ours would be to attend and prevent gender based violence by all means possible including empowering girls, boys and families. After that the Ministry of Health when there are health issues takes over. When there are psycho-social issues, the Ministry of Social Welfare takes over and when there are social services related issues, the Ministry of Social Welfare takes over. I think I want to thank you. We need to strengthen this relationship.
Hon. Nyamudeza, thank you very much. We need to work very closely with councillors, especially the fact that they are on the ground, they could be a very useful resource. Hon. Tsunga, thank you for your question and suggestion. You asked what we are doing because really this GBV is increasing and one of the major causes is poverty, to summarise. So what are we doing to make sure that girls and women are engaged in livelihoods that will give them the dignity or prevent this?
One of my Ministry’s mandates is to do community development and we have got community development funds in which if any family or group of people find a livelihood possibility, we are there to fund and assist them. When the lockdown is over, we want to galvanize our coordinators at ward level to work with families to ensure that livelihoods are enhanced because I am sure that is where the crux of the matter is, that people need to be supported for better livelihoods. That is one of the things that my Ministry is looking into. Hon. Mpofu, yes we need counselling services for both parents and children, especially after GBV has occurred or a girl gets pregnant at home and parents usually start fighting - we need to have counselling services and this is also where we work with Social Welfare.
The next question was on what happens after issues have been taken to court. What support services are the families given? Like I said, there is a thin line. If it is something to do with economic empowerment, the Ministry takes over but if it is something to do with social welfare or health issues then we take it to the Ministry of Social Welfare. Thank you.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 35 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 36 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON WOMEN AFFAIRS, COMMUNITY, SMEs DEVELOPMENT ON FACT FINDING VISITS TO ASCERTAIN LEVEL OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY RELATED TO SGBV AND COVID-19
Thirty-Sixth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development on public service delivery related to SGBV and COVID-19 in Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
(v)HON. MADIWA: Let me from the onset thank you Hon. Minister for a job well done in coming to present the statement in response to the report that was tabled by the Portfolio Committee on Women’s Affairs, Community and Small and Medium Enterprises. Let me say the Minister made all the efforts to respond to all the questions raised and I am glad that the Minister appreciates in accepting the recommendations that were made by the Portfolio Committee.
Madam Speaker, let me highlight that GBV undermines the health, dignity, security and autonomy of the victims, yet it remains shrouded in the culture of society. Victims of violation suffer as highlighted by the Minister sexual reproductive health consequences and I am glad that the Minister is looking at all these issues. Let me thank the Hon. Members of Parliament for making various suggestions and highlighting all these issues for Government’s attention. I am glad that the Government through the Minister is going to look at all the issues that have been raised by Members of Parliament.
I now move that this House takes note of the report of the Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development on the fact finding visits to ascertain the level of public service delivery related to SGBV and COVID-19 in Zimbabwe.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that we revert back to Order of the Day Number 5 on Today’s Order Paper.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
RATIFICATION OF THE LOAN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF ZIMBABWE AND THE ARAB BANK FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA (BADEA) RELATING TO URGENT RESPONSE OPERATION TO FIGHT COVID-19
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): THAT WHEREAS, Section 327 (3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that an Agreement which is not an international treaty but which has been concluded or executed by the President or under the President’s authority with one or more foreign organizations or entities and imposes fiscal obligations on Zimbabwe does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by Parliament;
AND WHEREAS, the Loan Agreement between Government of Zimbabwe and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) relating to Urgent Response Operation to Fight COVID-19 concluded 28 August 2020 to be implemented through the Ministry of Health and Child Care; and
NOW THEREFORE, in terms of Section 327 (3) of the Constitution, this House resolves that the aforesaid Agreement be and is hereby approved.
This Madam Speaker Maam is a 10 million USD loan. We are borrowing this money from the BADEA, the interest rate is 2% per annum and the grace period for the loan is five years. The tenure of the loan 25 years and the Government will repay the principal in 40 semi- annual installments where the repayments paid within 30 days of the due date will attract a 0, 25% discount on the interest rate – so this is attractive indeed.
The project is really meant to support the current efforts to fight the pandemic and therefore reduce the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. Specifically, it will target the prevention and fighting COVID-19 including procurement of diagnostic equipment and medical supplies; it will target equipping of laboratories including procurement of equipment and personal protective supplies and finally the procurement of medicines. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Hon. Minister, are there any terms in terms of interest, is there any collateral attachment of minerals and so forth? We have seen quite a lot of these loans happening, the next thing would be a certain farm, land and so forth was given.
(v)HON. DR. LABODE: Madam Speaker Maam, I am concerned with this our borrowing, especially towards COVID-19. I would have been more comfortable if the Minister would have brought-in before, his report on all the donations we have received and what they have been used for specifically regarding COVID-19.
I am still uncomfortable and I will sound like a broken record; we have now received everything that was supposed to be purchased by the 45 million USD from Global Fund. That is the only donation I know. So I am really thinking, as Zimbabweans, we were told immediately after we queried, the ZACC reported that there were test kits found in Bulawayo stolen worth $12 000. Do we want to be borrowing for certain individuals somewhere then to come and steal?
When the Ministry reported on drugs, NATPHAM seemed to have adequate drugs for COVID and I was even worried that they might expire on us. So my concern is what exactly are we going to use this money for? Let us not get ourselves in debt unnecessarily.
HON. MARKHAM: I just want to back up what Hon. Labode said. I think the Minister should give us a reconciliation of all money borrowed in the name of COVID and donated in the name of COVID and what it has been used for.
HON. CHIDAKWA: Before we talk about borrowing for COVID-19, there must be clarity and audit on what all the money which was borrowed was used for. Was the money even used for the intended purpose? May the Minister of Finance and Economic Development bring a Ministerial Statement on the money used and money donated by other countries to help us fight the pandemic? I thank you.
HON. A. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker related to that, I remember vividly at some point that the Minister allocated an equivalent of 10 million dollars to COVID research. It will be interesting for him to break this down as to what research is being undertaken under COVID in our country because I honestly feel that any research that we will be doing is as good as reinventing the wheel. I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I thank Hon. Mliswa for his question, very pertinent, on the structure of this loan. Is it linked to commodity, minerals or land? The answer is no. This is a plain vanilla concessionary loan. As I said, the tenure is 25 years, so we will pay it over 25 years. We have a 5 year grace period permission and any payment of interest on time, the interest is 2% per annum. If we pay our interest on time within 30 days that it is due, we get a point two five percent discount. Actually, the effective interest rate for paying on time is 75 percent and it is not backed by commodities or indeed land, plain vanilla loan.
Hon. Dr. Labode, said look, we have received some donations from various partners which is very welcome and what is the status of those because now we are borrowing and so forth. Yes the partners have donated monies towards COVID-19 to the tune of US$220 million but the release of these resources is at their pace, at their choosing and the time is also in their choosing and these resources, by the way, do not go through our budget. We do not sit here as Parliament to deliberate over it and approve because it is outside the budget. We have allowed them to do that also because they have made that request to manage it outside the budget. So, most of the donors would use an agent such as UNOPS and others. So, we have no control in terms of pace of deployment of critical resources when we need them. The advantage of what we have before us, the US$10m, it looks small but this is a high impact concessional loan Madam Speaker, very high impact in targeting COVID-19. We have control if we needed to know the areas where it will be used.
I did outline this in the sense of diagnostic equipment, medical supplies that we procured and then equipment for our laboratories and some medical equipment as well. Here, we are now trying to also acquire some vaccines to inoculate our citizens and all of us. These resources could; some of it, find their way there. So just give us more flexibility and more options and I do not think US$10m is a really painful amount for the nation also given the tenure of 25 years, 5 year grace period as well as favourable concessionary interest rate.
Let me turn to the question of Hon. Markham, he talked about reconciliation of all the COVID-19 donations. We cannot give you a reconciliation. All I can talk about is tell you how much they have pledged and how much they have given us so far but I cannot tell you the detail because the donors themselves control that. We have allowed them to do that because they are managing these resources outside the budgetary process, outside our monitoring systems. Hon. Markham, so far they have disbursed half of what they pledged. So it is just over US$110m worth of resources that have been disbursed.
If I can link that back to the question by Dr Labode, she asked about Global Fund sources, so far the Global Fund sources have given us PPEs and equipment and other support for COVID-19 to the tune of US$17.5 out of the 45 million that they had pledged and this is welcome. We expect that in the next quarter we will receive probably equipment to the tune of another US$12.5 million and then the last US$15m or so later in the year or even early next year but this is at the pace of the donor and the ability to disburse. The US$10m that I am requesting here, once it is received, then we can move faster because we will be in control.
Hon. Ndebele asked about resources set aside for research and that we are perhaps duplicating and so forth, I think here he is asking about a different port of resources and I think that we always say look R and D is very critical, we should support our universities. I think that if they choose to research on COVID-19, which they have done among other things, that is a good thing because of the little that I know not being a scientist that research opens up, vaccine research for other types of viruses and not just the COVID-19 virus, it is just an entry point.
So the fact that our universities are researching, it is a good thing and I think that we should support them, it is important that they contribute fully to our health and delivery system by providing the knowledge base plus developing these vaccines. I thank you.
(v) HON. MARKHAM: On a point of order Madam Speaker Ma’am.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): What is your point of order Hon. Markham.
HON. MARKHAM: Did the Minister not say he cannot reconcile what has been donated. In other words, donors do what they want with the money. Can he just confirm that? I am sorry my line was bad?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: He did not say that. Okay let him respond. Hon. Minister Hon. Markham needs clarity on what you said previously concerning the money for donors. Did you say you cannot account or you can account? What is the position concern the money from donors?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: The money from donors does not come to Government, so I cannot account for it. Only the donors can account for it. So we would have to ask them one by one to see how much they have donated, how they have done it, where has it been targeted? So, this is how we work, each time we do a budget, we do this round with them where we request that information and then we are able to share that information. We do not account the information and we do not even control it. We have given them that permission because that is what they have requested. So, we thought look, if the resources are going to our citizens, why should we not allow them to supplement what we are trying to do in terms of budgetary process, we do not account for those sources.
(V)HON. MARKHAM: Sorry Madam Speaker, I heard him saying he has been given US$10 million dollars.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: That is why the Minister said you can then request that from the donors because as far as it is concerned, he said that the money does not come to Government. So, if money does not come to Government, there is no way he is able to account, according to what the Hon. Minister said now.
(v) HON. MARKHAM: Madam Speaker, what he has just said, I find incredulous.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: That is not parliamentary language Hon. Markham. I am sure he has lost connectivity, we cannot proceed more with him, he wanted to indulge you but unfortunately his network is bad.
Motion put and agreed to.
(V)HON. NDEBELE: You left us out of the conversation because you were muted all along and I think that it is deliberate.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): My apologies. Unfortunately, it was due to network connectivity since we do not create it.
(V)HON. NDEBELE: I had my hand up and you deliberately muted us out of that conversation in the House.
HON. MAVETERA: My apologies Hon. Anele Ndebele, everything was in order. I am sure that it was due to network connectivity on your side. Thank you.
(V)HON. NDEBELE: You saw that I had my hand up and you ignored me and went on to mute us out.
HON. MAVETERA: Hon. Ndebele, your hand was up from where you were and I am sure that network was problematic there. There is no way that I can create or stop the network from doing what it can do. So I am sure that it was a network challenge and I am sorry about that. We are going to proceed. Thank you.
MOTION
RATIFICATION OF THE LOAN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF ZIMBABWE AND THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF INDIA RELATING TO HWANGE UNITS THERMAL POWER STATION LIFE EXTENSION PROJECT
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Madam Speaker, I move the motion standing in my name;
THAT WHEREAS, Subsection (3) of Section 327 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that an Agreement which is not an international treaty but which has been concluded or executed by the President or under the President’s authority with one or more foreign organisations or entities and imposes fiscal obligations on Zimbabwe does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by Parliament;
AND WHEREAS, the Loan Agreement between Government of Zimbabwe and the Export - Import Bank of India relating to Hwange Units Thermal Power Station Life Extension Project being implemented by Zimbabwe Power Company concluded on 24 February 2020; and
NOW THEREFORE, in terms of Section 327 (3) of the Constitution, this House resolves that the aforesaid Agreement be and is hereby approved.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, with your indulgence, I will elaborate on this loan agreement. The Hwange Power Station has an installed capacity of 920MW comprising of six units that were commissioned in two phases as follows: - Stage One which is a four by 120MW was commissioned in 1983 to 86 during that period. Then Stage Two which was 220MW units were commissioned between 1986 and 1987. The units were operated beyond their life expectation of 30 years. Hwange Thermal Power Station is currently generating an average of 300MW which is less that 50% of its capacity to produce. Reduction in the plant is mainly attributed to the age of the plant and lack of regular scheduled maintenance due to lack of resources. Plant rehabilitation initiatives have been undertaken since 2009.
However, due to its age, the plant now has high and frequent emergency shut downs for unplanned repair works. Cognisant of the above, the Zimbabwe Power Company approached Treasury to secure resources to undertake life extension with the purpose of restoring the power station’s capacity back to 880MWs and to further extend the life of the power station by a further 20 years. The total cost of the rehabilitation programme is estimated at USD$440 million. USD$125 million has so far been secured from Standard Bank and Exim Bank – so it is USD$50 million from Standard Bank and USD$75 million from Exim Bank.
An additional USD$310 million has since been secured and that is what we are on about this afternoon in this presentation. So in response to ZPC’s request for funding for the project, the Government negotiated and signed USD$310 million line of credit agreement with the Export and Import Bank of India which was concluded on 24th February, 2020 for Hwange One to Six thermal power station life extension project. The loan will be utilised towards the procurement of a project management consultant and the rehabilitation of Hwange One to Six thermal power stations. The rehabilitation project entails upgrade and general overhaul of turbines and boilers as well as the auxiliaries of boilers and turbines.
The line of credit from the Export and Import Bank of India has the following terms and conditions:- the loan amount is USD$310 million; the interest is 1.75% per annum; there is a commitment fee of half a percent (1/2%) on the undrawn balance; the management fee of 0.5% and this is a once off payment and there is a default rate of 2% should there be any default. The facility will be online to the Zimbabwe Power Corporation at the same terms and conditions of the facility from the India Exim Bank. The Zimbabwe Power Company will be responsible for the repayment of the loan directly to the India Exim Bank as well as the payment of the management and commitment fees.
The benefits of the project Madam Speaker Ma’am, are on improved power output. So it is really reduction of the supply demand gap especially experienced during the peak hours. There has been increase in Zimbabwe’s power generation, reliability and efficiency. There will be reduction in power imports thus reducing demand on foreign currency. There will be improvement in the plant efficiency and it will also go a long way in reducing fuel consumption. There will be reduced cost of energy production, reduced consumption of chemicals and consumables from the existing generating facilities. The increased power supply will ensure sustained economic growth and development as energy is a key enabler and not only jobs will be created – both skilled and unskilled and downstream benefits will accrue to the local industries and related value chain. I thank you.
HON. GABBUZA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Obviously and naturally nobody can deny Government to borrow in order to boost our power generation. Certain questions or several questions arise Madam Speaker, which I would wish the Hon. Minister to answer.
When you look at USD$440 million, is there no scope in coming up with a new power station that will generate almost close to what we are trying to resuscitate because the Hon. Minister says that power station was commissioned in 1980 and since then has been operating under a lot of heat. Definitely, trying to resuscitate something that has been burning since 1980 is not wise because the generation on thermal is about heat, heat day and night. Is it not worth reconsidering coming up with a plant that perhaps with USD$440 million, would give us close to the capacity that they are aiming to generate?
The second issue is, who will refurbish the power station? We see that this is money that is coming from India, is it not going to be a situation where the same Indians will come and bid for the project, refurbish and take back the money, instead of putting it at competitive bid because we have such projects undergoing similar arrangements. The country or the nationals bring in their everybody - no local employment, no benefit except for the power station which will be left to us but the money goes back. We have various examples, like the G5 road construction. None of the Zimbabweans benefited. The same South Africans gave us the money - follow it and take it back.
Then lastly, you are talking of US$440 million, obviously negotiations were done before the recent damage that took place on Unit 1. Will that not entail extra amounts now that there has been the burning of Unit 1 which caused substantial damages to it but it is outside the US$440 million? Are they not going to ask for extra monies to top up so that it covers extra damages that were caused about two/three weeks back? Thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. MARKHAM Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is; are there other loan agreements other than with China-Exim bank that you have entered into? Secondly, do you still owe them money?
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. The Minister certainly is trying to do his best by ensuring that there is power. There is the Batoka programme, the Kariba as well. There are many programmes that are supposed to be generating power. We are equally looking into solar and I am saying to myself, we are well positioned for that and in terms of priority and sustainability, the green energy we are talking about, US$440 million, putting a solar plant, what does that do to us? Has that been considered because we seem to be approached for things that are on their way out in terms of lifespan. They are nearing the end but we are putting in money there as Hon. Gabbuza said. What other options have come through and what measures have been taken to ensure that this is the most competitive price that we have?
Do we have the Chinese as we ought to say to them if you have to do this, how much will it cost? We have Russians, the Americans, the Indians we have done that and there are many power houses from an economic point of view. Have we gone that far or India came and we are quite grateful because they just said this is what we want to give you without also looking out? The issue Madam Speaker, is the debt that the country has is so much and what we will leave for generations to come is just debt. The resources that we have had, we have not even done much in terms of showing that they sustain programmes and so forth. We have economic blueprints which talk about programme 1, 2, 3 but we keep moving. It is a pot which is leaking and that leak is corruption. Whatever we are putting in the pot is leaking. So, at what point are we now going to have a situation where the resources that we have put into Treasury are enough to sustain this country?
Maybe we dream, maybe we have not quantified the resources. The very same Hwange area, I do not know whether the Minister is aware of that. It constantly parcels out to people who will be speculating. Billy Rautenbach was given Todal mine in terms of platinum and he sold it. Now he was given western area, which is the future of Hwange; he is going to speculate again. Why do we not also give resources to our own people to speculate and make money in their own country? We seem not to be putting our own first and we continuously remain in this problem.
The rate of borrowing is a bit too much, it is worrisome. We still have resources but why do we not then quantify our resources to say what does India want in terms of resources. The problem is we are giving a lot more resources to people for nothing. Coral Resources is there, we talk about a $12 billion mining industry, Coral Resources came in, a briefcase company that did not help the Minister at all yet it is a resource if you find people with capacity. It can generate income where we are now able to put it in our own thing. So, Madam Speaker, it is important that the Minister finds it in himself. I know he has the heart for this country but the borrowings and resources – do we not have people whom we can sell these resources to?
We have spoken of privatisation of companies, that we must privatise so that we also earn money. Most of the Government parastatals are not functioning; they are not doing well. What have they done to go on? They go on fundraising to also dispose Government assets which are not viable at all? I thank you.
HON. GABBUZA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I just want one point of clarification from the Minister. The world over, people are worried about thermal power stations. They are offloading them because there is an international cry for clean energy. So many developed countries are offloading, throwing away all this dead thermal power stations. My fear with this deal is, is there no possibility that we are being given a loan so that we buy again the dead thermal power station that they do not need and then pay an interest on the same? How will you guard against such because if you are going to engage the same Indians to refurbish Hwange, they will bring what they no longer need? What they are offloading and throwing away, they are selling charging us? Can the Minister make a comment, how are they guarding against such malpractices by international bullies?
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I thank the Hon. Members for their interventions, comments and requests for clarifications. Let me start by Hon. Gabbuza who said that with US$440 million you can build a new power station. There were also other subsidiary questions like who were the technology partners; if not so, then the lenders will not impose technology partners on us and would require more resources arising out of the damage on Unit 1on the new power station. Naturally as Treasury, we are led by experts in the Ministry of Energy and ZESA. They have done their analysis and they feel that basically this kind of refurbishment of Unit 1 and 6 is the best option out of the many in that they have considered including building a new power station. There is also something about ZESA in Hwange and also Hwange Colliery. These are institutions in that part of Matabeleland North which really are the hub of the city. It is a way of life within those communities.
I request Members of Parliament as you reflect on these things, there are also those simple but very emotional social issues that have to do with the lives of those who live around those facilities and we have a duty to protect them and their jobs. You often find that some of the decisions to refurbish this have to do with that kind of thinking of maintaining the social fabric in those areas and yet a simple financial approach is to just say close that and rebuild something else, but it does not work that way socially.
In terms of technology partner, we have to rely on our engineers and the Ministry of Energy to make sure we source the best technology partners for this purpose. It is also true that we have had a long working relationship with India Technology Department .That is correct since the early 80s and I am aware of that. I cannot imagine that they will be discounted just because their country provided us with the loan. They should be included. I am sure that ZESA and the Ministry of Energy will do their best to select the best partner.
When it comes to damage on Unit 1, I have not yet received this on my desk from Ministry of Energy as to whether they need any support on this issue. It will cost money for sure but we should stand ready to support it because we want to do that. As to whether we end up asking India Exim Bank to top up the $310 million, I think that is another issue. Let us cross that bridge when we get to it. We still do not know for sure what that damage is going to cost but we need to fix Unit 1.
Hon. Markham said, have I brought any other loans at this House. Yes I have. You recall I brought a loan for China-Exim Bank and another one for India-Exim Bank pertaining to Hwange 7 and 8 and India Exim bank pertained to the Bulawayo Thermal Power Station. We have a strong relationship as a country between India Exim bank and ourselves as well as China-Exim bank and that is a good thing because there are not too many countries or too many institutions where the country can borrow at the moment. It is not that we just want to keep borrowing. We are also watching our debt sustainability levels.
The arrears that we have with the institutions such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, European Investment Bank; we can no longer borrow from those institutions and those are the facts. These are some of the remaining institutions - the India-Exim Bank and China Exim Bank from which we can borrow from. But, we also need to borrow prudently not that these loans are concessional loans, they are long term loans and they do have grace period. That is very helpful. I can assure you that we are watching our debt sustainability levels.
Hon. Mliswa asked a pertinent question about whether they have looked at other options. Again, he was in a sense affirming Hon. Gabbuza’s sentiments that we could as well build a new power station. Again just to say Ministry of Energy and ZESA have told us that they have done this kind of analysis. As for the other funders, sure we have looked at other funders but they are not too many if you look at Africa Exim Bank, India-Exim Bank and China-Exim Bank; those have been some of the few institutions from which we can borrow from. Those have been some of the few institution from which we can borrow and we have already borrowed from them. So, it is good that India-Exim Bank could lend us money but we do not have too many options for sourcing funding.
India-Exim Bank could lend us money but we do not have too many options for sourcing funding. We did look at others and this was still the best option. It is a concessional loan and, interest rate is 1.75%. It cannot get better than that.
Hon. Mliswa raised concerns about the locals not having enough of an opportunity to access the resources on the ground in the Hwange area in terms of coal mining. I have noticed that this is something that I will also pass on the Ministry of Mines to see whether more locals could be accommodated in whatever concessions are available. I had the pleasure of visiting Zambezi Gas for example, who are doing very well in terms of coal mining in the area and also Makomo Resources as well; they are doing well and then Hwange itself but obviously more players are better.
Hon. Mliswa said, let us privatize resources as well. I am afraid to say privatisation of resources have been slow to be realistic. We went through a period when the currency was volatile and that did impact. The perception of suitors to some of our privatization of resources; that is true because if you want to invest in a country and the country is all over the place, you worry about your returns. So, that did have an impact but with the stability that has been engendered in the last eight months or so, I think we will see some attraction but we are not there yet in terms of privatisation of resources.
When you look at these borrowings - this borrowing is not for consumption and it is true in the past. We have borrowed for consumption and that is not healthy for debt sustainability. If you are borrowing for investment because when you are refurbishing Hwange 1 to 6, that is where investment is going to produce electricity which electricity will be used by industry and commerce to produce goods which will be exported. That is an investment and it is a different type of borrowing and if all goes well, also Hwange should be able with ZPC, to service the loan from the tariffs that it charges on the electricity that you sell. That financial model works but whatever works is, if we are borrowing for consumption. We have done this in the past and I can really assure this House that we do not want to borrow for consumption anymore and that should be avoided.
Hon. Gabbuza mentioned that the thermal power stations are being dumped all over the world because coal is dirty and so how can we protect ourselves from being a dumping ground for others. We will try to be vigilant again. We are sure that the experts will look out for us and do the best in the procurement of this equipment. Also thinking about the technology for power production from coal, there is also clean energy around the world that you could build a successful and clean coal powered station. I visited one in Finland which after burning the coal just produces water. There is no smoke that comes out in it but it is just water that comes out. So, it is possible to produce clean energy from coal if we use the right technology. I am not saying that is what is going to be used at Hwange. I am just saying that while coal looks dirty, it is not completely dirty if you use the right technology. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Madam Speaker, I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 7 to 14 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 15 has been disposed of.
HON. MUTAMBISI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
FIRST REPORT OF PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT ON THE STATE OF INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCTION IN ZIMBABWE
HON. GABBUZA: I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the First Report of the Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development on the State of Independent Power Production in Zimbabwe.
HON. NDIWENI: I second.
HON. GABBUZA: Thank you Madam Speaker.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Zimbabwe has over the years experienced a severe energy crisis because its major sources of electricity are struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand. The failure of the major sources to sufficiently supply power has been attributed to several factors such as ageing infrastructure, low water levels at Kariba Hydro Power Station, shortages in foreign currency to complement local sources and the general increase in demand.
1.2 The energy supply crisis has impacted greatly on other sectors for national development such as health, mining, agriculture and industry and commerce. In order to increase power generation and supply in the country, the Government of Zimbabwe opened the energy sector to Independent Power Producers to participate in power production. Accordingly, the Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development was prompted to conduct an inquiry into independent power projects in Zimbabwe that have been licensed to produce and supply power in the country.
2.0 OBJECTIVE
- a)To understand the operations of independent power production in the country;
- b)To appreciate challenges being faced in investing into independent power production; and
- c)To recommend strategies that may enhance productivity by independent power producers.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
3.1 This report is informed by oral submissions made by licensed Independent Power Producers and the Acting Chief Executive Officer of Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA). The Committee held oral evidence meetings with 25 licensed Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in hydro, solar and thermal technologies as stipulated below;
1. Rio Zim-Sengwa Power Station | 14. Africa Oracle Solar Group |
2. Per Lusulu | 15. Pito Investments |
3. Southern Energy | 16. Solarwise |
4. Great Zimbabwe Hydro | 17. Energywise |
5. Tsanga Power Station | 18. Solar Group Zimbabwe |
6. Penhalonga Energy | 19. Indo Africa |
7. Richsaw Solar Tech | 20. Sinogy Power |
8. Aspire | 21. Guruve Solar Park |
9. Plum Solar | 22. New Glovers Park |
10. Harava Solar Park
11. Centragrid |
23. Zhenje
24. Distribution Power Group |
12. Custodian Energy | 25. Planet One Solar |
13. Tokwe Mukorsi |
3.2 Due to the overwhelming similarities of the evidence presented to the Committee by the above stated IPPs, only 10 of them will be used for the purpose of this report. The meetings were held on the 14th of November 2019, 28th of November 2019, 20th of February 2020 and the 5th of March 2020.
3.3 In order to get official and technical insight into challenges being faced in investing into the projects, the Committee conducted a verification visit to the Harava Solar project in Dema. The Committee also conducted familiarization visits in July 2019 to Pungwe B Mini Hydro Station in Honde Valley and Riverside Solar Park in Mutoko, with the objective of appreciating the operations of projects that are generating power.
4.0 COMMITTEE FINDINGS
4.1 STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE INDEPENDENT POWER PRODUCTION SECTOR
4.1.1 As alluded to earlier on, the power sector is being crippled by several inefficiencies to meet the demand required by the country. The peak demand for power ranges between 1350 Megawatts (MW) and 1800MW. According to the submission by Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA), licenses for independent power production capable of generating about 6 858.65MW have been issued. However, only 135.8MW is being fed into the main grid by the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) that are operating. IPPs which have a potential to generate about 6522.35MW are not performing and some of them have been holding on to their licenses for as long as eleven years.
4.2 PROJECTS IN THERMAL TECHNOLOGY
4.2.1 RioZim -Sengwa Power Station
4.2.1.1 During the meeting held on the 14th of November 2019, the Committee was informed that the company runs two projects, namely thermal and solar technologies. The Sengwa Thermal Power Station project is located in Hwange with a generating capacity of 2800MW. The project is to be implemented in phases with each earmarked for 700MW. The total project cost for each phase was estimated at US$1.5 billion. The project was licensed on 23 September 2010.
4.2.1.2 The project had secured funding during the era of dollarization but lost the investor when the Government of Zimbabwe de-dollarized. As a result, the progress of the project was delayed by two (2) years. About US$20 million was spent on exploration works at Sengwa coal bed. The plant would be powered by coal and 1.3 billion tonnes of coal was secured. The company is listed on the stock exchange, hence the stakeholders are public. In terms of the power purchase agreement, it was highlighted that there is a condition that provides for a change in currency from foreign to local currency when the country adopts a local currency.
4.2.2 PER Lusulu
4.2.2.1 The project was initially licensed in October 2010 and re-licensed in 2014. The proposed site for the project is Binga District along Lake Kariba. The plant has a capacity to generate 2000-2100 Megawatts and it will be implemented in phases with each phase targeting 660 to 700 Megawatts.
4.2.2.2 At the time of the enquiry, the project was at the stage of finalizing its financial closure status. The project had initially received debt financing from Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China that required government guarantee. The guarantee was presented to China in December 2016 but China withdrew as the debt financier in 2017 because there was an outstanding debt that had not been repaid by the Government of Zimbabwe. Therefore, the company engaged government to assist in securing another financier.
4.2.2.3 The Committee was informed that, there were negotiations with Eskom to be the off taker to allow the project to have guaranteed foreign currency. The project will also be raising its local funds through supply to the local market.
4.2.3 Southern Energy
4.2.3.1 The project is a coal fired power station licensed on 27 May 2013. The project has a generating capacity of 600MW that will be implemented in 4 phases with each earmarked for 150MW. Southern Energy is owned by African Power House (51%), Sinohydro (15%) and Southern Energy Mauritius (34%). The power plant will be developed as a mine-mouth power plant located at Makomo Resources, in Hwange district. The total project cost for phase 1 was estimated at US$1,16 billion and would cover the power plant, water pipeline from Zambezi River and transmission connection works.
4.2.3.2 The Committee was informed that the company was yet to generate power because it had not reached financial closure. The company applied for tariff approval to ZERA in 2018, but the proposed tariff for the installed capacity of 600MW was rejected because it was considered too high. Consequently, the company had to reconfigure the plant into phases and come up with a reasonable tariff for one phase. It was indicated that the project will be funded on a 70% debt and 30% equity. Debt financing will be secured from banks in South Africa whilst Sinohydro will provide part equity and part debt.
4.3 PROJECTS IN HYDRO TECHNOLOGY
4.3.1 Great Zimbabwe Hydro
4.3.1.1 Great Zimbabwe Hydro is a private company owned by ML Power-a local development led by Eng. O. Chakwanda, Ms. M. Mashingaidze and Mr. Denhere. However, there is a joint development agreement between three parties that will be developing the project, namely ML Power, VS Hydro (Sri Lankan hydro development company) and the Industrial Development Cooperation of South Africa.
4.3.1.2 Great Zimbabwe Hydro was formed in 2010 and licensed in November 2010. The project has a generating capacity of 5MW and it is situated in Masvingo, adjacent to the Lake Muturikwi dam wall. The project obtained Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certification, lease agreement and a non-consumptive water use agreement from Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA).
4.3.1.3 The company was targeting to reach financial closure within few months from the time of this enquiry and begin construction. The shareholding percentage for the financial closure was 51% foreign owned and 49% locally owned. It was indicated that the shareholding would assist in securing the foreign currency needed for about 60 to 70% of the project. The total project cost was about US$13.8 million. It was further indicated that foreign shareholders required certainty on repatriation of funds.
4.3.2 Tsanga Power Station
4.3.2.1 Tsanga Power Station Limited was incorporated in 2017 and falls under Nyangani Renewable Energy Group. The company is involved in three hydro projects namely Tsanga A, Tsanga B and Tsanga C. Tsanga B was the first hydro plant to be built in April 2018 after being licensed in January 2018.
4.3.2.2 Tsanga A hydro plant has a generating capacity of 2.65MW. The project managed to set up a weir, interconnector, powerhouse foundations, pen stop-pipe and faced some financial constraints to import other required components. It also faced a challenge on the signing of power purchase agreement.
4.3.2.3 Tsanga C project will be constructed after the completion of Tsanga A project. Tsanga C has a generating capacity of 2.15MW. The company managed to raise funds locally through prescribed asset status and launched a local bond which was very successful. The company avoided borrowing offshore. In order to meet its import bill, the company was converting its local funding to hard currency.
4.3.3 Penhalonga Energy
4.3.3.1 Penhalonga Energy builds, owns and operates small run of river hydro power stations supplying power into the national grid. The company has six hydro projects, but only one project was commissioned and currently feeding into the national grid. The total expected output from the six projects is around 5.7MW. The Committee was informed that three projects were licensed in October 2019 and they did not obtain power purchase agreements.
4.4 PROJECTS IN SOLAR TECHNOLOGY
4.4.1 Richsaw Solar Tech
4.4.1.1 The solar project is located in Gwanda and was licensed in 2016. The project received local funding from Old Mutual Life Insurance Company on debt and equity basis. At that time, the company was able to convert the local funding into foreign currency at an interbank market rate of 1:1. The company engaged RBZ to allocate about US$5 to 6 million for the project but failed to get the foreign currency.
4.4.1.2 The company formulated a foreign currency raising strategy when government liberalized the foreign exchange market through the establishment of the interbank market in February 2019. The company went into an agreement with a local tobacco exporter. The tobacco exporter would receive local funding from Richsaw Solar Tech to buy tobacco locally and repay in foreign currency received from its exports.
4.4.1.3 Richsaw Solar Tech managed to receive US$560 000 that was forwarded to the Engineering and Procurement Contractor (EPC). In June 2019, Government of Zimbabwe made a shift in the monetary policy and prohibited the use of foreign currencies which led the tobacco exporter to repay in local currency. Consequently, Richsaw Solar Tech had to convert the local currency into foreign currency at interbank market rate.
4.4.1.4 At the time of the enquiry, the company had received about ZWL$1 million from the tobacco exporter but had failed to access foreign currency on the interbank market. The Committee was assured by the Director of Richsaw Solar Tech, Mr Chiwara, that construction of the plant would be completed within 4 months, subject to availability of foreign currency.
4.4.2 Aspire
4.4.2.1 The project was licensed on 4 September 2019 to operate a 60MW solar park. Its directors are Mr. K. Murapa, Ms. C. Mareya, Mr. K. Masenda. The proposed site of the project is Chiredzi and is strategically near existing transmission lines. The project will be built in phases of 10MW as recommended by Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) based on a grid impact study, they undertook on behalf of Aspire.
4.4.2.2 Mr. Murapa highlighted macroscopic challenges being faced in investing into projects under independent power production and these included investors’ perceptions and the absence of assurance with regard to repatriating investor dividends. He added that, investors had reservations towards the default off taker, ZETDC, having the capacity to generate sufficient foreign currency and pay for power supplied. Investors were also requesting for security for their investment.
4.4.2.3 He further highlighted that, there was a challenge in securing adequate land for the projects near established Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority’s (ZESA) infrastructure. It was again highlighted that, most investors were not content with land tenure security judging by previous experiences associated with the land reform programme. The project company faced a challenge in finalizing land lease agreement with Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA). Aspire ventured into partnership with ARDA and was requested to cater for the expenses of introducing ARDA to all the investors around the world, including the Engineering and Procurement Contractor in Israel. Aspire felt that the request was unfair and this had weighed down on the progress of securing the land.
4.4.3 Plum Solar
4.4.3.1 The solar project is located on 100 hectares of land in Plumtree. Plumtree is generally known to be one of the preferred areas for the generation of solar energy in Zimbabwe, and even in the Southern African region, due to its abundant solar radiation. The shareholders of the project are Mr. T. Nhete and Mr. K. Masola. The company has obtained Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate, grid impact analysis, Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and Engineering and Procurement Contractor (EPC). The company targeted to commission the solar plant by May 2020. The total project cost was estimated at US $6 million.
4.4.3.2 The company had managed to secure US$5 million from a development and finance institution in Botswana. It however failed to satisfy one of the seven (7) conditions which was the country risk premium. The company managed to have another foreign investor who was interested to come in on both equity and loan financing. The company was given a condition by ZERA to renegotiate with ZETDC on the power purchase agreement and tariff. The most contentious issue was the denomination of tariff in local or foreign currency.
4.4.4 Harava Solar Park
4.4.4.1 The company was incorporated in July 2017 and was formed as a special purpose vehicle to build, own and maintain a solar plant with the intention of selling the power to the national grid. It was formed primarily by Zimbabweans from the Diaspora with Mr. A. Ngadya as the founder. The key shareholders on board are Invest Solar in Botswana and Old Mutual which is providing loan financing. The project was licensed by ZERA in January 2018. The company spent a year going through the permit process that is; EIA licenses, geo-technical studies, land utilizations and designs approvals. The project implementation commenced in May 2019.
4.4.4.2 The project had an estimated capacity of 20MW and will be implemented in phases with each phase targeting 2.5MW. At the time of the enquiry, the company was awaiting a shipment of solar panels from Jinko Solar which was expected to come in batches of 2.5MW. The solar plant was being constructed by a Germany company called Soventix. The company had targeted to commission the solar plant by 31 December 2019 but failed to access the required foreign currency. As a result, the solar plant would be commissioned by 30 April 2020.
4.4.4.3 The project received its local funding from more than 10 pension funds. In order to meet its import bill, the company was converting the local funding to foreign currency. The project was facing delays in getting foreign currency and they were engaging key banks such as Standard Bank and NMB in that regard. The Committee was informed that there was support from the Ministry of Energy and Power Development and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development on fiscal incentives as well as Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) on importation of all the required components.
4.5 RESPONSES FROM ZIMBABWE ENERGY REGULATORY AUTHORITY
4.5.1 The Acting Chief Executive Officer of Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, Mr Mazambani explained that, the main issue raised by the licensed companies was that of currency risk. There was a concern by IPPs that they will not be able to expropriate their profits or even service their loans. There were also issues to do with the viability of Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) which the Regulator was trying to address through giving IPPs a tariff which is cost reflective at the credible off taker. He highlighted that, there were credible off takers within the country and Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) did not obligate IPPs to produce power for ZETDC only. Licensees could dedicate the power to any local company.
4.5.2 The Committee was informed that, currently there was a standard power purchase agreement that is denominated in USD$ but payable in local currency in order to comply with S.I 142/2019. Hence, the power purchase agreements that came after the promulgation of S.I 142/2019 had not yet been signed by ZETDC. ZERA had engaged the Ministry of Energy and Power Development to give guidance on power purchase agreements in order for the industry to move forward.
4.5.3 At the time of the enquiry, it was highlighted that there were representations by IPPs with a national project status. They were expected to come up with what was required from government in order to unlock investments. This would allow ZERA to look at the peculiarities of each project and come up with a position.
- CHALLENGES
5.1.1 Delay in securing Power Purchase Agreements with Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company
Most of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) expressed concern that it was proving difficult to sign a power purchase agreement with Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) since at the time it was not possible to negotiate based on a USD$ tariff due to Statutory Instrument 142/2019 and 212/2019. As a result, the generation licenses and power purchase agreements were un-bankable and developers were unable to raise finances required to build these projects. The IPPs also stressed that, there was lack of a currency convertibility guarantee. The IPPs further stated that some of the power purchase agreement were denominated in different foreign currency pricing.
5.1.2 Delay in securing lease agreements from councils
The Committee was informed that, it took Solarwise Energy close to 2 years to secure lease land from Chiredzi. The project only managed to secure the lease around the time ZERA had called for a showcase meeting on license withdrawal. These delays were affecting the development of the projects. Government departments engaged to assist the IPPs were also reluctant in rendering their services. The IPPs indicated that, the delay experienced in dealing with the Regulator, off taker and other authorities gave the potential investors an impression that Zimbabwe may not have the requisite “ease of doing business” in order to merit their investment.
5.1.3 Unguaranteed payments from Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) as the sole off taker
The IPPs expressed concern on ZETDC’s capacity to pay for power supplied. They indicated that, ZETDC was the only feasible off taker and its financial status could not be guaranteed. As a result, it was taking several months to pay some local power producers. Given that the generation license had a lifespan of 25 years, Energywise and Solar Group Zimbabwe indicated that, investors were requesting for government to give cover on buyer default to ensure guarantee of payments for power supplied to ZETDC.
5.2.4 Failure to secure evacuation of generated power
It was highlighted that, ZETDC was struggling to maintain the transmission and distribution lines due to shortage of fuel and operational vehicles. Some IPPs indicated that they needed to construct transmission lines from the project sites to the sub-stations and this was costly.
5.2.5 Importation of power by Government of Zimbabwe
The IPPs expressed concern that government was importing and paying for power from Mozambique and South Africa, when there were local power producers that needed the foreign currency to develop their projects. As a result, the IPPs felt that there was no prioritization on allocation of foreign currency to local power producers.
5.2.6 Monetary policy inconsistency
Most of the IPPs indicated that the introduction of many monetary policies that are not investor friendly such as Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019 and 212 of 2019 caused setbacks in securing financial investment. Some of the IPPs had managed to secure funding during the era of dollarization but lost the investors when the Government of Zimbabwe de-dollarized.
6.0 COMMITTEE OBSERVATIONS
The Committee made the following observations;
1) Most of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) had an opportunistic behavior and lacked the relevant technical credentials in that area, hence they got licenses for speculation purposes.
2) There is no clarity and uniformity in the handling of applicants by both Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) and Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC).
3) All IPPs cited challenges imposed by S.I. 142 since their finances were being raised offshore and yet they were paid in local currency for power generated.
4) Most of the IPPs lacked financial closure, yet they were licensed by ZERA before reaching financial closure.
5) ZETDC is reluctant to assist IPPs to secure their power purchase agreements. As a result, it delays the progress of their projects.
6) The IPPs do not have a common association through which they can discuss their challenges and assist in bargaining with relevant authorities.
7.0 COMMMITEEE RECOMMENDATIONS
In light of the above observations, the Committee recommended the following:
1) ZERA should do due diligence in licensing IPPs to make sure that people with the right credentials are licensed to avoid speculation tendencies. There should be more stringent licensing conditions and a 5-year time frame within which to operationalize once licensed, and should be in place by 31 December 2020.
2) ZERA and ZETDC should synchronize the application process to ensure clarity and uniformity in handling of applicants by 31 December 2020.
3) ZERA must insist on financial closure before issuing a license to avoid speculative behavior.
4) Ministry of Energy and Power Development should facilitate engagement between ZETDC and IPPs by 31 December 2020 in order to establish a harmonious working relationship that does not derail any progress in power generation and supply.
5) There is need for the Ministry of Energy and Power Development to facilitate the set-up of an association for Independent Power Producers by 31 December 2020, to facilitate meaningful and coordinated engagement with power authorities.
8.0 CONCLUSION
Informed by the above, the Committee is highly optimistic that the relevant authorities will earnestly consider the recommendations made above for the purposes of yielding results in the energy sector. Moreover, the Committee expects results to yield, now that the major impediment stated by Independent Power Producers has been addressed by the liberalization of the currency regime. I thank you.
HON. NDIWENI: Thank you Madam Speaker. Energy projects are by far very intensive in terms of investment. They require quite a lot of money to start up. It is not very easy to set up an energy generation project. Here we are Madam Speaker, we have these IPPs. This is our chance as a country to go the IPP way. The IPPs are coming in with clean energy and they are telling the way to go – all the countries are looking at projects that concentrate more on clean energy. These IPPs, rather than being capacity intensive needing more money, they are coming in small companies. It is prudent for Government and all players to encourage them as much as possible to harness, small as they are. My father used to tell me that kana uchida kuita mari, ita ma business akawanda madiki madiki. Just like mvura ichienda mu Indian Ocean, tuma rwizi tudiki tudiki twakawanda but kana mvura iya yasangana yave mu Indian Ocean hauzozivi kuti irikubva kutumarwizi tudiki diki. Let us take advantage of these small IPPs. When they add up, they will add up to 6800MW.
These IPPs have their own problems like my Chair has said. I used to be a commissioner in the Electricity Regulatory Commission ten years ago and I gave some of those licences to these payers. They are still holding on to them. Unfortunately, some of them were getting these licences for speculative purposes. These are the bad apples. If the regulator had played a due diligence and scratched them out, maybe we should not have given them those licences because they are holding on to those licences and starting to run around looking for capital, by so doing disadvantaging the proper and capable players that need the licences. What happens in the end is they want to form joint ventures whereby they have no money at all and they just want to hang on to the licences. So, if we can clean up those bad apples and remain with the proper serious players, that will do the country much good.
Looking at the environment as well - when we look at the serious IPP players, they face the problem that my Chair has mentioned. Number one problem that emanated and it was raised by most of these players is that we have ZETDC. ZETDC is a player but at the same time it has to adjudicate on the PPAs. It is like having a referee and in one minute he is in the soccer field, he scores for the other team. That way we need a bit of fairness on handling. I would encourage that ZETDC is not involved at all in the crafting of these power purchase agreements. Maybe the regulator ZERA could be the only one that looks at regulating and also play a part in the crafting of power purchase agreements.
The tariff is another impediment to these IPPs. They borrow money offshore in hard currency but then when the tariff is set up, it is set up in local currency. So, they find it a bit difficult to then service the loans. I would have liked it if the Minister of Finance was here to hear this part because we have raised it with the Governor and him to try and level the ground vis-à-vis these players. If you look at the fuel sector, it is now going smoothly because they are dealing in hard currency and they are selling in hard currency. You do not see any problems in the fuel sector. We should treat them the same. Let us be uniform. If they borrowed the money in hard currency, we should agree and give them a tariff in hard currency as well.
The other impediment that we noticed that these IPPs are facing is lack of uniformity like my Chair said. If one player goes and he has friends at ZETDC, he or she gets a power purchase agreement that is different to the other one. The IPPs themselves are not at fault because they play each other. I remember at one stage we called them together in one room and they were giving their submissions. Some of them were surprised that the conditions that this one had were different from the conditions that the other one had. We put the blame on them as IPPs to say they should work collectively. They do not have an association. Vanotamba chihwande hwande. If it is good for me, then you do it for yourself and leave others at the back. We emphasise to them that they have a stronger voice if they are united than to stick individually and hope for better business.
Like I said, IPPs are the way to go. It is unfortunate that Government had a foresight in terms of clean energy. Government through ZETDC, engaged Chivayo and if it was not for corrupt practices within ZESA and Chivayo, imagine the amount of clean energy for that matter, that could have been generated from that Chivayo project. Government had foresight to say clean energy is the way to go. People on the ground at ZESA then connived with some of these briefcase business people and now we have 100MW that Gwanda project was supposed to have provided but it is still hanging in the balance until now.
As we look forward to the President’s vision of upper middle income economy by 2030, we cannot detach energy. Without energy, we cannot achieve that vision. As a Government and a people, there is need to look at energy projects and say there is no way you can develop without energy and moreso clean energy. I thank you.
(v)HON. I. NYONI: Firstly, I would like to thank the Chairperson Hon. Gabbuza and his team for a detailed report particularly on independent power producers. There was the issue of vandalism on ZESA infrastructure. This issue is also prominent in Bulawayo East Constituency and it basically involves the stealing of copper transmission cables, transformers and transformer oil. It is therefore vital that theft and vandalism are minimised through the suggested measures and arrests are made before is criminal and also education of the community on importance of the infrastructure so that the community plays the role of safeguarding the asset. Also, the close monitoring of those who deal with scrap metal that might have the market for the stolen cables.
We all know that electricity is a major requirement in the manufacturing industry, mining, farming, and other industries and of course there is domestic use. Perhaps to decrease reliance on the main ZESA grid and imports, some of the major companies like mines can be encouraged perhaps with incentives to build their own mini-solar plants that will make them self sufficient in electricity. Also, new suburbs that come in urban centres, people should be encouraged to use solar power for their own use so that there is less dependence on the main grid. Thank you.
HON. PHULU: I would like to make a small contribution on the report by the Committee, which I must say has been ably delivered by those who sponsored it, Hon. Gabbuza and the seconder Hon. Ndiweni. It has been concise and what I would like to focus on is the role of the independent power producers and the matter of concern that arises in as far as the issuing of licences is concerned where those licences are used for speculative purposes.
Perhaps, one take away from this report is that this House should consider the best way to circumvent those kinds of practices to say that even where reasonable periods are given for purposes of coming up with something tangible, there certainly is failure at the level of vetting these applicants. Maybe we need to identify gaps there but also perhaps, maybe in terms of the method we use to issue out the nature of the licence as Hon. Ndiweni laid out. What we may need to do is to consider having classes of licences, maybe from a provisional licence until you graduate to a fully blown licence so that if you are issued with a provisional licence there are stringent requirements for you, perhaps on a yearly basis to report on what you have been doing, successes and failures so that we can monitor those who are genuinely trying to set up and are meeting challenges and those who are sitting on licences.
Another area that perhaps we ought to look at is the process by which these licences are applied for. Are they highly transparent and subject to scrutiny? I have heard stories of people who have approached with ideas to say, I want to put up a solar plant in Gwanda and make the necessary approaches to the regulating bodies. You give them your idea and the next thing you are reading a newspaper and someone has been given that same licence which you proposed and you have not heard from the regulator. That process also needs to be reviewed to have a call for licences so that one knows when applications for licences on a yearly basis are open. People should bid for these licences in an open manner just like people would do in a tender.
I think that kind of approach would safeguard and ensure that the process that we use to apply for licences secures the integrity of those licences and just to underline that concern because you are speculating with our lives. Our children need energy in the future. We need energy now and our hospitals need energy. People are dying because there is no energy. This is a serious issue where it has been mentioned that the capacity of IPPs is that they can produce 6 800 megawatts and right now we are only able to make use of about twenty plus.
I think it is a great disservice to our nation where we are unable to leverage that kind of resource. It is a great resource and just because it is not tangible does not mean it is not valuable or it cannot be wasted. I think we are wasting a great resource because energy is one of the main issues that a country should be looking at. If you want to be a powerful and significant country, certainly you have to have your house in order in as far as energy is concerned. I think those leakages that have been highlighted, certainly we must find ways as a House to ensure that we review our legislation and try and refine our methods to ensure that we can take advantage of this resource that the Lord has given us in terms of our natural resources.
(v)HON. MUSAKWA: I also want to add my voice on the debate on IPPs. I think after we interrogated them as a Committee chaired by Hon. Gabbuza, it is also important to have the IPPs think outside the box in a manner in which we allow them a portion of what they generate to export so that they can meet their external funding obligations and then the rest we allow them to use domestically so that they can meet their local costs.
I think it is also a question of whether we can assist in coming up with appropriate laws and regulations that will enable that sector to flourish. We can also not over-emphasise the importance of removing ZETDC as a player and referee. That is very critical and in a number of countries you have the national grid being independent and then every power producer will come to it and they will receive fair treatment because they are submitting their power to an independent body which is not competing in the same sector.
I think Madam Speaker, the point also raised by other Hon. Members that people should be given licences based on proven capacity and not based on speculation that they need a licence to go and look for money, that is a problematic situation. People in part of the regulations must prove that they have got funding before they are issued a licence rather than being issued a licence so that they can look for funding. I would like to thank the Committee Chairperson, Hon. Gabbuza and the rest of the team for coming up with a plausible report. Thank you.
(v) HON. MOKONE: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Gabbuza for the presentation that he tabled to the House. Most of the issues that I wanted to touch on have actually been highlighted by other Members of Parliament. However, there are a few issues that I need to buttress on.
The Committee Chairperson touched on the issue of the equipment that is old and outdated, so there is need for an upgrade. I would like to also add my voice on that, that there is need for us to upgrade the equipment that is outdated so that the services that are provided by ZESA actually match the current settings. The other issue that I wanted to touch on is the issue of infrastructure as highlighted by the Chairperson. The transmission infrastructure is not strong enough to sustain the current environment, so there is need to also look into that.
The Committee Chairperson touched on the importation of power by Government in foreign currency. That is a challenge because users pay in local currency. So that makes it unsustainable for ZESA to perform its mandate. There is also the issue of vandalism of the infrastructure. This is issue of vandalism of the infrastructure is very ripe in my constituency as well because a day hardly passes by without cases of vandalism being reported. ZESA takes a lot of time to attend to those faults. Therefore, there is great need as well for us to also look into that. Most of the things that I wanted to touch on have been spoken about by other Hon. Members, so I do not want to repeat the same points. Thank you Madam Speaker.
*HON. TSUURA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank the Chairperson of the Committee for that report. As we are all aware, the country needs energy in terms of production and also lighting. During this COVID period, students are using online platforms to engage in their lectures. So we need more independent power producers in different areas and this will alleviate the burden of shortage of power.
We also realised that in hospitals, some of the patients are losing their lives because machines that are there do not have electricity. This even affects mortuaries. If this is addressed, mortuaries will work. Also, when talking of theatres, they will be well equipped and functional.
The other challenge that women are facing in rural areas because of climate change, energy has become a scarce commodity. Therefore, I recommend that we adopt solar power. Once there is solar power, we get rid of deforestation. If electricity or power is available, development will take place. Those with licences to generate power should not just sit on them and forget about it but should ensure that they assist the nation by feeding into the national grid. I thank you.
HON. CHIKUDO: Hon. Speaker, we have been raising our hands for a long time now.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): Hon. Chikudo, you are not raising your hand. The only people who were raising their hands are Hon. Khupe, Hon. Markham, Hon. Ndiweni and Hon. Tsuura who spoke now. Your hand is not up, unless you are using another way. For now, I am interacting with Hon. Members within this House and I will come back to the virtual platform; I will recognise you.
HON. MKARATIGWA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker Ma’am for according me this opportunity to actually express my appreciation to the motion that has been moved by our Chairperson, Hon. Gabbuza and seconded by Hon. Ndiweni on a topical subject. It is topical because energy is of paramount importance to the development of any society and Zimbabwe is not an exception. As we speak, we have a deficit situation which we are managing and if we are not careful and we do not calibrate our approach, it means in the future we might still be confronted with an energy deficit. However, IPPs present an opportunity to actually approach this challenge head on.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, on importation of power in the country, we should move away from the practice but we can only do so through immense investment in innovation and research in the sector. We have these vast lands and the blessing of water and solar which we have not yet harnessed enough at national level but more at household level. There is a possibility for Zimbabwe to import electrical energy or basically to have enough for use throughout the year. We are wasting energy away yet we lack it. When our river levels go down, our neighbour South Africa has been investing in energy storage, innovative capability for over ten years now and they are about to roll out some of these technologies in the country this year or in the coming year. Singapore is another example whereby through the involvement of the drive towards investment in energy, we have seen prices of power or the tariff going down, thereby promoting investment in any sector of the economy in that particular country.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, with the coming of the COVID-19, electricity has been proved to be important for both the CEO and the janitor. The common denominator Madam Speaker Ma’am is family and in particular kids who want to go to school, then the use of homes of o’levels as offices has actually increased the need for electricity throughout our dear country. We need to feed more energy into the main grid Madam Speaker, when it is not at peak periods or seasons to ensure longer periods of energy use. That can save our national generators to a greater extent. This is where innovation comes in and day-in day-out we are talking about innovation, there are Bills coming up, we have got our tertiary institutions headed by the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education spearheading incubation hubs. They can come into play here and we have water bodies that can be used as batteries to store energy.
The use of hydrogen today Madam Speaker can present a solution. Why it appears to be a pie in the sky in terms of reducing the cost Madam Speaker, it is proven now in developed countries that it reduces the cost of electricity because electricity many a times is generated and when it is generated, you cannot store it. You have to use it straightaway. If you do not have the market, it means it is an outright loss, but if you are able to invest in hydrogen and you store it and use it during peak periods, instead of producing at high cost during peak periods you stop producing and you straight away utilise the energy that you have stored. Madam Speaker, Zimbabwe is endowed with minerals, fossil fuels and hydrocarbon. For example, coal and gas are part of those minerals. We have got them in abundance as much as we have the solar radiation and the green movement is moving towards renewable energy systems but as Zimbabwe, we need to strike a balance.
We cannot shun the hydrocarbons. We cannot shun the fossil fuels. We need a national approach that will embrace the two sides, that will embrace the two resources that are available to use. We need to exploit them in a manner that is going to help create energy sufficiency in the short to medium term while anchoring our future in terms of being able to maintain that energy sustainability for use by all communities. That will also assist the SDG focus – how do we develop the rural communities when we cannot have an approach whereby we organise the IPP. The IPP, Madam Speaker are organised in a way but they have a challenge that I think through our Ministry of Finance can be addressed.
Madam Speaker, when you look at part of their challenges, you will admit that we see the absence of commercial banks. Our own local banks are not participating, yet they can provide the much needed foreign currency to enable the IPP operators to unlock and be able to commission power plants that are going to serve mainly our rural communities. These Madam Speaker can be by way of off-grid and on-grid so that we are able to throw into the grid and supply any other off takers throughout the country.
I talked about energy storage technologies becoming key and we need to invest in our infrastructure through innovative research and development. The country has what it takes or if we are just innovative and intrinsically motivated to get out of the normal in terms of our ways of doing business Madam Speaker. Innovation will reduce the cost and burden on the citizens of Zimbabwe. Accessibility is a major issue in this country.
Madam Speaker, I think it is common knowledge that enabling sectors for an attractive investment climate for IPPs as spelt out by my Chairman include more competitive procurement effort from countries across the globe which includes encouraging long term contracts through a competitive bidding process. This is where transparency and accountability is encouraged. Madam Speaker, this can help secure reduced prices and help avert the issues such as the possibility of a problematic contract. If direct negotiations are conducted, they should be done transparently. Madam Speaker, clear and conducive energy sector policies, structures and regulatory environment, systematic and dynamic power sector planning which I believe, thanks to the new dispensation, our ministries are seized with-including the ability to project future electricity demand, determine best supply or demand management option and creates and anticipates how long it will take to procure, finance and build the required electricity generation capacity.
Financial viability of the public utility is vital Madam Speaker. Given issues such as high cost loses, poor billing and collection, it will be important to mitigate risk through measures that include providing financial guarantees and security measures to the assurance of new investors.
Our ministries know what is needed but they lack the capacity to implement, which is what I am highlighting and I feel this is correct and we need in the national interest to focus on this. As a Committee we need to make sure we nudge them into the appropriate direction. Madam Speaker, we should be aware that the industry is operating below capacity like what my Chairman alluded to. Once there is restoration in term of the lost capacity of the industry, there is need for reciprocating restoration in terms of power generation. In this instant Madam Speaker, I am talking of about power that can support base load. We need to draw the line and say the distinction between where our IPP operators are focusing. Some of them are focusing on solar, which solar still has challenges in terms of being able to support base loads, unless you are able to come up with huge storage facilities or systems that can compensate for that challenge. It is my view Madam Speaker that we will need to categorise these IPPs and confine them to areas of jurisdiction and areas of operation which can best suit their capacity. Some projects are left in the national pool for the interest of making sure we guarantee the future of all Zimbabweans in terms of energy sufficiency and sustainability. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. Dr. KHUPE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would also like to add my voice in thanking Hon. Gabuzza for a well presented report. The issue I would like to raise Madam Speaker has to do with due diligence because it is very clear that there was no due diligence done on those given licences to get facts about them and to ascertain whether they have the financial muscle to produce the much needed energy. Madam Speaker, it is of no use to give licences to friends and relatives when we know that they do not have the financial muscle to produce energy. I hope and trust that we have learnt a big lesson going forward, such that when we want to issue licences, we will make sure that due diligence has been done.
Madam Speaker, the other issue that I would like to raise has to do with other sources of energy. I think it is important that we look at other sources of energy so that the rest of the energy is used by industry. For household use, I think it is important that we look at bio-gas. I want to talk about bio-gas because it is close to my heart and I want us to look at bio gas which is going to produce gas from municipal waste. There is a lot of waste which is being thrown all over - go to Harare, Bulawayo, Kwekwe, Gweru - there is a lot of waste which has become a health hazard. Why are we not using that municipal waste to generate bio-gas which can be used for household use?
Once that happens, you will not see anybody throwing waste anywhere because they will know that that waste is valuable, it can be used to generate gas. So I would like to propose to the Committee and to the Government that they look at other sources of energy and biogas which is going to be produced from municipal waste because it has become a health hazard in our country. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. It was a well presented report by Hon. Gabuzza, seconded by Hon. Ndiweni. The contributions, certainly talked to a number of issues. However, I will zero in on what is critical.
Statistics are important figures; we require about 2000 megawatts in this country for us to do what we need to do across the board. The BATOKA – when it is done, you are looking at 1200 megawatts, Kariba – 1 050mega watts. Right now we are looking at 600 megawatts which are available; you are looking at this bringing in 6 800 megawatts which if you really calculate, it is 11, 3 times as much as excess should be compared to the 600 megawatts which we have.
So, when you are talking about it being 11 times more than we have right now, what would be the reason for us not to sell. First of all, we are buying electricity, there is an opportunity to sell. Zimbabwe has one thing which no one can take, which is location in the SADC region. There is Zambia where the BATOKA is not yet done - if we move quicker to achieve this, before others do it, we will be able to feed surrounding countries that are able to give us money.
However, notwithstanding all this, there is an issue which is outstanding of infrastructure. For you to be able to accommodate all these independent power producers, there has to be serious infrastructure. The question we need to ask ourselves is how much money has been put into infrastructure. Without infrastructure supporting this, then there is not much that can happen. We need infrastructure that augments all these IPP’s.
Talk about transmission - right now, quite a lot has been done in terms of other road infrastructure, it is the same thing as us saying we have got a good mine which we must go and get some gold from. One of the things that the Smith Regime did in terms of mines was to put an infrastructure first. Most of the roads that you see going to all the mines, the conditions were that can we have the infrastructure in place first. So, part of Government’s condition to these IPP’s is to say how much infrastructure are you going to contribute? Government does not have money for infrastructure, this is where the Government guarantee is important. The reason why the funding is not coming through is that there is no Government guarantee at the end of the day.
Our own indigenous people whom we must support have got the licence, but they need a partner to be able to see them through. However, that partner is not going to come without a Government guarantee. A Government guarantee cannot be based on our local currency, RTGS and Bond – we know very well it does not work. So why is Government not supporting these with Government guarantees?
The Minister of Finance and Economic Development was here, he talked about the $440 million package which is for Hwange. There was no way that they can get that without the Government guarantee. So why are we not equally supporting that? If you look at the money being spent at Hwange and what we would spend in terms of guaranteeing this, it is nothing at the end of the day. This is a quicker way of us ensuring that we have got power in the country.
People spoke about solar energy which is the way to go. The 2030 middle income cannot just be for a few. We just had COVID recently, you know how it wrecked havoc, in schools there is no power, and there is no electricity. The pass rate for the children was poor because there was no electricity. If there is electricity, there are computers, when you have computers then the kids know what to do. Most of the kids right now are busy doing on line training. There is internet, the cables that we are talking about, the boosters for communication are critical, so these boosters that we have such Telone, Telecel and Econet do not mean anything if there is no power to be able to generate.
So, the 2030 middle income economy that we are talking about has got to be focused on the majority of the people. However, what have we done in terms of empowering them through electricity? The pass rate was out of this world because of lack of that.
Madam Speaker I also want to bring in the aspect of agriculture and mining. The 12 billion projected incomes is nothing if we do not have power. These are figures that we talk about, but without power it will mean nothing. Agriculture itself, we have done well with maize but there is the issue is wheat. We need transformers, electricity so that the wheat production is not disturbed. The maize has been excellent, there are no two ways about it, but the wheat needs water.
Unfortunately, wheat grows at a time when it is our dry season, we need to reach those capacities and it is only through electricity. If you look at mining and agriculture being supported from the power generation point of view, then there is revenue coming in. Once there is revenue coming in, then the issue of the 2030 middle income economy becomes easy to achieve.
A lot of people said great things but for as long as we do not allow them to charge in US dollars, it is going to be a problem for anybody to come in and invest in this country. The loans, what we are approving in this House are US dollar loans, they are not RTGS loan. The Minister has never come with an RTGS loan here to be honest with you. Most of the loans that come through are US dollar loans so why do we want to subject ourselves to RTGs and bond yet the foreigners are given foreign currency and the locals are given RTGS.
Unfortunately, we cannot have a situation whereby you are local, you must be subject to local currency and a foreigner must be subjected to foreign currency yet we want them to perform and so forth. Madam Speaker, I really want to thank you for giving me this opportunity and equally to say to the Chairman, I think issues that have been raised have got to be taken care of and those recommendations are quite critical in ensuring that we achieve the intended goal. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(V) HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I also want to add my voice to this report by Hon. Gabbuza. Hon. Speaker, all the way from independence, I think Zimbabwe did a lot in terms of providing power or electricity to the people. The situation as it stands there is now an endless demand to more electricity because of the developments that are there in our country. We have got more and more schools that are coming up, we have towns, growth points and business centres. All these now want electricity implying that we need to come up with new additional modes of coming up with more and more electricity.
Madam Speaker, I think you will find that our country has tried to shift from the use of firewood because of the amount of damage we are doing to our environment and we are all saying it is better to use electricity whether it is biogas or we are using solar. All these developments mandate us to make sure there is demand for electricity. Madam Speaker, I have been touched by the issue of IPPS. They held on to licences for a period of 10 years and they are not doing service. They are just behaving like people who may not even manage to provide us with electricity to argument what Government is doing. I believe we need to have a more lovely approach for our nation. If you look at the companies that are doing wonderful roads in our countries, they are doing a good job for us. If some of these IPPs would go with that same spirit, I think we can also see some good development going on.
Madam Speaker, I have observed a situation where we find there is a lot of disaster happening especially when we are in the rainy season, where electricity poles fall and we have seen a number of people electrocuted. In some cases, there is poor quality supply of materials where the poles do not last and there is too much rain so the poles just fall. I think these situations need to be looked at so that we do not have loss of life.
Madam Speaker, I also wanted to applaud the Minister this afternoon when he came with an appeal to make sure that he seeks measures to finance power generation. If our Ministry of Finance could continue seeking more ways to try to fund the generation of power to meet the growing demands in our nation, that would be good for the nation. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. TOGAREPI: Madam Speaker, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th March, 2021.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI seconded by HON. MPARIWA, the House adjourned at Eleven Minutes to Seven o’clock p.m. until Tuesday 9th March, 2021.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 3rd February, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the Senate that all Senators are required to log-in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their name on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance register.
I would also want to remind Hon. Senators that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that Order of the Day, Number 1 be stood over until all the Orders of the Day have been disposed of.
HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Second Order Read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: I debated last time but when I finished, they told me that they did not capture what I had debated. So, in that case, I do not know what is going to happen.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Sen. Tongogara, I am advised that you cannot debate again. However, what you can do is to submit what you want to talk about and it will be captured as an Addendum. So you can submit your contribution.
HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Mr. President.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to wind up the motion on the Presidential Speech. I would like to thank all those who debated on the very important motion.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: On a point of order.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: What is your point of order Hon. Sen. Mohadi?
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Mr. President. I just want to register as a norm that if ever we debate the Presidential Speech, there is need for the Ministers to come and respond to the issues that we have debated on. I do not know whether that has been done?
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I did not catch the last part of your speech. Can you come again?
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I am saying that, as a norm, the Presidential Speech cannot be wound up before the Ministers concerned come and respond to what has been raised by Members of the Senate. I do not know whether it has changed or not.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Normally, the winding up of a motion is done after a Member has consulted the chief whip. Have you consulted the chief whip Hon. Sen. Chirongoma?
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Thank you very much Mr. President. I have not taken that step. My apology, I did not know the procedure. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: That is the normal procedure and I encourage you to do that. However, I am advised that Ministers were reminded through letters to respond. They have already been reminded to respond. A motion will only remain on the Order Paper for 21 days and now it is on day 19.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Mr. President, I think the Presidential Speech has more days than any other motion. The other motions are given 21 days.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Can we have the relevant section in the Standing Orders?
HON. SEN. KHUPE: Thank you Mr. President. I also wanted to say as far as I am concerned and judging by history, in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the motion on the Presidential Speech stayed until the session was about to end, that is when we were left with one or two months. It has never happened that it takes 21 days. I know it usually takes up to almost 10 to 11 months. That is my understanding. Thank you.
HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: Thank you Mr. President. I also want to express my view on this matter. I actually felt a bit ambushed this afternoon that they are putting closure to the debate on the Presidential Speech. There are a number of Hon. Senators, including myself who are preparing to debate the motion. I may not refer to any rule at the moment because I do not have the Standing Orders, but be that as it may, I would want to put a request to those who moved the motion to delay closure. There is still interest to debate the motion. Even if the 21 days are lapsing, I think there is a mechanism again within the rules that we can restore it on the Order Paper and that is where we should move. If there is a lapse, we bring it back and continue to debate. Thank you very much.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: My ruling on this issue is as follows; since we are not very clear on that, I am asking Hon. Sen. Chirongoma to adjourn the debate whilst we study it and we will have a final ruling tomorrow.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Thank you very much Mr. President. I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 4th March, 2021.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum held virtually on 9th October, 2020.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. SIPANI-HUNGWE: Thank you Mr. President. I would want to contribute a few words thanking Hon. Sen. Mohadi for the motion that she brought into this House following the SADC Parliamentary Forum that was held in Namibia. I would like to commend what happened and say that when we are befallen by a pandemic such as the covid-19, Parliaments in SADC come together to come up with a sustainable solution to the pandemic. This pandemic hit us unaware globally, and was given the name COVID-19.
We do not know whether it was manufactured or it was God’s will. The Bible tells us that in the last days there will be diseases and people will die and we have witnessed it. We saw our Government taking measures to protect its citizens by the introduction of lockdowns as a control measure against the pandemic. I would like to thank our father, the Head of State and Government, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, His Excellency E. D. Mnangagwa. A lot of people insulted him and despised the measures he had put in place to fight the pandemic. We lost some Members of this House to the pandemic. A lot of people died but the number of people who perished in this country cannot be compared to the number of people from other countries.
Now that the economy has been opened, we must not forget to continue wearing our masks and practice social distancing. We should not avoid vaccination. I was vaccinated recently and there are not any side effects up to this day. It was just a jab, there are no after effects. His Excellency does not force us; he pleads with us to take some time under lockdown, all being measures to protect us from the pandemic. I would like to also thank the chiefs because they played a vital role in the fight against the pandemic. All they did helped the nation to reduce the fatalities as compared to other countries.
I would like to thank churches in their numbers, even though they never congregate to pray, we understand that they were praying from their homes and we would like to thank them for their prayers for the nation. It helped us as a nation. We continue to say, let us protect ourselves. It is our wish that Government brings more vaccines. We understand the social media was awash with a lot of lies and fabrication regarding the vaccine, there is nothing of that sort.
We kindly ask Government to move in swiftly to bring the vaccine into the country so that everyone is vaccinated. We want to also remove the spirit of voluntary vaccination. We want to hear that everyone is vaccinated because when the disease comes, it kills everyone. A lot of people mock us for getting vaccinated, but we are saying to His Excellency, the President: we kindly ask to have everyone to be vaccinated despite who you are, race or background. Everyone should be vaccinated.
It was suggested that instead of having SADC Parliamentary Forum, there should be a Parliament of African countries. This is a good idea because we will speak one language as African countries. We will have one resolution despite diversity in our languages when we come together as SADC Parliaments. All I would like to say is let us continue to work but continue to adhere to the rules and regulations as stipulated by the World Health Organisation. We heard of the variant coming from South Africa of the COVID-19, we should not fear anything because we pray to a living God. We pray that wave should not affect anyone in this country. With those few words, I thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Mr. President, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 4th March, 2021.
MOTION
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS NETWORK ON DEVELOPMENT (APNODE) HELD IN ABIDJAN
Fourth order read: That this House takes note of the Report of the Zimbabwe Delegation to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the African Parliamentarians Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE) held from 28th to 30th August 2019 in Abidjan, Cote D’ivoire.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 4th March, 2021.
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
Fifth order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Extraordinary Session of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. I want to congratulate the Parliament of Zimbabwe which was led by our Speaker of the National Assembly. There were elections and there were four candidates who were participating for the post of the presidency for IPU. Through the Parliament of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe supported the candidature of Hon. Pacheco for IPU Presidency.
It did not just end there. After Zimbabwe had supported the candidature of Hon. Pacheco, it went to the SADC PF where the SADC PF also supported this motion on the 49th Plenary Assembly which took place from the 9th to the 11th of October. When IPU met during their meetings, the four candidates were brought to the meeting but Hon. Pacheco gained 97% of the vote. I congratulate Hon. Pacheco for becoming the President of the IPU for the next three years.
During that meeting, there were a lot of issues that were debated when the Parliaments were giving their reports. One of the issues that were debated was about climate change. In Zimbabwe, we have already seen what climate change has done to us. Let me just tell you of the present situation that we are in at the moment. Each and everyone is very happy because it has been long since we had such amounts of rainfall that we are having this year. To us that is part of the climate change.
If my memory still serves me well, we last had such rains in 2000 and from there, some places in Zimbabwe were experiencing droughts here and there. People in our part of the country were relying on importing staple food, which is maize. However, for this year, all those who had time to get into their fields or farms will never go to any shop to buy mealie-meal because they have sufficient food – that is climate change.
Under the normal season of the SADC region, we know that our farming programme or the rainy season starts between October and November and ends between January and February. However, we are now in March and we are still having plenty of rains. Some are even blaspheming saying those that have got the keys of the rains, maybe have lost the keys. The continuous rains have damaged some property and in some parts people are very happy because even those on live stock production are also very happy. There is enough grass for grazing of their livestock this year.
Mr. President, I will not finish everything but I also want to touch on the issue of development and achieving our SDGs. When I talk of the rains and food that we are going to get, you will find that it is a great achievement because no country can develop when its people are starving or importing food. All the resources of that country will be used to import food for the nation because people cannot be left to die of hunger. As a result, some of the developmental projects will not take place.
When we talk about development, our President is planning ahead with so many developmental projects lined up so that when we get to the year 2023 we will have a lot of projects which will enable the country to survive and sustain itself. Looking at the irrigation schemes that are being revamped, it is a sign of development because this year we are not going to source food. All that we will get in the form of resources will be used here.
On the issue of youths and gender that was also debated – our youths if you can remember, as of now are engaging in a lot of projects. I want to thank the Government of Zimbabwe because we have banks for women and the youths whereby they can go and borrow loans to develop the country of Zimbabwe, which is a very good idea which we all support. The youths that we are talking about are the future leaders of tomorrow. They should be empowered by all means so that they can also progress. They will acknowledge us for having opened a way for them but if we do not do that, they will always curse us for not leaving any legacy for them because every parent who lives wants to leave a legacy for his/her children. Therefore, let us all get geared to leave a legacy for our youths.
On the issue of women, this is a thorny issue which keeps coming up. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. I was looking at a graph of the elections of 2008, 2013 and 2018. It started with 19% women getting into Parliament, decreased to 16% and in 2018 we were at 14%. There is great room for the country to look at the issue of women. If we look at women, they are the majority in this country and they form 52% of the population. Even at the churches, you will see more women than men. The same applies to funerals and wherever you go. Even at the grassroots level, when they are doing their projects, most of them are women but when it comes to leadership, those women are nowhere to be seen.
There is need for us - as this report is talking about the Sustainable Development Goals and one of them is to attain 50/50 of women representation. I do not think we will ever achieve it if we do not talk about it. As we come to elections, women are nowhere to be seen yet they will have done all the ground work. Very few women get leadership positions, let alone in the highest hierarchy. We might have one woman or two women just as a decoration because if it comes to voting, that one woman cannot vote for all the women at the grassroots.
So, I find that this is a very important report and I urge other Members here to take seriously these reports because they are full of information. We have to debate robustly taking into consideration that all this is not just done out of nothing. We have to concentrate and give information to our people as representatives of people at grassroots level. They should also have the information that we are talking about which is not only from Zimbabwe but comes from different Parliaments. With these words, I thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 4th March 2021.
On the Motion of HON. SEN. CHIEF. CHARUMBIRA, seconded by HON. SEN. MOHADI the Senate adjourned at Twenty Past Three o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
LOGGING IN ON VIRUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to remind the House that all Hon. Members are required to log-in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their names on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance register. Furthermore, Hon. Members are advised that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have got a list of apologies received from Hon. Ministers in respect of the National Assembly sitting on Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021. Hon. Vice President, C. D. Chiwenga; Hon. O. C.Z Muchinguri-Kashiri, Defence and War Veterans Affairs; Hon. Dr. Sekai Kanhutu-Nzenza, Industry and Commerce; Hon. G. Moyo, Local Government, Public Works and National Housing; Hon. C. Mathema, Primary and Secondary Education; Hon. Dr. O. Moyo, Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education; Hon. Prof. Murwira, Higher and Tertiary Education; Hon. D. Musabayana, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; Hon. D. Marapira, Minister in the Vice President’s Office; Hon. S. G. G. Moyo, Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development; and Hon. M. N. Ndlovu, Environment and Tourism.
Hon. Mushoriwa having wanted to raise a point of privilege.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mushoriwa, today is Wednesday, so we…
(v) HON. MUSHORIWA: It is a clarification on the list that you have announced. We just wanted to find out for some of us who are not in the House, which Ministers then are present in the House. The list that you have announced is long. Do we have Ministers in the House so that we can pose questions? If so, which Ministers are there?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes we have them. If you have a question which you may want to ask and the Minister is not present, you can direct that question to the leader of Government Business.
(v) HON. GONESE: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are not taking any points of order Hon. Gonese.
(v) HON. GONESE: It is a clarification Madam Speaker. Please hear me out. My understanding is that points of privilege…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Gonese, it was ruled by the Hon. Speaker that we are not going to take any points of order on a Wednesday, except Tuesdays and Thursdays.
(v) HON. GONESE: I think that there is a distinction because I understand that it is a point of privilege which cannot be raised on Wednesday. Points of order arise on a particular day…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: But there is not any Business where does the point of order arise from. - [HON. GONESE: I think it becomes unfair Madam Speaker if you then prohibit us because points of order can arise say for example when I want a clarification of something or when I missed something…] - Hon. Gonese, there is no business yet, so where is that point of order coming from? Where is your point of order arising from Hon. Gonese?
HON. GONESE: It arises from your ruling which is not correct. If you deny points of order, that is not correct Madam Speaker. The Speaker was referring to points of privilege.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker, my point of order arises from your absence with leave. Madam Speaker I just want to verify from you ...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: But I did not recognise you Hon. Mliswa, why are you up standing? Did I recognise you?
HON. T. MLISWA: I have been extremely generous allowing those on virtual to speak first. You know me, I could have spoken but I gave them a chance but I see that when I give people a chance, I am also shot under. So I do not know what to do. My point of order emanates from your announcement on the Ministers with leave, the apologies that you mentioned. I must state this and it must be on record that I am taking it further. Those who did not apologise and the Clerk of Parliament is listening; I do not want the tendency of coming to your office about those Ministers who are not fulfilling their obligation and you always find a way of covering up for them. We must stop this habit. The Speaker ruled many things here. First of all, by 12 o’clock p. m. all the notices must be in. The moment that you announce them here, it is in the Hansard; it is a record which can be used. It is better for you not to announce if 12 o’clock p. m. you are not there. Secondly, all ministers must be present here like some who gave excuses and so forth. This must go on record and I want to move that the ministers have not been serious. So I will be moving a motion of contempt to ministers who are not here.
We must understand because the ruling emanates from the Speaker saying at 12 o’clock p.m. exactly, the list must be there. The moment that you just read it, it becomes a record for the Hansard. So I will be using that and I hope when I go to the office tomorrow, I am not going to be told something else. A lot of shenanigans happens. There is also corruption there. Other ministers call, they are added and so forth. May we stop the corruption administratively and we take this role seriously. I need a list Clerk and I am announcing all the ministers who did not apologise so that I move a motion of contempt of Parliament. We cannot be a Parliament which comes here; there are so many challenges in the country yet ministers are not here when they have a mandate to carry out. I thank you.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
*HON. TOGAREPI: What measures have been put in place to the perennial problem with regards to payment of tobacco farmers or what measures have you put in place to ensure that tobacco farmers will get their money in good time since we are now in the tobacco selling season? I thank you.
*THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the question which inquires into the measures that the Government has put in place to deal with the sale of tobacco. The opening of tobacco auctions is coming very soon and we are busy engaging with the buyers together with the Reserve Bank and farmers representatives who have submitted areas that they would want improved from last year so that they are satisfied, that inclusive of the practice that was taking place last year where when they were selling their tobacco, they would get Z$25 to US$1 for the season. The majority of them cried foul and said they lost out because of that. Now, with the stability in the exchange rate which has remained constant at US$83 to US$1 range, I think this will assist them to get money that has a steady value.
Secondly, whenever they will be selling it will be their wish that parts of the equipment or requirements that they need to have and buy in USD, they should be given because last year they were getting 50% USD component and the other half in Zim dollar component. Their request is that they should be given more USD component because the majority of their inputs are now being sold in USD. The Reserve Bank has put in measures to the effect that there is going to be the same treatment to everyone who is exporting produce so that tobacco farmers are happy because they are going to get 60% and the USD component. We are busy ensuring that the two come to an agreement before the opening of the tobacco auction floors. Thank you.
*HON. TOGAREPI: There is a problem where we would want you to give us clarity. The problem comes from the banks that are supposed to pay farmers when they will have delivered their tobacco. We have seen people staying at these auction floors after they will have sold their tobacco. Are there measures in place where the farmer is going to be paid immediately after delivery of his tobacco?
*HON. DR. MASUKA: The question was - are there arrangements and the answer is; indeed there are such arrangements.
*HON. MADZIMURE: Minister, it is a given that year in year out people plant and sell. We have less than 30 days to the opening of auction floors. What is difficult on being prepared so that when the farmer is planting the crop, you announce the producer price so that the farmer can strategise for the coming year because as they are busy treating their tobacco they are unaware of the price that you are going to pay them. Lastly, you know that our prices are pegged at USD1 to Z$125. When you give the farmer 60%, the 40% that the farmer is going to get is not in the value of the USD but it is 60 cents because of the auction system. What measures are you going to put in place? May you please give the farmers their 100% component pegged at the prevalent USD? I thank you.
*HON. DR. MASUKA: Madam Speaker, this question has more to do with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe who may shed light on that issue. We are farmers and we have a bumper harvest. We believe that farmers should be properly remunerated. There is a difference between the tobacco farmers and the maize farmers in that as Government, we buy the majority of the crops and we can announce producer prices before they even plant. In a few weeks time, we are going to announce the producer prices for maize and wheat that is to respond to the question. As Ministry of Agriculture, our mandate is to urge farmers to plant sufficient crops and ensure that they are properly paid. As to the issue of payment and how the components should be in terms of the Zimbabwean dollar to the US dollar, is it best dealt with by the relevant Ministry?
I just want to reiterate that tobacco farmers are different from maize farmers. Those maize farmers sell directly to the Government and we are able to tell the producer price of maize before it is produced. In three month’s time we will be doing such an exercise because it is the Government that will be purchasing the maize. Tobacco is auctioned at a tobacco auction floor where international and local buyers that exceed 30 companies at the moment are in a position then to decide what amount they will pay. As to how it is going to be paid to the farmer, it is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance and Economic Development. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: Madam Speaker, the question is directly related to the production of tobacco, and the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development are here.
HON. MARKHAM: Madam Speaker, thank you for recognising me. Madam Speaker I just want to revert to the exchange rate in the purchase of tobacco. When a farmer gets paid, when they get 60% or whatever percentage into his nostro account, as soon as his money goes on for the auction rate, we are talking of roughly 83:1 now. As soon as that farmer walks out of there and goes and buys inputs, these are charged at the illegal market rate at 120 dollars. That means the farmer, for next year, before he even picks up a hoe, he or she has lost 30%.
Madam Speaker, How is the Minister expecting production to increase? I understand that tobacco production for this year is less than last year, what is the Minister doing to rectify the situation? We are thirty days of the opening of the market and we are still talking, I do not believe that the farmers have been looked after. Can the Minister assure us that there will be some parity between the exchange rate they are paying the farmer and what the goods are costing the farmer? Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I want to thank Hon. Markham for the question. His question is about the exchange rate that the farmer is being compensated for their US dollar earnings portion that they hold on to, that is the question. The situation is like this: we as Government can only offer the auction rate which is 83.5 per US, we cannot offer any other exchange rate. If we did that, then we will be undermining the auction system and we will be promoting these other markets for which we have no control which also have shown to be quite disruptive. So, we have to stick to the auction rate and promote that auction system by making sure that anyone who deals with Government uses that exchange rate, we cannot use a different rate regardless of the retention.
HON. BITI: My supplementary question to the esteemed Minister of Finance and Economic Development is that the economy and farmers are suffering serious prejudice due to the mismatch between the official fixed auction rate of 1:83 or 83:5 at the open market. As Hon. Markham has said, farmers will get for their retention a US dollar of 1:83 but their cost structure is indexed on the black market rate which is around 1:125, why do you not do the right thing Hon. Minister and accept the informal re-dollarisation that has taken place. For you to remain within your track, why do you not simply liberalize the exchange and let the Zimbabwean dollar find its mark on the open market instead of having the artificial controlled exchange rate of 1:83 which is prejudicing the market, farmers and the rest of the economy? I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you for that intervention and question. First of all, let us be clear, the auction system is not fixed. The auction system only releases to the public as a communication point. Let me assist the Member of Parliament, Hon. Biti. You see, let us be clear Madam Speaker. The auction system is not rigged, fixed, or manipulated. The auction system represents the best expression in choice. You go there and you express whatever exchange rate you want. It is up to you. If you want to buy United States dollar at 1:1000 it is up to you. We will actually sell to you to teach you a lesson. If you want, I will come to that, his interjections. So you choose your exchange rate. That is why when we publish the results we show a range, Madam Speaker, from the highest to the lowest. What we then communicate is the weighted average. That is all. That weighted average has been stable and I tell you this economy, industrialists and the Hon. Member of Parliament appreciate that. He appreciates the stability I can assure you because the money in his pocket right now in Zimbabwean dollars or RTGS, whatever he is calling it, is stable, it is retaining value. For the first time in three years, companies can plan. Speak to the companies and that is what they will tell you.
So the auction system represents a market oriented choice friendly and choice promoting system and it has delivered stability. So therefore we cannot adopt anything else that undermines that stability such as this other market that the Hon. Member was referring to. No, we cannot do that. We have to stick to the auction rate. That is what has delivered order and stability. The auction system is driven by free market forces because you can choose any exchange rate you want. You cannot be freer than that. Can you imagine a system where you choose your own price? Can you believe it? You cannot be freer than that. That is the ultimate in free market forces promotion. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. MAYIHLOME: My question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Mines and Mining Development. During the pre-budget consultations, the Hon. Minister assured us that the issue of EPOs that are virtually covering most of the mining areas in this country, in particular the mining areas of Matabeleland and Midlands, would be addressed before the end of the year. Now we are two months into 2021and nothing has happened. When are we going to see the new policy come into effect so that citizens are allowed to back claims? Thank you Madam Speaker.
THE MINISTER OF MINES AND MINING DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHITANDO): I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the question. I will start by giving the status that the EPOs have been processed and as we talk, they are at the Attorney-General’s Office for publication. If they do not get published this Friday, they will be published next Friday. So yes, I admit that there was a delay and part of the delay was caused by the reduction in staff during the COVID lockdown period, but the promise which we undertook has been fulfilled and as we talk, we are waiting gazetting. I would like to think that if not gazetted this Friday, next week they will be gazetted. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. DR. KHUPE: My question is directed to the Minister responsible for water. We have experienced draught as a country for quite some time now resulting in water rationing but this year, God blessed us with a lot of water and my question is, what measures have they put in place to ensure that water is harvested particularly in urban areas in the form of surface runoff harvesting and rooftop rain water harvesting. These days there is a lot of runoff and it pains to see a lot of water flowing without it being harvested. Madam Speaker, this water is going to be useful for drinking, gardening and irrigation when the need arises. I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Khupe for the question. I think it has two levels. At a broader national level Government has the accelerated dam construction project and not just in view of drinking water but also agricultural and industrial water. It is in this regard that we have started an unprecedented project to do ten dams this year and we will be commissioning three.
At the urban supply level, most of the towns because of the abundant rains have enough water in their dams to supply 14 months and above. Bulawayo has 14 months supply in its dam. Harare has got 25 months supply and we are quite pleased with that. At household level and not just in urban areas but also in communal areas, because climate change is real and things will get worse in the decades ahead, we need to inculcate a culture of water harvesting. It is in this regard that in the Accelerated Irrigation and Rehabilitation Master Plan, we have encouraged local investments in roof top water harvesting techniques. I think everyone must get into this culture of harvesting the scarce water that we get. I thank you.
(V)HON. M. M. MPOFU: My question is directed to the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage. What is the Ministry’s position or action plan to curb the ever escalating violence, suicide, robbery and murder cases which are a cause for concern to the people of my Constituency Silobela? No-one is free or safe from these thugs. How many deaths or robberies are required to trigger a response from the powers of ZRP to warrant intervention? - [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa order please!
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Our laws do not allow anyone to murder anyone. If you go into our Constitution, it allows the death penalty for aggravated murder. The general policy is that if you murder someone, the police must arrest, investigate the case and you are brought to court and the appropriate sentence is given.
From what I got from the Hon. Member, there is a specific case that is happening in his Constituency which needs him to write a specific question so that the appropriate Minister can investigate and appropriate remedies are taken - [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] –
(V)HON. O. SIBANDA: My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Hon. Mhona. May I take this opportunity to congratulate Hon. Mhona on his new appointment. I seek clarification on Government policy – I understand that your Ministry intends to.....
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. The Hon. Member is not dressed properly. He has no tie.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon Sibanda, please may you put on your tie. You are not properly dressed.
HON. T. MOYO: My question is directed to the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs....
(V)HON. P. MOYO: My question is directed to ....
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I said Hon. T. Moyo.
(V)HON. PRISCILLA MOYO: I am Priscilla Moyo....
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. T. Moyo and not P. Moyo.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. My question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
(V)HON. PRISCILLA MOYO: I hear a lot of ......
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. T. Moyo and not Hon. P Moyo. Hon. T. Moyo may you go ahead.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. My question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. What is the Ministry’s position towards espionage and cyber espionage?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Moyo, are you connected?
HON. T. MOYO: Yes. I think I am connected.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please go ahead.
HON. T. MOYO: My question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. What is the Ministry’s policy towards espionage and cyber espionage?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): In our criminal court under crimes against the State, espionage is listed as one of the crimes. The position is very clear in terms of our criminal laws.
HON. T. MOYO: What happens to a few Zimbabweans who have a tendency of sending political and military secrets, intelligence of the country to other countries because we have such individuals in our midst?
HON ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. I have already indicated that it is criminalised and anyone with information can report to the relevant security agencies for investigation so that the person can be prosecuted. I thank you.
HON BITI: What happens if the State itself is committing espionage against private citizens and I refer to the recent incident where the entire private communication of the Vice President of a country was interfered with against the laws of the country and then used? What happens when the State is the rogue element and is committing that espionage? What protection do members of the public and Executive have?
HON. ZIYAMBI: In all fairness, the first question was referring to crimes against the State. The supplementary question is now bordering on rights of citizens and protection of privacy of citizens. It is different from the first question where the question was - what happens when people commit espionage against the State, which is what I answered. However, I am not privy to the circumstances that the Hon. Member has alluded to. If he has information to that, he can direct it to the relevant authorities to ensure that the right to privacy of our citizens are maintained.
*HON TEKESHE: My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. We are having a challenge in that the bridges are being swept away and infrastructure is being destroyed. There are rains all over the country. The bridges that were constructed before independence are intact but the ones that were constructed after independence are being swept away. Why is there a difference?
*THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): I want to thank the Hon Member for his question. It is our hope that every infrastructure is durable. I am happy that as a country, we now have a policy that looks into all the projects and infrastructure that is being constructed, that they are done properly through monitoring and evaluation. I promise you Hon Tekeshe, after a project has been completed, evaluations are made to ensure that they are of correct standard. I thank you.
*HON TEKESHE: My supplementary question is; there is a law that says bridges must be inspected annually so that if there is a problem it is rectified as soon as possible. Are these bridges being inspected? Why is it that the bridges which are being built these days do not have reinforcement like all other bridges?
*HON. MHONA: It is correct that whenever a building or structure is being put up, it is inspected so that it is properly constructed. Since you have a bridge that you have in mind, it is better that you put your question in writing so that an appropriate response may be given with regards to how the bridge was constructed. I thank you.
HON. MUNETSI: May I find out from the Hon Minister as to when you anticipate to start construction of this bridge?
HON. MHONA: I want to thank Hon Munetsi for his question and let me take this platform to advise the august House that after the declaration of state of disaster by His Excellency, there is a programme known as Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme Phase 2 which is running from 2021 to 2024 February. The immediate phase that has been referred to by the Hon Member is the one that is running. It started on 1 March 2021 and as we speak, engineers are seized in trying to come up with roads. I urge Hon Members to take this upon yourselves so that you prioritise roads in your constituencies that you think are very important and that also entails to my fellow colleague, Hon. Tekeshe so that you prioritise some of those bridges that you are talking about. That first phase is taking 60 days whereby we are going to address the issues of wash-aways, pothole filling and drain clearing.
Apparently, in the next 60 days, the Ministry will be seized in trying to address that. We are actually mandated according to the Roads Act, Chapter 13:18 which talks of section 5 that allows the Hon. Minister to take charge of the roads and this is what we are doing. We need to move with speed as Parliament, local authorities and rural district councils to take ownership of this programme.
(V)* HON. TSUNGA: My supplementary question is that there are a lot of cases regarding people who have lost their property to bridges that are washed away in certain places. What does Government plan to do about that? Some people were injured or suffered various losses and so, what is Government planning to do?
(V)* HON. MHONA: I would like to thank Hon. Tsunga for the important question. Let me say in this august House, this issue has been raised that it is important to have a budget for people who have suffered losses like that. These are calamities that just come and they are not paid for. So it is important for restoration to be done if such things occur but let me suggest that as we converge in this House, it is important that all cars should be insured against accidents and the injury of persons that will be on those cars so that whatever happens then the insurance can compensate.
(V)* HON. PRISCILLA MOYO: What is Government policy on contractors on the roads if they are not performing, for example the one doing the Chivu-Mvuma lag?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Let me thank the Hon. Member for that very important question, only to say since she has addressed a specific contractor, I will be happy to have that one in writing. However, let me address the issues that she has highlighted in terms of failure to perform.
Like I alluded to earlier on, the national policy on monitoring and evaluation, I am sure will go a long way in trying to address some of these issues. Let me also hasten to say the Committees of Parliament, let us work together and try to monitor and evaluate projects so that we do not wait for the contractor to misuse taxpayer’s monies and then report thereafter. Thank you.
(V) *HON. KWARAMBA: My question is directed to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. I notice that schools will be opened on the 22nd March but looking at the calendar, you will find that on 2nd April it will be Good Friday. This means that school children will have attended school maybe just for nine days. My worry is - what is the implication to parents who would have sent their children to school on the 22nd March and then go back to collect them for Easter?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I want to thank Hon. Kwaramba for the question which is a very good question articulating that learners have been requested that they will open on the 22nd March, immediately after that we have Good Friday and then we go to Independence Holiday and it might constrain parents. What I can say is, the Ministry is working on a calendar but the policy is; let us now open schools. So they will come up with a proper calendar and I am sure we can engage them and that can also be taken into consideration.
They will also look into the syllabus because as you know, last year we lost a lot of time because there are several things that they did not do. So I think that is a very good question which we can ask them to consider when coming up with a calendar for the whole year.
(v)*HON. MAKONYA: If schools are going to be opened, has Government met the demands of teachers because we do not want to experience what happened before where teachers did not report for duty citing incapacitation?
*THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you clarify on which issues you are talking about?
(v)*HON. MAKONYA: Teachers’ salaries Madam Speaker.
*THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Madam Speaker. This supplementary question does not relate to the first question, because the first question was that schools are being opened yet we have public holidays close by, will this not burden parents? This is a new question altogether concerning salaries of Government employees. There are discussions underway and teachers are part of that negotiation. When they reach a consensus, it will be made public. I thank you.
(v)HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: My supplementary question is when the school calendar is out, will it deal with the issue of school fees because as we speak, parents are being asked to pay school fees for the whole term. What is the Ministry going to do in relation to the issues of paying school fees outside the school calendar? Thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam Speaker. Again, this is also another question that was smuggled even though it relates to the education sector. I believe that there are several categories of schools. There are Government schools, private schools and mission schools and we cannot lump them in one basket. Others have boards and parents are involved when the fees are being raised and they agree that they want the whole fees for the whole term to be charged. I think some of the concerns are very specific, it can be addressed to the Minister or to the relevant schools so that they can deliberate and come up with a framework of how they can deal with it within the confines of the policy framework that will come up from the Ministry of Education. I thank you.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Madam Speaker, the Minister knows that with the Education Amendment Act which we passed, it is very clear, you do not increase or charge school fees until the Minister…
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order. She cannot have a second bite of the cherry. It is either she seeks a point of clarity, there cannot be two supplementary questions. Those are the rules that you teach us, that is why we are so attentive, unless she comes in with a point of clarity, she cannot speak.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Misihairabwi, maybe you can ask a new question. – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] – Order, order Hon. Member.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: I was saying to the Minister, as the Education Amendment Act is clear that, you do not raise or charge school fees until such a time that those have been approved by the Ministry. So has the Ministry already set up what is going to happen as far as school fees are concerned in relation to what is the fate of the school calendar? At the moment we do not have the school calendar and we are generally having parents being asked to pay school fees across the board, so what is the policy issue in this instance?
HON. ZIYAMBI: I did not quite get the question but from what I gathered, she is saying that we cannot increase school fees until the Minister has approved. I am saying that there are different categories of schools. We have private schools which are strictly private and the Minister does not come in. Then there are those mission schools and Government schools, so if it is purely private, the Minister does not have any business in dealing with them. That is why I was making reference to the board and the relevant school authorities, because you agree when you enroll your child to abide by whatever is there. So I do not agree with what she is saying. If Government comes with a policy framework as to how the learners will go back, then and only then can we deliberate and say in terms of fees for Government schools why did the Minister did this and that not for private schools. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order Madam Speaker. When the Leader of Government Business responded to Hon. Kwaramba’s question, he said the calendar was not yet out, which is wrong because we already know that other students are going back to school on 15 March and the rest are going on 22nd March, so the calendar is out. He did not respond to the earlier question correctly because the calendar is out. This was announced by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services who is here.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker what was announced was that learners must start going to school from the 22nd but we do not have the whole calendar and how we are going to do it. That is exactly what I said that within the framework of working out, the Ministry, I think we will advise them to also take into consideration what Hon. Kwaramba was saying. What was announced was that with the obtaining conditions that are there now, the reduction in cases, the environment is suitable for us.
(v)HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. My point of order is: remember when we started the questions we had asked that the Leader of the House will be in a position to answer questions where the Ministers are not there but judging from the quality of answers that we are getting from the Leader of the House, it leaves a lot to be desired and this is the reason why we need to ensure that Ministers come, because we cannot waste a day thinking that the Leader of the House will be in a position to cover all the Ministries when in actual fact he is just responding on the surface.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What surface are you referring to?
(v)HON. MUSHORIWA: Just look at the way the Leader of the House has answered the questions pertaining to the issue of the school...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are out of order Hon. Mushoriwa.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker. Since the issue of opening of schools is such an important issue, I request that the Hon. Minister should come to this House and give a Ministerial Statement on the level of preparedness so that we know exactly what is going to happen, considering issues of PPEs and so on.
THE HON. DPEUTY SPEAKER: That is a valid point Hon. Moyo. We will ask the Hon. Minister of Education to come and give us a Ministerial Statement. Thank you.
*HON. BITI: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government Dr. Chombo. On Friday you gazetted a SI which says the farms in Chiredzi/Chilonga must be given to Lucerne farming and the Lucerne will be farmed by Den Dairy Company which means that 12 500 families are going to relocated from Chilonga and we do not know where they are going to be resettled by the Government. Why are we taking the communal land and giving it to Den Dairy? The second one is what is the criteria used to give communal land to Den Dairy? The third question is why we are going to take the land which belongs to communal people, especially the minority group which stays in Chilonga, the Shangani people? Thank you Madam Speaker.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. DR. CHOMBO): Thank you Hon. Speaker and thank you very much Hon. Biti for such a question. From listening to the question, it looks like it links more towards the Ministry of Lands and I would request through you Hon. Speaker that the question be directed as such.
HON. BITI: The Statutory Instrument was done by the Ministry of Local Government.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. DR. CHOMBO): Thank you very much Hon. Speaker and thank you to Hon. Biti for that question. As far as relocation of people – what happens is that the Ministry in conjunction with the Ministry of Lands, we identify lands or places that are suitable for accommodating people. Right now we are in the drive to boost up our production in agriculture. So, if we realise that some of the land that is being occupied as residential is suitable for agriculture. We introduce those Statutory Instruments to make sure that we do justice. As a matter of fact, whenever we locate people, we first identify some areas where it is suitable to move them to before we relocate them.
HON. BITI: My question to Hon. Chombo is that the people that are living in Chilonga are growing sugar-cane, soghurm, millet and selling to Chibuku. Why is their land being taken and being given to Den Dairy who are white people? I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: It has nothing to do with the Minister of Lands, it is a Statutory Instrument under Local Government and the Minister of Justice can even tell you that. It is them who decide to do that. The Ministry of Lands does not come into it. the Minister of Lands only comes in when they lend him but he is not the one who is removing them. We are asking the Ministry which is removing them to explain.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Mliswa. Hon. Minister of Lands, are you able to answer that question.
Hon. T. Mliswa having kept on speaking when not recognised by the Hon. Deputy Speaker
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am the Chair Hon. Mliswa please hey!
THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): Madam Speaker, this question is very specific and specific to a specific location and an excision that was done in terms of a Statutory Instrument by the Minister responsible for Local Government. My suggestion therefore is that this be deferred that a full answer can be taken from the Ministry and presented to this House. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Biti, maybe you can put your question in writing so that the Hon. Minister of Local responds to iot.
HON. BITI: What is the policy that has been used by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works to take away communal lands and giving it to Dendairy who are white people? It is a policy question Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Biti, may you switch on your mic?
*HON. BITI: My question Madam Speaker is what policy was used by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works to take communal lands and if it was communal lands, is it structured by the Communal Lands Act?
The Statutory Instrument made by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works is made in terms of the Communal Lands Act. On what basis then has the Hon. Minister exercised a policy decision of taking away rural land and giving it to someone? What is the policy and why is this happening 41 years after Independence when we went to war for this land? I thank you. – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Mliswa!
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon. Speaker. Hon. Speaker, before I answer, when Hon. Biti first spoke, he said that people were dispossessed of their land. It is wrong because they were not dispossessed of their land.
Communal land is vested in the President and Hon. Biti appreciates that any land even one that you have title deeds to, if there is a project of national interest to be carried out, the President can cause it to be gazetted and you can be relocated elsewhere. It is not correct that people were chased away.
Secondly, when there is a project of national interest to be carried and it is found that the communal area is most suitable, there is nothing that inhibits the President from taking such a stance. What is wrong is for people to be removed from such an area and not be resettled. The Hon. Minister has correctly stated that these people who are going to be moved from that place are going to be resettled. The National Assembly that we have at one time belonged to someone and the house that Hon. Biti has today, at one time belonged to someone else. So if there is a project of national interest, the President can cause that gazette to be made by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works and they acted accordingly.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is that Government is seized with removing illegal settlers. These are not illegal settlers but legal settlers; they have been there for a very long time – nine years. They are 12 000 of them and not only that but those who live off them it will be 50 000 and over one person…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is the question?
HON. T. MLISWA: The question is, have we now gotten to a point of reversing the Land Reform Programme where we now have to vacate our ancestral lands? I might as well go and inform saSabhuku inini, kuti chiendai zvenyu nekuti Hurumende ichakubvisai pano apa. What is the cost of 12 000 people vis-à-vis one farmer?
The Government has enough farms to be able to give. The Hon. Minister is embarking on an underutilisation programme that can identify farms. So why do we not wait for that process to happen? Identify and give to him but we cannot afford to reverse the Land Reform Programme, the gains of the struggle. The Indigenisation Empowerment Act, he repealed it again. What are the people of Zimbabwe going to be left with when the little that they have in land they do not have? My question is very clear, they are not illegal; they are legal. Is it now going to be a standard measure for the whole country? Can we now go as Members of Parliament to say kumaruwa kwamuri uku, Hurumende kana yakusvika pano, musavake inotora.
*HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I thank Hon. Mliswa but he had misdirected himself in the sense that these people are being relocated to another place. He has misdirected himself as if this is a new way of doing things but the law that I cited allows the President to possess the land that you occupy if there is a project of national importance and the law has been in practice for a long time. This is part of our law and if he was unaware of it, this is the law and this is a fact.
It is not just a decision that was done overnight that such hay could be grown in that area. People are being relocated and are being advised of the reasons why they are to be resettled and if houses are going to be constructed, that will be done. They have been informed of the reasons behind their relocation. – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] - The Hon. Member does not want a response but simply wants an argument but this is what the law states and that is the position at law. I thank you. – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection.] -
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! Hon. Mliswa, please may you approach the Chair?
HON. BITI: On a point of clarification Madam Speaker! Thank you. My point of clarification to the esteemed Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Leader of the House is …
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Biti please, may you be connected?
HON. BITI: Yes, I am trying to do that. Madam Speaker Ma’am, my point of clarification is to the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and esteemed Leader of the House. On what basis do we now call a grass making project a national project?
Secondly, on what criteria are we giving this land and ejecting 12 500 people to one Dendairy farmer, the Coetzee brothers? On what criteria is grass growing a national project that justifies the disbursement of people from their cultural land? It is not justified Hon. Speaker Ma’am.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. Madam Speaker, I am actually surprised that the Hon. Member who knows the laws very well can actually attest to what I was saying that it is within the confines of the law is speaking, the way he is speaking. He is now pretending to be an agriculturalist to question the type of grass and how we should move forward in terms of cattle rearing. I am actually surprised that he is saying that. I think there is insincerity in the way the Hon. Member is asking because he knows the law very well and he knows that the President is empowered to do that. As to the criteria of which farmer has been given that particular land surely, it is not relevant to me. What I am here to answer is that the policy framework, if we have a project of national importance which the agriculturalist will say that we will ensure that our heard is improved, all the experts have said this is the route to go. I am sure if he wants to go and join the agricultural college and argue with them, I think so be it but what I have said is what is obtaining and is within the confines of the law. I thank you.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I just want to follow up on his question. The first question is very simple who is going to resettle 12500 people, the Dendairy or the State? Secondly, the State has failed to resettle a lot of people including Cyclone Idai and Tokwe-Mukorsi victims. My issue with this is there is an exercise being run very adequately by the Ministry of Agriculture on identifying land that is not being used. Why are we displacing 12500 people, which can be equated to another Land Reform Programme, for one company which we do not know how it was selected. I do not care if it was the biggest dairy company in the country; it does not have to go to one place other than for easy of management.
The issue with this is this is obviously going to require a statement from the Minister of Local Government. He must make sure that everything is covered clearly because it has major ramifications on the Land Reform Programme because we have got issues like the Global Deed Settlement, we have got Statutory Instrument 62 and now we are getting 12500 people displaced. We want all this wrapped into one banner and brought to this Parliament so that we can discuss it and see where we stand because there are now 12500 people, we are playing with their lives – [HON. BITI: Inaudible interjection.)
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO): Order Hon. Biti.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Speaker the Hon Member simply repeated what Hon. Biti was saying, I think I have exhausted – [HON. BITI: Inaudible interjection.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Biti, order please.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I think we may belabour ourselves with nothing. The SI was recently gazetted and this Parliament is going to consider it and once it considers it, I think the esteemed Hon. Members, if they feel that there is something amiss with it, they discuss with the Parliamentary Legal Committee and then it can be tabled here if they so feel that there is something that is not within the confines of our laws, that is contained in that particular Statutory Instrument.
HON. T. MLISWA: I have a question Mr. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, please sit down.
HON. T. MLISWA: I am invited by Parliament and I have the right to speak. Last week, I was not here I have only came today but you do not want me to speak. This Parliament is for the ZANU PF and MDC, you do not allow independent members to speak – [HON. BITI: Allow him to speak, allow the independent to speak.] - I do not come for virtual meetings.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. T. Mliswa, I have not asked you to speak, you must follow procedure.
HON. MKARATIGWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Mines and Mining Development. I have noted that there is a general fear amongst citizens with regards to handling of non-precious stones, hence investors prefer to go to Mozambique and Zambia amongst other countries due to policy uncertainty in that area. May you please clarify, what is Government policy on handling, buying, selling and value addition of the non-precious stones in Zimbabwe. I thank you.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF MINES AND MINING DEVELOPMENT (HON. KAMBAMURA): Thank you Mr. Speaker. Can I kindly ask Hon. Mkaratigwa to repeat the question.
Hon. Mkaratigwa repeated the question.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF MINES AND MINING DEVELOPMENT (HON. KAMBAMURA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to thank the Hon. Member for the question. Previously, our Gold Stones Act, Precious Stones and the Mines and Minerals Act were not speaking the same. Currently, we are amending the Mines and Minerals Bill which should be brought to Parliament soon. After the amendment, we are also going to attend to the Gold Trade Act and Precious Stones Act.
On the issue of value addition, Government policy is that all minerals have to be beneficiated before they are exported and the Ministry has come up with the beneficiation policy which will be brought again to Parliament very soon. Soon after the amendment of the Mines and Minerals Bill, we are going to touch on the Gold Trade Act and Precious Stones Act so that they are all in sync with their main Act. I thank you.
(v)HON. S. S. KHUMALO: Mr. Speaker Sir, my question is directed to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development. It is about the pylons that are lying around the country with electricity wires which are not powered. For example in my constituency along the road, the poles have now gone to a state where they are falling yet the wires are powered. People are walking on top of these wires, et cetera. I think perhaps the Ministry must have a policy that when such poles are installed in anticipation of providing power and if the project fails, they should cover those poles. This should be an investment but I do not think it is helping our nation. What is the policy regarding those power lines?
THE MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. SODA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, let me also thank the Hon. Member for the question. The policy is that those power lines are supposed to be maintained. Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member can be specific; can he supply us with further information on where exactly these power lines are lying idle so that proper attendance can be made. I thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO): Hon. Member, you are advised to put the question in writing so that the issue is investigated.
HON. O. SIBANDA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Sports. I am seeing a lot of inconsistencies in terms of various sporting disciplines which are permitted to be played in the country. For example, football has not been mentioned just a few sports have been mentioned. Why is it that there is this inconsistency in terms of allowing others to participate?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF YOUTH, SPORT, ARTS AND RECREATION (HON. MACHAKARIKA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and I also want to thank the Hon. Member for a very good question. Actually, yesterday 2nd March, 2021, Cabinet approved the low risk sport which comprises of athletics, golf and others. We are still in the process of appealing to them. We are looking into it and we are hoping that in a few days it will be adjusted and some of the sports will be activated. Thank you Hon. Speaker.
HON. O. SIBANDA: Can you clarify Hon. Minister, why is it that you have taken so long to act on these sporting disciplines in view of the fact that our teams are participating internationally and we are failing to perform? Our neighbours like South African and Zambia for example, are playing football but we are not doing anything. We are not seeing anything. There are what are called player contracts; teams are losing including other sports also. Those contractual obligations, how are the teams going to fulfill them when players are not playing? Are you going to assist in terms of Government funding or grants? Thank you.
HON. MACHAKARIKA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Like I said earlier on, there were challenges in the country. We were hit hard by COVID, so we are just hoping that as soon as we sit down and have a position as a Ministry, everything is going to be adjusted. We are going to sit down and have a position which will make sure that all games and players, like he said, are going to be looked after and try to adjust on the challenges that we had. Thank you.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
ALLOCATION OF LAND AT ARDA ESTATE IN KAIREZI
- HON. SARUWAKA asked the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement to inform the House:
- a) What Government policy is regarding the allocation of land at the Agricultural Rural and Development Authority (ARDA) Estate in Kairezi.
- b) Why some Ministry officials are attempting to dispossess Ms Beauty Nyakurimwa, ID: 75 - 053034-J-50, DOB: 21/10/58 of Plot Number 6 on the estate which was allocated to her under the Land Reform Programme, Reference L/183 dated 17 December, 2001 in favour of Mr. Luckson Gotosa whose offer letter indicates that he was allocated Plot Number 8 on the same estate.
- c) When the Ministry will implement the determination by the Zimbabwe Lands Commission issued on 17 December 2017 in Beauty Nyakurimwa`s favour and to further explain why there were delays in this regard.
- d) What guarantee will the Ministry provide to her in respect of her ownership of Plot Number 6 on the estate considering that she is a widow and to further elaborate how other women experiencing similar challenges should be treated.
THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): All agricultural land is State land and there is a uniform policy across the country regarding the allocation of land starting with the identification at district level and the Provincial Lands Committee meeting to deliberate and to recommend to the Minister for the issuance of offer letters.
In this specific aspect, this relates to the Ministry officials attempting to dispossess Ms. Beauty Nyakurimwa on Plot 6 which was allocated to her under the Land Reform Programme in 2001. The position Mr. Speaker Sir, is that in the matter between Ms. Nyakurimwa and Mr. Gotosa, the land was left vacant without succession and therefore the District Lands Committee made a recommendation for a new allocation and forwarded this allocation to the Provincial Lands Committee and to the Ministry for processing.
A dispute arose as a result of the succession on the claim and this was brought before the Lands Commission. The Lands Commission made a determination that the widow be given back the farm. The delay in implementing this recommendation has been because Mr. Gotosa then challenged the determination of the Zimbabwe Lands Commission. So the matter is before the courts. As a Ministry that abides by the rule of law, we will await the court judgment and will be guided accordingly in this regard Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. SARUWAKA: Supplementary question. The document that I was shown by Ms. Beauty Nyakurimwa was clear that she had won the case and I do not see how the Ministry is entertaining Mr. Gotosa in light of the dispossession of Ms. Nyakurimwa’s stand. Are they going to make sure that Ms. Nyakurimwa gets her plot because according to the court papers, it is clear that Mr. Gotosa was allocated Plot 8 and Ms. Nyakurimwa’s plot is Plot 6. They are not on the same land. So where is the dispute which the Hon. Minister and his Ministry are trying to entertain? They were allocated different plots. Are you aware of that position that they were allocated different plots? Mr. Gotosa cannot dispute his eviction from Ms. Nyakurimwa’s land. So I wanted to hear from the Minister whether he is going to check the facts around the matter that Ms. Nyakurimwa’s plot is different from Mr. Gotosa’s. Is he going to proceed to allow the family of Ms. Nyakurimwa to access their land now that the matter is clear? This is an example of a case in which many women are being dispossessed of their land.
HON. DR. MASUKA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I thank the Hon. Member for bringing that additional information which certainly will be considered once the court has also made a judgment. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
FARMS FOR CHIEFS IN UMZINGWANE
- HON. MAYIHLOME asked the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries, Climate and Rural Resettlement to inform the House when all the four chiefs in Umzingwane District will be allocated farms.
THE MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): Mr. Speaker Sir, the policy of Government is that there is no discrimination in terms of allocation of land. There is no special dispensation allowed for this category. However, every citizen is free to follow the procedure to apply for land and in this regard, I recommend that they approach the District Lands Committee and they be queued for possible allocation especially now that we are looking for underutilised and derelict land. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you very much Hon. Minister for the response to that question. These four chiefs all applied for land and it is over 15 years that they have been battling to get land in Umzingwane. Other people who are not chiefs have been allocated land before them. The first one was allocated a homestead – just a homestead and no arable land and yet we expect chiefs to have isiphala seNkosi.
The other chief was allocated land in another chief’s jurisdiction and this complicated things – they had to look for another farm for her. On the third chief, there was duplicate allocation; two more people where allocated that same piece of land with the chief. The fourth chief who is now deceased never got the land. The family is now asking about that.
Related to that, we have the former first President of this country; Canaan Banana – his family applied for land and it is over three years now. No-one is pushing those papers. We are concerned that this erstwhile President of this country still does not have land. He is a renowned fighter for this country and it is known. Never mind whatever happened to him but no one can take away his contribution to this country.
As a citizen, there is a chief who comes to beg to graze his cattle on my farm. It is not right that a chief under whose jurisdiction we are comes to beg for land and they are told to apply to the District land office. That is unheard of and they have been waiting for over 15 years. This is why I am raising it here in Parliament.
HON. DR. MASUKA: I thank the Hon. Member for the clarification. The question originally as posed was as if these were applicants and simply wanted to be fast tracked. Therefore, I gave a policy position regarding allocation of land in general, but what is emerging is that there is a bit of history to each of these and very specific and unique to the circumstances and I therefore think in order for the Hon. Member to advance these cases, may wish to provide us with additional detail so that we can liaise with the respective offices in Umzingwane and the relevant provinces and see how we can assist.
EXTRACTION OF ABUNDANT GAS RESERVES IN LUPANE
- HON. I. NYONIasked the Minister of Mines and Mining Development to inform the House the measures being taken by the Ministry to facilitate the extraction of abundant gas reserves in Lupane, in Matebeleland North Province and Chiredzi in order to reduce the import bill, considering that gas has become a widely used fuel for cooking.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF MINES AND MINING DEVELOPMENT (HON. KAMBAMURA): Promotion of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is being done through exploration.
Currently, the Ministry is working on a CBM policy for the separation of CBM and coal concessions titles. This will be incorporated in the Mines and Minerals Bill which is being amended. This will also enable areas with coal concessions to be targeted for CBM exploration.
CBM projects that are currently underway include a project being undertaken by a company called Discovery Investments, Shangani Energy and Jacquiline Resources. These projects are looking forward to have results very soon.
(V)HON. NDUNA: I would like to find out whether there are any timeframes on these, considering that gas is imported particularly from South Africa and it is one of the things that has become a necessity in most homes and foreign currency is being lost, yet we have gas locally here - that goes a long way in saving the foreign currency?
HON. KAMBAMURA: The projects which are being undertaken are currently at exploration stage and this takes between two to three years before the investor gets the desired results. Once they are done with exploration, they will be issued with a mining licence and will start to develop the resource.
(V)HON. NDUNA: Some of the issues the Minister alludes to are tied to the tabling of the Mines and Minerals Act. Would he know when this Act is coming to Parliament for repeal?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. KHUMALO): Are you talking about the Act or Bill?
(V)HON. NDUNA: I am talking about the actual Bill Mr. Speaker Sir. I was listening to the Minister’s answer on gas where he said there is a section of that Act – the new one that ascribes to the issues of the gas that Hon. Nyoni speaks to. Which quarter of the year is it coming to Parliament? We have been waiting for it.
HON. KAMBAMURA: The Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill is to be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Legislation probably next week. Thereafter, it will be brought to Parliament, but I do not have the exact date as to when it will be tabled in Parliament.
USE OF MERCURY AND OTHER HARMFUL CHEMICALS IN THE MINING SECTOR
- HON. BRIG. GEN. (RTD.) MAYIHLOME asked the Minister of Mines and Mining Development to inform the House on Government position on banning the use of mercury and other harmful chemicals in the mining sector.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF MINES AND MINING DEVELOPMENT (HON. KAMBAMURA): In 2013 the Government of Zimbabwe signed the Minamata Convention whose objective is to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury in the atmosphere. The Government of Zimbabwe has ratified the Minamata Convention and this was tabled in Parliament in 2020.
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development and the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry are the two key ministries which drove the ratification process.
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development held a Minamata Ratification Sensitisation Workshop at the Kadoma Ranch Motel on 20 October 2020. The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development convened the Minamata ratification Sensitisation Workshop for Members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines for them to have an appreciation of the Minamata Convention.
The Ministry agreed with the parliamentarians that the following would be done
- i)Joint technical visits to affected areas and the model on mercury free gold processing centres;
- ii)Sharing of Minamata documents
iii) Reengagement workshop.
A Cabinet Memorandum was presented to the Cabinet Committee on Legislation (CCL) and recommended tabling in Parliament, for ratifying the Minamata Convention.
The Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry compiled a report on ratification and adopted it.
The Minamata ratification has been given notice in the National Assembly and Senate and Hon Minister of Environment Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry is going to table both motions. I thank you.
PROVISION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES TO COMPLETE CONSTRUCTION OF RIMUKA PRIMARY
- HON CHINYANGANYAasked the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to inform the House when the Ministry will provide financial resources to complete the construction of Rimuka Primary School.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON CHIDUWA): Government recognises the critical importance of ensuring that key projects in the education sector are completed to ensure beneficial occupation, especially now that they have a huge backlog of schools amounting to more than 2000.
As you are aware, Government is implementing Programme Based Budgeting under the auspices of Results Based Budgeting. Under this approach, the primary responsibility of identifying projects and programmes to be implemented within a budget year rests with the line Ministries. In this regard, it is incumbent upon the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to prioritise projects such as Rimuka School to ensure its completion.
Already under the 2021 Budget, Treasury has allocated a total of $2.3 billion for construction of schools. However the Ministry is yet to submit detailed implementation and cashflows plans to guide resource disbursements.
As Treasury, we remain committed to ensuring that the projects that have been included in the Budget are fully implemented. We will therefore be closely working with line Ministries on increasing absorption capacity for quicker implementation of projects.
HON. TSUNGA: My supplementary question is: is there going to be any consideration by Government to award grants to non Government schools so that they are also up to scratch in terms of infrastructure, because what the Minister is referring to are Government schools but we have non Government and schools whose capacity to generate revenue for construction is also very much limited. What consideration is there for Government to consider giving building grants to such institutions?
HON CHIDUWA: I am not sure if this one is a supplementary question. If you check the way we managed our budget approval process, as a Government at the moment we are dealing with Programme Based Budgeting meaning to say that anything which is not submitted within the confines of a specific programmes, it cannot be funded. We can only fund activities, programmes and projects that are within the submitted programmes. Outside the Programme Based Budgeting, we are not in a position to fund because it means we would have to come back to Parliament to say we have these new activities that were not budgeted for. Can you give us a leeway so that we can provide the resources? For now we are guided by Programme Based Budgeting. For those activities which are outside the programmes we are not in a position to fund.
HON NDUNA: What is it that the Minister would want in order for the infrastructure at schools that he talked about for them to be included in that Programme Based Budgeting. What does the Minister seek to have us do as legislators because where I come from the schools have left science laboratories halfway and have not been completed. What should I do as a legislator in order for the Ministry to fund Pfupajena High School, Chegutu High School and Hartley Primary School? What is it that the Minister would want us to do in order to find favour for such?
HON CHIDUWA: As I have mentioned and alluded to earlier, as Treasury we deal directly with line Ministries. The Programmes and Budgets are submitted to Treasury by the line Ministries. So the Hon Member can submit the names of those schools that he mentioned through the relevant structures that are there within the Ministry of Education. At district level the submission can be done through the DSI and then the DSI takes the issues to the Province and then they are taken to the Ministry. For us we deal with the line Ministry and the Hon Member can deal with the specific Ministry and in this case, it is the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.
RECAPITALISATION OF DDF
- HON. BRIG GEN (RTD) MAYIHLOMEasked the Minister of Finance and Economic Development whether the Government has any plans to recapitalise the District Development Fund.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): On the District Development Fund, what we are saying is that notwithstanding the resource limitations, Government has been providing resources towards the capacitation of the DDF in order for the fund to effectively deliver on its mandate. Already from the 2021 budget allocation, we have got an allocation of $1.8 billion. Treasury has already availed $89 million this year for procurement of operational vehicles for effective supervision and project management.
Additionally, $328 million has been set aside in the 2021 budget for procurement of ten drilling rigs. Discussions are also underway with regards to procurement of roads construction equipment among other critical equipment requirements. Over and above Government support, the fund is also receiving support from ZINARA with $200 million having been availed in 2021 for procurement of graders. Treasury however acknowledges that more needs to be done to ensure the fund is fully capacitated and as the economic stabilisation and fiscal capacity improves, more support should be channeled towards the fund.
COMMENCEMENT OF PRODUCTIVE OPERATIONS BY SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES
- HON.MAYIHLOME asked the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to inform the House when the special economic zones will commence productive operations.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): Currently, Zimbabwe has six gazetted Special Economic Zones, which are Sunway City in Ruwa, Fernhil in Mutare, Beitbridge, Masuwe in Victoria Falls, Imvumela in Bulawayo and the Belmont –Donnington – Westondale – Kelvin Industrial Corridor in Bulawayo.
Sunway City and Beitbridge Special Economic Zones have been partially developed and the developed areas are ready for occupation by qualifying investors. The rest of the zones are still at development stages, which include the conducting of economic and infrastructure feasibility studies and the development of bulk utility infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewer, internet connectivity and roads. Priority has been given to the Victoria Falls and Masuwe SEZ and ZIDA is currently working on the pre-feasibility studies for this zone to ascertain the financial requirements for the development.
A working committee was established in December, 2020 comprising key ministries, Government entities and other stakeholders. The working committee will be expected to spearhead the development process. Indicatively, we expect to complete the development process in 24 months. The intention is to use the Victoria Falls and Masuwe SEZ as a pilot for development of all the other SEZs in the country. Meanwhile, Treasury is mobilising the requisite resources to facilitate the planned feasibility studies and other necessary utilities/facilities in support of the development and operationalisation process.
WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
CURBING OF ILLEGAL HOARDING OF ZIM DOLLAR NOTES
- HON I. NYONI asked the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to inform the House the measures being taken by the Ministry to curb the illegal hoarding of the Zimbabwean dollar notes by “money changers” for purposes of buying foreign currency.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON CHIDUWA): Government is aware of ongoing speculative activities/ rent seeking behaviour through selling of Z$ cash, its illegal hoarding and related parallel market activities by money changers. Government is aware of currency dealers operating in wholesale shops and supermarkets for purposes of these illicit and illegal dealings. Government is also aware of many formal shops, supermarkets and wholesalers using parallel market rates in their pricing models.
The bigger task of aligning the monetary and fiscal policies to control money supply growth as well as instilling discipline in the financial sector, particularly on mobile platforms has progressed well.
The only missing element is the market discipline reflecting through continued speculative activities in some pockets of the market and this feeds into perceived market failure. I assure the Hon Member that appropriate measures are being instituted to stem this behaviour and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in liaison with other Government law enforcement arms are intensifying monitoring activities including usage of foreign currency auction system.
DETAILED INFORMATION ON RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROGRAMME
- HON. TSUURA asked the Minister of Energy and Power Development to provide detailed information on the rural electrification programme to the House, and to explain the Government policy regarding free fixtures, digging holes for poles and wiring, amongst other key issues.
THE MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. SODA): The Rural Electrification Fund (REF) was established in 2002 through an act of Parliament (Rural Electrification Fund (REF) Act (Chapter 13:20). It has a Board of Directors which is responsible for the management of the fund. The Board reports to the Hon. Minister of Energy and Power Development. Day to day operations of the Fund are managed by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), the implementing arm of the Fund.
According to REF Act Chapter 13:20, REF’s mandate is to facilitate rapid and equitable electrification of the rural areas of Zimbabwe, in pursuance of which it may :
- Play a promotional role in rural development, identifying rural projects and funding or advertising for project sponsors to take these up;
- Assist and train projects promoters to ensure that rural electrification projects are implemented cost-effectively and efficiently;
- Be a centre of information and excellence on rural electrification in Zimbabwe through collecting information about rural electrification practice, carrying out research and keeping abreast of technological developments in rural electrification world-wide.
- Give particular attention to off-grid, stand alone technologies for the supply of electricity to rural communities.
REF’s vision is “to achieve universal access to sustainable modern
energy services by rural communities in Zimbabwe by 2030”. Its mission is “to facilitate and implement rapid and equitable provision of sustainable modern energy infrastructure to the rural communities of Zimbabwe through grid and renewable energy technologies.
Functions of REF are:
- To maintain the REF;
- To undertake short to long term grid and off grid planning;
- To undertake research, development and adaptation of new energy technologies; and
- To facilitate provision of sustainable modern energy infrastructure in the rural areas of Zimbabwe.
In its quest to fulfill its mandate, REF undertakes two major sub-
programmes as outlined below:
(i) Electricity Grid Extension
This involves extending the electricity grid network to rural communities which include rural primary and secondary schools, rural health centres, chiefs’ homesteads, A1 and A2 farms, rural homesteads, Government extension offices and business centres.
(ii) Promotion of Alternative Energy Technologies
This entails provision of renewable energy technologies to rural
Communities, in particular;
- Solar energy technologies for public institutions and households
- Biogas technology for rural public institutions and households
Up until 2012, REF focused more on electricity grid extension with
minimum effort being made in the development and dissemination of renewable energy technologies. However, following the launch of the National Energy Policy in 2012, REF’s mandate was widened to cover renewable energy technologies. The National Renewable Energy Policy which was launched by His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe on 19 March, 2020 further widened and galvanized REF’s role in the renewable energy sector.
REA is the implementing arm of the REF. It is decentralised with its head office in Harare and eight provisional offices in all the rural provinces of Zimbabwe. The agency has a total staff establishment of 307. However, during peak, each province can engage 10-12 line gangs composed of contract workers giving a total average of up to 800-900 contract employees. The fund established a Special Purpose vehicle (SPV) under the trade name Hotspeck Enterprises, whose mandate is to produce adequate transmission wood poles for the rural electrification programme. Hotspeck Enterprises, with a total staff establishment of 54 is strategically located in Mutare, close to wood pole plantations. It comprises of three divisions namely;
- Pole Plant
- Renewable Energy
- Contracting and Consulting Services
The pole plant has a capacity to produce 100 000 poles per annum against REF’s annual requirements of up to 50 000 per annum. Excess transmission wood poles produced by the Pole Plant are sold locally and regionally and the income generated is ploughed back into the Rural Electrification programme. The Renewable Energy and Contracting and Consulting Services divisions provide services on commercial basis.
Below is the organisational structure of the Rural Electrification Fund and the Special Purpose Vehicle (Hotspeck Enterprises).
The sources of funding for the Rural Electrification Programme as provided for in the REF Act are as follows:-
- a)6% levy on ZETDC electricity sales.
- b)Fiscus and other statutory appropriations, e.g. ZERA excess.
- c)Contributions by rural customers.
- d)
- e)Grants or donations by organisations, Government or individuals.
- f)Any other moneys that may accrue to it, whether in terms of this Act or otherwise.
Policy regarding free fixtures, digging holes for poles and wiring
among other key issues is;
- Rural Public Institution and Business Centres
All rural public institutions which include primary and secondary
schools, rural health centres, Government extension offices and chiefs homesteads and rural business centres are eligible to be electrified without them paying for the extension of the grid network. In other words, this category of customers gets 100% capital subsidy from the Rural Electrification Fund. However, they have to wait for their turn to be electrified. Up to 2019, these customers were expected to do their internal wiring and pay service connection fees to ZESA before electricity could be connected in their buildings. This requirement proved a mammoth task for most rural public institutions and as a result, many went for months and in some cases years with no electricity in their buildings. In 2019, the REF Board made a resolution to include internal wiring and service connection fees for rural public institutions as part of the project costs to be paid from the fund under the 100% capital subsidy scheme. This does not include business centres. However, when it comes to payment for electricity consumption, the rural public institutions and business centres pay for consumption of electricity just like urban institutions.
- Rural villages, households, commercial enterprises, A1 and A2 farms.
Rural villages, individual households who come together to make
groups of at least ten households, rural commercial enterprises, A1 and A2 farms can apply to the REF for electrification. These customers are expected to pay 50% of the total project cost. In other words, they get 50% capital subsidy from the REF. These customers are also expected to do their internal wiring and to pay service connection fees to ZESA before electricity can be connected into the buildings. They also pay for consumption of electricity just like urban dwellers.
c.Individual homesteads
Individual homesteads who cannot form group schemes can apply
for electricity grid infrastructure individually. However, they get a subsidy of 40% instead of 50%. They are expected to do their internal wiring and pay service connection fees to ZESA. They pay for electricity consumption just like urban dwellers
- Alternative sources of energy (solar and biogas)
Over the past years, focus has been on electricity grid extension
rather than alternative sources of energy such as solar and biogas. However, from 2009 to date, a number of rural public institutions benefitted from the first solar and biogas programmes implemented by the REF. The programmes were 100% capital subsidised as well, that is, the institutions did not pay for the projects but contributed in terms of labour and local materials such as bricks and sand. A total of 418 solar micro grid systems, 433 mobile solar units and 82 biogas digesters were installed under this phase. However, of the 82 biogas digesters, three (3) were constructed on commercial terms. Going forward, the fund will come up with subsidy schemes for solar and biogas programmes as the case with grid.
- Digging of holes
The digging of holes for poles is done by the line workers under the
supervision of a qualified linesman and lines assistant. The linesman and lines assistant are REF permanent employees while line workers are contract workers who, in the majority of cases, are recruited in the locality where the project is being implemented.
Ownership and operation of the grid infrastructure
Once REF has successfully constructed the backbone infrastructure, which includes the high voltage line (33 and 11 kV), the substation(s) and low voltage line (0.4 kV) and the line has been inspected by ZESA, the infrastructure is handed over to ZESA for ownership and operation.
Questions with Notice were interrupted by THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 24 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 25 has been disposed of.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
POLICY AND SELECTION CRITERIA OF BENEFICIARIES OF THE BEAM PROGRAMME
Twenty Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) Programme.
Question again proposed.
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise to highlight that I had a motion on the issue of BEAM, which was highly debated during the Second Session of this Parliament. Hon. Members outlined issues that were very pertinent in that motion. It took a full afternoon to debate the motion whereby Hon. Members thanked the Government for introducing BEAM as an enhanced social protection programme in 2001.
However, they also noted the discrepancies that were found in the BEAM selection processes. They actually noted that these discrepancies need to be addressed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. It was also highlighted that there was need to go for awareness campaigns in schools and also providing information to relevant stakeholders that BEAM was actually a good programme for disadvantaged students and beneficiaries.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development was also encouraged to provide funding on a yearly basis and increase the number of beneficiaries in schools so that there would be no drop outs. If we look at 2020, Government had targeted one million children to benefit from BEAM and we are happy to say over 900 000 learners benefited. However, this year the number reduced perhaps because of other challenges to almost around 700 000 beneficiaries but we will continue to believe that our good Government will continue considering the issue of BEAM. Also, Hon. Members looked at the possibility of BEAM buying uniforms, stationary and sanitary wear for the girls so that children continue to be in school and drop outs will be reduced. Looking at that high raging debate that took place and the contributions made by Hon. Members, I move that the motion that this House:-
NOTING that Section 75 (1) (a) of the Constitution states that every citizen and permanent resident of Zimbabwe has a right to a basic state-funded education, including adult basic education;
APPLAUDING the Government of Zimbabwe for establishing the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) Programme in 2001 as a key component of the Enhanced Social Protection Programme (ESPP);
COGNISANT that the BEAM Programme is based on a policy framework designed to provide quality education to children and support to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in line with international agreements to which the Government of Zimbabwe is a signatory;
DISTURBED that the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Report (2019) revealed that an average of 61 percent of children were turned away from school in 2019 due to non-payment of tuition fees;
ALSO DISTURBED that the rate of school dropouts continues to rise amongst girls and the economically disadvantaged children resulting in early child pregnancies and child labour;
CONCERNED at the continuous disparity between policy and selection criteria of beneficiaries of the BEAM Programme by Community Selection Committees;
NOW, THEREFORE, calls upon:
- a) Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to conduct awareness campaigns on the BEAM Manual targeting Community Selection Committees;
- b) Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare in collaboration with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to effectively monitor implementation of the BEAM Programme, particularly the selection process to ensure that all eligible students benefit from the programme; and
- c) Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to allocate adequate financial resources towards BEAM Programme in the 2021 National Budget in view of the increasing levels of vulnerability in the country and ultimately facilitate the progressive realisation of basic state-funded education, be adopted.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that we revert to Order of the Day, Number 8 on today’s Order Paper.
HON. SAIZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE AND TOURISM ON THE ALLEGED EMISSIONS OF POLLUTANTS BY STEEL BRANDS (PVT) LTD
HON. MUSARURWA: I move the motion standing in my name;
That this House takes note of the Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Tourism on the alleged emissions of pollutants by Steel Brands (Pvt) Ltd. (S.C. 1, 2021).
HON. SAIZI: I second.
HON. MUSARURWA: Thank you Hon. Speaker.
1.0 Introduction
The Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Tourism resolved to conduct an inquiry into the operations of the steel processing plant called Steel Brand Private Limited upon receiving a petition from Mr K. Madangure alleging that the plant emitted toxic pollutants that were affecting the residents of Houghton Park area in Harare.
2.0 Objectives of the Enquiry
The broad objective of the enquiry was to enable Committee Members to fully establish the reasons behind the misunderstanding between the management of the Steel Processing Plant and the residents of Houghton Park. Precisely, the Committee sought to;
Understand why a steel processing plant was located in a residential area;
Determine whether the operations of the plant are in compliance with the requirements of the law; and
Establish the measures that were put in place to accommodate the residents’ concerns on the establishment and operations of the plant.
3.0 Methodology
To get an in-depth understanding of the issues raised by the petition, the Committee received oral evidence from the petitioners.
The Committee conducted a fact finding visit at the steel processing plant to authenticate the issues raised by the petitioners. The plant was not operational when the Committee visited its premises.
It then visited some of the residents whose houses where adjacent to the steel processing plant to physically confirm any evidence of environmental pollution within the surrounding Community.
The Committee further requested that the Management of the Steel Processing Plant submit to Parliament the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report with a summarised written document of its EIA roadmap.
The Committee analysed all the submissions and drafted its report with recommendations aimed at addressing the requests made by the petitioners.
4.0 Committee’s Findings
4.1 Findings from oral evidence and written documents were submitted to the Committee. From the Environmental Impact Assessment Report and the summarised written document from the Steel Processing Plant EIA roadmap, the Committee found the following;
On 2nd November 2016, the Director of Works in the City of Harare in his inspection observation report had made confirmations of Steel Processing Plant’s contravention of the provisions of Sections 57, 63, 70, 73 and 83 of the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27) and Section 180 of the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15). Thus, the Company was requested to comply with the requirements of the law and reduce or eliminate environmental pollution and put in place an environmental management plan.
Environmental Management Agency (EMA) officials submitted that it initially wrote to the Management of Steel Brands on 9th December 2016, advising them that the Agency could not grant the Company an EIA certificate. The Agency stated that there was no logical conclusion that was reached regarding the noise and air pollution concerns raised by the surrounding communities. It also denied issuing the EIA certificate because the City of Harare had issued a prohibition order citing that the area intended for the project was not zoned for heavy industrial operations.
On 25th October 2016, the Company was fined US$1000, 00, by EMA for unlawfully implementing a prescribed project without an EIA Certificate. The Company ceased its operations for three months because of the concerns raised pertaining to environmental safety and health and industrial zoning emanating from the plant’s location.
On 21 December 2016, the Acting Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce wrote to EMA raising concerns regarding the closure of the company’s operations in terms of foreign currency procurement and investment promotion. Thus, EMA was informed that City of Harare would work to regularise the location of the plant in Adbernnie Industrial Area. The Acting Permanent Secretary sought for an urgent approval from EMA to enable the company to conduct a test run of the plant to pave way for an immediate commencement of its production. The test run was approved and the Company conducted its test run under the supervision of EMA.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce then published a press statement on Steel Brands Pvt Ltd advising and assuring the affected residence that after a test run, measures to address the noise and air pollution would be put in place immediately and mitigate against the pollution.
On 28 May 2017, the City of Harare put a notice of an application for a permit to regularise the Light Steel Manufacturing Plant in terms of Section 26 (3) as read in conjunction with Section 27 of the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act (Chapter 29:12). The residence did not raise an objection to the application within one month of the date of insertion of the notice.
On 19th July 2017, City of Harare granted a permit to regularise the light Steel Manufacturing Plant. The permit had a clause which outlined that the operations of the Light Steel Manufacturing Plant were to comply with the requirements of the Environmental Management Agency. Thus, The Company eventually secured the necessary documentation from the Council that proved to EMA that the plant was indeed a light industry. EMA then advised the Company to do stakeholder consultations. EMA did a rigorous review and the necessary confirmations before it issued the EIA Certificate to the Company on 16th October 2017.
4.2 Findings during the visit
The Committee toured the plant and was shown around by the Management of the Company in the Company of EMA. The Committee was shown all the control measures instituted by the Company on the plant. EMA ascertained that the plant’s air emissions were consistently within the blue band as per the requirements of their licence. The blue band means that the Company is discharging air pollutants from its furnaces that are considered to be environmentally safe according to the Environmental Management (Atmospheric Pollution Control) Regulations, 2009.
Furthermore, the Committee found out that;
EMA confirmed that the plant discharged its effluent into the council’s sewer and not into the storm drains.
The Committee was informed that the Company was no longer using coal as a source of energy for steel production processing.
The Committee was informed that the Company held stakeholder consultative meetings and all the consulted residents signed documents in support of the project.
National Social Security Authority (NSSA) inspected the plant premises and issued a certificate of compliance to the Company. The Company was subsequently registered with NSSA.
The Committee was informed that the plant preferred operating at night to avert high electricity charges. The Management explained the plant’s single production process required 9000 Kilowatts which could only be allowed at off-peak hours.
4.3 Findings from the surrounding Community
The affected residents, however, denied ever being consulted and maintained that the plant was a heavy industry. They complained of the noise at night, smog, disgusting odour that could potentially cause respiratory diseases. The Members were shown the soot from the plant on residents’ roof tops, walls, house paints and vegetable gardens. Furthermore, the plant is situated adjacent to Houghton Park Primary School.
The residents alleged that the Company used coal for their energy source because they saw truckloads of coal being delivered every Sunday at the plant premises.
The environmental disputes pollution were rife and began in 2016 when residents objected to the establishment of the steel processing plant in the area.
5.0 Analysis of the Key Issues
It is clear that the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act, 2013, the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27, the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15), the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act (Chapter 29:12) and S.I 72 of 2009 Environmental Management (Atmospheric Pollution Control) Regulations, 2009 provide the rational basis for the Committee’s recommendations on the issues raised above and explained below.
Four issues emerged vital and critical. These can be summarised as follows:
There is a conflict of interest between safeguarding the environment, health and safety of the citizens and investment promotion;
The location, approval of the development permit, Environmental Impact Assessment Certificate and operating licence by relevant authorities were irregular;
The operations of the Steel Processing Plant are violating the requirements of the law; and
There is lack of adequate and strict monitoring of the Company’s operations by EMA to ascertain if it is implementing its Environmental Management Plan.
The Committee observed the environmental rights to a clean and health environment of the citizens continues to be violated by the Steel Brands Private Limited Company since 2016 without implementation of the Environmental Management Plan.
The regulation of the steel manufacturing plant to a light industry through granting of the Company a development permit was not consistent with environmental pollution considerations. Rather, investment promotion was prioritised at the expense of health and safety of the citizens.
Most of the residents were not familiar with the procedure to be followed when objecting to the decisions to grant a permit to the plant for the regularisation of the steel manufacturing plant.
There are clear indications that the plant is a heavy industry not a light industry as claimed by the City of Harare.
City of Harare and EMA initially did not approve the project as it was so evident that it did not meet the requirements of the law. These two entities were, however, compelled to change their decisions following interventions by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
6.0 Recommendations
6.1 The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry should review the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27) by 31 December 2021 and ensure that where environmental protection, public health and safety come into conflict with other considerations such as investment promotion, the latter should take precedence.
6.2 The Committee strongly recommends for the relocation of the Steel Processing Plant to a heavy Industrial Area by 31 December 2021 in the interest of public health and safety.
6.3 The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry commissions an independent investigation involving City of Harare, National Social Security Authority (NSSA), Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, and the Ministry of Health and Child Care to come up with a detailed report that contains recommendations on the relocation of the Steel Processing Company from Houghton Park to a heavy industrial area by 31 December 2021.
7.0 Conclusion
After a careful analysis of the evidence before the Committee, the Members sympathise with the plight of the residents of Houghton Park because the environmental impacts from the Steel Processing Plant are continually being elevated. Indeed the residents’ petition is justified in terms of environmental protection, public health and safety. What is taking place in Houghton Park is a direct violation of the objective of the polluter pays principle. The location of the industry was a mistake which needs to be corrected as soon as possible. This is evidenced by the highlighted irregularities and violations of the requirements of the law.
*HON. SAIZI: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to the report tabled by the Chairperson of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Committee, Hon. Musarurwa. Madam Speaker, truly speaking, if we look at where Steel Brand is situated, it is dangerous to the community. Initially, EMA refused to give them Environmental Impact Assessment Certificate (EIA). Harare City Council also sided with EMA and did not allow them to construct an industry there but later on, city council allowed them to set up that industry. However, Government departments are supposed to work hand in glove when it comes to issues like this which affect human life.
This company is located in a residential area and close to a school. When they are doing their work there is a lot of noise, which means school children are affected by the noise. Even residents in general are not at peace due to this noise. It is not only noise but we are also looking at general welfare of people and their health. When we toured this company as a Committee, we saw water coming from the workplace passing and flowing very close to the school. Children enjoy playing with water, they do not even assess whether the water is clean or not, but just play with it. That water Madam Speaker, is polluted with different chemicals which are deadly but children play with this water.
We went further into inquiry and realised that they operate mainly at night because they say they would want to utilise maximum electricity which is a lie. They are doing this because when they are operating a lot of smoke comes out from their machines. That smoke is not good for the people of Houghton Park. Even if you look at the vegetation around that company including their gardens, they are dark with smoke. Windows of their houses are darkened with smoke and house roofs are also affected by the smoke. In the end, this smoke will spread into the atmosphere and people will inhale that smoke, which is not good for their health.
When people decide to come to this House, it means they have suffered enough and this is their only hope. It is my plea Madam Speaker, that all that we witnessed in Houghton Park, together with the Committee’s recommendations, this company should relocate to heavy industries as a solution.
They are making money, yes and we also need foreign currency as a country but what is more important is human life. If we look closely, taking into account operations of this company, their lives are in danger. It is my clarion call that, let us assist these people so that they do not continue to live in such hazardous environment caused by this company’s operations. When people are faced with diseases caused by breathing bad gases the next thing is death. We all know that we cannot buy life. Therefore, this company should relocate to an appropriate industrial area. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you very much Madam Speaker for giving me this time to also make a contribution to this very important motion by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Environment Hon. Musarurwa. Madam Speaker, allow me to begin by making reference to what His Excellency Dr. E. D. Mnangagwa said in his SONA address on the Official Opening of the Third Session of the 9th Parliament. I think he alluded to the issue of the ratification of the Minamata Convention which needed ratification. The reasons for him saying so is that the health of the people is very important as well as they care to the environment.
We are looking at the effects of mercury to the health of the people – it is very critical, plus the environment. Besides that, I also want to make reference to what His Excellency is saying that he is concerned about the issue of wetlands and misplaced infrastructural development which also has a negative impact on the health of the people as well as the environment. So I am making reference to these two critical issues which are also worrisome to the Head of State in as far as they affect the health of citizens.
Coming to this motion on the effects of the steel industry in Houghton Park, we are sharing the same concern to the health of the citizens as well as environmental damage. Scientific studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between pulmonary diseases and air pollution caused by industry and in this case specifically the steel industry. As a result of that, we recommend that there should be severe environmental health policies aimed at limiting the hazards associated with pollution of the air especially by the steel industry.
Let me talk about some of the known effects of air pollution to the health of the people. We are talking about respiratory diseases and cardio-vascular damage because of this pollution, headaches, fatigue, damage to the reproductive organs, the liver, the skin as well as to the blood and also the whole nervous system can be damaged because of effects of pollution. Looking at the effects of production of steel in any environment, research has shown that there are also effects because of the greenhouse emissions. Research has also shown that on average, about 1.83 tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted for every ton of steel that is produced. This is massive damage which is done to the environment.
I want to make reference to the cost benefit analysis of the work which is done by this steel industry. From what I have said above, it is very clear that the benefits which the country reaps by way of taxes being paid by this steel company. Of course, the profits they make are their own profits versus the damage done to the environment and also the health of the people, including deaths as a result of this emission. There is a mismatch. This is not commensurate with what we call business.
The Government of Zimbabwe is going to spend a lot of money because of the effects of this pollution by way of providing health facilities to its citizens as caused by this misplaced industry. We are talking about local communities around this steel industry as well as the innocent lives of primary school students who are located just about 50 metres away from this industry. So, what I am talking about is that a cost benefit analysis dictates to us that this industry has to be relocated, not only be relocated but immediately it has to be relocated if we are to save the lives of the citizens.
I also want to talk about the absolute lack of business ethics by this company. What they are doing is very unethical. I say so because the company is very insincere and dishonest because they are lying. They make their deliverance of coal nicodimously during the night so that they disguise and hide from local residents’ because they purport to be using electricity for their business. So, they make their deliveries at night when the local residents are asleep. What they only see during the night or when day time comes is smoke and soot in their houses and so on. I am saying this company is very insincere.
The other reason is that they are claiming that this is a light industry and yet evidence is very clear for everyone to see that this is heavy industry. What is also disappointing is that when the Committee went there, they said they were not operating that day and yet they wanted to disguise the fact that they had been using coal and not electricity. So, I am saying this is a company which is very insincere, which lies, and we cannot allow a situation whereby they flout business ethics willy-nilly. So Mr. Speaker Ma’am, I am therefore saying that considering the damage that is being made to the environment as well as the fact that we are compromising the health of citizens, including the innocent students, I think that it is only proper to go by the recommendations that have been tabled by the Hon. Chairperson of the Committee that this company has to relocate to a suitable site. We are not saying that they have to close business no, that is not what we are saying but we are saying that they have to relocate to an appropriate place where other heavy industries are located - that is what we are saying. We want them to invest in the country, we want the steel and we want this and that but they have to go to an appropriate site to operate their business.
I also support one of the recommendations that was made by the Hon. Chairperson to say if need be, there may be a sub-committee that can be instituted to further look into the issues that have been talked about by the Committee. Madam Speaker, I want to end here and thank the Hon. Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Environment and Tourism for a job well done. I think, in my view, this has been an honest report that is very transparent and has made robust recommendations that I pray this House will adopt. I thank you. – [HON. S. NDLOVU: Inaudible interjection.] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): Thank you very much Hon. Ndlovu, I will recognise you. When you have raised your hand, it is in order; we are very much visible to that. We are going to recognise you. Thank you.
*HON. CHIKUKWA: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. I want to add my voice to the motion that is before the House that was raised by Hon. Musarurwa and seconded by Hon. Saizi.
All that was said is true. As a resident in Harare, it is true that the effluent that comes from the industry causes a lot of diseases. It may not be immediate but in the long run, we will see the results, but sometimes people are unable to see the effects of these activities because of poverty. When we went there, some said, “you want to close our company, how are we going to survive?” I am saying that when a person is not employed and eventually gets employed in such a company, he does not realise the evil. There are those who manufacture cement in Mabvuku, if you visit the settlements in Mabvuku, you will find cement on the windows. We advised them that we had heard their concerns but cannot allow people to die because of this. So we need to look at the issues of the employees as well as the community.
Furthermore, this company also informed us that they would put, I think it was in 2017 or 2018 that they would put measures to ensure that there would be no disease. They have not done this not because they do not have money, if they had addressed this issue, we would not be talking about it today. So my request is that this company should be relocated and as it relocates, it should also take with it its employees so that those who fear losing their jobs are secure. They also need to be conscientised in order for them to understand that they need to be in good health to be able to work.
I agree with the Committee’s recommendations as to the fact that we need to see to the relocation of this company. As they prepare to relocate, they should cease operations for now. I heard one Hon. Member saying that they were advised to open production but there are measures that they were supposed to follow before opening and those were not addressed. As we are investigating them, they should be advised the measures that they were told to meet so that it does not harm the local community. I thank you.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you very much Madam Speaker Ma’am for giving me this time to give a short discourse on this issue of Steel Brand Company. It is an issue of company versus people’s lives. Even in your home, you would not want to stay in a house that is full of smoke, no one desires that but that is the exact situation of Houghton Park residents simply because a company was built there and is causing havoc all over.
You will discover that for people to speak like this, it is not us who started the issue. When you trace back on how the company obtained its IEA, you will discover that there was a tug of war as EMA would rebuke that and some super power would come and enforce that a paper be produced. You will also discover that the space that was left there was not meant for a company. When the company was built, the City of Harare initially refused and was later forced to give in – that is the reality. No one can be told that the place does not suit a heavy industry yet we have one located in the midst of a residential area that is causing a lot of complaints.
I wonder who regularised the company to operate after this had risen so many eyebrows. Yes, we need foreign currency – that is true, we definitely need foreign currency and we applaud that. I believe that we have to do it the right way without infringing on the rights of other people. When the Committee visited this place, a lot of discoveries were made to the effect that there are a lot of emissions from the company that are visible on windows, inside the homes on utensils, on vegetables in the gardens and on grass along the pathways. Even when you meet children coming from school, when they walk using a path where they pass through grassy areas, their uniforms become dirty and we leave that company to operate just like that.
The committee also discovered that a lot of noise is made during the night which disturbs the peace of people in Hourton Park because they will not sleep well because of this company. During the night when they are asleep, they breathe the gases that come from the company throughout the night because they operate during the night when everyone is at home. So, everyone who stays in Hourton Park is breathing emissions from the company.
The company also uses coal and we all know what coal produces and what the emissions from coal do to people. There is lack of monitoring by EMA which we discovered, to find out whether the company is adhering to environmental regulations instead of emitting the gases into drains, it is emitted in to the air and everyone breathes polluted air. One other monitoring exercise that was supposed to be done way back was to discover that these people instead of not building a heavy plant or industry, they are doing it, so it is wrongly placed and the only option which the Committee came up with is nothing but to make sure the company is relocated. Whoever gets the powers to allow the company to operate should know that it is going to be relocated because that is what we are going to recommend. They cannot leave a situation where people drink dirty water and they wear polluted clothes, breathe dirty air, and live in dirty homes and are prone to diseases. Even animals which eat grass and those animals in water will soon die because of the dirty environment that is being introduced by this company. The authority that made the company to be there, let them come back with the same authority to remove the company and relocate it to some other place. I thank you.
(V) HON. S. NDLOVU: Thank you Madam Speaker. (Part of the speech not audible due to technical glitches.) We were told that they work at night, why should such a big company work at night really? If the truth be told, they are hiding something. They work at night because the company produces or emits pollution which pollutes the whole place and that means the people who are staying in that residential area are in danger because of this pollution. I do not think this is good for the people. When we went there, we saw soot on top of their houses, on the vegetables and properties in their houses. Honestly speaking, I cannot stay in such a place. That is why these people came to seek our intervention. – (part of speech not recorded due to network challenges).
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): I am sorry Hon. S. Ndlovu, we have lost you. May I indulge Hon. J. Chidakwa.
HON. J. CHIDAKWA: Thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. S. NDLOVU: Madam Speaker Ma’am, I am now back it is the poor network, can you hear me now.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can you proceed; I had indulged Hon. Chidakwa after you went offline. You can proceed.
HON. S. NDLOVU: Thank you Madam Speaker, I propose that this company must move. We do not want the company to close because it employs more than 200 employees. We suggest that they move to a heavy industrial area where they can make noise and pollute as much as they can. Our duty is to safeguard the people of Zimbabwe. You find that in this situation, they look up to us as Members of Parliament. We cannot let our people continue to suffer because we want foreign currency.
Madam Speaker, with this COVID-19 which affects breathing system, with this emission that is taking place, I believe that it goes straight to the lungs so, tomorrow we will not even know whether the person is suffering from Covid-19 or it is this emission which is killing our people. I plead with the House that we take this up and make sure that this company moves to where it belongs. Thank you.
(v)HON. CHIDAKWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. A lot has already been said but I want to emphasise on the fact that the Chairperson of the Environment Committee and the Committee did well. They have actually enlightened us on issues that we were not aware of. I am a Member of Parliament for Mabvuku and there has been a challenge of the emissions from the industry affecting the residents. You find that even the houses the people reside in have even changed the colours because of the pollution.
Furthermore Madam Speaker, when I read this report, it made me to pose a number of questions that, who actually gives such companies the permission to put up such industries to the extent that the industries are set up and people are employed to produce whatever they want. A lot was said in that report that has touched me. There are people who want investors and say the investor is more important than the residents.
Harare is growing and areas that were not habitable are now communities because of the growing City. Is it because those who do planning do not have foresight to avoid putting industries where houses will be built. Houses are now being constructed in industrial areas.
Hon. Chidakwa having experienced technical glitches.
*THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): Order, Hon. Chidakwa, your network is not good, we cannot hear you. My apology Hon. Chidakwa, I am going to recognise someone else, once your network is okay, I will recognise you.
HON. T MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker. I also want to ventilate my important indispensible points on the crucial motion that has been moved by Hon. Musarurwa supported by Hon. Saizi. Madam Speaker, it is the duty of this House to protect the fundamental rights of Zimbabweans that are being violated. The rights of Zimbabweans are being violated in Houghton Park, particularly after the construction of the Steel industry. This House should go a step further and analyse, assess the circumstances that led to the establishment of that industry. I am not surprised that some monies where exchanged before construction of that industry was done.
Madam Speaker, if one looks at the circumstances that contribute and that will culminate in the rise of a particular industry, one looks at the factors that contribute to the rise of a particular industry. A heavy industry, a steel industry for that matter, according to a scholar called Gerschenkron, he has observed that a steel industry contributes to a very large extent to modernisation and to fast industrialisation in the form of a great State, however, whilst we appreciate the need for economic development, human life is more important than the industry.
The people of Houghton Park, their rights are being violated because of this industry. It has been observed that according to Sustainable Development Goal number 3.9, that goal castigates pollution - air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution and we are not surprised from the visits that were conducted by the Committee, from the report that we got from the Hon. Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, that a lot of gases are being emitted into the air whether it is at night or during the day. A lot of sewer is being emitted into council drainage pipes or whatever you call it and that is a violation of human rights and that should stop. The results are so dire. There will be high morbidity rates, high mortality rates as a result of pollution. People will contract several diseases. You can name cancer, pneumonia, all sorts of diseases which will lead to the demise of our people.
Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 provides safe water for people. Here is a company that emits or where water oozes would contaminates water ways leading to diseases and that on its own is a bad tendency. So we have to assess circumstances that led to the rise of this company, whether there were shady deals. Probably, some councilors in that particular area could have benefited by ensuring that the company is located in a residential area. I would be surprised when you find that a steel industry moves in the direction of a residential area where you do not have raw materials for that particular industry because a steel industry moves in the direction of where you would find iron ore, where you would find limestone. An industry moves in the direction of residential places then we get bamboozled and disgusted as to what could have happened and that would make one to be surprised and also to think that maybe corruption which is cancerous in the view of His Excellency the President, that corruption is cancerous and it is possible that some corrupt deals were conducted.
My recommendation Madam Speaker, is that the plant should be relocated. The Committee spoke of December, 2021. I think it is too far. December 2021 is quite far. A lot of people are going to die. I will give you statistics. According to the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, it was observed that by 2022, 8.4 million people would have died throughout the world because of air pollution and this will lead into a pandemic. If you allow this company to operate until December, there is a school close by, Houghton Primary School; children will be infected and they will die.
When we talk of night time, it is time to have peace of mind. You do not want to be disturbed and that is the time when this company will be fully operational. The noise that comes from such a heavy industry is so disturbing and people will not be able to sleep. That explains why they had to approach the august House so that justice would prevail.
Finally, it is my hope that after all deliberations have been done the relocation of this steel industry will be expedited. I thank you.
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank Hon. Musarurwa and her Committee for embarking on a very important investigation after the petition. It is well done and the analysis to me has shown us that some people in the authorities, NSSA, City of Harare and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce do not even think about human life. My worry is what motivated them after initial investigations, which I believe were professional assessments of the thing. Then all of a sudden against professional assessment, it is all turned around and people decide to put or to approve a very heavily polluting industry in the residential areas. What is the motivation?
I am actually tempted to think that brown envelopes were at play. People were involved in some form of corruption because a normal human being, a normal professional could not have approved this. So Madam Speaker, I would urge the Committee to go deeper and find out what could have been the motivation. Carry out further inquiry if the influence came from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and they must come back to this Committee and explain the rationale, what really motivated them to change what was professionally assessed and I think at the end of the day we would see other people being dealt with under the Anti Corruption Act. These people, I can tell you that definitely something that is untoward happened that motivated these professionals to go against professional advice. It is not simple.
That then brings out another point, Madam Speaker. I think the Committee should go wider, the whole of Harare and see the location of some of these industries who are emitting pollutants that may harm health, cause death and actually disturb sleep. We go around the whole city and look at whether statutes around EMA are being followed. Locations are the right destinations. Go to every other city because this is not ordinary, Madam Chairperson. People are making money at the expense of people’s lives and we can only deter that by causing a serious investigation or commission to investigate would be ideal, to investigate how this particular industry that was supposed to be located where other heavy industries are located - how it found its way in the residential areas and how many other industries in Harare, Bulawayo and other cities are located where they are not supposed to be located because shaddy deals would have been the order of the day that would then persuade otherwise professional people to then do what they are not supposed to do; recommend location of industries that are not supposed to be in a certain area to be in that area.
Corruption cannot be allowed and our President is on record saying this cancer must go. People who violated the Environmental Management Act and the environment where people are staying – I am told from the report that the windows are now discoloured; their vegetables have a lot of soot and people are consuming all that. May be this company is bringing in money to the investors and not to the people of Houghton Park. How are they going to be compensated? I think we need to go further and maybe make an assessment of the health of these people who are staying closer to this industry. Are they not already affected? If they are, who is going to compensate them before they leave or as they leave they should know that they have already damaged other people’s health and they must compensate.
This should be made a good example of the seriousness of our Committee, our anti-corruption drive so that those involved who deliberately authorised this company to be located where it is not supposed to be pay for their bad deeds. I really feel that this investigation cannot be complete without this House and members of Houghton Park knowing what really motivated them to be exposed to this polluting industry. We want industries, we are open for business and our President has echoed and encouraged companies to come to Zimbabwe and do business, but not at the expense of the health of our people.
The regulations that are there are clear in terms of location of such industries and must be followed then we do business. They make their money, we see development of our country and they give us employment but not after killing us.
It is my recommendation that we;
1) Dig deeper on the circumstances around the approval of this location of this particular industry. We need to know why and who really did that - who choose to overturn a professional because we can tell them to leave and they will leave but what really happened against laid out rules and laws that are there? If we do not get to that, then the thieves or people who do things against the law will then go scot free and what have we done?
2) We really need to engage the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the city fathers and NSSA so that we cause an investigation throughout the cities to check whether same happenings or unprofessional conduct would not be happening everywhere else to the disadvantage of our people .When we have done that, I think we will see sanity prevailing in protecting the environment and the health of our people and respecting the laws of the land. I thank you.
(V)HON. DR. LABODE: I am part of this Committee and I am very proud today that this matter has been on the table for a long time but finally we have grasped the guts and Parliament is in support.
As a medical doctor, we checked from the clinic around that area and the residents complained of a lot of chest infections, asthma and chronic bronchitis. These are ailments that increase the budget on health tomorrow. We are creating a problem for ourselves which we should not have. I believe we should add another recommendation that, other than this company moving, for future purposes we need a Committee that will involve the Ministry of Industry and EMA personnel to approve the next company that will occupy that place so that (Network failure)
(V)*HON. P. ZHOU: I would like to add my voice to the issue being debated. I would like to thank the Hon. Members who visited this company – Hon. Musarurwa and her Committee and did a great job which has portrayed the situation on the ground to us though we did not go with them. We have a vivid picture of the problem on this industry.
We value people’s lives hence the President has availed the COVID-19 vaccine to protect us from infection. The diseases that the people who live near this company are contracting are going to cost us a lot in future. These are just as good as COVID-19 because people are going to be sick and we do not know how long it will take to be cured. Houghton Park suburb has been depreciated by this pollution. Who is going to pay for the affected people’s treatment?
I support Hon. Togarepi when he said that people who were involved in this corruption should be put to book and the law should take its course. This will set a standard for both the council and any other people – they will not do it again.
Another speaker highlighted that in Mabvuku, there is also a problem like this one at Houghton Park. I think the matter should be dealt with in the same manner even to any other residents who are affected though a petition was not brought.
If we also take an example of a house that was built in ZIMRE Park on wetlands – it is the same, corruption. This should be put in order and council should put its house in order. I support that this company be removed from this place. I thank you.
HON. TOGAREPI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 4th March, 2021.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI, seconded by HON. TEKESHE, the House adjourned at Twenty Seven Minutes past Six o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the Senate that all Senators are required to log in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their name on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance register.
Senators are also advised that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that Order of the Day, Number 1 be stood over until all the Orders of the Day have been disposed of.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Second Order Read: Adjourned debate in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: Thank you Madam President. I stand up to add a few words on the Presidential Speech. Firstly, I am grateful for what the President said. I would also want to thank our President Mwonzora for allowing us to debate these motions. This is because all along, we were yearning to debate but because of our laws which were there, we were not able to do so. The President presented a very good speech…
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Can you please unmute your gadget.
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: Thank you Madam President. I want to thank the President for his Presidential Speech. I also want to thank our President Hon. Douglas Mwonzora who is allowing us to contribute on the Presidential Speech because for a long time, we were not able to debate. We would just be sitting there but we will be yearning to contribute but we could not contribute. When the President talked about youth empowerment, he said they should be supported because they are the heirs of this land. We are ageing and are not geting any young. The youth should attend vocational training colleges so that they are trained in skills and be able to look after themselves. Nowadays, formal employment is a challenge. So, if our youths find something to be engaged in, it means they will be protected from drug abuse and criminal activities. They would not spend most of their time idle. If they are taught skillful things, it will be helpful to them because youths, many a times if they are idle become armed robbers.
The other thing which is very important is that youths should be involved in leadership positions. Leadership is not only for elders but they are our future leaders. I was very happy when he said that youths should be involved in leadership positions in all sectors. They should hold leadership positions so that they grow up knowing something. So I am happy that we should remain like that and support the youths. The youths should also be taught horticulture for they will benefit something from there. Youths are very important in our society. They should be uplifted as has been articulated by the President. We should follow what the President said, that we should uplift lives of the youths in politics and in everything.
The President also talked about “Pfumvudza”which has gone very well this year. However, we are saying those who benefited from the inputs should be productive. When some are given the inputs they sell them. Some do not utilise them fully. By being given inputs, the President wants our lives to be uplifted, he wants to empower us. This is because not all of us are farmers. Some people live in urban areas. So if people become productive, it helps everyone, even those who are in the urban areas would be able to buy the food that has been grown in the rural areas. You find people selling the inputs instead of putting them to good use. The President is aware that people are facing challenges of acquiring inputs. It is very painful when people sell inputs that they are given. When inputs are given, they know the hactrage that should be covered. People should be honest because the President is working very hard so that people are fed.
Coming to horticulture, it is very good because everything will be in season. Also, construction of dams will be helpful, especially for those who are engaged in horticulture. They will be able to irrigate their crops. The President also supported farming of small grains. People are shunning away from our culture of growing small grains because we say they are eaten by birds. However, these grains are very good to our health. We should go back and grow those small grains. Cotton used to be grown in Zimbabwe to the extent that we did not import textile materials from other countries because we would get that from our own cotton.
Looking at the inputs that the President gave to people, he gave a lot of things that we should not face any challenges as a nation. We would want to thank the Lord because this year we received good rains. I want to thank those who are utilising the inputs that they were given. If we have many dams, it means we will not have challenges of hunger in this country. What I saw is that our land is our resource. Zimbabwe is the bread-basket of Africa. So by investing in land, we are investing in our economy. Inputs were very expensive and that is why the President decided to give us inputs. I think in the future, the President should give all his people as some are not getting the inputs. I am pleading that when the President is giving out inputs or anything else he should give them to everyone. Distribution of inputs should not be partisan but should be given to every citizen of Zimbabwe. With these few words Madam President, I thank you.
HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Madam President, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum held virtually on 9th October, 2020 in Windhoek, Namibia.
*HON. SEN. MOEKETSI: Thank you Madam President for giving me the opportunity to contribute on the motion raised by Hon. Sen. Mohadi. Firstly, I would like to thank my president Douglas Togarasei Mwonzora who encouraged us to participate in motions raised by other senators. I would like to thank him very much. I would like to also thank the movers of the motion on Covid. I would like to thank them very much for their contribution because the dreadful disease has caused many deaths in this country. I would like to thank them because when they were assigned this duty, they did not refuse. I would like to thank them for representing this country.
Madam President, I have a question. I might be mistake but allow me to express myself. I know that Zimbabwe is an independent country freed by the spirit mediums of this country. Those who went to fight in the war of liberation had spirit mediums that led them on which direction to take and which base to stay at, to run away or to avoid. Madam President, my question is do we not still have these spirit mediums with us? The President might have gone and asked for vaccination but can the spirit mediums not advise on which medication and which herbs to take so as to help fight the pandemic? We do have traditional leaders in this country, can they not help us?
Madam President, it is true that we have people who went to war and never came back. Those who came back had spirit mediums who led them during the liberation war. I do not want to praise my uncle, Rekayi Tangwena. He had his homestead burnt down but the following morning they would find him at his homestead. We have spirit mediums in Masvingo, we have spirit mediums from Buhera and even in Kariba. We have spirit mediums of this country, let us go back to them and they will tell us which medication to take to help fight the pandemic in this country. We should not wander about just gallivanting without direction, without consulting the spirit mediums.
In case I have lost it, I think I have expressed myself. I think we should consult spirit mediums to get direction. Other people mentioned the use of the zumbani and others were using snuff, who told them it will cure COVID? People had an idea of the solutions but because we have been embroidered into the English culture, we have forgotten those people who led us and saved us during the liberation struggle. Those people lived with us and protected us. We have chiefs within our country and they know which spirit mediums within their communities who can give us direction on the medications. That is why the white men never wanted to leave this country. People refuse cooperation because they do not know where the medications are coming from. Even I was not sure of what was being injected into people. It is because people never had information of the vaccine which was being injected into their bodies. Madam President, it is my wish that we come together and put our heads together and have sustainable traditions ways and solution to this pandemic so that we do not continue to beg for vaccinations and continue suffer. We are a blessed nation because we have everything in this country. With those few words Madam President. I thank you.
+HON. SEN. A. DUBE: Thank you Madam President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice on the motion that was tabled by Hon. Sen. Mohadi on the meeting of SADC which was virtually conducted. This is one of the important meetings which is a reflection that the Southern Region countries are working together, especially in such difficult times like these discussing the issues of COVID-19 and its effect to the whole world. So many people succumbed to covid-19 pandemic. We have seen some of our colleagues who passed on because of the pandemic which is an indication that this meeting was important so that countries can share ideas on how they can help their citizens to survive this pandemic. This is a pandemic - we do not even know which term to use to refer to it. The meeting was very important when the Vice president of Namibia was also present in this virtual meeting, which is an indication of how important the meeting was. I would want to thank all the Zimbabweans who were representing us at this meeting. They were able to get new ideas from other countries on how they were controlling this COVID-19 pandemic in their countries. This is a pandemic that caught people unaware and it spread very fast that people could not tell where it was coming from.
We want to thank His Excellency, the President because he managed to quickly handle and put lockdown measures in order to control this COVID-19 when it started in the country. All the guidelines and regulations that Government pronounced show that His Excellency was committed as a President of a nation. It is so sad and painful to lose so many citizens in the country. However, the regulations and WHO guidelines were able to safeguard the nation from the attacks of COVID-19.
I would also want to thank even the Zimbabweans for listening and following all the regulations that were put in place. There were a few deaths recorded during the first wave of this pandemic and had it not been for the strict regulations pronounced, we could have lost so many people. However, others were expecting a number of deaths in Zimbabwe because we did not have enough health facilities to take care of this COVID. Therefore, we want to thank God for His devine intervention.
Another wave of COVID-19 hit our country early this year which spread fast and was more deadly than the first one. We, therefore, recorded a number of deaths though we managed to follow all the set regulations and guidelines by WHO to prevent this pandemic. Zimbabweans were so vigilant and considered taking our traditional herbs like Zumbani tea which has become very popular nowadays because of its medicinal properties that help fight COVID-19. Some were steaming using the herbal tea and some were taking it as tea.
A lot of people tested positive to COVID-19 but because of the traditional herbs that the people have resorted to, a lot recovered from the deadly pandemic. We were also following all the regulations that were announced by the Government especially on prevention of COVID-19 such as sanitising and masking up all the time. Yes, the pandemic is still there but the statistics of new cases and death records are showing that the graph is now dropping.
I really want to acknowledge those who participated in this SADC meeting which was conducted virtually. We had different Members of Parliament from 12 different Parliaments who were sharing ideas on how to help each other as Members of Parliament in preventing and safeguarding our people from this deadly Coronavirus.
I would also want to acknowledge that the Government has managed to secure the vaccine for COVID-19. So far a number of people have been vaccinated already against COVID-19 especially Members of Parliament. We are hoping that this vaccine will prevent people from contracting this COVID-19. The first person who was vaccinated was the Minister of Health which was a reflection that he also acknowledged that the vaccine is a way of trying to safeguard people against COVID-19.
So many people have misconceptions about this vaccine but now I am sure they have seen that the vaccine is not here to kill people but to prevent them from contracting COVID-19. For example, the Minister of Health and Child Care who is also the Vice President volunteered to be the first person to be vaccinated. This was a way of making people to gain confidence in the vaccine because if he knew the vaccine was here to kill people, there was no way he was going to be vaccinated. Ever since the onset of the programme of vaccinating people, we have not had cases of negative effects on our people.
Once again, I want to thank the President of our country and Zimbabweans at large for welcoming this vaccine which was brought into this country so that it will reduce the number of people contracting COVID-19. So the number of new cases and deaths recorded has since reduced. Therefore, as Members of Parliament, especially the Senate, we should work harder in our constituencies, telling people to get vaccinated so that they can safeguard themselves and their families.
Yes the lockdown measures have been eased but we still need to be vigilant and safeguard ourselves against this virus. I thank you.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 3rd March 2021.
MOTION
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS NETWORK ON DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION (APNODE) HELD IN ABIDJAN
Fourth order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Zimbabwean Delegation to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the African Parliamentarians Network on Development Evaluation (APNODE).
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 3rd March 2021.
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report on the Virtual Extraordinary Session of the Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: Thank you Mr. President for affording me this opportunity to add my voice to this report tabled by Hon. Sen. Muzenda. In the report, it was reported that the delegation from Zimbabwe was headed by Advocate Mudenda with Hon. Sen. Muzenda and Hon Tsvangirayi in attendance. We want to thank the delegation for representing Zimbabwe. This was a virtual meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting was looking at policy and other important issues in preparation for the 2021 budget. We know that each and every organisation needs a budget for it to be on the go. That is what IPU set out to do. They were looking at their budget so that their work could run smoothly.
I want to touch on one of the issues that were raised in a report that was tabled there on human rights pertaining to how Johana Mamombe is being treated here in Zimbabwe. The report was submitted by the Human Rights Activists. A lot of things were raised such as Mamombe was abducted, ill treated, violated of freedom of expression and opinion, violated of freedom of assembly and association. Those are some of the issues which were raised but Hon. Mudenda replied by articulating how our Constitution works. He explained that there was separation of powers and the issue of Hon. Mamombe was being handled by the courts. He went on to say that Parliament of Zimbabwe cannot interfere with the Judiciary but he gave an undertaking that as Parliament, they would monitor how the issue is being handled in the courts and check for anomalies. Let me say that we are seeing that the Human Right Activists’ reports are not supposed to go straight to IPU without being submitted to Government. Government should be made to know the challenges so that they rectify the issues.
Coming to the recommendations given, Parliament of Zimbabwe was encouraged to work with the Committee on Human Rights and we are in support of that. Parliament was also tasked to work with the Ministry of Finance because money is needed where Zimbabwe was encouraged to pay their subscriptions in time so that they will not be in arrears and we also support that because if that money is paid in time, it will give pride to us as a country. Many countries agreed to the subscriptions and Zimbabwe agreed to engage in these meetings. We support that report. It is important that the good things happening in Zimbabwe are welcomed at the IPU. Thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN MOHADI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 3rd March 2021.
MOTION
PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Sixth Order read: Adjourned debate on 16 days of activism against gender based violence.
Question again proposed.
^^HON. SEN. MOHADI having started to debate on the motion
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA): Hon. Sen. Mohadi, our records show that you debated on this motion before.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Mr. President, I cannot remember.
+HON. SEN. A. DUBE: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. I seek the indulgence of this Senate to adopt this motion that I tabled in this Senate on gender based violence. I believe we all take cognisant of the fact that this motion is very important especially during this lockdown period where we have a higher number of cases of gender based violence. Almost every day, you read of a story based on gender based violence and there are so many cases that were recorded. Therefore, as Members of Senate, I am appealing to you that we should try and find a way of guarding against issues to do with gender based violence. I thank all the Members of this Senate who contributed and supported this motion, I thank you. Mr. President Sir. I now move that this Senate adopts this motion;
That this House;
COGNISANT that the Republic of Zimbabwe is signatory to the Beijing +25 Declaration, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
RECOGNISING that Sections 17, 56, 78, 79, 80 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provide for gender equality and other rights of women.
NOTING the commemoration of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Campaign from 25 November – 10 December 2020 under the theme “Orange the world: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect”
MINDFUL that domestic violence and sexual abuse in our communities constitutes a scourge that has caused devastating social ills on women folk, among them, trauma, murders and suicide;
ALSO MINDFUL that the prevalence of domestic violence results in grievous physical, emotional, psychological harm among women and the girl child, leading to untold sufferings to minors;
COGNISANT that cases of domestic violence are contributory to high incidents of rape, incest, child marriages, depravation of love and financial support and other anti-social practices;
AWARE that failure to deal with this cancerous pandemic of gender-based violence is a serious indictment on the part of our nation;
DESIROUS to curb challenges of domestic violence;
NOW, THEREFORE, calls upon;
- Law enforcement agents to strictly enforce law on domestic violence and bring all culprits to book.
- Parliament to legislate for stiffer penalties to deal with domestic violence
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
CONDOLENCES ON THE DEATH OF HON. SEN. AIR CHIEF MARSHALL RTD. PERRANCE SHIRI
Seventh Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the death of Hon. Sen. Rtd Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. KAMBIZI: Thank you Mr. President for allowing me to debate on the motion pertaining to the death of the late Hon. Sen. Rtd Air Chief Marshal Shiri, a motion that was raised by Hon. Sen. Tongogara and seconded by Hon. Sen. Chimutengwende. It is also quite important that Hon. Members who have debated this motion before made very valuable contributions but I want to add more flesh to the motion.
My presentation Mr. President, is going to cover a few things that I feel have not been properly covered. Firstly, I will unmask who the late Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Shiri is, how he crossed this country via Botswana to Zambia in an endeavour to liberate this country up to 1980, his contribution from 1980 in the Air Force of Zimbabwe beginning as the second in command eventually taking over as the Air Force Commander and at a later stage, how he became the Minister of Lands.
Mr. President, the late Senator was born on 11th January, 1955 in Chikomba District of Mashonaland East and he passed on, on 29th of July 2020. He is one of the many men and women who abandoned school in this country and fled the country to join the liberation struggle after having witnessed the suffering of the people of this country at the hands of the white settler regime. He felt it was not necessary to go to school while fellow citizens were being brutalised day in day out when fellow citizens were being treated as second class citizens in their own mother country. In a very rare display of bravery and dedication to the liberation of the struggle, the late Hon. Senator, in the year 1973, in the company of the now Hon. Vice President Dr. Rtd Gen. Chiwenga crossed the country clandestinely into Botswana on their way to Zambia where they received initial military training in order to launch the armed struggle to liberate this country.
Mr. President, the late Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Shiri later moved to Tanzania, Mugagawo Training Camp which by then was the main training camp for liberation fighters and other liberation movements. Here, he received further training and on completion he was deployed to the warfront kick starting a very long journey to liberate Zimbabwe, a country that had been re-named Rhodesia in the owner of one other white man, Cecil John Rhodes. His deployment also marked a very long service totaling 47 years of uninterrupted dedicated service.
Mr. President, it is important to mention that the late Air Chief Marshal Shiri, on being deployed to the war front took over many positions in the command structure that saw him become Operation Commander of the Tete Province. He took many daring missions against the well-equipped Rhodesia Front’s 1RAR. One such mission which became the turning point in the history of the liberation struggle was the famous bombing of fuel tanks in 1978 in Salisbury now Harare …
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order, you sit down when I say Order Hon. Senator. I am advised that your gadget is not connected, so a technical person is coming to assist you.
HON. SEN. KAMBIZI: My sincere apologies Mr. President. Does this mean that I have to start afresh, with your authority?
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I do not know at what point you got disconnected.
HON. SEN. KAMBIZI: I am also not very sure.
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Again, I am advised that you can continue. The first part of your speech will appear in the Hansard.
HON. SEN. KAMBIZI: Thank you Mr. President, I will continue and in case a record is required, I have something typed here that I am referring to.
Mr. President, on attaining independence, the late Hon. Sen. Perrance Shiri did not remove his liberation clothes neither did he exhibit any signs of fatigue. The Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri and national hero was attested into the Zimbabwe National Army. He was also seconded to be second in command of the Air Force of Zimbabwe embarking on yet another long service to defend the hard earned independence. He played a pivotal role in the integration of RF, ZANLA and ZIPRA forming the Zimbabwe National Army that then culminated into him being deployed to deputise yet another late national hero, Josiah Tungamirai at the Air Force of Zimbabwe. He later took over command of the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ), a post that he only relinquished at the inception of the Second Republic when he was appointed Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement.
Mr. President, on being appointed Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, the late Air Chief Marshal Shiri threw away the military gear and took over the Ministry with a lot of vigour and determination. He took over the Ministry and executed his duties with honour, dignity, distinction and expertise. After having been involved in Command Agriculture while deputising the now His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Hon. Dr. E. D. Mnangagwa, he distinguished himself as Minister very well up to the time of his untimely death. He was more of a farmer than a Minister; this was evidenced by his trade mark dressing that resembled a farmer. He would always be in his work suit. While serving as Minister, he scored a number of successes and I will mention four or five of them. He was involved in Command Agriculture; Farm Mechanisation; kick started the construction of various bodies for irrigation; kick started the resuscitation of irrigation schemes to enhance food security and he was also involved in the Pfumvudza programme that has suddenly become a hit in this country.
Mr. President, the late Hon. Minister who was also an Hon. Senator and leader of Government Business in this House, left a vision that we are challenged to carry through as a last tribute to him. He also made tremendous contributions to Parliament and Government. It is because of the above that we express our deepest sympathies to the Chikerema/Shiri family and Mashonaland Province. May his soul rest in eternal peace.
Mr. President, the late Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri was a very hard worker, one who would traverse the length and breadth of this country in general, the length and breadth of Mashonaland Central Province in particular. One day he would be in Rushinga, the other day in Guruve and the day after in Kanyemba spearheading developmental programmes. A good example Mr. President, the late national hero constructed Murongwe Primary and Secondary Schools and a clinic down in Muzarabani as earlier stated by the Hon. Senator who tabled this motion. He was a very respectable father, a loving father and unifier, one who would cool tempers in all our meetings in Mashonaland Central.
Mr. President, I have an insurmountable task personally, a load too big to carry on my shoulders in that my province Mashonaland Central Province chose me to take over the late Hon. Perrance Shiri’s place as Hon. Senator for the province, hence the reason I am standing before you. The late hero was by far senior to me in triple capacity, during the liberation struggle, in the Zimbabwe National Army and Government, and even in my party’s structures where I am Central Committee member. The shoes that I am putting on Mr. President, are too big and too heavy as I have to perform both in this House and back in the province. It will obviously take me long to match his standards by any means. I only hope and pray that his spirit, wherever it is guides me in my endevour to work as much as he did, to behave in the same way and that I be given wisdom by his spirit to be able to fulfill his unfinished business.
Mr. President, let me list the number of medals that he attained during his 47 years of service which are the Liberation War Medal; Independence Medal; Long Service Medal; Long and exemplary service Medal; Mozambique Campaign Medal; DRC Campaign Medal and most importantly, he holds an Operation Sovereign Legitimacy and Grant Officer of the Zimbabwe Order of Merit, which is the most important medal that one can ever get in this country.
Allow me Mr. President to say, the late Chief Air Marshal Perrance Shiri - rest in eternal peace our national hero. This august House, Government and entire nation misses your services as you were not supposed to have departed so soon to see the successes of your programme. Thank you Mr. President and also allow me to say thank you to Hon Members. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. MOEKETSI: Thank you very much Mr. President. I just want to contribute a few words on this motion that was tabled by Hon. Sen. Tongogara in this House with regards to the late Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshall Rtd. Perrance Shiri. Mr. President, I have a few words on the work that he has done. May his soul rest in peace. He worked so hard to liberate the children of this land. We saw him in here as a Senator who was humble. Let me tell you Mr. President that most who were soldiers, if you meet them on the streets are very fierce, but the Hon. Minister had no such character. He was a man of the people. All I want to say is sincere condolences on the passing on of the Hon. Minister. He fell victim to this pandemic that has affected the whole world. With these few words, I want to say may his soul rest in peace. Thank you very much.
HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Mr. President for according me this opportunity to wind up my motion which I raised in this House in relation to the death of Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Rtd. Perrance Shiri. Firstly, I want to start by thanking you for giving me this opportunity. Secondly, I want to thank the Hon. Senators who contributed on this motion. The elders always said good works will follow you and that is why everyone who debated on the late Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Rtd. Perrance Shiri, all of them were bringing out his expertise, humility and the good works that he rendered to this country from the struggle up to independence – from him heading various departments and everything that he has done.
I want to say that the most important thing that really touched all those who debated was that Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Rtd. Perrance Shiri was a person who did not delegate, especially when it had to do with field work. He would go there and meet the people and would do what he was supposed to do as a person who had been given a job by the President so that there is no hunger in this country. We are all aware that Zimbabweans are hard working. He came up with programmes that everyone should get something from the land that they are seated, which is “Pfumvudza.” Almost all the Hon. Senators referred to this programme.
Mr. President, I want to say the late Hon. Sen. Air Chief Marshal Rtd. Perrance Shiri left us with a gap in everything that he was doing. I want to encourage all the Ministers who have been assigned work to do that they should take the example of Hon. Shiri, he was a hands-on man. He did not delegate and would be dressed in a work suit. I am just encouraging those who have been left behind to walk in his footsteps so that his soul will rest in peace, knowing that what he left is an example, people are following his steps.
Finally, I would like to say that Mashonaland Central lost a gallant son, but the work he left should carry on. As Zimbabwe, we lost but whatever he was doing should go on so that the people of Zimbabwe have enough food. If we do that, it means that we would have honoured him to the extent that he would rest in peace wherever he is. Mr. President, I want to say to the Shiri family, thank you for giving us a son who did good work for us. He did wonders for us. I would want to say to the Shiri family you are not alone, we are together in this loss, especially myself. During the liberation struggle I saw these children growing up doing various works. and the passing of Air Marshal Shiri touches my heart. In conclusion, may his soul rest in peace. I so move for the adoption of the motion that:
This House expresses its profound sorrow on the sudden and untimely death on Wednesday, 19th July 2020, of Hon. Sen. for Mashonaland Central, Air Chief Marshal Rtd. Perrance Shiri.
PLACES on record its appreciation of the services which the late Member of Parliament rendered to Parliament and the nation; and
RESOLVES that its deepest sympathy be conveyed to the Shiri family and the Mashonaland Central Province.
Motion put and agreed to.
On the motion of HON. SEN. MUZENDA, seconded by HON. SEN. MOHADI, the House adjourned at Seven Minutes to Five o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
APPOINTMENT TO PORTFOLIO COMMITTEES
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have the following announcements. I have to inform the House that the MDC – T Party has assigned the following Hon. Members to serve on Portfolio Committees as follows: Hon. Judith Chimwanza will serve on Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development and on the Portfolio Committee on Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development. Hon. Nomvula Mguni will serve on the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and on Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works, National Housing and Settlement. Hon. Base Miranzi will serve on the Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development and on Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works, National Housing and Settlement.
PETITION RECEIVED FROM MR. LUCKMORE BUNU
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that on 27th January, 2021, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Luckmore Bunu, representing Retail Pharmacist Association (RPA) beseeching Parliament to amend the Public Health Act, Chapter 16 and 17 to allow health professionals who are not medical doctors to be appointed to administrative positions. The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Health and Childcare.
LOGGING IN ON VIRUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. SPEAKER: I also wish to inform the House that all Hon. Members are required to log-in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their names on the chat platform. This will assist officers in capturing their names on the attendance registers.
Furthermore, Hon. Members are advised that they must keep their gadgets on mute and only unmute when called upon to speak by the Chair.
HON. BITI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I rise on a matter of urgent national importance, one which the Government, the Executive itself has already noted which relates to the rise of prices, the rise of consumer price index, the rise of inflation in our country. Despite the introduction of a mono-currency through SI 33 of 2019 and SI 142 of 2019, it is clear that the economy has largely become an informal USD economy. It is also clear that citizens are being subjected to a regime of multiple prices. So, you find goods indexed in ZWD but also indexed in USD.
The trick and the dishonesty particularly with regards to retail outlets, they will price their goods at prices that are indexed at the unofficial parallel rate also known as the black market, whether 1:25 or 1:30 but when you buy in the large supermarkets when you are using the USD, they discount it at the official auction rate which is 32% or 30% lower than the parallel market rate. So they are having a double dip Hon. Speaker Sir. They are indexing their prices at the official parallel rate yet they are collecting money from the citizens and discount it at the official auction rate. This increases distortions in the economy.
I appeal to the authorities, in particular the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to do either of the two following things; to acknowledge the informal redollarisation of the economy that has taken place and secondly, just liberalise the exchange rate so that we do not have the fixed auction rate which has been fixed at US$1 is to Z$82 for the past six months. Our people are suffering as a result of high inflation in the country. I thank you.
*HON. TEKESHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I have stood up concerning bridges that have collapsed in Rusape. The roads are now impassable and my car actually fell into the bridge including one other car and a motor-bike. Fortunately, no one died but some were injured. I was talking to Hon. Mhona when we met where the bridge was swept away and I asked him his opinion in terms of the bridge that was swept away. There is no reinforcement, the bridge is just put there.
The bridge is supposed to stand whilst its sides may be washed away. Bridges that are being swept away are those that were erected after independence. Those that were built before independence are still there. What exactly is going on such that some bridges are being swept away yet others still remain intact? – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjection] - Forgive me Hon. Member, I lost my vehicle.
My request is for the Minister of Transport to bring in a ministerial statement for us to understand what is happening with our bridges. If there is no reinforcement, there is not a bridge because once heavy rains come, the bridge will be washed away. I was deeply pained because I lost my property. My request is that we need to be told what exactly is happening. The council engineer said bridges need to be inspected every year and if there is something wrong they will address it but that is no longer happening. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you, our sympathies for your tragedy. At least we did not lose a life. Such questions or observations are better dealt with tomorrow during Question Time so that you can get the response of the Hon. Ministers immediately. So I advise.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I would like to recognise the work of Vice President Mohadi who has resigned. He was a member of this House who was respectful of this House, no matter what differences we have with him, I must say I had differences with him but he never took it a step further. He treated you as a leader. The decision he has made is a decision which he has made to put the country first. He is somebody who liberated this country and when he was called to Parliament he would answer questions.
He had been a Member of this Parliament long before we became Members. His voice and stature will be missed. I hope that he is leaving knowing that the respect he has earned is something that is a legacy. At times leaders do not resign, especially African leaders - they like to stay and die in power, but he chose to put the country first and as such, he has earned respect of many. It is a precedence which also has been set by all of us as leaders that we must also take cognisance of many factors and put the country first.
At the same time Mr. Speaker Sir, may we also be aware of social media that it is an animal that attacks. For as long as we do not give a fair trial to anybody implicated, tomorrow it will be me, but for me, I am used to it anyway - so it is not much of a problem. For other Members who are here, including yourself Mr. Speaker Sir, it just takes one person to write something which is not true and that becomes a fact. There has got to be a way through the law, I think the Minister of Justice is hearing me and can at least come up with a credible way of ensuring that whatever is alleged is true or not. As politicians we are very much vulnerable to that.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we serve people and unfortunately when you are out of power, nobody remembers what you did, but we sacrifice to be here in many ways. So, Mr. Speaker Sir, may he enjoy his retirement and know that he served this country well. He fought for it and the precedence set is admirable, honourable. He goes with dignity and integrity. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you very much for your observations and commendations to the former Vice President Mohadi.
(v) HON. NDIWENI: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a matter of national importance. Firstly, I would like to applaud the Government in availing vaccines to the populace of Zimbabwe on a good priority scale, starting with health care workers. Whilst we are at it Mr. Speaker Sir, my worry is there is very little publicity on the vaccines, the good effect on the use, effectiveness and so. There is very little, if anything that is coming out on national radio, national television about the vaccination programme.
Good as it maybe, the Government went all out to publicise the bad effects of COVID-19 and sensitise the population about the disease itself but as we stand at the moment, our detractors are busy talking about the ill effects of the vaccine and they seem to be getting more ground in talking ill about vaccine. I would urge the Government to publicise these vaccines, they are good for us. The populace has to know so that by the time we get more vaccines, the population should be in a position whereby they are educated and know that the vaccines are good for us. Thank you. I urge the Government to use national media to publicise this vaccine positively. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 9 be stood over until Order of the Day, No. 10 has been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
SECOND READING
CONSTITUTION OF ZIMBABWE AMENDMENT (NO. 2) BILL [H. B. 23, 2019]
Ninth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Second Reading of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 2) Bill [H.B. 23, 2019].
House in Committee.
(v)HON. SAMUKANGE: In pursuit of its constitutional mandate as provided in Section 152 (4) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Parliamentary Legal Committee considered Statutory Instruments gazetted in January, 2021. After deliberations, the Committee unanimously resolved that an adverse report be issued in respect of Statutory Instrument 25 of 2021 due to the following reasons:
The preamble of Statutory Instrument 25 of 2021 Criminal Law Codification and Reform, Standard Scale of Fines Notice, 2021 does not specify in its preamble who the Minister enacting the Statutory Instrument is. The reason why specifying the Minister is material is because the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act provides for two instances where either the Minister of Finance and Economic Development or the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs can increase the standard scale of fines through a Statutory instrument. In the instance where the Statutory Instrument increasing the Standard Scale of fines is published by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, after consultation with the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, the Statutory Instrument comes into effect in terms of Section 280 (5) and (7) of the Act.
The second instance is provided for in Section 280 (6) of the Act, which requires that when the Standard Scale of fines is published in a Statutory Instrument by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, a draft of the Standard Scale of fines must be tabled before Parliament. A draft was not tabled before Parliament before the Statutory Instrument was published. Since the Statutory Instrument does not categorically state who enacted the Statutory Instrument, the presumption is that because the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs administers the Act, he is therefore responsible for the enactment of the Statutory Instrument. The presumption invokes subsection (6) of Section 280 of the Act.
The Committee found the Statutory Instrument to be ultra vires the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act [Chapter 9: 23]. Summarily, it is the Committee’s opinion that Statutory Instrument 25 of 2021 is ultra vires the enabling Act and therefore unconstitutional.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. My recommendation is that may those with reports of this nature come and present them in the House physically not virtually because it is not as clear and it does not have the impact that it should. It is a very important report and it would help us if in future, that recommendation can be taken on board.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): Thank you very much. Hon. Chair, it is important for those with reports to come and present them in the House so that everyone can hear them more clearly and respond rather than presenting them virtually.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Madam Chair, I want to thank the Parliamentary Legal Committee for their report. I have listened attentively and considered what they have recommended. It is my intention to withdraw the SI and ensure that it is done the proper way. I thank you.
THE HON. BITI: I would like to commend first, the Parliamentary Legal Committee (PLC) for doing its job in providing Parliamentary Legal oversight over laws, Statutory Instruments (S.Is) and Bills. They have done a good job and pointed out the deficiencies with S.I. 25 of 2021 but I would also want to commend the Minister for accepting Parliament’s oversight role and doing the right thing and withdrawing. I have been in this Parliament for a long time and I think this is one of the first times this has happened. Thank you Hon. Ministers.
HON. SAMUKANGE: I move that the report be adopted and the S.I be withdrawn.
Motion put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Progress reported.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 25 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 26 is disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PROMOTION OF THE COUNTRY’S POSITIVE IMAGE AND BRAND
HON. A. MPOFU: I move the motion in my name that: COGNISANT that Zimbabwe's image and national reputation are critical factors in attracting foreign investment;
CONCERNED that the negative portrayal of the country's image and reputation has an adverse and crippling impact on the country’s economic prospects especially on tourism, investment, and the welfare of the vulnerable such as youths, women and the disabled;
ENCOURAGED that other jurisdictions, recognising the need to preserve their image and soft power in a competitive global village, have enacted laws that bar their citizens from engaging in unpatriotic activities and communication intended to denigrate the integrity of their homeland;
BUOYED by the fact that the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans are focused on building the positive image of the country as a reforming, open, peaceful, and democratic country that is attractive to investment;
NOW THEREFORE, call upon this august House to enact a law that:
- a) recognises and celebrates efforts made by Zimbabwean citizens at home and abroad to promote the country’s positive image and brand; and
- b) prohibits any Zimbabwean citizen from wilfully communicating messages intended to harm the image and reputation of the country on international platforms or engaging with foreign countries with the intention of communicating messages intended to harm the country's positive image, and or to undermine its integrity and reputation.
HON. TOGAREPI: I second.
HON. A. MPOFU: I would like to start by thanking you for giving me this opportunity to introduce this motion before this august House. I believe that the motion will stimulate a very important debate amongst Hon. Members. I am also convinced that it is a very important debate that has a great bearing on our country’ economic and development prospects. It is a debate that touches on the everyday comfort and happiness of ordinary Zimbabweans especially its most vulnerable, the elderly, the women, the disabled and our youths. These groups have been characterised in society as people who live at the bottom of the pyramid and as the wretched of the earth.
In today’s increasingly globalised and globalising world, countries continue to make a lot of effort and have done it for hundreds of years to develop a very positive image of themselves so that they can create a positive reputation and urge against each other so that they can gain from advantages that this positive reputation rewards in terms of economics, culture and other social benefits. But even as countries build free trade areas as we see today and so forth, they continue to compete with one another on many levels and almost every field especially in terms of perceptions.
Indeed, a country’s positive reputation has become one of the most valuable assets the country can possess. For this reason, countries today spend millions of dollars and huge hours of thinking time strategising on ways and means not only to build and manage but also to protect that good reputation thus building a good reputation amongst stakeholders has become a strategic necessity for every country and every jurisdiction. The key stakeholders who indeed care about the good reputation of a country include the citizenry, potential investors, neighbours, visitors amongst others. In order to create a positive reputation amongst these key stakeholders, countries spend time putting in place domestic measures that enhance their citizens happiness like instituting popular reforms, restoring public confidence and improving services like public health and education whilst maintaining peace and public safety for citizens.
Countries also use instruments of international marketing by means of which they promote the virtues of their local flagship products. For example, countries like Zimbabwe could spend a lot of effort promoting flagship products like mazoe orange crush in international markets seeing the virtues of their natural wonders like the Victoria Falls hailing human capital accomplishments that their education systems have bestowed on their people and of course, celebrating their cultural excellence as evidenced at Great Zimbabwe.
`As we open this debate on this motion, it is vital that we have a very common understanding of what we are talking about when we talk of a country’s positive reputation. According to scholars who have dedicated time to study country reputations, a country’s reputation is the opinion stakeholders inside and outside of the country have of that given country. Thus, a country’s reputation consists of stakeholders evaluation of the country’s past, present and likely future activities. At most therefore, reputation is the collective evaluation of everything that makes a country credible and trustworthy in the eyes of its citizens and foreigners.
Researchers have pointed out that a country benefits from its good reputation in many areas of the economy, politics, society and culture. For instance, they argue that a country’s reputation as a friendly and peaceful environment with good governance ethics attracts investors and entrepreneurs whilst attractive natural assets like Victoria Falls and the great heritage at Great Zimbabwe attract and tempt tourists to visit, thus increasing the country’s foreign currency flows. In the case of Zimbabwe for instance, research done by people like Matiza T. and Simon Perks as recently as 2017, revealed that foreign investors considered the availability of a sustainable highly skilled manpower base in Zimbabwe as a very attractive proposition for foreign investors.
This also confirms research findings done by other people, which states that the country’s reputation has an unquestionable economic value. Like other researchers, it is pointed out by others that as globalisation continues, even as countries continue to sign cooperative trade treaties, the value of a country’s reputation is rising as an individual country and as such, it is very important that the country’s jurisdictions manage and protect the good reputation of their country. Madam Speaker, this is the whole purpose of this debate today. This is the whole purpose of introducing this motion in this august House.
At this juncture, when all countries are competing for economic and other opportunities on the world stage, how do we as Zimbabwe start to seriously craft and manage our reputation as a country so that we minimise the negative cost of a bad reputation whilst enhancing the multiple benefit we can reap from a good and positive reputation? As already suggested above, a country’s reputation has to be managed because it has a direct and measurable impact on just about every aspect of the country’s engagement with other countries.
Under the Second Republic ushered in November 2017, Zimbabwe has set itself a vision to build a middle income economy by 2030. This vision indeed will be realised by crafting a positive reputation that will oil all the wheels of this vision. It has been pointed out that the most important condition for building a positive reputation for a country is to build unity of purpose amongst all key stakeholders in the country and outside – to build a unity of purpose amongst all key stakeholders in the country and outside. This includes building a united vision and purpose amongst institutions of society, especially the political, economic and cultural institutions.
In fact, this is one of the greatest challenges because in most cases, such institutions have a tendency of thinking and working in distinct silos. For example, you will find that embassies, cultural and sport bodies, businesses, trade bodies and tourism offices all promoting the country’s image break in separate ways with no clear collaborated and integrated approach to building or even understanding the key elements of the country’s positive image. It has been argued very effectively that when key stakeholders in a country; be they economic, political or cultural, when they have fundamental agreement on the way forward and vision for the country then a positive image of the country is built, not only amongst the citizenry but also amongst potential partners who may bring in economic benefits and other benefits to the country.
This is the genius that has been seen under the new dispensation where His Excellency, the President Cde. E. D. Mnangagwa, in line with such great thinking of stakeholder engagement has since the launch of the Second Republic and on many occasions thereafter, called for all and sundry to come together and dialogue on how the country can craft and agree on a common strategy and pathway to carry forward.
It is evident to everyone who cares, to notice that since November 2017 the Government of Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa has undertaken key initiatives that have helped build the country’s positive image especially amongst the citizens. These include various key reforms across sectors like the economy, media and the political sphere. As we speak today, Zimbabwe has introduced progressive media legislation relating to media freedom, discarding infamous laws like AIPPA analysed blow by blow. Zimbabwe’s Freedom of Information Act for instance passed in July 2020, takes its pride of place amongst similar pieces of legislation across jurisdictions. Indeed, it is not surprising that if we remember, this Bill passed through all the stages of this august House unanimously, a very heroic achievement considering the acrimonious nature of Zimbabwe’s media sector of the past years.
Within a short period of time and in spite of difficulties caused by illegal sanctions imposed on the country by some, the Second Republic is undertaking successful public infrastructure projects like the Harare-Beitbridge Highway, the Gwayi-Shangani Waterway amongst other irrigation assets like the Tokwe-Mukorsi in Masvingo Province. New policies like the new diaspora policy make citizens feel like they have a very caring leadership that is aware of the State’s role in taking care and protecting the rights of its citizens wherever they happen to be.
Visible efforts put by the Government in the fight against COVID19 pandemic have not gone unnoticed by the citizens in spite of efforts by both international and hostile opponents to belittle Government’s efforts in that direction. The anticorruption crusade by the Second Republic entrenches the citizens’ confidence in the Executive and the passage of pieces of legislation like the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Bill Act gives confidence to international investors, that Zimbabwe is indeed serious when it says it is open for business. The readiness to abide by the international BIPPA agreements provides further proof that the country is indeed a responsible member of the international community. All such measures have hailed to build Zimbabwe’s positive repetition amongst key stakeholders and enhanced the country’s positive prospects going forward.
In fact, further research done by people like Simon Arnold as recently as 2007 emphasise that governments should use their educational systems to build positive reputation among the general citizens. He regrets that more often than not, our countries spend huge efforts educating our future generations on the fodder of foreign curricula. Our children grow up knowing about the so-called renaissance movement of Europe and less about for instance, the great virtues of Chaka the Great and so forth.
In fact a very good example and this is a venturesome suggestion, is that countries spend years failing their own pupils who could be doctors, engineers and so on just because they cannot pronounce an English word properly yet they have cognitive ability to be doctors. We condemn them and say they cannot perform or further their education just because they cannot speak English properly. Then we get surprised when these very kids in terms of their orientation against their countries admire the languages or the tenets of other countries.
Madam Speaker, the above narrative, long as it sounds but very necessary shows how important it is for governments to stay close to their people. When governments show interest in what their citizens do in their everyday life, it makes everyone feel that they have a sense of belongingness and creates a positive reputation amongst the citizens and carries the country forward. When such solidarity is created between the state and its stakeholders, it is easy for everyone or all stakeholders to shoulder the burden of a common understanding and determine that the country should go forward but that is where the question arises. This is where a very important question arises.
If a positive reputation is so important and if it is vital that a positive reputation for a country drives economic development and helps to uplift the economic well-being of its people, what do you do with stakeholders especially citizens who deliberately go out of their way to demonise their country’s positive reputation? What do you do with citizens who make it their duty to spend hours and hours crafting counter narratives that are negative with all intent and purpose intended to harm the country’s positive good reputation? This is a very crucial question for this debate.
Only a few days ago, a very prominent opposition Senator bemoaned the presence of such actors in our society. Political actors who are determined to see the country’s efforts to build a positive reputation thrashed at every turn. In a letter to the leadership of her erstwhile political party, she points out a deliberate and relentless effort by some opposition elements within the country to thwart efforts by the Second Republic to create unity of purpose within the country’s body politic and always putting spanners at the Second Republic’s endeavours to reengage positively with the outside world in a passionate expose`. She publicly points – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] –
HON. MADZIMURE: The Hon. Member is now a seasoned Member of Parliament and is fully aware of the rules that he has to refer to his notes but not read.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mpofu, you only need to refer to your notes and not read.
HON. A. MPOFU: In a passionate expose`, the erstwhile Senator publicly points to the following critical sectors, that immediately after the harmonised elections of 2018, the President of the Republic, Cde E.D Mnangagwa called upon all political leaders to converge ...
HON. KWARAMBA: On a point of order. I think the new regulations allow him to read his notes.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Kwaramba, let me check with the Clerk here. Hon. Mpofu, you may continue with your debate whilst we check.
HON. A. MPOFU: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I was pointing out the observations that were made by an erstwhile opposition Senator who pointed out a few days ago that immediately after the harmonised elections of 2018, the President of the Republic, President E. D. Mnangagwa, called on all political actors within the country to converge and contribute towards bringing the people of Zimbabwe together and share ideas on how to rebuild the country. Yet she pointed out that the MDC-A Party kept on excluding itself and in a daming conclusion, she said that this kind of leadership shows a kind of selfishness that does not consider the overall interests of the ordinary Zimbabweans.
She observed at the MDC Party as an opposition has always held Western governments in high esteem, welcoming advice from them with open arms, irrespective of the same hypocrisy, double standards and questionable track records with regards to human rights and application of democratic principles. She goes to point out that the opposition party shuns engaging local stakeholders and fellow Zimbabweans in general. Going further, she said that it is sad to note that the opposition MDC Party therefore, has not observed that political players in Western countries from whom they love to draw so many lessons always find one another and engage whenever there is national interest…
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order Madam Speaker. Speech not recorded due to technical fault.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, if you have got some issues with what has been debated, your time will come and you will bring those issues. You will have your time to debate.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, if we are all working for the common good of this nation, he should lead by example and not blast MDC –A as a party. How do we feel wanted when he is just blaming us?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is why I said your time will come and if you have any issue with what he is debating, you will bring those issues forward and debate.
HON. TOFFA: On a point of order. I do not follow his debate, I do not even understand what he is talking about.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Toffa, I think you have to listen attentively while he is debating so that you get what he is saying.
HON. TOFFA: Which debate is this Madam Speaker, I am totally lost and I cannot even follow?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Toffa, let us give Hon. Mpofu time to wind up his debate, I think you can be able to follow what he is saying. Do you have your Order Paper? (HON. TOFFA: No) So you can look for an Order Paper, Notice of Motion Number 26.
HON. A. MPOFU: Thank you Madam Speaker – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Members, why are you disrupting this debate? Your time will come and you will bring those issues which you are not in agreement with. I do not think it is fair for you to disrupt this debate Hon. Members. Let us give the Hon. Member time to debate and I will give you time to debate also.
HON. A. MPOFU: Thank you Madam Speaker. The question I would like to pose is what do you do with key stakeholders, especially the citizens who then go out of their way to thrush positive image of the country? indeed recent development across many countries have indicated that countries are very concerned about the behaviour of their own citizens who engage in activities where without authorisation for instance appoint themselves as ambassadors and negotiate and engage with foreign powers; foreign key stakeholders on unauthorised behalf of Government and in that way distorting the position of Government.
For Example, on 16th April, 2019 and this was in Dublin, Ireland, a reporter from CNN, one Amanpour was interviewing the Speaker of the House of Congress in the United States, wanting an opinion from the Speaker of the House in the United States about a certain position which President Trump had adopted as regards European policy. The answer was, with due respect, ‘I am not going to say something negative about the President or my country whilst I am in Dublin. Please come to Washington, when we are at home and I will be able to give you a good opinion on that.’ During the Brexit Negotiations when Britain had overwhelmingly voted to get out of the EU, they were also increasing calls by the British public for a law that we discourage citizens to advocate for instance for positions when the majority of the people have voted then other actors cooperate with foreign powers to undermine the national position that the overwhelming majority of the people would have voted for and indeed, petitions were put forward even in Britain.
This is a tradition that has been there and it was introduced by the Americans themselves as far back as 1799 with what they called the Law Guard Act where a false appointed business fellow thought he could negotiate on behalf of the American Government with the French who were at that time hostile to the American Government and indeed, an Act was passed which criminalised the tendency by citizens to go out of the country, speak very much and advocate measures that could potentially harm the positive image and prospects of their own country.
Madam Speaker, it is very important that as we debate this we are very much aware of the constitutional obligations that we have in terms of freedom of speech, in terms of access to information and so forth and the reforms that have been done in terms of media within the country in the last many months have entrenched our people’s rights to freedom of information and freedom of expression. Therefore, as we debate this, I am very much aware that a lot of work has been done and that a lot of work and thinking has to be done as we debate this motion.
I would like to remind everyone that as we are here, it is not very difficult. What we just need to remember is the fundamental values which are captured. I know flags have to be put in a certain protocol but we just need to remember the values which are captured here. Madam Speaker, it is fundamental to remember that the colours captured in such icons of the State in such symbols of the nation are not just arbitrary, they reflect the fundamental thinking that we should have every day. As we wake up and look at the blood represented by this red colour on our flag, we remember that when the enemy went to bomb people in Zambia, they did not go there to bomb Jabulani or Nobizitha. When they went to bomb people in Mapai, they did not go there to bomb Farai, they went there to kill patriots of Zimbabwe whom they knew were fighting for their country.
Madam Speaker, it is a question that has to be resolved in this debate – what do we do when your members of the team, when they score goals, when Knowledge Musona scores goals and Nakamba scores goals, it behooves all of us to stand up and celebrate. What should we do when team players or those people who are supposed to be team players stand up and score own goals, what in that circumstance should we do? I rest my case.
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity to debate on this very important motion that has been raised by Hon. Mpofu. We are debating a motion that is talking about us as a people and as sons and daughters of this country. What it is saying in real terms is that we need to love our country and if we love our country, there will not be any reason for any of us – whatever political views that you have or whatever religious views that you have, there will not be any reason whatsoever under the sun why anybody will say ill things about his country.
We are Zimbabweans first before we are ZANU PF or any other political party, we are Zimbabwe first. So we need to defend the interest of our country and the interest of our country means things that will benefit and put forward the wishes of the people of Zimbabwe. Whenever you stand up whether in foreign land or you are on having coffee with your friends from wherever they come, the first thing that should come to your mind is I am a Zimbabwean and I must defend the interest of the people of Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, Zimbabwe is the only nation that does not have laws that encourage its citizenry to protect the brand Zimbabwe. Many countries throughout the country have laws that protect the image of their countries. Once that image is butchered or soiled, no one wants to do business with us and no one wants to work with us. It is critical that as a people, as a country and as law makers, we come up with laws that protect the Zimbabwean brand. You would know Madam Speaker and Hon. Members here, that long back, the United States of America had the Logan Act as stated by the mover of the motion. In 2001, they passed a Patriotic Act after the September 11, 2001 terror attack. They passed that law because some of their citizens, in their view, could have been involved in that incident that visited the people of America. So, they came up with the Logan Act.
As the people of Zimbabwe, we should also look at some of the behaviours and detrimental words used by some of our citizens and say what have they done to advance the interest of the people of Zimbabwe? Some among us have said things that have cost us in terms of international relations and some have said statements that have denied Zimbabwe access to financial support, good relations with other nations. To make matters worse, people have died because of those who wrote letters to international donors who could support us even during COVID to say to do not support Zimbabwe. We have a Parliament here where we can debate about corruption or anything we are not happy with but we just want to rush to international communities. We cannot deny the people of Zimbabwe access to health just because we do not agree politically.
Madam Speaker, when we have such citizens who deliberately go out there to vilify their country, what should we do? Some civic societies and some in the media, have gone out there to say negative things deliberately, for the purpose of just opposing. The nation has been a victim of negative publicity through publication of fake news. Zimbabwe has suffered financially, materially and because of that, this has also affected our international relations.
Madam Speaker, you know that the imposition of sanctions by the United States, European Union, Canada, Australia et cetera was at the behest of our people. The imposition of sanctions by these countries was as a result of lobbying by certain individuals. Some deliberately went to these countries to ask for the people of Zimbabwe to be killed by way of denying us access to heath, in other words you are saying we should die. These are citizens of Zimbabwe, what are we doing as a country to ensure that such people pay for exposing the people of Zimbabwe, we need to do something and it should be done now. I propose in my discussion that we have a ‘patriotic Act’.
I strongly believe that that Act will unite and strengthen Zimbabwe by giving it appropriate tools that will ensure every citizen regardless of the level you adhere to one virtue of loving your country, doing everything to promote the interest of my people. If I want to be respected and to be an international icon of some sort, I should not destroy my country at the expense of the people of Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, I think this proposed Act will deter and punish those people who are going to connive with foreign governments to destabilise Zimbabwe. It is important that those people who connive with those who are against us should pay. There are individuals in that category or organisations, we also have civic organisations that in their activities deviate from their core business and start advancing activities that distabilise the people of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe cannot be a place where people would want to test their nuclear bombs, doing things that will destroy the livelihood of the people of Zimbabwe. When these people come to this country, they tell us that they are social welfare organisations yet they have political agendas. We need the patriotic Act to rein these people before they destroy the image of this beautiful country.
Madam Speaker, it is very important that we take a serious relook at people who say negative things about this country. In their future interest for public office, if you have campaigned against Zimbabwe, the law should actually bar you from getting into any public office because you will have killed the people that you want to look after. People entrust you with their lives yet you go out there to say let these people die until I become a ruler! I pray that our generation should protect the interest of Zimbabwe as a generation of Members of Parliament, as Government as voters out there, it is important that we do it now. We should come up with a law that defends the interest of Zimbabwe from overzealous individuals among ourselves.
Madam Speaker, we can only have one common goal to encourage all of us in our different political interests and positions that we embark on a national service programme. Some of these people believe that if they insult somebody – I do not agree with Hon. Mliswa but if I have to show other people that I do not agree with Hon. Tekeshe, I must insult him, I must destroy everything – that type of politics is not going to help Zimbabwe. So, it is imperative at this opportune time that we take a position as Members of Parliament, as this House, we push Government to bring the patriotic Act to this House so that we defend the interests of this country by dealing with outrageous behaviour that wants to destroy this country.
Madam President, I am so concerned that with all the negative publicity, all the lies that we see in newspapers, we do not want to do something. We have people who are good at character assassination that has an effect. If you attack the leader of this country that has an effect when that leader goes out there to source business for this country. Nobody wants to do business with a person who from his country is called so many names. So it is very important that the media, politicians, business people and all citizens of this country understand that they are people of Zimbabwe first before their political and business interests. We are one and it is a law that we can put down today in this House on this land that will defend the interest of Zimbabwe.
I want to thank the mover of the motion. It is long overdue, we need it, we need a law to defend the interest of the people of Zimbabwe. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker, thank you very much for affording me this opportunity to contribute to this motion which seeks to have a patriotic Act which will make sure that we are one people with one common goal. Madam Speaker, the tenets of success are well known when we talk about the liberation struggle of this country. Zimbabwe is a country which was liberated by men and women who sacrificed their lives. Some of them never saw Zimbabwe. If you talk about ZIPRA commander Nikita Mangena, ZANLA commander Josaiah Tongogara; they fought for this country, sacrificed for this country because of oppression and this was white oppression. We must be very careful also to have demi gods and oppressors who are black and equally keep quiet.
Any leader by nature, while they come in with their style it becomes the way of going about things. This POLAD, this dialogue which is there is not new. I do not know why we make so much noise about it because that is exactly what we should do. Even before or after elections, we should be talking as a people. Why do we believe that we must only talk after elections? There is POLAD and so forth, stakeholders. Who is the biggest stakeholder? It is the people. The people who elect us in power are the biggest stakeholders. We have come through and this must not be ignored, a phase of being under one leader and one party for 37 years. That party too must take responsibility of some of the problems which are there because since 1980, it has been ZANU PF in power and no other party. What lessons have they learnt in terms of moving forward? Institutions are no longer there because they were personalized. State apparatus became a way of settling personal scores, people being arrested willy nilly. The political violence which we saw in this country, how many people died? Let us not forget that. Let us not be quick to call for peace and unity when we have not done anything. In South Africa, there is the aspect of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which addresses the ills which the country faced while they were going for liberation. What have we done to establish that?
The people in Matabeleland are still marginalised. They still talk about Gukurahundi. A lot is spoken about that but we are one nation. So the nation where there are certain people who are aggrieved, who is attending to them? We need to be clear about this. My grandmother MaNcube was from Kwekwe, Silobela. We grew up there. My father was from Shurugwi and my mother was from Rusape. So you must be able to say to yourselves; whenever we went to Nkayi, it was a different way of doing things. When you go to Shurugwi it is different, when you go to Manicaland, it is different, yet we are one nation. I am talking about young people growing up who must be part of this nation. You knew very well and my father in his wisdom said I need you to go to the rural areas every weekend so that you learn Ndebele, chiKaranga and chiManyika because that is what the country has. Those very issues are not what we see today.
The aspect of human rights is important. Smith oppressed people and detained people. The current President Hon. E. D. Mnangagwa was detained, the late President R. G. Mugabe was detained, the likes of Cde Didimus Mutasa and the late Morris Nyagumbo were detained because they wanted this country to be liberated but while they were detained, people still fought for this country. The war never stopped Madam Speaker because they had one common vision of liberating this country. The late Josiah Tongogara had one saying which says nyika tichatora asi kutungamirira nyika kuchanetsa. In English, we shall liberate the country but leading the country will be the most challenging aspect. Today this is what we see. What is important is for us to understand that a common vision cannot happen when you say let us move together and when you finally catch the animals, others want to eat on their own and they do not bring the others.
The 17 November march, which I am glad that some of the Members, the war veterans here the likes of Cde Kwaramba and Cde Togarepi were in the forefront of bringing Zimbabwe together. Comrades, the picture of 17 November is it the picture we see today? So what has gone wrong? We had an inclusive approach towards a united Zimbabwe where we all believed we would be together. There was never a coup. People decided to march and whether you like it or not, the military had to join in the people because the people led. When the people lead, everybody leads because the people are more than the military. That is the reason why, with my colleague, I have always said there was never a cuop. The war veterans mobilised people, white, black, Indian, MDC, everybody was involved, all parties were involved because we were looking at a new era where human rights would be respected, corruption would be dealt with and constitutionalism would be critical in terms of us moving forward.
You cannot talk about a nation when the Constitution of the country is not being followed. One of the reasons why the former late President R. G. Mugabe, may his soul rest in peace, was impeached was because he did not follow the Constitution and one of them was devolution which today again has not happened. Besides the elections happening, the provincial councils are not in place but there is money for devolution going. Who is monitoring it? Hon. Togarepi is right to say let us vent our anger in this House as Zimbabweans. I have raised the issue and said but why is the Minister releasing devolution money when there are no provincial councils which should be monitored. Thus we are open for corruption and how does corruption end when there is no accountability. The answer was they will speak to the Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs but money is coming from the central bank straight to the councils and who is superintending that?
We, Members of Parliament are supposed to be part of the Provincial Council until the Constitution changes then we are out of it. We ourselves, in here, cast a law that we must be members of the Provincial Council but before we are even members, those who are used to plundering and corruption do not want us to see us because they want to have an easy way of plundering resources of the country.
I repeat that Zimbabwe does not need any western allies. Zimbabwe needs to dig dip into its resources and curb on corruption and we shall need no western ally. The very same Government today is re-engaging with the West, spending more money paying lobbyists for us to re-engage with the West yet sanctions are there. Different strokes for different folks. Why do we speak with a forked tongue then blame the opposition for speaking to the West, but you are in the same line marching to see who pleases the master? Zimbabwe does not need anybody. Zimbabwe needs itself to ensure that the resources in this country are managed in a manner that it goes to the people.
You might say what you want to say but Gaddafi was a good example with oil. He made sure that people of Libya had something to eat. How many people in Marange today have enjoyed the diamond? How many people in Shurugwi where Hon. Mkaratigwa hails today have enjoyed the gold? How many people in Matabeleland have enjoyed what is there? Today, we also go on and suspend the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act which was the source of empowerment for every local.
The Finance Bill comes on the background that when you move the Act, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will come in. How much FDI has come in since you suspended that Act? Foreigners are doing what they want. The resources of this country belong to foreigners and not to the people of this country. The people of this country must be having those claims in their hands and negotiating with foreigners – even ugogo umaNcube, ugogo umaKhupe, ugogo Mpariwa, give her the claims. The people who are investing are not worried about her but the minerals but you would have empowered her. Why are we afraid of empowering our people? How many Members of Parliament (MPs) here in their constituencies have anything yet we spend money? To be able to get into power, you need money but when you are in power, you are seen here passing laws which reverse the gains of the struggle.
The gains of the struggle were to ensure that we have economic emancipation but it is being reversed. The land reform is being reversed. We have got Government policy of 500 hectares per person – some of the whites are being exonerated because you believe they are productive. If we have been facing sanctions – that is why this patriotic Act is critical, how then can we talk about development yet you say sanctions are critical but you want to use sanctions when it is necessary? When it is about time you want to say no. There is no production from a farmer in this country that can happen without them being fully empowered, having access to finance which is five or ten years and also includes holiday, medical aid and whatever you want and then we pay it. How come we are now expected to perform better than the whites when they actually had this land more than we did and they had resources?
We need to be able to speak the truth. The Patriotism Act is critical in the aspect that we are also conforming to certain issues which need to be addressed and so forth. We are MPs. I went to the Speaker the other day and said I am concerned – we do break the law as MPs but when we do not break the law you are arrested willy-nilly because you are outspoken. These are some of the issues which make people not give Zimbabwe money because they see how you are treating an Hon. MP – he is at the back of the truck and you are happy. What is the point of a diplomatic passport that I have? What does this passport mean when you are treated like a dog and at the end of the day you are acquitted? The Speaker is not consulted about MPs being arrested – not that you want to be defended; no – does the case stand the taste of time?
I have been arrested 78 times and acquitted 78 times. In any country, the Commissioner General of Police would be fired, because how much money has gone into arresting and going to court? There needs to be a review on how we treat each other. Let us not be in this House and speak a language which is not fair but when you go and caucus you are then saying let us get this one arrested. There is nothing that you get from using State apparatus. Today it is me and tomorrow it is you. In fact, when they do it for you, it is even worse than me. Hondo yemumba itori worse than yekunze. You must understand that.
Lessons must be learnt from the 37 years the former late President was in power and now. We have a situation where you have land – the whites had title deeds. Why not giving the blacks title deeds, why? Why is it taking time to empower your people with title deeds? We are the Government – 99 year lease and offer letter is not bankable. Why can we not get title deeds? Why do we not empower our people? Already, we are downsizing farms because you believe people are under-utilising the land. The white farmers are being left. In Norton for example, we have the Drummonds, they have got a five year lease – 2000 hectares but he cannot do it. He is getting a partner to help him but you then do not downsize him yet he is getting a farm that he is failing to farm.
Inconsistency in terms of policy is what also makes us not to get the money we have. Some of these issues of corruption and inconsistency in policy – a monetary policy which you do not know what will happen tomorrow does not appeal to any investor. The Hon. A. Mpofu was articulate into issues why there is no investment coming in besides the issue that he spoke about – I think there were more pertinent issues which he spoke about; the rule of law, corruption which is quite critical; freedom of association; freedom of speech. You have repealed AIPPA but behind the scenes, you also want to bring in another law which is just vague.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are left with five minutes Hon. Mliswa.
HON. T. MLISWA: Why must we be known as a Parliament which brings laws that are oppressive? I want to be on record and say, I did not come to Parliament to pass laws which are oppressive. I came to pass laws which are progressive; to see the ordinary person benefiting; to see the young child going to school and getting internet. Today the pass rate is terrible. There was COVID and Government schools had no internet. Teachers are not well paid. I believe we have more to focus on in terms of enabling our people. One of the issues that you cannot take away from the late President is the aspect of infrastructure and education. The first 10-20 years, Zimbabwe was the model of Africa in terms of infrastructure and education. People came to see what was in Zimbabwe but today what do they have to see?
The hospitals which were built – the Mpilos of this world; what has happened to the upgrading of Mpilo? What has happened to Harare Hospital and Parirenyatwa which was known as Andrew Fleming? I remember the late Mai Shamuyarira - may her soul rest in peace. She was the first matron. My mother coming in from Zambia worked there; Hon. Tongogara who went to the same nursing school as my mother got a job there. When we were sick, we would go there and be well treated. Today it is difficult.
Basic issues are what change the country; health care, infrastructure, education, water and sanitation – these are the issues which I think are critical for us in moving forward. I would like to wind up by saying that the resources that we have need to be accounted for. We must have a law which punishes those who are corrupt. There are more evil people than those in terms of the Patriotic Act. I totally agree that there has got to be a school where people are taken in terms of understanding values of the country. No country triumphs without a national policy or patriotism. This is taking them through school or national youth service and so forth. Go to any country, for example Ghana; the same happens and so forth. The ruling party has got Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology – that must not be open to ZANU PF but to all the people of Zimbabwe because the great Herbert Chitepo was a revolutionary for the people of Zimbabwe and not just for ZANU PF. Why do you take the image by making them to belong to ZANU PF when clearly Zimbabwe was first before ZANU PF? Why is it not open to everyone or other political parties to join because whether you like it or not, if you are not moving together in tandem, there is a gap. While you have Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, what do other political parties have, nothing. One day the people will have a say and they might choose those who are behind and when they are in power whatever you have done is reversed. May we be sincere in discharging our duties and may we put Zimbabwe first.
I liked what Hon Togarepi said that Zimbabwe is first, then political parties. I run an organisation called YARD, Youth Advocacy for Reform and Democracy. I tell them you are the vanguard of the country not of your political parties. I do not deal with politics here. I deal with Zimbabwe. If you go to political parties, it becomes a thing at the end of the day.
I want to thank you for the opportunity you have given me but it is important to also review again and 17 November 2017 is the picture we are seeing today. The late Dumiso Dabengwa was there at HICC and he was promised to be Vice President. The late Morgan Tsvangirai took part and I would have thought moving forward, the team would be Zimbabwe despite political affiliations but dealing with challenges that we have. We must go back to that because we have betrayed the people. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: As Hon. Mpofu was debating, I was also taking notes of what he was saying. This is a very important motion even though it also comes under a backdrop of other very important issues that we must deal with as a country. It is important for us to have introspection as we debate this motion.
The mover of the motion forgot one thing, that he must have explained to the country why we have what we now call the Second Republic and the new dispensation. Why do we have those? It tells you that there was something terribly wrong that people would want to forget about the First Republic and the first dispensation. What is it that we want to forget because a country is built once. You fight for a country and you get your independence and that is your Republic of Zimbabwe. You do not have a first, second and third republic. Are we saying in the event that another political party comes in or another group of people, we will now have a Third Republic and third dispensation. Why are we running away from the First Republic - the reason is very simple. There are terrible things that we want to forget that happened during the old republic. What are those things? Only now after 37 years, you want people to be converted and sing a new song. Is that possible, it is not. Until you deal with the ills of the First Republic - what were those, it is the First Republic where we debated in this House the ZIDERA. What were the issues, what have we done with those issues?
Hon Mliswa referred to the issue of Gukurahundi. People still have wounds and we are saying let us forget about it and move on. A patriotic Zimbabwean is not built on such a foundation. There is no foundation to build from. We must be ashamed of ourselves as Zimbabweans to say today we have got a Second Republic – standing up in a foreign country and say I am from Zimbabwe. You are asked that you are in the Second Republic, what was the First Republic like and can you explain to me what it means to be in the Second Republic? What is it that you have gained or learnt from the old republic? Again, we are putting pressure on our people to discuss issues that they do not even understand.
As you wind up your motion, you must explain to the people because it is that language that people must understand for them to be patriotic. You do not force people to be patriotic. People become patriotic because of what they benefit from their own country. I am one of those people who are not fond of talking anything negative when I get outside. I do not have that time. The issue is, whenever I am asked I must be able to explain. There are about seven foundations of democracy and it is important that those pillars of democracy are observed. It is those pillars that make a person complete.
I was born in the 1960s and I was very fortunate because my first contact with a fighter was in 1972 when I was in Mutoko when people were still coming from Zambia. My brother was very politically informed. That is when I first met a liberation fighter. I had an opportunity to be in the presence of my brother when they were talking – you know what it meant to talk to a liberation fighter holding a gun. I grew up in a situation where I understood how bad murungu was. So I do not need to be told to be patriotic, I understand it. I also have my own expectations that I had from then up to today.
Hon. Mliswa referred to the issue of arresting each other. You arrest me today for an offence of having been in the presence of more than 30 people. Another person who is senior than me hosts a party where people even contract Coronavirus and die, you do not care. People hold rallies and you do not care. You see 25 people moving around and you arrest them, how do I explain this discrepancy when I am asked? You deny bail to someone who commits a similar offence and you give bail to someone who committed a more serious offence. How do I explain that as a patriot? How do I explain such selective application of the law? Even if you cry and talk about patriotism, what is happening on the ground makes it difficult – actually the person who narrates things as they are is more patriotic than one who misrepresents facts.
We have people like Kasukuwere and Jonthan Moyo; they cannot come to Zimbabwe but they used to be Ministers defending Zimbabwe. What do they say about Zimbabwe when they are out there? You have Patrick Zhuwao, his farm is gone. How do you explain it? These are the issues that you have to deal with.
On 1st August when people were shot, we all witnessed what happened in America when the Capitol was invaded. It was live through and through. We were all witnesses to that and when they solved their problems they ended up getting back into the Capitol and proceeded with what they wanted to do. What happens if our people do that here in Zimbabwe? It will be blood everywhere. So sometimes you do not even compare with some of these democracies is because we now have issues that we can compare with. Some of the people like the woman – Mpofu who was killed who used to work for ZINWA had come to work and she was shot and died. How do you explain it?
These are the issues Madam Speaker that we must interrogate as Zimbabweans to say do we not have too many things that we have to explain instead of us having better issues to deal with. One pillar of democracy is the issue of legitimacy. It is important that people have their disputes after elections but it is how you deal with them and move on. Some of the things we should not take for granted,you have your people. One best indicator of a free and fair election is simple. It is the real feel. How do people feel after an election? Whenever the expected result is what comes out, everything else responds.
Even the foreign direct investment that we are talking about, you do not have to ask for it. Even the diaspora remittance, you do not have to ask for it because everybody started immediately to feel that I have a stake in Zimbabwe, they will do it. How do we do it? This is where leadership is shown. How do you deal with those letters? It is not bad for anyone to complain but it is also important to listen to that person and also deal with it and move on.
The other pillar Madam Speaker is also the issue of participation. Madam Speaker, whenever I feel that something is wrong I must be allowed to participate, whether it is a demonstration or not. If a demonstration is authorised here in Zimbabwe you do not see any violence at all. The responsibility of the police is to escort the demonstrators, not to deny the people a demonstration. Why do we deny people to do that? We have a lot of things to learn.
Let us have that democratic space where people can participate. Right now it is very difficult for people to gather for anything but this is exactly where people share ideas. It is also exactly where the governing people understand how the people feel. Let us allow people that space. Again, I can refer you to these countries, the “Black lives Matter”. People demonstrated because there was something wrong. Even up to today, before a soccer match people kneel down but if you do it in Zimbabwe for any reason, you will be in trouble. Is it not true, that it is what happens?
Madam Speaker, responsible stewardship. This is the first exercise of the duties of due care, diligence and loyalty in making sure that we use all our resources, finances and human resources for the development of Zimbabwe. The issue of corruption is very important. Right now we have a former Minister, Hon. Chombo, when he went to court which is public knowledge we were told of almost 100 properties that the wife wanted them to share and it was not an issue. Immediately he should have been arrested or asked to resign as a Minister but he remained until November 17. Those are the issues.
You go to ZINARA today, why do we have bad roads? The CEO is said to now have properties worthy almost $20 million, imagine Madam Speaker. How then do you have patriotic people when we the governing people do not make those people account. That is corruption. Actually should we not have a lot of people with passports trying to fly out of Zimbabwe? Why would I want to? You go to South Africa, Malawi or Zambia today and go to their passport office, do you see any queue, no. Why do we have so many long queues with our people seeking for passports to go out of the country?
We must deal with that issue. When they go out there to work doing these menial stupid jobs but they make their families back home survive. What is their explanation? Why am I there - a degreed person looking after an old lady? Why? So we have to deal with those issues of corruption. Accountability and ethical conduct Madam Speaker are also important for our Government to be ethical. We have got traditions that we must follow. We have the respect that we must give each other.
Lastly, the issue of transparency and accountability. We must be transparent and we must be accountable. Right now we already have a problem. Our auction system, the Governor is on recording saying he now wants to investigate other companies. Those that are getting money from the system are simply taking it at $82 and go and sell it at $120. You do not even need to think of going to China to look for raw materials. You just take the money and sell it. Some of the people are Members of Parliament. They clamour for patriotism but they are the worst offenders. This is what I have realised.
Those people who cry loudly that there must be patriotism and we must have an Act are the biggest offenders. Very few can raise their hands if I were to ask if they do not have a skeleton in their cupboards, very few can raise their hands. They have several. We will arrest them. Chombo cannot be arrested because the arresting officer benefitted a stand. You have got the Commissioners, where is Chihuri today? We used to debate in this House. The fines were being shared. How many companies does he have? We were debating in this house telling you that Chihuri is corrupt and one would be arrested for saying Chihuri is corrupt but where is he today, in Malawi. Why can we not bring Chihuri back, because a lot of people are beneficiaries? They were all sharing.
So patriotism is not what we ask people to be. It is in-built because we have got a share in this country. We are all Zimbabweans. The Chitepo Ideological College cannot only teach ZANU PF youths, what about the rest of the youths. Actually, most of the youths are not even ZANU PF. So, we must have a national institution, not a party institution. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity.
(v)HON. NYATHI: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me an opportunity to air my views on the motion given by Hon. A. Mpofu seconded by Hon. Togarepi. I agree with this motion in that if a country’s reputation is not guarded jealously it will affect negatively everything about the country and it will also affect adversely, especially the middle lower class and the lower class of our nation. This then will defeat the efforts by the Head of State and Government, E.D Mnangagwa’s Vision 2030.
I believe that a country must do all it takes to market positively their country that is within the borders and outside the borders. It is our reputation that influences or convinces investors that Zimbabwe is the best investment destination in the world. Once this is told, automatically, the living standards of our population will have a positive trajectory which in turn will influence the creation of employment and elevating of our country’s GDP.
Madam Speaker, the general rule is that if industries are fully functional, taxes improve and Government will run their economies productively. You will agree with me that if resources are well managed and free from corruption any country would like to go and invest in such a country. To this end, I challenge the major drivers of our reputation, those who are in media industry, these have great influence, and therefore, these should report positively in order to paint our country with a positive image.
I am not saying if somebody does something that is wrong it must not be reported but the report must be done responsibly with a bias to build our one and only country Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, perhaps it is important for me to mention that every general election may have 5 years to work collectively to build or improve our country. As a country we should shelve away partisan politics in order to improve the welfare of our nation. Failure to do so, it means handed over to the future generation any empty basket or will remain the talk that Zimbabwe is an under developed country. I do not think anyone of us would love our country to be given such a title.
When we talk of building a reputation of a country, we have just had a recent experience that we have all watched on television what happened in America. When Donald Trump did whatever he did in America, just imagine the amount of money that was invested in trying to rebuild the image of that country. Try and see the hours that have been invested so that other oncoming presidents will not be having such because they were defending the reputation of a country and not a person’s reputation.
May I conclude by saying, it is shameful for any Zimbabwean to utter any fortified information that denigrates and destroys the country’s reputation for whatever reason. If this is so, in order to keep the good reputation of the country a law should be put in place in order to enforce and discourage a behaviour that tarnishes the good image of our country. Madam Speaker, I mean a Patriotic Act is long overdue and it must be enacted. I thank you.
*HON. KWARAMBA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Hon. Mpofu for raising this debate which was supported by Hon. Togarepi. I want to thank them very much because they have educated us a lot. It is a very crucial motion which teaches us as Zimbabweans to have a passion about our country.
If we look at other countries, they are so passionate and dedicated to their own countries. They are different from us because many Zimbabweans do not like their own country. They talk bad things about the country and we forget that we have one country which was God given and the country is Zimbabwe.
A lot of our Zimbabwean nationals die in the Diaspora but they come back to our mother land for burial because they know that is where their roots are. Therefore, it means that we must work hard and support our country, knowing that this is our God-given country. In most cases people in Zimbabwe are not interested in national events taking place, for example they do not even watch our local television but they are interested in international channels such as DSTv channels. People here are not at all interested in the development or progress of our own country but the progress of other countries.
A lot of Zimbabweans do not want to buy locally produced products but those products which have been produced from other countries. We do not have that passion or love for our own country, Zimbabwe. For example, In South Africa there is a politician called Julius Malema and he is an opposition to the South African Ruling Party. However, at one point Mr. Malema congratulated the wining President of South Africa, C. Ramaphosa for winning the elections.
We must learn to sit down and speak with one voice but you will see a person refusing flat out to sit and speak with others. Where will such behaviour take us if we continue to refuse to come together and speak as one? I just want to encourage the people of Zimbabwe to come together and resolve issues. If the President calls us to come and talk about issues, let us listen because we will not benefit by continuing to oppose each other. I also encourage us as Zimbabweans to be one and get to appreciate the good that one other person will have done.
Currently there is the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines were sourced for everyone so that we can be vaccinated and no one dies of COVID but people continue to oppose all the good that someone does for them. I do not know what is wrong with Zimbabweans. There is so much being posted on social media discouraging people from being vaccinated yet this is being done for our safety. Is that loving our country? Do you think it would have been good for the President to just leave people dying of COVID and not implement lockdown? Let us learn to appreciate what our leader is doing for us.
Currently there is devolution so that power is decentralised for our country to prosper but you just hear people opposing everything that is being done. We do not like anything from Zimbabwe. We just think that everything coming from Zimbabwe is bad. My encouragement is for us to work together and love each other. There is this animal called sanctions. They came upon us because some people went and begged for sanctions to be put upon Zimbabwe. It is unbelievable that some people actually went to beg for sanctions for our country. I remember another year when they were even saying on top of the sanctions switch off power so that they suffer. I do not think it is a good thing. Let us come together as one and build our country. Where something bad is spoken against Zimbabwe let every Zimbabwean stand and defend our country. We heard what happened in America at Capitol Hill, if that had happened here, they would have laughed at us and it would have been all over the papers. Even the sanctions could have been multiplied by 100. But because it happened in their country, it was swept under the carpet. When these white people are in their countries, they act like animals but when they come here they pretend as if they understand a lot and are very democratic.
So we are saying, let everyone love our country Zimbabwe and always yearn to fly our flag high. When looking at our flag it talks about all the good in our country. On the flag there is the red colour and during the liberation struggle we used to sing ropa rangu muchariona pasi pemureza. The red signifies a Zimbabwean citizen’s blood, who is lying in the unmarked grave. That citizen never saw the independence or good life that we have today but we continue to look down upon whatever is done. What do you think those who never came back home but perished during the war will think? I am urging all Zimbabweans to come together as one so that we can achieve the vision 2030 envisaged by the President.
Let me conclude by saying a law should be put in place to punish whoever does not love his/her country. The law should forbid people from going outside our country and saying negative things about our country. Those people should be arrested for that offence. I want to thank Hon. Mpofu for his motion.
*HON. MUCHENJE: I want to start by thanking Hon. Mpofu for moving the motion, seconded by Hon. Togarepi. This is a good motion which talks about Zimbabweans. It is a call to you too as Zimbabwean people. All of us want good things and none of us shun unity. Let us go into the nitty gritties of this matter and the pros and the cons of the motion. First and foremost, I would want to talk about the issue of the liberation struggle. The reason why everyone went to fight leaving their parents to die alone whilst cooking for those that were fighting in the struggle was to fight for freedom. This was not freedom for some blacks but it was to free or liberate every Zimbabwean. When talking about unity, we should take that into consideration.
Secondly, we fought for our land because we have our feet placed on the soil. We grow our crops in the soil and when I die, I will also be buried in the soil. We fought for good governance because we were being harassed and dogs were being set upon us by the whites. We were being discriminated against. So, looking at issues such as education, good infrastructure and health, those are the reasons why everyone went to the liberation struggle. It was never said that those who continued following the leadership would have a good life, it was never said those whose children died during the war would live better lives. The war collaborators who were providing food, carrying the guns and helping people to cross over into Mozambique were all playing their part to ensure that the struggle would succeed.
I now want to go into the reason why we are failing to be united. The reason why there is a call to come together is because there is disunity. What I have observed as causing disharmony or disunity amongst us is that we are not respecting each other as human beings. We are not respecting human rights or people. If you fail to respect your children, they will in turn disrespect you. Respect is earned. So, it is important as a country for the leaders and those that they lead and assist to show mutual respect. We should never look down upon others. Everyone is important. Then there is the issue of corruption which has destroyed our country. I remember there was a time when I used to preach on tithing. If a husband earns $2 and he hides a dollar and the mother gets a dollar and hides 50c and the child gets 50c and hides 10c, that family will never develop to anything because its family members are dishonest. Honesty should start from right at the top and cascades down to the bottom. Charity begins at home and we should kill this animal called corruption. If we were to scare one another by threatening each other with death once you divulge that someone is corrupt, we will not get anywhere. If you give a child money to go to the shop, the receipt the child produces will be able to make you account for that money. We do not do that in Zimbabwe, that is why people do not want to be united because there are others that could have seen the shortcomings of those that are leading.
Let me go to the issue of treating people equally. People who live in the same area; one will be in a big house and the other one in a small house. These people are not equally happy even if they are living in the same area. The one with a small house will envy the one with a big house because the man in the small house will not be happy because it is their wish also to live in a big house. Let there be equitable distribution of accommodation for every Zimbabwean. Let there be shelter for every Zimbabwean. It does not matter your political affiliation, one should be given a farm if they are in need of a farm, residential stand or plot regardless of one’s political affiliation whether you are from the leadership of Hon. Mpariwa or the leadership of Hon. Khupe.
Education must be accessed by all but if people are hungry and the children will have gone to school hungry, they will fail in their studies. Teachers can easily tell that this child is coming from an abusive family and this other one comes from a well up family. I remember when I did my grade 3, during break time we were given Nutresco Mahewu, milk and a bun. They knew that children were coming to school hungry and were coming from different backgrounds. Nowadays parents are paying fees way above their means and a lot of children are dropping out of school.
Let me talk about the issue of exports and imports. If we are one sided and simply be importing instead of exporting, we cannot be buying only and not selling, this will not sustain our country. Now that we have had a good harvest, I do not expect people to come again next year and be given inputs because this will mean that resources are being misused. Some of the farm produce must be exported and our industry should be revived because it is the hub of our economy.
I liken leadership to family unit. If a child comes and tells a parent that books are required at school I must not assault my child because I do not have the money, I should simply accept and I will go and borrow money to buy the books. Our leaders must know what is troubling us. I do not expect my husband to buy me gift cards as presents. My husband must buy the present that I will appreciate. The same is likened to our leaders. If they just do things without engaging us, they will think that we are happy but they will be hurting us. I appeal to them to listen to the voices of the people. There must also be a rule of law in this country.
Corruption is everywhere in police, courts. I once witnessed a case whereby someone was asked to pay a bribe and they refused. On the day of judgement, they were heavily penalised as if they had committed a very serious offence, this was merely due to the fact that they had denied paying a bribe. I had told the convict not to pay a bribe. Dishonest will not take us anywhere.
I want to talk of poverty, poverty demeans a person, it dehumanizes a human being. If a young brother is rich, he will instruct his elder brother to cut firewood whilst he will be seated in the car playing games on his phone. Zimbabweans are being dehumanised because of poverty. The reason why they are going to the other countries to do demeaning jobs is because of poverty. Right now, we have a lot of people who are applying for passports. If children do not get sufficient meals in their homes, they will go to the neighbours.
If people do not get enough in their country, they always go to other countries and that will be detrimental to us as Zimbabweans. If a child is well fed, they cannot go to neighbours to look for food thereby embarrassing the parents. Let us go back to being the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Let us have a system where people value the lives of people. If someone of my age is rich, they will look younger than me and if someone of my age is poor, they will look older than me. Poverty reduces a person and this is what we should closely look at especially to women. Women must be respected. Household chores are done by women starting from feeding and clothing the family. The leadership must know that women and children are suffering. Let us work for the benefit of our country and be united. If a husband habitually assaults the wife, the wife will go and tell the neighbours. If the husband does not want the neighbours to know, the only thing he will do is to stop assaulting the wife because the more he will tell the wife to shut her mouth, the more she will reveal her suffering to the public. Just like in our country, if our leadership does not want Zimbabweans to go out telling people that Zimbabwe is a worse country, they must provide Zimbabweans with better lives and dignity. We must not enact laws that suppress our freedom and tell people to shut up; it will even worsen our situation.
If we do well to our people, we will be able to live well in our country. All children must attend youth service. If the youth service is a good idea, why are you selecting the youth? All youths must be able to attend youth service. Our children no longer have manners and moral values. The youths that we are raising are a danger to this country. If children are to be taught good behaviour, they must all attend regardless of their political affiliation. I thank you.
(V)HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Mr. Speaker Sir, the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we all see at the National Heroes Acre and in various Provincial Heroes Acres represents a number of people who perished during the liberation struggle, people who did not get to enjoy the fruits of the liberation struggle. They died for the sake of all Zimbabweans.
Mr. Speaker Sir, when those people went to war, they wanted to see a fair and just system where every Zimbabwean will live his/her life without due regard to his/her political affiliation, without due regard to his/her race and tribe. Now Mr. Speaker Sir, the motion that was tabled by the Hon. Member Mpofu, I want to submit to you Mr. Speaker Sir to say that this motion, in my view, is misplaced and has no place at this juncture in the country.
We are now in 2021 and it has been said that we are now in the Second Republic. The very First Republic that was under President Robert Mugabe never contemplated or never came up with such dubious patriotic law. Why? It is primarily because when things are alright in a country, what do people do? They become proud of their country but when there is selective application of the law, when there are certain abuses that are happening, people become disillusioned. The Hon. Member who just spoke indicated that in a family setting, if the father is always beating the mother, the mother will end up crying outside to have people to assist.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we had the Motlanthe Commission that investigated the people who murdered in the city centre and for the first time in the history of Zimbabwe, blood was shed in the city cenrte of Harare. Mr. Speaker Sir, it is wrong in my view to then use the word, ‘patriotic’, as if patriotism is defined in a manner to say that we stand and agree with whatever the people who are in power are saying. As a country, we have to respect human rights. Everybody who is elected and including me as a Member of Parliament, and also the President as the Head of the Executive, is subject to scrutiny and people should exercise that right where they believe that there is something wrong. Anything that is wrong Mr. Speaker Sir, should also be condemned.
The current set up in this country is not right. We have arbitrary arrests that are happening across the country. Right now, we have Hon. Members of Parliament being arrested for no apparent reason. Then when you check the court system, you will find that the Magistrates Court has now become a laughing stock in dealing with human rights and political cases. When you have a country that is diverting from the ethos of the liberation war, from the reason why our brothers and sisters perished during the war, then Zimbabweans have got a right to speak up. When you have got a country where corruption is eating a huge chunk of the pie and the majority of the people are suffering, when you have one person getting more money then the majority have the right to cry out. When you have an economy that cannot service its people, when you have got an industrial site like Masasa, Workington and Granitesite and see most of the infrastructure there becoming empty shells; when you see Bulawayo which was the hub of industrialisation having been reduced to shells and churches, truly Mr. Speaker, the people of this country deserve to raise an alarm. When you see a country that does not have a method of curing or solving its problems then we are in a crisis.
I have a friend of mine who does not know where his father was buried. Mr. Speaker, it is wrong to say you have to be patriotic. What is patriotism? What is being patriotic if you are not allowed to say what is eating you up? Mr. Speaker Sir, for anyone to talk of patriotism, I think that person is mentally stable. A person who is patriotic should answer the question that what should he do to make this country a better country? What should we do to return Zimbabwe to its former state during the 80s when people were coming to Zimbabwe from other countries rather than leaving Zimbabwe? A patriotic person should be concerned by injury to the minority. A person who is patriotic should be someone who should be saying, that even in the majority, the views of the minority also matter. A patriotic person is a person who will say, that is good not only for me but good for the entire nation. Every Zimbabwean, whether residing in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, South Africa, Dubai or any other country really wants the best for Zimbabwe. They do not want the lives that they are currently living but want to be in Zimbabwe where they can potentially enjoy the fruits of this country but we have let our people down.
It is the right time to introspect and look inside ourselves and say, as legislators and the Executive arm of Government, what should we do to improve the welfare of our people. Instead of coming up with various laws to try to criminalise things that ordinarily are not supposed to be criminalised, we need to do more and serve our people. To simply say this motion is wrong is an understatement. It must be withdrawn. Hon. Members, we have more important business and things that lie before us. We have got an economy that is not performing, we have got Covid pandemic that is on us, let us put our heads together and focus on improving this country. The only way to do this is to create a good and conducive environment for every person.
Mr. Speaker Sir, it is my view that the Hon. Member’s motion is misplaced at this particular time. I thank you.
(V)HON. MOLOKELA-TSIYE: On a point of Order Mr. Speaker Sir! Some of us are on virtual and have been asking for opportunity to debate to no avail.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO): No, Hon. Mushoriwa was on virtual and you are next on the list. Hon. Dzuma, may you take the floor please.
*HON. DZUMA: Mr. Speaker, I stand to support the motio moved by Hon. Mpofu, seconded by Hon. Togarepi. This motion is good for us as a country. It also reminds us of the days of the liberation struggle. It is my wish and my plea that this is a land of milk and honey. We have our own good manners which have been in place for time immemorial. If as Zimbabweans we are united and handle our issues in a good manner, we will observe that a short while ago when COVID rules were announced by His Excellency the President, Hon. Mnangagwa, we were able to follow the new regulations. As a result, we did not lose a lot of lives like the devastation that was witnessed in other countries which led to serious loss of life due to COVID - 19. Zimbabweans were able to listen to His Excellency’s call and maintain the rules of COVID – 19.
Furthermore, we were blessed with a lot of rain in this country, this abundant rain was there to cleanse us, so I urge all Zimbabweans to remain united and steadfast. I have serious reservations about some of us who say hi hi hi about everything that is good. The majority are now in POLAD discussing pertinent issues with the President but you find a nonentity team that is against this saying hi hi hi. We ask them to come and work together but they refuse. We know some of them by names. They are very few and they do this so that they receive goods from the West.
I recall even our ancestors in the First Chimurenga led by Mbuya Nehanda Nyakasikana; the Second Chimurenga which was protracted by Zimbabweans who went out of this country to liberate this country and there was the Third Chimurenga led by most of us so that we get our land as was promised in the Lancaster Agreement, they were defying this agreement, hence the reason why we had to use forceful means to get our land back.
What most of you do not know is that you are educated to the level where you are now because there are plenty of secondary schools. During the colonial era, we had bottlenecks in education in the sense that most of Blacks were unable to proceed to secondary school because of the few Government secondary and mission schools that were there. We were only allowed to go to F2 schools for Grades 8, 9 and 10. We would first work in tea estates like Jersey, Ratelshoek and Zona and thereafter go to school when we were already tired. This is why Zimbabweans decided to go to the liberation war because they were suffering in their own country. There were people like Hon. Shamu who were broadcasting from Maputo urging Zimbabweans to liberate the country so that they would escape from ill-treatment of the colonialists. The colonialists used the divide and rule system where men were paid more than women. After independence, we came up with a system where men and women were remunerated equally for equal work. I want to thank the Chinese and Russians who supported the Zimbabwean people with weapons that we used to dislodge the oppressive colonial system.
I remember that they came and bombed us in 1977, I was there. I would also like to thank the Second Republic ushered in by His Excellency President Mnangagwa. During the colonial era, there was the British South African Police (BSAP), a company like Fawcett security. After the liberation war, we came up with the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Now that Zimbabweans are liberated we are now driving Prados, and there is no segregation between an opposition MP and one from the ruling party. I would like to thank members of my community who voted me in to be a Member of Parliament. Most of us are happy as we are and are willing to come back the second time if we work well. This is happening because there is no discrimination and we are led by a good leader, His Excellency President Mnangagwa.
Most of us do not wish to go for elections soon because we are under good leadership. We can even go up to 2030 without going through elections because the country is running smoothly. I thank you.
(v)HON. MOLOKELA-TSIYE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for giving me this opportunity to join this motion raised by Hon. Mpofu. I want to air my opinion with regards to the debate. I think for me the starting point is that I need to be clear, that I do not support this motion. I think this motion is mistimed and misplaced. Starting by the definition of patriotism- patriotism is an act of love and commitment. It comes from the heart of the person. You cannot legislate and display patriotism. As Zimbabweans, we should focus on nation building. We should focus on things that unite us as a people. Whilst we want to build this nation together, we do not need to have Parliament debating something like a Patriotism Bill because everyone will be happy and everyone will be proud to be associated with this country. In my view, those who have moved this motion have put the cart before the horse. There are a lot of unresolved issues in this country that need to be addressed by this Parliament. If it is indeed the people’s Parliament, it must be sensitive to the reality of the issues on the ground. For us to debate this kind of motion is a very disappointing situation for the Parliament of Zimbabwe.
Our people are suffering right now and they are suffering due to bad political decisions made by our leaders. Decisions made in the past that have brought so much pain to the people of Zimbabwe. We can give examples over history. In 1982 to 1986, thousands of people were killed in Matabeleland North and Midlands and up to today this Parliament of Zimbabwe has not taken a clear stance in making sure that the people of the Midlands, and Matabeleland are fully restored to the national development agenda. Up to today, they remain marginalised from the national development agenda.
So you cannot as a Parliament of Zimbabwe come back to the people of Matabeleland and people of the Midlands who were victimised in this country and teach them about patriotism before you address the issues that affect them today. Some do not have birth certificates, some do not know where their relatives are buried, some were forced to go to Botswana and South Africa and they are still displaced as refugees and asylum seekers in foreign countries.
You cannot preach patriotism to them. You need to address the situation on the ground. Today in Zimbabwe, mining investments are being done and in my constituency Hwange Central, we have got investors coming, imposing themselves and defying the local community and you want those people to become patriotic. When they see someone from China being given special treatment by their own Government at their expense, their culture, history, heritage and you want to force them to be patriotic. There are mistakes that are being made right now by the political leadership of this country. Moral mistakes around corruption, gender based violence, sexual harassment and all these issues are being allowed to happen and people are being allowed to go scot free. If people try to go onto the streets to raise concern about these unpatriotic acts by our political leaders, it is those who are protesting who are being incarcerated and it is them who are demonstrating in line with Section 59 of the Constitution of this country who are being denied bail for weeks while those who assume to be the most corrupt politicians in this country, but connected to the elite, are given bail the next day. This is a gross miscarrage of justice.
I also wanted to address the issue around Zimbabweans who are being accused of speaking ill about their own country. We are not surprised that this is not happening. How many Zimbabweans have been displaced from their country in the last 25 years? We have got millions of Zimbabweans who should be in this country who have been forced out of this country. They are stranded in Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, South Africa, America and UK and all over Europe and some in Australia and New Zealand. The so called Diaspora are Zimbabweans who were forced out of this country. Has this Parliament taken time to ask them about patriotism why they are in Johannesburg or why they are in Heathrow? Has this Parliament of Zimbabwe taken time to understand why they cannot come back to Bulawayo?
Even Lavemore Majaivana is now in America. Our prophet for the people of Matabeleland is stranded in America. Is he going to be labeled unpatriotic without the Parliament of Zimbabwe understanding why he is stranded in America and he cannot be in his beloved city of Bulawayo? This is the question that the Parliament of Zimbabwe should be addressing. We cannot force our citizens to be patriotic and we cannot legislate laws to force people to be patriotic. What we need to do as representatives of the people of Zimbabwe is to come up with laws that make it easier for development to happen.
For example, right now we have got the 2013 Constitution that clearly articulated the devolution agenda. The Parliament of Zimbabwe should be debating seriously about making sure that there is a law on the ground. The Parliament of Zimbabwe should make sure that devolution helps to bring development to the people on the ground. This is what a people based Parliament of Zimbabwe should be worried about. It should be worried about the social welfare of the people of Zimbabwe. Right now we have got lock down restrictions and people are facing hunger across the country and that is what we should be debating about.
So I am totally disappointed by this motion and this whole talk about patriotism which is forced onto the people. We need to work on things on the ground instead of focusing on cheap politicking and pretending of things that are not there. The people’s Parliament must listen to the conscience of the nation and as things stand right now, there is no debate that it is hard to be patriotic in this country. The economy is doing badly and people are suffering. Poverty is the order of the day in a country that has got 60 minerals and that has been blessed with a lot of natural resources.
We want to encourage the Parliament of Zimbabwe, including myself to be honest in our conversation and start to focus on issues that give daily bread to our people. This talk about patriotism is misplaced and it should not be allowed to continue in this Parliament, in my view. I am very disappointed that we are still focusing on such issues when we have got political prisoners in this country. We have got civil society activists who have been arrested and denied bail in this country for standing up for the truth or being the true patriots of this country for saying let the law be applied equally, let it not be selectively applied. Other people from a political party can host debates, government officials can host public events but if someone from civil society or opposition does the same thing, they are immediately arrested and even denied bail for weeks. This is what will make people not to be happy. Patriotism would only be promoted if everyone is treated equally before the law.
So I would like to say that true patriotism will come from the heart of the people. Do not force them. Parliament should not force our people to be patriotic. Do not pass laws that are fascist, laws that are dictatorial in nature and say that the people of Zimbabwe are free. Let them be free to express their voices. Why are you trying to use the Parliament of Zimbabwe to force people to be patriotic when there is nothing to be patriotic about? Please stop it. Thank you.
HON. KASHIRI: Hon. Speaker, I rise to support the motion raised by Hon. Mpofu on patriotism which was seconded by Hon. Togarepi. I will not waste too much time dwelling on a lot of issues that have been raised by Hon. Members that have spoken before me. What I would like to share with the House and the nation is how to go about teaching patriotism to our youth and our kids for the benefit of the country as we go. I have done a 10 point plan which I would like to run through and then discuss it as we go.
Firstly, what we want to do is learning about the pledge and allegiance to the flag. Hon. Speaker, the youth and the kids of today do not know the importance of the flag. They cannot even salute the flag – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – Hon. Speaker it is disheartening to see when the National Anthem for example is being played, youths are putting on their hats, earphones in the ears disregarding the National Anthem. We need to teach our kids how important the National Anthem is.
Hon. Speaker, we need to honour our soldiers and our war veterans – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – it does not matter how they behave today or whether you like them or you do not like them, that is not what matters. What matters is what they did for this country. For you to enjoy the freedom that you have today the freedom of speech and freedom of life is because of these war veterans and soldiers, we need to respect them.
We need to know the basic freedoms as per our Constitution. Our kids need to know the Constitution and we need to know the basic freedoms as per our Constitution. Our kids need to understand the Constitution and we need to teach them – if it were possible, the Constitution should be taught in schools at some point, maybe we start at Form Two or Form Three, it must come in their English literature or it must be drafted somehow so that it becomes part of literature as we go.
Hon. Speaker, our core democratic values, the children of today do not know what is common good, common justice or the rule of law. They do not have a clue, so how do we expect them to be patriotic Hon. Speaker. We need to be teaching our kids all these things and the pursuit of happiness is again one issue that we as a people need to teach the future leaders.
Hon. Speaker, I will bet you today, if we take 80% of the youth and ask them what is Government. No one will be in a position to tell you what Government is made of because we do not teach them. It is only us in Parliament and those in Government who know what Government is made of. Our responsibility as citizens, you and me, a Government for the people by the people, that is democratic, that is patriotism.
Hon. Speaker as we move on, we need to teach our kids how important some places are and significance of some names of our history. I am talking of places like the heroes acre. I think this happens in our primary and secondary education where kids are taken to heroes acre to see where our heroes lie. For example Chimoio in Mozambique, these are important places. When these kids go to see these places, they may have some sense of patriotism, a sense of belonging to say listen I know where my forefathers’ blood lies in Chimoio.
At this moment I would like to thank His Excellency the President for building up the history museum across the National Heroes Acre in Warren Park – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – Hon. Speaker that speaks volumes on its own, I will not waste time expanding on that, they say these days, if you know, you know.
Hon. Speaker as I conclude, we need to appreciate our diversity as a nation. We are a nation that has accommodated other people in our jurisdictions. In Zimbabwe we have Malawians who are now Malawians-Zimbabweans, they have come in with their culture, they have come in with their tradition. We have accepted them as our brothers and sisters, even the British regardless of what they did to our forefathers, we are talking here of slavery, we need to teach our kids slavery. Why is it important for people to know the slave trade, what was good in it, what was bad in it, was it good or bad?
Last but not least, we are not a perfect nation Hon. Speaker, history is of paramount importance as I have alluded to the slave trade why it is wrong or why it was right. Therefore our children should learn to love and be responsible for their action as we go forward. They should learn to understand the importance of contributing as members of their communities so that they will grow up to be active and caring citizens. This will make our country smarter, safer and very safe place of living where people are patriotic. I so conclude Hon. Speaker. Thank you.
HON. MUNETSI: Thank you Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this debate. Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to thank you for giving me this time to add my voice to this important debate. I want to thank Hon. Mpofu and Hon. Togarepi for bringing in this very important debate for this country.
Let me talk about sanctions first, about economic saboteurs, people who want to inflict pain on other people, a father who goes out of the country to go and seek for pain for people in Zimbabwe so that you can rule. That is the worst thing a person can ever do. Sanctions - see them as you may want but you gain nothing. If you think they will affect other people and not you, then you are fooling yourself. You will be affected, other people will be affected. It is equal. I just wonder why one would seek for other countries to hate one country. What is the reason? One might say sanctions were not imposed on Zimbabwe but on individuals. Why, what have they done? If our ideas are different, it does not mean that one has to be sanctioned. It is a very bad system of economic saboteurs.
I hear people talk about corruption and I am going to talk about corruption as well. We do not like corruption at all. That is the reason why this Government is arresting people who are corrupt. It is not anyone; it is the Government that is doing it. Let all those people you talk about stay out there in exile because the Government of the day does not like corruption. You should know that. Now people speak about corruption as if the Government is doing nothing when they are arresting people and you see them going to court but you still speak about the Government not taking heed of corruption. What are the odds? You forget a frog can swim.
People want to demonstrate. It is a right to demonstrate in this country. They must demonstrate. Now what becomes of the demonstrations after is what the Government does not like. Demonstrating does not mean looting, throwing stones at windows or to hurt anything, it means you demonstrate and say out your idea and after the time you have been allocated has elapsed, you go back home. If you begin to demonstrate, throw stones and loot and do all those kinds of things, the Government will not take you lightly on that and when the Government acts, you cry foul. I urge the Government to act on demonstrators who are violent and let that be law.
So many economic programmes were introduced by the Government which people do not take heed of. There is devolution. The Government gives you money to develop your areas. You use resources also in your area to develop your area. It is a programme that was introduced by the Government. In agriculture, we have Pfumvudza, Command Farming, irrigations and we also have dams that are being constructed throughout the country so that people can do agriculture freely in this country. It was introduced by the Government.
Youths - there are some youth banks, for women we have women banks, those who are hungry there is social welfare, in education there is BEAM, in mining there are mining concessions which you never would talk about during the Smith regime. Even if you knew there was gold here, you would never talk about it, you were not allowed. Now in this day, you can go and get a mining claim and your papers, you mine and sell your gold freely to Fidelity. No one asks you, you get your money but people still complain. A frog can swim.
In tourism, there is tourism boost, there is local tourism and there is tourism from abroad. You would never go to Kariba or Victoria Falls before. We would read it in newspapers and in books and we would write that in examinations, but we had never visited those places and now it is free for all. What do you want the Government to do? There are so many of these programmes that were introduced by the Government but you will discover that unity of purpose in some people is zero, direction zero, togetherness zero, oneness zero, forwardness zero, ideas zero, opposing 100%, demonstrations 100%, hate speech 100%, disturbances 100%, social media lies 100%. What kind of people are you? Are you still Zimbabweans?
Let us keep safe the gains of our struggle. Struggle for freedom, struggle for land to do agriculture, struggle for education for all, struggle for mining, struggle for freedom of movement, struggle for freedom of speech, struggle for just being free as you are, struggle for being an MP which you never dreamt to be. It was a white man’s job.
To the President, hold on, keep your pedal low, drive on even though you have drunkards in the bus. Your team is spot on, never turn back, a 100 barking dogs cannot stop the journey of an elephant. I thank you.
(v)HON. SARUWAKA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I wish to thank you for the opportunity you have given me to partake in this debate. Allow me to thank the mover for giving us a platform to tell the Zimbabwean story as it is, not as carried by some, especially those guilty of looting this country, would want the world to believe.
Mr. Speaker Sir, it is action that speaks louder than words. In Shona we have a saying that says muromo hauzarirwe nerwizi, it is always easier to say but more difficult to do. So if we are indeed serious, we should not focus on wanting people to say good about us but we should simply do good. The very act, Mr. Speaker Sir, of a whole ruling party MP seconded by his Chief Whip moving a draconian motion is not a good signal of a country whose leadership seeks to bring happiness to its people but a further reason to invite closer scrutiny on this regime.
The reality of the matter, Mr. Speaker Sir, is that the so called sanctions are nothing compared to the internal sanctions imposed on Zimbabweans by the ruling elite. Let me, Mr. Speaker Sir, itemise the issues that have given Zimbabwe a bad boy reputation. Firstly, the murder often in cold blood of opposition members since the attainment of independence. Known murders of opposition members have gone unpunished. More than 20 000 people perished in Matabeleland and the Midlands region in the 80s and up to now we have not seen anything that has happened to the perpetrators of the genocide period. At the turn of the century, the murder and maiming of white farmers and their workers by some who are even in this House is another dark chapter which the civilised world frowns upon without anyone going there to tell them. The murder of opposition members during the run-off campaign where more than 500 MDC activists were killed by state and ZANU PF agents – how do you expect normal people or normal world citizens to act - to say well done keep it up? We must be real Mr. Speaker Sir.
The shooting of protestors by the army on the 1st of August 2018, in case some members may consider these victims as simple statistics – let me give you a brief account on those murdered by the army. We have Sylvia Matambo-Maphosa; a 53 year old woman who was employed by ZINWA. She left three children and a grandchild. We also have Ishmael Kumire who was a fruit vendor. He was pushed into vending because of unemployment in this country. He left a widow and four children. The irony of this gentlemen – may his soul rest in peace. He was a ZANU PF supporter but he was caught in the cross fire of a regime that puts no value to its citizens. The third victim is Mr. Garvin Dean Charles – he left a 13 year old daughter. Can you imagine a daughter losing a father at 13. What future does she have now without the guidance of her father? We also have Brian Zhuwao from Epworth. He was a car accessories dealer and was also shot on the same day. The fifth victim is Mr. James Chikandira – only 21 years old, a young life, combi driver and bread winner in his family. The sixth was Challenge Tauro; only 20 years old and was operating a store at the Gulf Complex.
Four of these victims were shot at the back, a clear sign that they were not fighting back – they were running away from danger. Up to now, no single soldier has been convicted or made to pay for these evil deeds. It is not about what people say. It is about what this Government is doing. The world has ears and eyes. We must just act positively and well so that we get a good reputation and not for people to speak well about our bad acts.
The other issues that have given our country a bad name is looting of resources by those in high positions. We have the looting of Marange Diamonds which left a whole community and province impoverished and clutching thin air whilst those in power enrich themselves. Go to Marange and ask the views of those displaced and you will hear the truth regarding the evil acts perpetrated against them. They are not being unpatriotic but just being truthful. We must be very careful and we should not criminalise telling the truth. We should not come up with laws to encourage people to tell lies so that we are in good standing with our Government which is not moving a progressive agenda for the people of Zimbabwe.
We also have the looting of Government coffers through bogus empowerment programmes like farm mechanisation 1 and 2; baccosi 1 to whatever; where those connected only benefit and leaving the majority of Zimbabweans further impoverished. To rub salt into the wound, the loans that were taken by those people were taken over by the Government. What good story can you tell the world if you run your country like that?
The recent looting of COVID funds through those connected to those in the corridors of power – it is shameful. We have got a deadly disease to fight and what do those connected do? They use the opportunity to rob Zimbabweans of their opportunity to receive support and medical help. There are plenty of challenges we face as a country and there are a lot of examples I can share but let me leave that to others and say we must, as a country, put more effort in correcting than coming up with a law that will further cause acrimony and pain to our citizens.
In conclusion, let me remind fellow MPs that you cannot legislate love or patriotism but these come naturally in response to the prevailing environment. Create a conducive environment and Zimbabweans would love their own country. You cannot force your child to love you, just treat your child well and he or she will love you because.......(Technical glitch) to make this country be run well. This motion has only served to expose this country to more scrutiny. I therefore wish to use this opportunity to call upon the international community to keep Zimbabwe under the radar. Zimbabweans wherever you are, please tell the truth. If anyone asks you about what is happening in Zimbabwe, do not think twice. The truth will set this country free. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
(V)HON. TOFFA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. First of all, I would like to thank Hon. A. Mpofu for bringing up this motion and his seconder. I am thanking Hon. A. Mpofu because it is procedure and not because I agree with his motion. Hon. Speaker Sir, it bothers me a lot – I could almost jump out of my skin as I listened to the motion that has been raised. What is it that people mean when people talk about being patriotic? When this law Hon. Mpofu wants prescribed to the country is enacted, then what, for what reason? Do people really understand what patriotism is?
Hon. Speaker, I would like to take you back to November 2017. On that day when every single Zimbabwean black, white, yellow, green came out to the streets because they were excited and because every Zimbabwean loves their country – I speak with much emotion and passion because this is the only country that we have. This is the only country we will ever have.
This motion is a direct infringement of the Constitution of Zimbabwe – Section 61 and 62; freedom of expression. As the previous speaker who spoke just now has said, you cannot force anyone to love you. Nobody forced those Zimbabweans that came out into the streets, nobody was bused, nobody was put on the train, nobody was put on any bicycle. There was no chigadhara mahara that took people to the streets. It is because Zimbabweans loved their country. If Hon A. Mpofu would have said Zimbabweans, I come with the motion here today where we are going to talk about transparency, accountability and corruption, we have put steps or measures in place to curb this corruption, I would understand and support him. If you are now as a Member of Parliament trying to bandage people’s mouths so that they cannot speak and express themselves, then we are lost.
The President in November 2017 lost a critical opportunity that could have put us as Zimbabweans where we wanted to be. We have citizens of our country in the diaspora who are supporting this country in times of need by supporting their families and Government, especially during this COVID era. We had a lot of diaspora pouring in their funds to help the fellow citizens because they love their country and yet they are not being allowed to vote. How then is anyone going to be patriotic? Whether they are being allowed to vote or not, they are still showing and expressing their patriotism.
I heard one Hon Member speak about social welfare and free education being there. How many people are benefiting from the social welfare? If as a country everything was in place, we would not even worry if anybody is saying something about you that you are not doing. Why would this Hon Member move a motion of this nature for your very own people? This is something Ian Smith’s Government used to do. Surely, as the receivers of intimidation and unfair treatment, why do we want to turn ourselves and become perpetrators? There are so many things that are waiting to be implemented.
We are looking at most of our citizens and I will speak to my passion, which is birth certificates for all. Our own citizens are stateless. A motion was raised in 2016 by the First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa and I seconded that motion which was an opportunity to give all Zimbabweans birth certificates. That was a low hanging fruit to fix the wrongs and ills of Gukurahundi where an amnesty to the whole country could have been given. Surely, those are opportunities. This motion is tantamount to bullying citizens and saying they cannot speak. They can only say what they have been told to say. In Ndebele they say, ufuna ukudonsa abantu ngamakhala. In Ndebele again they say, umntwana kafoselwa ukuthi athande ubaba, umama kumbe usisi. It comes naturally like it was said by the previous Hon Members.
In short, I would like to say that this motion should go into file 99 and the Hon Member kindly take an introspection of himself and the motion that he is about to put in place. I beg our Parliament not to entertain this motion.
(v)*HON CHIKWAMA: I wish to make my contribution on the motion that was put forth by Hon Mpofu and seconded by Hon Togarepi. A lot of things have been said on this motion but what is important is that we are Zimbabweans first and foremost. We need to protect our country and our well being as a people. We should desist from the habit of speaking negative things about our country when we go outside. It is not only in Zimbabwe that bad things are happening but if you go to every country you will notice that they do have their own bad experiences. You will notice that every country goes through a bad patch and as such, as Zimbabweans we rush to expose ourselves.
I have noticed that when some of our people go outside the country they speak ill about this country yet others will be glorifying their own countries. If there are bad things that are happening in our country, we need to sit down and talk and not rush to the outside world. This behaviour puts our country in a very bad light. We should remember that this country was fought for in order to liberate ourselves. I thank you.
(v) HON SIKHALA: Thank you very much. The first thing that I want to share with my colleagues is that the motion seeks to call upon Parliament to enact a law that prohibits any Zimbabwean citizen from willfully communicating messages intended to harm the image and reputation of the country on the international platform or engaging with foreign countries with the intention of communicating messages intended to harm the country’s positive image or undermine its integrity and reputation.
The first thing that I want to comment about is about what the motion seeks to achieve. It talks about harming the countries’ positive image. I want to give you a hypothesis. When somebody wakes up in the morning, looks at herself or himself in the glass, he/she thinks that he is the most handsome or most gorgeous woman ever created by God. However, that view an individual sees him/herself will be different from what other independent people who will meet that person in the streets see. So for somebody, there is a positive image of the country. It needs somebody to have an enquiry and look ourselves in the glass as a country to see whether the message we are communicating that there is a positive image about the country is correct or false.
It is my own conclusion Mr. Speaker, that it is not correct. It is false and delusionary that our country has any form of positive image for the following reasons; Hon. Saruwaka mentioned a plethora of very important and fundamental issues the country must look into before it starts to look for where witches are. The witches are within the House where we have been breaching a number of several international standards on how nations must be governed. How would a nation that embarks on arbitrary arrests of its opponents and critics say that they have positive image?
Since the 17th November, 2017, we have witnessed many critics of Government being arrested arbitrarily without cause, including this Hon. Member who is contributing to this debate; prominent journalists like Hopewell Chin`ono and Hon. Members of Parliament like Joanna Mamombe and several citizens both in civic and student movements. These things are not being reported by anyone but it is there for everyone to see that the people of Zimbabwe are under abuse.
There were a plethora of abductions that happened in this country before they came to the hold after citizens of our country and the international community spoke about them. We have witnessed many people who have been abducted and tortured in our country. Tawanda Muchehiwa, one of the most prominent examples I want to give. The torture of Tawanda Muchehiwa, the student journalist from Midlands State University became a subject of international debate, not through the initiation of Zimbabweans but by things which the international community has witnessed itself.
Mr. Speaker, the continued human rights abuses in our country becomes a topical agenda on the international community on the basis that human abuses such as torture are governed in terms of international law and international conventions. So, as long as we the people of Zimbabwe are not able to put our own behaviour and conduct in sync with the standards of international community, we cannot portray ourselves as having the positive image which the mover and seconder of the motion are trying to portray in our country. How would you arrest your own citizens on a non-existent law then expect the international community to simply watch? I be known to several of us is that no longer will those people who govern their states see to their own citizens the way they want without the watch of the world.
Secondly, I want to get into the territory of the law which Hon. Toffa has scratched upon, which is very fundamental. When we are discussing motions in our Parliament, we must be conscious of what the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides in as far as certain rights are provided for enjoyment by our citizens.
Mr. Speaker, this motion is in violation of Sections 58, 60, 61 and 62 of our Constitution. Hon. Kashiri spoke about a very important aspect which our country must implement, that we must make sure that we introduce a subject called the Constitution to our children who are currently at school. That is a very brilliant input from Hon. Kashiri. It will create to our citizens’ consciousness of what the Bill of Rights in their country provides. It is very important and fundamental that every citizen of our country must be educated on the provisions of our Constitution. However, some of us Members of Parliament must also encourage Parliament to take us to workshops and seminars to educate ourselves about the Constitution because every Bill or motion that we debate in Parliament is informed from the provisions of the Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, Section 58 of the Constitution says every person has the right of freedom of association with others. So for the motion to seek that citizens of Zimbabwe must be prohibited from meeting citizens of other countries when our Constitution provides and protects the freedom of association, how do we navigate for us to locate the motion to suit the provision of the Constitution that allows the freedom of association with anybody whom you want, whether in Zimbabwe or anywhere in the world? How would the movers of the motion take into cognisance the provisions of the Constitution of our country?
Section 60 Mr. Speaker, speaks of a fundamental right called freedom of conscience which is the one which includes freedom to practice and propagate and give expression of one’s thoughts, opinions, religion or beliefs, whether in public or private or whether I am alone or together with others. How would we prohibit people from being in contact with certain quarters of the world when our Constitution fundamentally protects the freedom of conscience where everybody is allowed to propagate his thoughts, whilst in public or in private? So, these are some of the fundamental issues the movers and seconders of the motion should put into cognizance.
Section 61 Mr. Speaker Sir, gives us the freedom of expression where every person has the right of freedom of expression which includes to seek recourse and then accumulate ideas and other information from anyone and any quarter, whether inside or outside Zimbabwe. How would we limit our own citizens like what Hon. Toffa correctly put across? What Smith did during the period of our liberation struggle and the fight for our recognition as a people in Zimbabwe. The period of the nationalist politics Mr. Speaker Sir, Smith drafted the law of equal measure like the Patriotic Bill which some colleagues want to push for its introduction in Parliament. The provisions were in the Law and Order Maintenance Act, which prohibited any citizen of this country to be in communication, contact or in sharing any form of information with outside persons. So, how will this Parliament sit down and debate the instillation of the replica of Ian Douglas Smith?
The people of Zimbabwe have suffered for a long time. It is now high time we discuss issues which Hon. Saruwaka pointed out that the people of Zimbabwe look upon Parliament to debate issues and subjects that will bring freedom and happiness in their homes and at their door steps. We must be able to debate this motion, having in mind the desires of our people, their pursuit of happiness and how they seek to be happy.
Section 62 Mr. Speaker Sir, deals with a provision and the right to access to information, that everyone has the right to access information, whether in private, in custody of the Government or any other agency of the State. Citizens of our country have got the right for them to have access of information. For us to debate a motion which seeks to prohibit our citizens to expand their frontiers or friendship and debate with others in the international community as if Zimbabwe is living in isolation Mr. Speaker Sir, I think we are losing focus of why we are constituted as a Parliament of Zimbabwe.
We must be able to debate issues that are to the benefit of our people. The country is currently burning Mr. Speaker Sir. Covid 19 is upon us. Citizens do not know whether the Sinopharm vaccine is safe for their use or not and we are busy debating about introducing a law that will prohibit the rights of our citizens.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the rain season is upon us. We want to know whether the Grain Marketing Board is prepared for it to buy the huge yields that will come from the farmers. Will our farmers be paid on time but we are busy debating a motion where we want to curtail the rights of our people.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): You are left with five minutes Hon. Member.
HON. SIKHALA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My input is no matter how much we want to reduce our Parliament to a talk show of non-productive debates, we must refocus our agenda to discuss the crisis our nation is facing. Our nation is currently facing a serious crisis of corruption where the looting and plunder of national resources is a national question. Those are subjects that we need to debate as Parliament. We must be able to debate the human rights abuses where citizens of our country are being arrested and are abused at every given turn and how we should move forward as a nation. We must be debating on how we can prevent torture and abuse of our people through abduction and torture like what happened to Tendayi Mucheyiwa.
Mr. Speaker Sir, this motion like what Hon. Mushoriwa said, is off the mark. Our institution must debate issues that affect our people in the immediate, not for us to debate delusionary matters. Thanks to our own national security and continued occupation of public offices. So, Mr. Speaker Sir, I second what Hon. Mushoriwa said that this motion must be removed from the Order Paper. It does not help the citizens and taxpayers of Zimbabwe who are paying our salaries on a monthly basis and our allowances. We need to debate things that lead to the progression of our nation. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member, with all due respect has no right to chose which motion has to be debated or not. Thank you.
(v)HON. JOSIAH. SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I also want to add my voice to the motion by Hon. Mpofu and seconded by Hon. Togarepi. I want to say Mr. Speaker that this motion has taken too long before it has been put before us because I strongly feel that there is nothing in terms of development that can take place if we do not have people that are patriotic or if we are not patriotic enough. Patriotism as we have heard is love of one’s country and not betrayal of one’s country and therefore we strongly feel that we need to love our own country. Hon. Sikhala was saying we have to explain to people because they are not sure about Sinopharm, yet it is our responsibility as Hon. Members to make sure that all people know what is good for them. We can never have development where there is no patriotism. I take it that patriotism is the stem of our development. Patriotism does not mean destruction of our own property or adverse marketing of one’s family or saying bad about words about our leadership.
I think patriotism needs one to make sure that one understands how to solve problems in one’s own country so that people outside will get very little to interfere in terms of what happens in our own country. Even in our own culture, if you have a married couple and have a habit of fighting and so on, thinking that those who are outside can help them, it will not build a family because that family needs people who will communicate on their own and also solve their own problems.
I also want to say Mr. Speaker Sir, we have come across the statement that home is best. I do not understand why we have believed that those who are outside are better than us when we are supposed to be best. Our charity has to begin from home so that even the outsiders will understand that we are a united country where we agree the same thing.
Mr. Speaker Sir, as Hon. Members, we should not forget that while we were taking oath, it stipulated that I will be faithful to Zimbabwe and perform my duty faithfully. The word faithfully cannot be tampered with. If you are faithful to your country, it means you are doing what is right for your country deep down in your heart and that which you are doing should not be to the disadvantage of the people who are supposed to get the services, those who are vulnerable. We should not be seen wasting time making noise. We have been criticised several times. Recently the electorate was saying, you people what is that you will be doing, shouting and making noise about in Parliament when we have serious issues around our country?
Our people are looking forward to us working together as a nation. We talk and come together, especially with the open-minded President that we have. Our President has called for people to discuss and talk about our issues as a nation which I think could have done us justice if we were coming together. He has proved that he is a peace loving President. Even if you look at the beginning when we had our elections, ZEC itself made a report after the elections that our President had no hate language and all other leaders were supposed to take a lesson from that. We do not have to deceive our own country. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
(v)*HON. PRISCILLA MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to support the motion that has been moved by Hon. A. Mpofu and seconded by Hon. Togarepi. For us to be a developed nation we need to adhere to the Constitution. It is our duty as Parliament to ensure that we make good laws for the good governance of our country. We do have people violating the laws but should we go outside our country asking for sanctions? That is not right. We went for elections and results came out and those with grievances were addressed. I want to thank Hon. President Mnangagwa for winning the elections. The opposition Members are not accepting that. Do they want to be part of Government? Democracy means adherence to the law. If you go for elections and you lose; that is the situation, because there has to be a winner and a loser. You should wait for 2023.
I would want to talk about POLAD. Yes, there were quite a number of atrocities during Gukurahundi in the past but we need to move forward and see how we can solve issues and develop the country. The President has called for the formation of POLAD which consists of all opposition parties - to come together and develop our nation but you will find the Opposition is only there to oppose everything that is done by the President, no matter how good it is.
The President has sourced for covid-19 vaccines from China, America and Russia and all other countries are using the same vaccines, but you find that the Opposition is encouraging people not to take the vaccines. The vaccinations are here. They are safe and we should accept the vaccines. I would like to urge Hon. Members to unite and support the law that is coming and this will help us overcome the sanctions that were imposed on us. Those who violate the law should be punished, regardless of being a Member of Parliament. No one is above the law and all the perpetrators should be brought to book. I am in support of this motion and all what has been said. This will help us that whatever legislation we make will be for the good of everyone and also for this august House. I am in support of the Patriotic Act. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI, seconded by HON. TEKESHE, the House adjourned at a Quarter to Seven o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 25th February, 2021
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
*HON. TEKESHE: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker Sir. My
point of privilege pertains to people who attend funerals. Yesterday we were attending a funeral in Rusape and there was discussion between the deceased’s relatives and Ministry of Health and Child Care officials.
The issue is that a number of people are attending funerals instead of the regulated figures, for example the recent funeral for Soldier Love, an artist who died recently and may his soul rest in peace. It seems there is selective application of the law because when a popular figure passes on, a number of people attend but the regulations only apply for ordinary people as they are a bit stringent. So my question is on the application of law for particular individuals. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: It is a point of national interest. Surely, you will have done justice to yourself Hon. Tekeshe, if you ask this during Question Time so that the relevant Minister can explain why certain funerals are allowed to have more people while others are not and you will have a better response from the Minister concerned.
*HON. TEKESHE: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I would be
grateful if you allow me to pose the question next week.
*THE HON. SPEAKER: I most certainly will do so.
HON. BITI: Hon. Speaker, every day we pray through you – we love that prayer but that prayer Hon. Speaker, has a problem…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Is a what?
HON. BITI: Parliament’s prayer, it refers to the just Government of men. Hon. Speaker, in view of the provisions of the Constitution which empowers gender equality, that phrase is wrong. It must refer to the just Government of men and women.
So I pray Hon. Speaker, with great respect, that Parliament’s archaic, patriarchal prayer be revisited so that it recognises that we are now in the 21st century where men and women are equal. It must refer to the just Government of men and women, even children. I thank you very much Hon. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I think some two years ago, I raised the issue in the Committee of Standing Rules and Orders that we should insert women as well. The interpretation of the majority of the members was that men also can include women. You know this democracy of the majority sometimes can be cancerous, so I lost. I think, instead of raising it here perhaps you could raise it under a motion for debate then whatever the House resolves, that will overrule the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders.
I totally agree with you and I saw at the time no harm to say, ‘men and women’ to be more inclusive.
(V)HON. MUCHIMWE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to applaud you and your administration for the good work that you did on our parliamentary diaries. We are now guided on the Sitting Days and Budget consultation days. Thank you for the good work Mr.
Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you very much for your commendations.
(V)HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Mr.
Speaker, my point of privilege relates to the Budget that we recently passed. One of the issues on the parliamentary budget that the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development agreed to was the inclusion of $200 million towards the Constituency Development Fund. We are now approaching the first quarter of the year but we have not yet received anything in terms of the allocation.
We implore you Mr. Speaker Sir, to help us to run these constituencies. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you very much Hon. Mushoriwa. The Committee on Standing Rules and Orders met some 10 days ago and we have been assured by the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development that funds are being put together to start rolling out those funds for constituency centres so that the Members of
Parliament are able to communicate with their various constituents.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to
10 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 11 has been disposed
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY EDUCATION ON FIELD VISITS CONDUCTED TO
SELECTED SCHOOLS
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: I move the motion
standing in my name that this House takes note of the Report of the
Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education on the field visits conducted to selected schools to check compliance with COVID19 regulations and the state of preparedness for November 2020 examinations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HON. MADHUKU: I second.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Mr. Speaker, I move
this motion which is a Committee report of the field visits that we did to check compliance with COVID19 and state of preparedness for
October/November examinations in public schools. I am happy Mr.
Speaker that as I move this particular motion and speak to this report, Government is in the process of beginning to plan ways of opening schools and I am sure both parents and everybody else is looking to the opening of schools but as we have always said as a Committee, those schools need to be opened up safely both for the teachers and students.
1.0 Introduction
The Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education conducted field visits to public schools in rural communities to check compliance with COVID-19 regulations and establish the state of preparedness for the 2020 November Examinations in light of COVID19 global pandemic. The report builds up from the two reports tabled by the Committee during the Second Session in the august House on the state of preparedness to opening schools in light of COVID-19. The assessment of the state of preparedness was based on the Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP) guidelines (Annex 1) developed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for the phased approach to re-opening of schools. The Committee comprised of two (2) teams covering the country’s 8 provinces with one team covering the Northern Region while the other team covered the Southern Region between 30 November, 2020 and 4 Decembe,r 2020. The Committee had meetings with the school administration, School Development Council, Ministry Officials, learners and parents culminating into this comprehensive report. Generally, a high state of preparedness for COVID-19 pandemic was noted with most schools in the Matabeleland and Bulawayo
Provinces, while the opposite was witnessed in the Southern region.
2.0 Terms of Reference
2.1 To check compliance with the Standard Operating Procedures issued by the Ministry in public schools in light of COVID-19 global pandemic.
2.2 To check state of preparedness for October/November
Examinations in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic
2.3 To assess the extent to which Government is supporting menstrual hygiene management among the rural school’ girls.
3.0 Methodology
The Committee held several oral evidence sessions with various stakeholders including, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary
Education, Teachers’ Unions, Children’s Parliament and Civil Society Organisations and resolved to conduct field visits to public schools in rural communities. The Committee felt that it was critical to go on the ground to verify information that has been gathered during the numerous oral evidence sessions and workshops that have taken place during the course of the year. Thus, the Committee was split into two groups so as to target a wider sample size. However, given the time limitation and distances involved, the Committee was only able to cover
8 Provinces, namely; Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland East,
Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Matabeleland North,
Matabeleland South and Bulawayo.
Below is a list of the schools visited by the Committee
TEAM A (Southern Region) | TEAM B (Northern Region) |
Matiore Primary and Mukore High (Bikita) | Sitezi Primary and Secondary (Gwanda) |
Mashonjowa Primary and Mandarume Secondary (Chimanimani) | Mhali Primary and Magwegwe High (Bulawayo) |
Bosbury Primary (Chegutu) | Zibhungululu Primary and Secondary (Tsholotsho) |
Bondamakare Primary and Secondary (Mutoko) | Fudu Primary (Nkayi) |
Mupandira Primary School (Madziva) | Nyongolo Primary (Hwange) |
4.0 Committee Findings
4.1 Water and Sanitation
The Committee established that the issues of water and sanitation were legacy issues haunting the education sector and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation. The bulk of the schools in Zimbabwe are facing acute water and sanitation challenges. However, some schools had boreholes within the school (For example, Mukore High School, Masvingo) while others had to travel like 1.5km to fetch water for use in the school. The learners from the schools facing water challenges had to fetch water from unclean water sources after school while others fetch water during learning time. Some schools in
Manicaland had benefited from donations from World Vision and Plan
International. Mhandarume High School and Mashonjowe Primary School received water tanks and tapped water buckets. An extreme case was recorded in Matebeleland, at Sitezi Primary and Secondary Schools which did not have any boreholes and learners had to bring their own water from Tuli River which is quite a distance from the school. This in effect has a negative impact on the well-being of the learners as well as the school’s ability to fully function especially with the current global pandemic. Magwegwe High School in Bulawayo is also faced with serious water issues as the local borehole water is unfit for consumption.
Therefore, considering the population density of most schools, the challenges of water and sanitation makes it difficult to meet the high levels of hygiene required under WHO guidelines.
4.2 Face Masks/ Shields
Most schools received Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) from the Ministry for both the teachers and the learners although in most cases there were limited supplies. Schools in the Southern region, particularly in Masvingo, Mashonaland West and Manicaland provinces received masks that were not corresponding with the number of learners hence ended up asking parents to support their children. Bosbury Primary School received 264 masks against a total number of about 700 learners. Some schools like Mhandarume High School through its SDC invested in sewing the masks for the learners and teachers while others got donations from UNICEF. (Bosbury Primary School). Schools in the northern region received adequate masks from the Ministry as witnessed by most pupils, at both Primary and Secondary level having similar washable face masks. The Committee was informed that the
Government, through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education provided between 2 to 3 masks per learner. The only exception noted was that of Magwegwe High School where some of the students for the second phase reopening had not received face masks and were using those provided from home. In addition, at Nyongolo Primary, the Hwange District Inspector indicated that there were more than enough masks at the district offices. However, some schools had not collected additional portions due to transport challenges and the industrial action.
4.3 Check/ Screening Points
All schools visited had at least a check or screening point for suspected COVID-19 learners and visitors by the entrance of the school. From both regions, it was observed that the Government, together with development partners, had tried to mobilise resources and provided some stocks of alcohol-based hand-sanitizers and hand washing detergents to all the schools visited. However, the stocks received were inadequate to cover the whole term. School health coordinators bemoaned inadequate resources like sanitisers, hand washing liquid, masks, gloves, gowns and thermometers especially for schools with a large number of learners. Most schools reported that the stocks were fast running out while others were improvising. Some schools resorted to hand washing stations at entry points where sanitisers where not available.
In addition to that, there was widespread evidence of visitor information data capturing upon entry at most schools, save for a few. The information was recorded in exercise books including the temperature. However, at some schools like Mhandarume High School, Bondamakare Primary and Secondary School, the learners confessed that they have only seen sanitisers and check points in the school on the day the Committee visited, probably to appease the Committee. The Standard Operating Procedures indicated that one (1) thermometer was to cover an average of 250 – 500 pupils, hence schools in Matabeleland South and North can be confidentially said they had enough thermometers. Students at Magwegwe High indicated that they were only checked temperature once at the main entrance.
4.4 Isolation/ Holding Bays
The Committee found out that most schools had challenges with creating isolation or holding bays within the school premises due to the acute shortage of classrooms. School authorities revealed that most holding bays were some kind of classrooms or staff rooms which would be converted at the point of need. Most holding bays were empty, signifying a major resource constraint within the schools to be able to set aside mattresses and some first aid kits. For example, at Bandamakare Primary School, the holding bay only had 2 mattresses and nothing else. At Mhandarume High School, the holding bay was the school boardroom, which would be converted when need arise. Zibungululu Primary and Secondary had an isolation centre which was basically a classroom equipped with a first aid kit and nothing else.
4.5 Social / Physical Distancing
Most schools devised ways and means of accommodating learners during this COVID-19 pandemic. All schools visited had successfully observed social distancing as evidenced by the arranged furniture, which took into account the Ministry Guideline. However, due to resource limitations, there were no ‘physical distance markings’ in the form of
‘marked lines.’ The major challenge emerging from the requirements of maintaining social distancing was that of inadequate furniture and classrooms to accommodate all the learners at one goal. Thus, most schools developed timetables that would ensure that all examination classes attended classes every day while the rest of the learners would alternate depending with classrooms available. At Bondamakare Primary School, learners from examination classes were coming to school every day, while the rest of the learners were coming one day per week since they had to share classrooms and furniture. In some instances, desk sharing was evident making it a challenge to practice social distancing. This is so because, even before the pandemic, these schools were already facing shortage of furniture and this was then further compounded by the social distancing requirement. Generally, the Committee noted that schools in Matebeleland were able to observe social distances and this can be attributed to low enrolment. For instance, Sitezi Primary and Secondary had an average of 20 people sitting for 2020 November examinations and the same can be said for Nyongolo Primary and Fudu Primary. However, the same cannot be said of Magwegwe Secondary and Mhali Primary in Bulawayo Metropolitan that had resorted to staggering classes, with classes rotating on days to come to schools.
4.6 Hand Washing Stations
Most schools had in place hand washing stations at convenient places within the school premises. While most rural schools do not have tapped water, at least most of the schools tried to improvise hand washing stations by investing in “Chigubhu gear” as part of meeting hygiene standards. The “sigubu gear” innovation appeared very popular across Matebeleland schools as it was observed at Sitezi, Zhibhungululu, Fudu and Nyongolo. The ‘sigubu gear’ was also assembled throughout the school yard, hence ensuring that pupils and visitors manage to wash their hands constantly. Schools in Manicaland had benefited immensely from World Vision which donated 1000l water tank, sanitisers, tapped hand washing buckets and soap at Mhandarume High School. However, most schools such as Mashonjowa Primary School and Bosbury Primary and Secondary School did not have adequate supplies of soap and detergents for use by the learners to wash their hands. The implementation of hand washing stations was also affected by the unavailability of water within the schools. Hence, learners had to bring their own water from home or travel long distances to fetch the water to use with the “Chigubhu giya”. Mhali Primary and Magwegwe High face an acute water challenge and this had a bearing on the capacity of students to wash hands constantly. At Magwegwe High, the Committee was informed that the school rarely receive water from Bulawayo Council. In addition the available underground water was unfit for human consumption because the school was situated on a sewage perimeter.
4.7 School Health Coordinators
The Committee found out that most schools had School Health
Coordinators trained by the Ministry of Health and Child Care to handle
COVID-19 cases within the school. However, the major challenge related to inadequate PPEs for the health coordinators to use in the event of an incidence. It was revealed that most of the schools only had masks or face shields for the officials while gowns and protective gloves were not available in almost every school.
4.8 Teacher Turn-Out for Duty
Of all the schools visited by the Committee in the Northern region, there was a good teacher turnout of between 95-100%, while in the Southern region, teacher turn-out was very poor. The Committee found out that teachers from Manicaland, Mashonaland East and Central were not reporting for duty and school work was last given in March, 2020 before schools closed. In Matabeleland, the Committee observed that only teachers from Nyongolo Primary School were not reporting for duty while the rest of the schools had teachers in attendance. However, earnest business started on 23 November 2020, barely a week before ZIMSEC examinations commenced. The learners indicated that no learning had taken place prior to 23rd November as the teachers were on industrial strike. Most School Heads admitted that most of the teaching staff had not been teaching at all until after the 23rd of November 2020.
At Fudu Primary, Nkayi the Committee was informed that 8 teachers were sharing one house, indicating the seriousness of unavailability of accommodation.
In addition, there was no network coverage, hence many teachers always transfer to other areas with better facilities. In addition, at both Fudu Primary and Zibungululu Secondary, Teachers complained that they were being paid in local currency (RTGS), whilst the local business community shy the currency in favour of South African Rands or the USD. Unavailability of transport was also regarded as another impediment. When available, the Commuters demanded payment in foreign currency. Teachers at Bondamakare Primary and Secondary
Schools and Bosbury Primary School also noted that they travel from Mutoko Centre and Chegutu Town to their respective schools every working day and yet they cannot benefit from cheap and affordable transport like ZUPCO busses.
4.9 Students’ Preparedness for Examinations.
The Committee sought the views of learners, teachers, and parents on the state of preparedness for learners to sit for their final examinations. The outcome of the interaction brought some divergent views amongst the participants. The majority of learners from the Northern region, Sitezi, Singeni, Zibhungululu, Nyongolo, Magwegwe and Mhali) indicated that they were ready to sit for the examinations in spite of the fact that they had little classroom contact with teachers. Learners from the Southern region were fearful and noted that they were ill-prepared to sit for the examinations given that they had not finished their syllabus (e.g. Mhandarume High School, Bondamakare Primary and Secondary Schools, Mupandira Primary School). However, in sharp contrast to the situation above, parents and teachers across the provinces felt that learners were least prepared for the examinations. Parents questioned the rationale behind the decision to allow learners to sit for examinations when no teaching took place for up to nine months. The parents and teachers had suggested that examinations be postponed similarly to what happened during the Liberation war struggle. The parents indicated that this situation was a waste of their money with guaranteed failure.
4.10 Frequent Disinfection of Schools
The Committee found out that very few schools were strictly following the Ministry guidelines to frequently disinfect school premises as measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Most school authorities indicated that resource constraints were the major challenge inhibiting schools from undertaking frequent disinfection in their schools.
4.11 Radio & Television Lessons
The Committee found out that the majority of learners in rural schools had no access to either radio or television lessons provided by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. While the programmes were initially targeting both learners in rural and urban setup, only those in urban areas had at least access. However, further interrogation by the Committee revealed that lack of knowledge about the facility, limited access to radio services or cellular networks, lack of gadgets among others were major constraints in some areas like Nkayi,
Tsholotsho, Hwange and Chimanimani. The Committee was informed at Nyongolo Primary, Hwange that the teachers were asked to come to Bulawayo for lesson recordings while in actual fact, there was no network in the area.
4.12 Pregnancy
School Heads and teachers raised concern over the increasing number of learners falling pregnant especially those sitting for ‘O’ and
‘A’ level. It was estimated that the cases had more than doubled and follow ups on these cases had not yielded positive results as parents felt that once a child is pregnant, they have no educational future. This is prevalent in both rural and urban school settings. At Magwegwe High, almost every child that the Committee interacted with knew of a colleague that was pregnant. Teachers indicated that although, they make follow ups and encourage the girls to come to school and write the examinations, a number were reluctant. At Bondamakare High School, about 10 girls got married. At Bosbury Primary School, 2 grade seven pupils got pregnant and dropped out of school. However, some school authorities have been working tirelessly with non-governmental organisations to ensure that the girls return to school, for example, at
Mukore High School, Masvingo.
4.13 Menstrual Health Management.
The Committee established that the programme for sanitary wear distribution to rural schools was available in some schools while in other schools it was not available. However, the Committee found out that some of the sanitary pads supplied by the Government were of poor quality and could not meet menstrual hygiene standards. In addition, the sanitary pads were not in sufficient quantities to meet demand. In Masvingo, at Mukore High School, it was revealed that the school had received panty liners instead of pads, while in Chegutu, at Bosbury High School, the pads received were of poor quality, all from the provincial offices. In certain instances, the kids were not even aware that there were sanitary pads available within the school. In the Northern region, students expressed mixed view, some were aware of the programme at school whilst others were not. Most schools had appointed a senior female teacher to be responsible for distribution of sanitary wear. The sanitary wear availed were disposal.
5.0 Committee Observations
5.1 Water and Sanitation
The Committee observed that the challenge of water and sanitation was not only affecting schools, but was a national problem that required urgent attention given the global pandemic. At school level, the Committee observed that the water challenges were impacting significantly on the well-being of the learners who would fetch the water for use within the schools. In addition, most schools were relying on unclean water sources such as rivers and wells.
5.2 Face Masks/ Shields
The Committee noted Government’s commitment to providing face masks to both teachers and learners during the third term, when schools re-opened. However, there was no equity in distribution of PPEs, as schools in Southern region received few as compared to those in the Northern region. The Committee also observed that teachers deserved both face shields and face masks given the nature of their job. Committee members felt that there was need for teachers, especially those teaching infant school and learners with disability to get face shields which they can use during lessons, since facial expressions are part of the learning techniques used by teachers.
5.3 Check/ Screening Points and Hand Washing Stations
Committee members were impressed by the organised screening points at almost every school gate. However, the Committee was concerned by the unavailability of proper hand washing stations within the schools premises due to resource constraints. It was observed that most hand washing stations had no soaps or hand washing detergents for use by the pupils. Sanitisers and hand washing stations were only available at the school entrance only.
5.4 Isolation/ Holding Bays
The Committee noted with concern the shortage of classrooms, which made it difficult for school authorities to set aside a free room specifically for such a purpose. In most schools, the holding bay was either a school boardroom, staff room or classroom that would be converted when need arise. The Committee also observed that most of the holding bays were not adequately resourced.
5.5 Social / Physical Distancing
Committee members observed that most schools visited had managed to observe social distancing in line with the WHO guidelines. However, the Committee noted that shortage of classrooms and furniture was impacting significantly on hours of learning as the learners have to alternate to come to school. The Committee observed that priority was only being given to examination classes that would go to school every day while the rest of the learners would go to school once or twice a week.
5.6 School Health Coordinators
Committee members noted with concern that most schools had
Health Coordinators who were incapacitated due to resource constraints.
5.7 Teacher Turn-Out for Duty and State of Preparedness for Examinations
The Committee was disturbed that no proper learning took place since schools opened on 28 September 2020 as the teachers were reported to be on industrial action. Thus, the Committee was greatly concerned by the decision to proceed with examinations under such circumstances. The Committee observed that proceeding with examinations presented unfair competition for poor and vulnerable learners in rural areas given that the majority of them did not participate in any online learning. Committee members felt that due to resource constraints as well as connectivity issues, some learners had challenges in learning during the period schools were closed. The Committee further observed that most teachers were also incapacitated to conduct online lessons during the period schools were closed. Therefore, the
Committee felt that learners were not prepared for examinations. The Committee also noted with concern inadequate staff accommodation in most rural schools, thereby compromising the welfare of the teachers.
At Fudu Primary, Nkayi, the Committee observed that seven teachers were sharing a two bedroomed house.
5.8 Radio & Television Lessons
Committee members observed that COVID-19 has further exacerbated the disparities between the rich and the poor. It was observed that the majority of learners, especially in rural remote areas had challenges participating in radio and television lessons due to connectivity issues as well as lack of the requisite gadgets.
5.9 Pregnancy
The Committee was disturbed by the number of girls dropping out of school due to pregnancy. However, the Committee applauded some School Heads who were committed to supporting such girls to continue with their education.
5.10 Menstrual Health Management.
Committee applauded the commitment by the Government to support menstrual hygiene management in all schools, particularly targeting the vulnerable rural school girls. However, the Committee observed with concern the lack of coordination of the programme by the Ministry. The members of the Committee were disturbed by the decentralisation of the procurement process to provinces which has manifested itself in the distribution of different products to the schools. The Committee members observed the poor quality of reusable pads distributed to schools (Bosbury Primary and Secondary School) while others received reusable sanitary wear such as pant liners (Mukore High School). In addition to that, the Committee was disturbed that some of the learners confessed ignorance of the availability of sanitary pads in schools and therefore did not have access. The Committee noted with concern that the distribution process of the sanitary wear was not done properly resulting in some schools receiving while others did not receive anything in 2020. In some schools, the learners were benefiting from the donor community and have not received any sanitary wear from
Government.
5.11 Requests for Payment of School Fees in Foreign Currency
Interactions with SDA members indicated that parents were being asked to make payments in foreign currency for transportation of examination papers, for example at Sitezi Primary School. In addition, also fees and levies were being paid in foreign currency. The Committee noted with concern that most of the payments in foreign currency were not being receipted or banked since schools are not allowed to collect payments in foreign currency.
5.12 Non-Payment of School Fees by Parents/ Guardians
The Committee noted with concern that most parents were refusing to pay school fees arguing that children were not learning. This impacts negatively on the operations of the school, like collection of examination papers from ZIMSEC Centres or procurement of goods and services required by the school.
6.0 Committee Recommendations
6.1 That there is urgent need for the Government to comprehensively focus on improving the welfare of teachers and adequately equipping them so as to facilitate proper learning in schools before schools open.
6.2 That the teachers be prioritised for the COVID-19 vaccination since they are considered frontline workers in the education sector.
6.3 The Ministry engages with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission before schools open for a transitional school mechanism whereby tents are used to create temporary classrooms and ensure that learners have more learning time in school as compared to the status quo whereby some learners had been coming to school once a week.
6.4 That the Government must prioritise the availability of water and sanitation in all schools as measures to ensure compliance with the WHO guidelines before schools open.
6.5 That parents with children who would want to repeat grade seven due to poor performance must be allowed to do so and Government must bear the costs. The Ministry must also facilitate for waivers to allow the children to repeat.
6.6 That an inquiry be undertaken by the Ministry to establish why some schools have been perennially attaining 0% pass rate with or without COVID-19 pandemic and report to Parliament by 30 April
6.7 That the Ministry presents before the august House, the measures being put in place to ensure that all the learners have access to equal learning including online lessons despite their circumstances by 30 April 2021.
6.8 That the Ministry target rural schools with more resources to ensure equity during this 2021 year.
6.9 That in the short term, the Ministry improves access to education by investing in solar radios for distribution to vulnerable learners at either household or community level so that they all have access to radio lessons level by 30 April 2021.
6.10 That in the medium to long term, the Government invests in the requisite infrastructure to enhance online learning and Universities of Science and Technology may spearhead such interventions.
6.11 That the Ministry supports learners with disability with the requisite gadgets for both physical and online learning such as procurement and distribution of gadgets and assistive devices by 30
June 2021.
6.12 That the Ministry centralises procurement of sanitary wear immediately so as to ensure uniformity in the product and also benefit from economies of scale since it is cheaper to procure more (national tender versus provincial tender).
6.13 That the Ministry immediately clarifies on Government’s policy position on payment of fees and other related costs in foreign currency by parents.
6.14 That the Ministry presents to Parliament a plan of action on how issues of pregnant girls should be handled by school authorities before schools open since it is now law.
6.15 That the Ministry undertakes to sensitise Zimbabweans about the new provisions in the Education Amendment Act of 2020 by year end.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir for
giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important motion presented by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga on schools compliance to opening of schools in view of the COVID pandemic.
Mr. Speaker Sir, let me begin by saying that there is this quotation by Mr. Mandela which says that the power of education extends beyond the development of skills we need for economic success. This therefore means that even when turning to our country Zimbabwe, if we are looking at Vision 2030 propounded by the Government and even the National Development Strategy 1, the success of all these programmes hinges on a sound education. It is therefore critical that we treat this motion very critically.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I will begin by looking at the issue of water and sanitation in schools as has been debated by the Hon. Chairperson. There are more boreholes needed in schools if we are going to be very effective in fighting this pandemic. There are jingles all over in the print and electronic media talking about the need to wash our hands but we cannot achieve this if we do not have enough boreholes, especially in the rural areas.
Mr. Speaker Sir, when this Committee went around, we noticed a very sad scenario whereby some learners were actually leaving their core business of learning in order to go and fetch water for the school and teachers. If we look at the Constitution or even the Education Act, this is an abuse of learners. They are not supposed to be doing that. They are supposed to attend their core business of learning but schools are doing this in order for those learners to go ahead with learning. So it is very critical that even when you look at the Budget which was passed for 2021, a lot has to be done in terms of drilling more boreholes for schools and also go beyond just drilling boreholes but even making some installations of solar so that schools can devote most of their time to learning.
Madam Speaker, the other issue is social distancing in schools, this is a very big problem. I want to say that we want to thank the Lord. I think he has kept us safe as a country including these learners. We have noticed that it is very difficult for them to be stringent in keeping social distancing and in most cases, we saw that even learners were sharing these face masks but we thank the Lord that they were kept safe. We also noticed that even in boarding schools, the issue of social distancing was a problem, especially at the hostels because they had already recruited learners when these regulations came into place. They were trying to make do with what was possible but the issue of infrastructure as alluded to by the Hon. Chairperson remained a nightmare.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, coming to teacher turn-out for work, I
want to begin by applauding our teachers for doing very well under the circumstances. When we are looking at the pass rate which we are saying fell as compared to the previous one – but I want to thank them because they did their best because when we visited a lot of schools, we saw that most teachers who had examination classes were actually having overtime, teaching even during weekends to ensure that their learners pass. So we want to thank them very much although we noticed certain cases whereby some teachers were coming to work maybe twice a week. They said they were paying heed to some of their teachers’ organisations which had said that they were not supposed to go to work from Monday to Friday.
Madam Speaker, I want to say that these teachers are crying for better working conditions. It is my submission that we go beyond looking at salaries and look at some of the non-monetary things. This will go a long way in motivating the teachers. If you look at some of the theories which have been propounded by some psychologists, I always refer to Abraham Maslow with his motivational theories which say that human beings naturally want some of their basic needs satisfied before they can do some of what they are obligated to do. Among these things, he talks about the fulfillment of physiological needs which is the first one on the hierarchy, followed by safety needs, love and belongingness, esteem needs and self actualisation.
What this basically means is that every human being needs some of his or her basic needs met first before he can do a certain duty. So this is what the teachers are saying. They want food, fees for their children, clothing, safety and so on. I am suggesting here that we look at some non monetary incentives like vouchers, car loans, something to do with health where the Government actually pays some money towards such schemes. We want a situation whereby if somebody falls ill, the scheme covers everything because it does not help make to say there is a health scheme whereby if somebody falls ill you go to the hospital, you are told there is a shortfall and you are supposed to pay the shortfall in US dollars. If you go for the drug, the scheme says we cannot pay for the drugs in this category. So you end up paying for everything yet you are covered under a certain scheme. It does not make sense.
We need to critically look at some of the needs of these teachers because this will motivate them to carry out their duties. I have already talked about schemes like paying for loans for their vehicles. We can also look at the tollgate fees or parking fees, those little things which we can accord to the teachers. These will motivate them to work even harder because we have already seen them working extra hours during weekends to ensure that learners pass.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, let me also look at the issue of the high pregnancy cases in schools. It is amazing, there are so many girls who have fallen pregnant during this COVID-19 era
HON. MADHUKU: (Speaking)…during this COVID -19 era and
when we interviewed the heads of schools, we noticed that even primary school kids had fallen pregnant. This is shocking and the question is what are we going to do with these learners? Are our teachers, heads of schools and the parents aware that these girls who have fallen pregnant have a right to come back to school? They need capacitation. We have talked to some of the heads, they do not seem to know what they are supposed to do to enable the learners to come back to school.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should have a record of all the girls who have fallen pregnant and make a follow up to ensure that they go back to school because even our Education Act allows such children to go back to school. If we do not make a follow up, then it is a lost generation.
Madam Speaker, I also want to talk a little bit about the home grown feeding programme which the Chairperson of Primary and
Secondary Education, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga has talked about. This is a very good programme of ensuring that every learner is given food at school because some learners have a problem of not getting enough food at home. The research has shown that there is improved attendance if the learners are given food at both primary and secondary level. We have also noticed that even in developed countries like Britain, learners are given food at school.
However, we have also realised that whilst the Government is sending food items to schools; these food items are not very well looked after. We have had cases of theft of such food items and there was no trace to recover the food items. In certain cases we heard the heads of schools saying they did not have relish, hence they were no longer preparing food for the learners. Therefore, I implore the Government to ensure that whilst they are giving maize meal to schools, it is also important to give relish so that all the learners are not made to pay something for relish. Where a learner has not managed to pay for the relish, the innocent child is not feeding and will be looking at others feeding because he or she cannot afford to pay for the relish. So, this is a very good programme which improves attendance but a lot of supervision needs to be done by the Ministry.
Let me conclude by touching a bit on the issue which has been talked about by the Hon. Chairperson with regards to school fees. It is very critical for the schools to ensure that they follow guidelines in the payment and charging of schools fees. As has been said by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga, that most schools are not charging fees on a pro rata basis. A lot of schools are just charging fees which have not been approved by the Ministry.
We have also observed that some schools are making parents to pay schools fees in the USD denomination and we have noticed that certain heads are not receipting the fees because they do not have
NOSTRO accounts. So I think it is very critical for the Minister of
Primary and Secondary Education to ensure that Statutory Instruments and policies are followed up and enforced to ensure that the parents are not made to suffer.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Chairperson of the
Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga for bringing this very important motion on education compliance in view of the COVID-19 pandemic
(V)HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker. May I thank the Hon. Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary
Education for moving the motion which was also seconded by Hon.
Madhuku.
I participated in the visits where we moved to different schools throughout Zimbabwe to observe compliance and also to assess the schools’ level of preparedness in light of COVID 19. We observed that in terms of PPE’s, most of the pupils had masks. I need to applaud the Government that it availed some funds. However, the funds were not adequate to supply all the students in our schools with PPE’s. As a result, most of the parents resorted to buying masks for their own children and that culminated in different colours and shapes of masks in the schools.
I also need to applaud the Development Partners who assisted in the provision of PPE’s to compliment Government efforts. However, we want to encourage the Government to avail enough funds so that all the schools will be provided with adequate PPEs.
Turning to the standard operating procedures which is a document availed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary which espouse all the requirements which were supposed to be provided as a prerequisite to the opening of schools.
In our observation as a Committee, students and teachers were practicing social distancing. One way of practicing social distancing in light of the adequate shortages of classrooms and infrastructure was to split classes. A class of 40 students had to be split into two and that led to students attending two or three days a week which could have also contributed in the low pass rate in the 2020 academic year for Grade
Seven students.
Madam Speaker, as a Committee we also want to encourage the Government to partner with development partners who may contribute to the construction and provision of infrastructure.
On the issue of water and sanitation, most of the schools did not have running water. What was provided was simply a bucket with a tap having running water where water would just ooze out of that bucket.
So we would want to appeal to the Government through District Development Fund to drill boreholes in our schools as a way of alleviating the plight of our students and teachers.
I now want to turn to the issue of electronic gadgets. It is encouraged for students in Zimbabwe to practice e-learning. We were baffled to observe that very few students had these electronic gadget like smart phones, ipads and computers. It is my sincere appeal to Government and development partners to provide those electronic gadgets to our students because they can hardly afford them. As a result, students in the rural areas will still lag behind in terms of academic achievement.
On the issue of sanitary wear, there is a difference between budget allocation and budget disbursements. Government allocated substantial amounts for the purchase of sanitary wear but to my surprise we observed that most of the funds which were allocated or earmarked for purchase of sanitary wear were not used because of bureaucratic bottlenecks in our systems of government. That money until now has not been fully utilised to purchase sanitary wear. As a result, some development partners ended up supplying the sanitary wear, which was not a good thing in light of the fact that Government had provided funds for the purchase of sanitary wear.
Turning to the morale of teachers, it is a fact that the morale of our teachers is very low. They need to be given some incentives. According to theory of motivation as espoused by Bruner whereby teachers need to be motivated to perform their duties properly - but I am not supporting the fact that teachers should not attend to their duties because they will be violating children’s rights to education. Teachers should continue to work hard but Government should play its role to motivate them through salary increments and also providing them with land which can be used as stands for collateral security if they want to borrow some money. Government can also provide hardship allowance to teachers in rural areas. Teachers in rural areas experience a lot of challenges like poor accommodation. They need to be motivated to remain in those rural areas. It is my clarion call that Government should provide hardship allowances as a form of motivating our teachers to work very hard. Finally, on payment of school fees we want to encourage schools not just to charge fees at their own will but they need to write to the Ministry for approval so that they are given approval letters before they increase fees willy nilly. On that note I want to thank you Madam Speaker for this opportunity.
HON MAVETERA: Thank you Madam Speaker for indulging
- I want to thank the mover of the motion Hon Misihairabwi, seconded by Hon Madhuku for such a very important and pertinent report. I thought I should also add my voice and say one or two issues that I think are also important for us going forward.
The first issue that I thought I should be able to highlight is the issue of sanitary wear. When we look at it, I think it is very much important so that we do not repeat such an incident. If ever there are any procurement committees that have to be set, they need to be gender sensitive and we need to be having women so that at least they know that this is what is required for women. For us to have men buying sanitary wear for women, I feel this is what caused a situation whereby we get panty liners instead of sanitary wear. Going forward, I think we need to be gender sensitive or let it be women actually purchasing sanitary so that we do not repeat this.
Let me also highlight one of the issues which was said which I think is very important, the issue of extra lessons. I think we need to look at this in a holistic way. The issue of extra lessons, that is supposed to be a transparent process. The moment that we continue to be hiding it, that is why you see every now and then teachers will be trying to squeeze it in and yet it is not supposed to be the case. Going forward, we need to make this a very transparent issue and even incentivise teachers for it whereby they can actually enroll and take students within their class so that they are incentivised and taken on board rather than for it to be something which is not allowed. The moment that you continue hiding it then people take advantage of it. There will be a manipulation of the system and therefore that is going to be happening.
On the last budget, we really appreciate the measures that the Ministry of Finance took but the issue of banning the importation of vehicles that are more than 10 years old, as much as it is good for us a country, I feel civil servants will not be able to purchase vehicles that would go in line with the salaries that they get. For them to buy vehicles that are ten years and above what it meant is that they will be able to purchase these vehicles. There is need to put another plan in place that will also incentivise civil servants especially teachers so that they can be able to acquire vehicles. I heard an outcry from civil servants saying that opportunity alone also lessened their ability for them to be possessing cars.
Let me highlight on the issue where the Ministry has to liaise with network providers so that they secure internet connectivity. The reason why we are having a lot of students not being able to access the internet and online lessons is because there is no coordinated approach. What is important is for us to have a coordinated approach when it comes to internet providers whereby they go to the remote areas and they are able to provide for internet connectivity. There is also need for training of teachers. For example the Ministry of Transport introduced a retest for drivers and this is important for teachers because we are moving in a very dynamic environment which has a lot of changes that are happening. It is important for teachers to continue having that training so that they can adapt to what is happening currently.
Madam Speaker, the issue of school fees is also very important. Why would we not charge on a pro-rata basis? If you look at it, this has been said a lot but I feel that it is very important if we are going forward for us to make sure that school fees will be charged on a pro-rata basis. I do not think it will be fair for any parent to be paying for one month but paying the same school fees that they are supposed to be paying for the term. I believe that it will be important for us to have a fee for online lessons and a fee for physically conducted lessons. I think that is also good moving forward. This is a very pertinent issue and I hope we will continue debating it. I thank you.
(v)HON. C. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker for affording me this opportunity to debate on the motion moved by Hon. MisihairabwiMushonga and seconded by Hon. Madhuku. I think what is very important is that we are now in the new era. COVID is here to stay, therefore there is need for us to adjust accordingly. There is need for us to also adapt accordingly. What is very critical is this report is a feeder or an eye opener to the pending reopening of schools in 2021. We need also to highlight that there is recession in Zimbabwe which highlights that Government has to do everything that is practical to ensure that education is provided to all our children. There is SDG 4 which talks about quality education so I am trying to do a balancing act where we are in a new norm and COVID is here to stay with us. It is a global pandemic but we need to reopen our schools.
It is also important that the Committee did some findings and I want to talk about water and sanitation in particular, in Bulawayo. I
visited schools in my constituency and the situation was very pathetic.
There is no water in Bulawayo in particular in Mpopoma-Pelandaba.
The people actually thought I was not representing them because of the problem of water that they continue to face without any recourse of any sort. The Gwayi/Shangani Project was going to be commissioned in 2021 but now it has been pushed to 2022. What does it mean if we are to open our schools come March or April 2021. There is going to be a problem. So, through your office Madam Speaker, I am imploring Government to push the commissioning of the Gwayi/Shangani Project which is going to ease the perennial problems of Bulawayo to commission it in 2022. Let us work on our programme and have plans which will allow us to commission the project in 2021 so that we ease the problems of water in Bulawayo.
Secondly, on PPEs, it happens that last year when exams were being written Madam Speaker, when I visited the schools in particular Misitengi High School and Mpopoma High School, children were coming with First Pack masks. I think Government has to come up with a standard of the PPEs to be given to our children and be interlinked to
Section 27. As I said, Government has to come up with practical measures to ensure that all our schools get these required PPEs. I think if we are able to come up with these PPEs and provide water to
Bulawayo, then it will be good for us to re-open schools in Bulawayo.
I also want to talk about the new curriculum. I think this is the new norm and there is no need for our grade 7 students to write more than seven subjects. Let us revert to the old curriculum because of the new norm. Surely we cannot overburden our students by writing 11 to 12 subjects in this new norm. It is not feasible or practicable.
The other issue we need to consider as well is the issue of school fees. Our economy is not functioning because of the new norm which is the COVID era. There is no way we can say our parents must pay school fees in full. Besides, these schools have hiked their school fees. Surely where will these parents get the money to pay all these school
fees.
On the issue of a research which was done where children said they were prepared to write their exams and the parents were saying they should not write, I think there was need for an actual vote to see how many parents and teachers were saying the children were ready to write exams and how many were saying they were not ready. They were also supposed to go to students and members of the teachers unions so that we become inclusive in terms of how we are making the decision. I thought maybe I can just throw those few points.
Lastly, if these PPEs are given to our schools, there is need to monitor and evaluate because of devolution from our provincial offices who will then monitor whether there is social distancing, enough masks and adequate sanitizers. The moment we will be able to do that, we will be in the right gear to open our schools. Surely schools must be opened in this new norm rather than continue to postpone opening of schools. The result can be a disaster and that is where we will have our children going to school maybe after being impregnated by these old sugar daddies. That is my submission Madam Speaker. I thank you.
(V)*HON. DUTIRO:Thank you Madam Speaker, I want to thank the mover of the motion who is also the Chairperson of the Committee of Education Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga. Most schools are owned by City Councils and these councils have no intention to build the schools. Developments that used to be there are no longer there, they have been destroyed. There is an increase in the number of children but there is no development on school infrastructure.
The other issue is that schools are far away from the community and children are walking long distances. We have ECD children who walk long distances to go to school. If we look back, we used to have what we call per-capita grants. These days we have what we call BEAM and it is our request that we kindly ask the Government to re-introduce per capita grant for the sake of development even to schools in the rural areas.
If you look at the distance travelled by children these days someone will choose that their children board two buses to get to school leaving nearby schools; instead of promoting or developing that local school. Children are travelling long distances to attend far away schools. Government must put a law so that children will go to local schools. Schools used to have 60 pupils in a class but this number has since been reduced because of COVID-19 and a class that was taught by one teacher now needs 3 teachers. We cannot employ more teachers and this is the truth. It is my request that we come together and come up with sustainable resolutions to request the Government to consider hot
sittings.
The issue of sanitary wear is private to our culture and senior teachers are responsible for this in schools. I agree with the previous speaker who mentioned that we now have male individuals who are now responsible for the purchasing of sanitary wear. Let us value our culture and allow women to do that. I thank you very much Hon. Speaker.
(v) HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I will attend to debate and I will debate in English. This is a very important motion that has been presented as a report by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga. I have a few points from the people of Chegutu West Constituency, in particular from the primary schools which they visited as a Committee to appreciate the preparedness in this COVID-19 pandemic. The issue of
ICT cannot be overemphasised. It has been said by many Hon. Members time without numbers, how we can get our children in primary and secondary schools included in information communication technology because the issue of this COIVD-19 pandemic, like a nightmare in 3 dimensions, it has hit us certainly and we need to use what we have to get what we want.
I propose the Executive to ameliorate this issue of the deficit of the ICT and information communication gadgets. I ask that Government zero rate the duty on (part of the speech no recorded due to network failure] ..... inclusion at our borders for importation and this was adhered to in its totality and I applaud Government for doing that and if you went on further to request that there be issuance of sanitary wear in schools and the adherence of the same by the Executive is applauded. I go further and say the issue of sanitary wear comes about because of national duty that our young girls goes through each month, the issue of period pains and so forth is national duty. I say so because no man goes through such a very painful experience. So, it is needful that our girls do not stay away from school and they get this sanitary wear, get it for free and they get the right sanitary wear. How do I propose that it get to be paid for, Madam Speaker, ...
Madam Speaker having exchanged Chair with the Temporary
Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
Order Hon. Nduna, Madam Speaker has moved from the Chair.
HON. NDUNA: Hon. Speaker Sir, good afternoon. I applaud your ICT information communication members from the staff for having put your face on that computer so that I can recognise fully that it is now you who is now on the Chair Mr. Speaker Sir. I am sorry for calling you
Madam Speaker Ma’am.
I will go ahead on the issue of sanitary wear. The issue of Community Share Ownership Trusts should come in to augment and complement Government’s efforts in the provision of sanitary pads and sanitary wear to our innocent and unsuspecting school children, girls in particular so that there is no impediment in their quest to deal with their school issues.
I go further and say that Mr. Speaker Sir, in terms of face masks and protective equipment (PPE), these Community Share Ownership Trusts should also put in resources in order that they provide PPEs for our children so that their quest is just to continue with their school work as opposed to them looking for resources to finance the issue of face masks and other PPE issues.
Mr. Speaker Sir, Hon. Moyo touched on the issue of school feeding. School feeding was started in the Eighth Parliament during the time of Hon. Dr. Dokora. I also add my voice and say, having called for the inclusion or start of school feeding in the Eighth Parliament, I go on to say that there is need to complement such efforts by Government from the private sector in order that school feeding continues if not in the urban areas it should definitely be continued in the rural areas. I say so Mr. Speaker Sir because our children move for more than 10 kms to a nearby primary school and by the time they get to school, they will be so tired and sleepy. By the time they return home, it is after feeding time. It is my hope that they get some feeding at school and also maybe continue on their studies. Our children are tired ad infinitum. They are tired all the time and do not have the opportunity to regain their energy in the absence of school feeding programmes.
I also add my voice in that the issue of Community Share Ownership Trusts and finances from those big conglomerates of companies who are indulging or engaging in mining activities should also channel some of their funds and profits to school feeding programmes and sanitary wear for our children. We owe it to posterity and the future of our generations to thrive, and these are the youths that we hope will be the future of this country.
The fourth point Mr. Speaker Sir, is the issue of certification or documentation of the children both in primary and secondary schools. It has not been difficult for me in my constituency, in particular to get children to go through primary education without any birth certificates or national registration. I have requested all headmasters to take those children on board so that we can deal with the birth certificates at a later stage or maybe after Grade Seven. A lot of primary school children have no birth certificates even when the Birth and Registration Act implores all health institutions that after six weeks or before the expiry of 42 days, every child should have a birth certificate after birth. A lot of children in the rural part of my constituency, three wards out of the 15 that I have which are the rural part of my constituency have no birth certificates because they were not born in any health institution but were born at home. So I implore the Executive to take this opportunity of the lockdown to group these children and issue them with birth certificates either at their place of residence or schools.
The fifth point that I seek to add my voice to Mr. Speaker Sir, as has also been dealt with by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Hon. Moyo, is the issue of teacher attendance to schools and teacher remuneration – that is very key. I know that when it comes to issues of teacher welfare, our current Minister of Primary and Secondary
Education, his heart is on the right place when it comes to issues of teacher welfare and attendance to school. I go further and request that there be non-monetary incentives given to teachers so that they can have their morale upped and they can go to work heads and shoulders high knowing fully that they are going to teach the future of this nation in the form and mold of primary and secondary school children.
Which are these non-monetary incentives that I propose? We have the Mines and Minerals Act that is coming to Parliament which is going to deal expeditiously and without fear or favour, on the issue of claims held for speculation and speculative purposes. Teachers should also get these gold claims so that their morale is upped and they can look for partners to partner them in the gold extraction initiatives.
Mr. Speaker Sir, there is the downsizing of land. Whilst the youth are also benefiting, it is my hope that teachers can also benefit from this land redistribution. These are the non-monetary incentives that I propose that I also ask the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to go into bed with Hon. Dr. Masuka on the issue of land and the
Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Hon. Chitando on issue of mines for the betterment and good service of our teachers. Further, their children should not pay school fees in the schools that they are teaching – it is my proposal.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the sixth issue that I want to talk about is the issue of e-learning. The issue of infrastructure sharing by NetOne, Econet, Telecel and other service providers can actually ameliorate the issue of our children in the rural areas and in other areas on the issue of elearning where there can be improved network so that our children, after getting their gadgets duty free, they certainly can without challenges engage and indulge in e-learning.
I have the second last issue Mr. Speaker Sir,…
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
Yes, you are left with five minutes Hon. Member. Proceed please.
(V)HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I should be done
in five minutes. The issue of school fees as has been alluded to by the Chairperson, Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga should be pro rata. We are in February and an example is from rentals. The rentals that are paid in January and March definitely should be prorated in February to be reduced in terms of the amount and quantum paid because the terms are not the same. So that should be done to schools fees. The heads should be requesting for reduction of fees according to the number of dates attended and this will cascade downwards to what is paid by the parents during this lockdown period.
The last point is the issue of form one places. Secondary schools should publicise who it is that they have recruited or gotten those form one places, otherwise it becomes a place where corruption, cohesion and nepotism gets to be fertile if we are not careful Mr. Speaker. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to vociferously and effectively expose the issues that the constituents of Chegutu West Constituency have sent me to elucidate.
(v)HON. DR. LABODE: I want to thank Hon. Misihairabwi, Hon. Madhuku and the Committee on Primary and Secondary Education for a brilliant report which is on education. Mr. Speaker, in 2018, Hon.
Dokora came to the House and presented a report on the fact that 4 500 grade sevens had failed to proceed to form 1 because of pregnancy. In 2019, UNICEF produced another report which the Ministry of Education had to say the number had gone up. Now in 2019, 7000 failed to go to form one due to pregnancy and we did nothing.
Section 76 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Amendment No. 20 provides for the right to health care services including reproductive health services for all. However, section 35 of the Public Health Act limits this right to health care by requiring an informed consent to a health service from a person with legal capacity which for minors would translate to a parental for a third consent. It penalises any health practitioner who fails to comply with that consent requirement.
Mr. Speaker, National Survey and my observation shows that legal cultural and religious barriers to accessing sexual reproductive services have not stopped any sexual début and increased the sexual activity among the youth in Zimbabwe, those below the age of eighteen. As a consequence, our youth are on the wrong side of sexual reproductive indicators. In Zimbabwe, we have a very high incidence among the youth ending in unintended pregnancies resulting in high school dropouts, child marriages, sexual and gender-based violence, unsafe abortions and all this is caused by denial by the parents, church and legislators that the adolescent children are sexually active and are getting pregnant yet they have no access to information, ability to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies.
This is a huge problem and it is all shrouded in this hypocrisy that we cannot confront a problem or accept that our children are having sex early. The national teenage pregnancy rate in Zimbabwe is – [Technical fault] – which translates to one in every five girls and that unintended pregnancy is the lead cause of school drop-outs in Zimbabwe – [Technical fault] – for 2018. There should be no restrictions in accessing reproductive health medicine by persons below the age of eighteen that includes HIV literacy, HIV testing, treatment, post counselling and sexual – [Technical fault] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Labode, are you there?
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Mr. Speaker for affording me this opportunity to debate on this very important motion by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga. My observation is; the motion was about checking on compliance of schools to the COVID-19 regulations. Of course, other things arose when the Committee moved around but I think the issue centred on this very important mission the team had embarked on.
They observed a lot of things, like our schools had taken heed of providing, though rudimentary, sanitisers in the form of water despite the fact that it was not adequate and were fetching from far-away places but they were doing something towards cleanliness of hands in order to fight COVID-19. We also observed from what the report was saying, that schools had some face masks for the learners, which was an important effort that reflected that our schools were conscientised and responding to the need to fight COVID-19.
I think that we should really applaud our school authorities,
Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for playing a very important role in my own observation, because people up to the age of seventeen, if researches on the internet are correct, in many cases are asymptomatic. They are carriers of the disease if they get infected. Then they take it home to older people, they get infected and fall ill. The effort by the Ministry of Education and the school authorities to ensure that transmission among and in between these children was mitigated was critical. I want to say thank you for that effort. Mr. Speaker Sir, you would also realise that most of the issues that were in the report are pertinent but they have been with us for a long time. Covid is a new phenomenon. Covid is very difficult because in my view, looking at what it has done in the world today and the changes that we see even from the World Health Organisation, it shows that the understanding on this disease has not yet gone to something which we can rely on.
Everyday there is a change.
I was reading yesterday that surfaces are no longer a critical issue in terms of transmission of covid-19 but we were told that surfaces would be one medium of transmission which is critical. You do not have to touch surfaces and you do not wash your hands. One of the researchers says, it depends on amount and it is not critical; invest in the face mask. So there has been a lot but I am happy that we have done something as a country and our schools have responded to that. What is needed now is to find solutions in terms of empowering those schools to do more and reduce transmission through schooling system.
My proposal would be, when I was going to school, there was a subject called Fashion and Fabrics from primary school to lower secondary school. If we were going to buy every school 10 to 15 sewing machines as Ministry of Education, give them the material to sew face masks, we will have more of our children protected thereby protecting the whole population they interact with after leaving school. The issue that we talk about in terms of social distance, surely children want to be close to their friends. They do not understand that there is COVID-19 that kills. What we can only do is to emphasise the cleanliness, emphasise the masks and provide how these schools can have those masks available at no fee. These are innocent children who will contract COVID and pass it on without knowing that they are involved in the whole chain of transmission of the dangerous disease. In my view, it is very important that we try and use the school system and empower them to create their own resources. In my constituency, there are women who manufacture ordinary soap including the powder soap. If we can do that to schools and train the schools to produce the soap, it means there will be more soap available.
My research shows that soap is even more effective than sanitisers because I am reading that there is too much toxicity in sanitisers. Two to three years down the line we may all be in trouble with cancer and everything after using all these things but with soap, I was born and washed with soap and I am still here, no cancer. If we can specialise in things within our means and resources, we can improve the issue around compliance in schools around the issue of covid. This investigation was an eye opener. I am excited that they had those rudimentary ‘sgubhu gear’ where they would ensure that they do not tough. This is empowering. If we can do other things that are sustainable that can be given to schools in a certain form that can be durable, we will improve cleanliness in our way to fight COVID-19.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the issue of the education system, I think there is need of a serious conversation with the stakeholders involved, maybe a serious education reform that will include the Ministry of Education, stakeholders like Civic Organisations, UNESCO and Parliament and parents. The issues that we are faced with, to me are critical. Let me talk about the failed Grade 7 examinations. I was a teacher before. You do not set an examination from where you have not taught a child. If you look at the pass rate which was affected by covid because they had not gone through the syllabi, it shows that teachers or whoever the authority that created the exam papers did not consider what had been done by the children for that term.
What was the intention of setting exams on the stuff that had not been taught to children? ZIMSEC call in teachers from throughout the country, if that is the system they are still using to come up with exam papers. They were quite aware that there was COVID, there were those strikes and the syllabus was not followed to the letter and they then went on to set the exams beyond what had been learnt. Were they sabotaging these children so that they fail? Was it deliberate? We need to look at
that.
The other issue is related to remuneration of teachers. Definitely, everyone would want to be paid well, including Members here. They have been complaining that when we started, we were earning so much and now we are earning so much. The situation is clear and it is there. The economy is not performing and Government pays us and civil servants from what they earn from taxpayers. If they do not have the money, where do they get this money? We come here as Members of Parliament, approve a budget that so much billions are going to the Ministry of Education. They dissect that and tell us what this is going to do. The salaries budget is also there. Mid way they want salary increase, which is true because things would have changed but where does that money come from? Do we want our Government to start paying outside its budget or we want a Government that is following the law? By the way, Budget is a law, it has to be followed. So it starts here, are we allocating enough to the Ministry of Education so that it pays enough to the teacher. If we are not allocating enough, the teachers out there should face their Members of Parliament and ask them why. If we consider education to be very important, why are we not saying the budget should not go through unless we have so much, because we anticipate so much increase throughout the year? If we have not done so, let us go and talk to Government. Honestly, we cannot blame Government but should say we under budgeted, can you come up with a supplementary budget to deal with the teachers’ situation than to blame anybody. Government had proposed a budget and we have approved it. So it means we are insensitive to the needs of the teachers, us as representatives of the people.
In my view, teachers at one point were the most paid civil servants and it was a pride to be a teacher but things have changed. Like I have said, at one point you were paid and you had a certain standard of living as Members of Parliament but the income to Government that then converts to your income has changed. This also has affected teachers, nurses, civil servants, even the officers of Parliament are not earning as much as they would want to earn, given the cost of living out there.
Definitely, we have seen something from mid-last year. Government has tried to do something, to improve the income and benefits of teachers and other civil servants and it must be applauded. We should see that going up as we were promised by Government that they will be trying to do something as we go. They will try to increase the income of everybody under their jurisdiction. We expect that to improve over time. Also, those teachers in my view, we need an education reform programme that I am proposing that we have a new system. Performance based, teachers must – if you go and look at private schools, they pay their teachers in relation to the pass rate. If you are teaching Geography and you have 98% pass rate, you are paid a bonus for that performance. If we can have that in the education reform system, we will have these teachers performing.
Those stakeholders who negotiate with Government, we need
honest negotiations, not political negotiations. We need to negotiate because the issue of Government is as transparent; the budget is there, the Blue Book is there. Everyone knows what is in for the Ministry of Education. So when we negotiate as a union that we would want a certain increase, what are you basing your argument on? Is it because you want that money but you have also to consider where the money is going to come from, so that the negotiation becomes fruitful not like a run flow. I am not defending Government but I am saying as stakeholders, let us be honest because if it comes like it is Government which is not performing when we are all aware – these same unions are consulted by the Ministry of Education…
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA):
Hon. Member, you are left with five minutes.
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you. Every Ministry has got its
stakeholders and they are involved in this, based on the availability of those resources. I think it is very critical that all stakeholders negotiate in good faith so that we do not destroy a generation, as we squabble, fight and disagree on what has to be paid to teachers; what is the pupil/teacher ratio and everything, children must go to school and get the same opportunity that we got. We should try by all means to use available resources.
The chairperson said there are those tents, if they are there and can be distributed to certain schools so that we use them during the interim period as we construct more schools, it is a good move. Members of Parliament as we get our CDF, let us also target construction of schools. When the mid-year comes, let us go to the Minister of Finance and request further support on the CDF so that we build more schools. Let us all participate so that nobody is blamed. We do not want to say we are not achieving our goals because this one has done such. It is the economy, let us have everybody involved; all stakeholders doing their part than having a blame game. I thank you.
(v)+HON. MAHLANGU: If you check at my constituency
the roads are very bad and the teachers cannot travel on those bad roads, hence I do not see it fit for the schools to be opened. My plea to the
Ministry of Transport is to look into the issue of roads in rural areas so that they are passable. The lockdown measures should continue until certain standards are met. Also, learners are not protected at schools, some schools in rural areas have no water, hence it is not safe for them to go to school yet.
On the issue of sanitary wear for the girl child, I propose that the Government should provide sanitary wear to girls and put them in toilets in different schools because the girls cannot afford to buy sanitary wear. Imagine a family with three girls, how can they afford to buy sanitary wear yet they cannot even afford to buy mealie-meal. I will then touch on the issue of e-learning, some of the students cannot afford to buy data bundles so that they can learn online. The less privileged are left out in these programmes because of the issues that I am highlighting. The girl child is highly affected by these problems, a scenario which is increasing challenges of girl children that date old men. They get into such relationships so as to get posh things like cell phones and other items.
My plea is that before the Government looks into the issue of opening schools, they need to look at a lot of things that negatively affected people especially the fact that people cannot get into their normal businesses because of lockdown that has been brought about by COVID-19. Government needs to put in place a payment plan that will make sure that during the time of COVID-19, parents are not forced to pay too much towards school fees. I thank you.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to debate on this very important report that has been put before the House by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga and seconded by Hon. Madhuku. I really want to appreciate the contents and the recommendations of the report which gives the way forward in terms of how we can proceed. I will not belabour the House with so many inputs because most of my points have been taken by other members who have spoken before me and I also want to associate with the recommendations.
I will first touch on children with disability – when you see such a vulnerable category of children being mentioned in the report, it means at the back there is a lot that is happening. You will notice that the Committee did go out to schools but they did not manage to go to all schools. We say this is a sample in terms of what is happening in most of the schools in Zimbabwe. At the end, this vulnerable group will remain vulnerable if they are not taken into consideration. There is need to treat them inclusively with other able bodied school children.
I noted in the report where there was mention of 365 face masks versus 700 that were required – you can see that that is a shift in terms of actually having every other pupil having a mask on the face. When you have children with disability, they cannot clamour for the masks because of their various deformities so they need to be catered for. My call is just to say, we need to impress upon the Government to cater for this particular category so that they participate in the school environment with equal rights and protection as t the other school children who would be in the same classes with them. The approach needs to be biased towards children with disability.
Secondly, on teachers’ working conditions – yes we have talked a lot about this; also accommodation, transport and dressing. A teacher is supposed to be dressed in a tie, jacket and closed shoes but gone are those days. I am glad that a former teacher spoke just before me. A teacher is supposed to be dignified but at the moment, they do not have enough money that can purchase a decent suit. You find them in tennis, sandals or gum shoes because that is what their money can buy. As for the ladies, they are supposed to be in decent costumes but gone are those days. It is no longer a pride to be a teacher because of the poverty. Even in the bars when they go to socialise, there is a huge beer container that is called ‘maheadmaster’ because it is very cheap and that is the beer the teachers can only buy. When society then views the people who are supposed to give us a profession that will take us to the end, then we should look at it.
What am I recommending? I think it is high time that the
Government looks at none monetary benefits in terms of the teachers’ welfare that is for dressing – give them dressing allowance so that they are at least better dressed and they get two or three suits so that they are not looked down upon in society. We cannot have students who are dressed better than their teachers in a classroom. That is pathetic Hon.
Speaker.
I am also recommending that Government can negotiate with financial building societies that can actually offer to construct houses or offer some loans for teachers to access accommodation. That way, we will have teachers that will stay on the job and we will not have labour migration to Botswana, South Africa or Zambia. We have our teachers who have left Zimbabwe for Mozambique. This is pathetic. There are things that we can improve – working conditions for teachers.
Government should continue engaging with the labour unions,
Teachers’ unions, so that we get the dialogue going and get people to agree in a room. What is agreed upon actually becomes binding on the parties. I think it is never too late. Now before the schools open, we can actually foster the negotiation and dialogue that the teacher’s union and the Government can come up with. There are several proposals that I have mentioned in terms of improving the working conditions.
I will not belabour the House on the ICT, it has been dealt with but I think also on the ICT, I worry in terms of children with disabilities in terms of Braille transcriber and access to ICT. We need to look at them with a bias in terms of access to such equipment that will enable them to access e-learning.
Lastly, this is a key Ministry and priority has to be given to it. We need to be strong in terms of the recommendations. We agree and support the recommendations that the Committee has given. No longer is the teaching profession a pride to be associated with unless we do something. As Parliament, we have an opportunity where we interface with the Minister of Education, Minister of Health and Minister of
Finance. I would like to thank the Committee because this has been an eye opener but a lot is happening out there and we need to probe more. I associate with the recommendations.
(v)*HON. PRISCILA MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice on the motion that has been raised by Hon. MisihairabwiMushonga and seconded by Hon. Madhuku. This issue of COVID is very painful. It is a challenge to school children. Where I come from in
Mwenezi, we have a challenge of water during this COVID pandemic. So, we have to investigate especially the paying of school fees in schools. We are saying fees should be paid but pupils spend three months without learning and in rural areas, there is no other way of getting money. Is it not proper that school fees be reduced because children are going to stay at home since parents do not have the money to pay school fees?
I also want to touch on the issue of sanitary wear, our girl children are in trouble. They cannot get sanitary pads but we see that our Government has done well by setting aside funds to help the girl child to access sanitary pads but that did not take place because children in rural areas are still suffering. Is it not proper that school heads should trace how these monies are being handled.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I also want to talk about water. We had good rains in Mwenezi but unfortunately, many schools lost their roofs. Children are expected to go back to school but some schools do not have roofs. What is going to happen? Before we open schools, I think we should assess the conditions of the schools and we should also assess whether schools are getting the resources that they need. If schools do not have infrastructure, how can they have other resources for them to open schools.
I think whatever you are doing, you should also look at areas like Mwenezi which are still way back. They cannot get some of these things. So the Committee should also visit places like Mwenezi. If we look at all areas, you find that people have cellphones but there is no network. I think service providers like NetOne and Econet should provide coverage in all the areas especially in schools and that they get paid by schools. The time that we are now living in means children will be grounded for a long time but if there is network, they can learn using online method. May the service providers and look into that as well? If service providers are included in Government programmes they would also look at those areas which are disadvantaged.
Moving on to extra lessons, you find that many children are lagging behind because they cannot pay teachers the money that they want. Some teachers are concentrating on those children who are able to pay money. I think it should be clear that if extra lessons are supposed to be given, they should be done transparently so that people know how much they are supposed to pay for extra lessons. With these few words, I want to support what the Committee is doing. The recommendations that they made should be closely looked at by the Government so that our children will get good education especially looking at the times that we are living in, during this pandemic, we are in it for a long time. So, in order for us to go on with our lives, we should incorporate all important sectors so as to live with this pandemic. I thank you.
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir, I want
also to add my voice to this report that was presented by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga, seconded by Hon. Madhuku. Mr. Speaker, I happened to be one of the Hon. Members who visited these schools. During our visit, the issue of teacher incapacitation became a song wherever we went. You would find teachers, schools inspectors, district school inspectors talking about it. District Schools Inspectors were saying there is nothing happening because teachers are incapacitated and PDs as well. That means we have a scenario where schools are no longer supervised and all things have been relinquished.
Mr. Speaker Sir, my recommendation is that we need to capacitate the school inspectors. These people can go on the ground and make sure that the machinery is put to order. If these people are not checking on the performance or what will be happening in schools, even if schools are to open, we are going to have a very difficult scenario for our learners. We also observed that the examinations were a challenge to the administrators of these examinations. One of the challenges was the financial backing. When these examinations are prepared, there is no fund that is put aside to administer examinations. Generally headmasters in schools have been surviving by taking money for those classes that are not writing exams. Unfortunately, now with COVID, there were no payments being made by other classes and that is a very difficult scenario for headmasters on administering exams.
I remember in my constituency, most schools had to be bailed out by well-wishers because they could not have these examinations which are taken daily. You collected a paper in the morning, children sat for it and before the end of day, it would be returned. The exercise itself was very tedious and needed some money. Most schools really suffered because of that problem.
Teacher incapacitation also affected the preparedness of our learners, not only examination classes but all learners. The lack of issues which have been taken up; that is ICT, radio, television, I want to say there is a very difficult gadget that is being used here which is the radio.
Generally, these days our children want to see, then hear so that they can learn. If you just have a radio, it is not attractive. Even during our time as learners, a teacher would say, now it is time for radio lesson. All children would get closer and would be monitored. In this case there was no monitoring of the radio exercise at home and our children did not get attracted by that.
We also discovered that, because of the financial challenges headmasters were now forcing the parents to pay school fees in forex. They felt if they were going to get the RTGS. They would not be able to move or engage in school activities. That affected them although they went out of the principles. Heads of schools are not at all supposed to accept forex and because they had no forex accounts, they ended up not receipting.
As a Committee, we also discovered that for learners who had teachers in schools, they ended up having lessons or getting written work by mid-March of 2020. It is now a year gone before those children have had some teaching lessons. So, there is a very big gap and that gap needs to be covered up. That gap again, is the one which has resulted in poor results that we have been told of.
Hon. Speaker, I am appealing to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to go back to what they called PLUP, introduced by Mr. Muzavazi. I think he is still serving as a Director in the Ministry. PLUP means Performance Lag Address Programme where you would have Grade 3 pupils going into Grade 4. There are some concepts or learning skills not covered in Grade 3 that are good for Grade 4 students. Therefore, I wish this programme could be done even for form ones because we have seen that a number of our form ones did not do well. If the programme could be taken then on board, we would have a situation whereby some grade seven material is taught to form one student before they can start on form one work. That exercise might even help those who did not do well because of lack of teaching, to catch up very fast.
So I think that recommendation needs to be taken up.
The issue of pregnant girls – I feel there is need for more education in our communities and psycho-social support because some of these pregnant girls might not want to go back to school. Ministry officials are supposed to visit schools and educate the girl child about the issue of pregnancy so that the pregnant girls are not ridiculed by others. They should feel comfortable to go back to school.
The issue of persons with disabilities was not properly handled from Ministry level because the Standard Operations Procedures themselves that were given to schools in terms of re-opening of schools did not have an indication or anything written about persons with disabilities. People in schools followed that and stuck to what they were given. So I think this was a very big omission by the Ministry.
The issue of repeaters may not only be for grade sevens who are going to Form 1. Many parents are now talking about having their children repeating, whether they are in Grade 2, 3 or 4 because there are certain grade levels where if a child misses some concepts, they cannot go ahead to the next level. This issue needs to be looked into and not to be streamlined to form ones only. The Ministry should put a waiver on the issue of repeating starting from ECD.
HON. MADZIMURE: Hon. Speaker, I have a few issues. Firstly, I would like to thank the Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education for a well written report. As Members of Parliament, we are now looked at in a different perspective after what we said during the debate on the Budget that the funding we are giving to education is not enough.
It is my plea that when we look at funding, we look at per capita, how much are we giving to each child? That can form a very good basis of us looking at how we can improve. It does not matter how little it can be. We must not be ashamed of the amount. It gives us a starting point. So simply generalising issues makes it very difficult for us to find a solution.
We are living in the COVID era and we might have it for some time. The issue of water must be treated as a project. I was looking at my own rough estimation. It takes USD$1 800 to drill a borehole and put casing. Considering that we have many schools we can cluster them. When a ring goes into an area, it then concentrates on schools in that particular area which reduces the cost of transport. Putting of solar DC which is direct from the sun to your panel, to your submissive pump which can be a single horse power and a tank that costs these days $345 because you want water during the day only. You can pump water enough to supply to a school with a cost that is not more than US$5000. If we can concentrate on that – look at it carefully, we can drill a borehole for each school, supply water to the school which can be used for other things like agriculture, nutrition purposes where schools can grow various crops. Let us have it direct because it does not require the issue of batteries and the like. We can supply water to our schools. Some schools are very close to dams. We can use the same system to pump water from dams to schools.
If we are to control COVID, we need to go an extra mile in making sure that our schools are safe. If you look at the cost of treating a person with COVID and what we need to prepare schools so that we prevent COVID, it costs much less to do so than to treat people. If you look at the majority of people who have gone to St. Annes where they are asked to pay USD$2500 as deposit and then the daily charges, you find it so expensive. Why can we not prepare and make sure that we have water for our children so that when they got to school they are safe.
On the issue of PPEs, we have seen on television programmes exhibited as though a lot of our schools are making PPEs. From the
Committee’s findings, they have seen all kinds of face masks at schools – with some that do not even protect the children. Why can we not concentrate on a mask that is suitable for our children so that when they put up a mask, it protects them. This can be done easily by those schools that we have identified, that have got the means to produce. Why are we not doing so? Not only that Mr. Speaker Sir, let us fund some of those organisations that we have already established. If you look at the mask that you are wearing Mr. Speaker, some of these Parliament masks are so effective because they really cover your face and you can talk while wearing such a mask. The problem that we have with these various masks that our learners are putting on is that, they find it very difficult to speak before that mask starts dropping to the extent that the teacher will end up saying; no, no it is okay let it drop and continue talking. Those are the small things that we have to concentrate on.
Our biggest problem as Zimbabwe is that we do not pay attention to detail. We just talk and generalise everything – everything is okay and things are moving fine. The business as usually mentality does not help us. We have to learn a lot from the report. The Committee did a wonderful job for the Ministry and I just hope the Minister is going to come here and give the appropriate response to this work. I am afraid that with the kind of Minister that we have, he does not pay attention to detail. He glosses over issues. We are not blaming anyone. The report proffers solutions but we are helping the Minister. We are also providing another eye that he might not have. Let us not look at the report as undermining the authority of Government or Minister. It is simply highlighting the problems that we have.
If we go recommendation by recommendation, I can tell you if attention is given and paid to those recommendations, we will come up with a super way forward for our children. Every time you have someone going to maternity ward and the solution must be for the future. I want to thank the Committee for doing a splendid job. Let us go through it as Members of Parliament, by helping in our constituencies as far as the report is concerned. Let us share the report with learners and teachers to show that we are concerned. At least if they realise that there are people who are concerned, then they can have peace of mind to say we are sharing the burden. We must share the burden with our teachers.
We must appreciate that our teachers have got a real job. If they do not give a good foundation, what more do you expect? In Shona they say gavi rinobva kumasvuuriro. You cannot expect a doctor from a child who will have gone Form 1 with 20 units. Do you expect a doctor to come out of that child - no? That will not happen. The Minister says it is not the benchmark for you to be admitted to Form 1. It does not make any sense. We all know that at every school selection was based on – apart from the point-system, it is the other means which is corruption. Those are the only two things. Either they use your pass mark or it is corruption.
As much as it is a relationship between the learner and the school which the learner would have selected, it must be disclosed what criteria was used and who were selected. I think parents deserve a closure. My child has five points and he selected three schools and out of those three schools he was not selected. What could have been the reason? It also kills the child and the confidence diminishes. I think it is important that we take the report seriously and we find a way forward. I thank you.
*HON TEKESHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to debate on the motion raised by Hon MisihairabwiMushonga seconded by Hon Madhuku. There are some people who say I work according to how much I get paid. I hear a lot of people crying that a lot of children have failed. A lot of people are crying because of the issue of salaries. Why can the Government not go to neighbouring countries like South Africa or Botswana to see how teachers are paid? Back in the days teachers were known to have a better lifestyle but now even touts are laughing at them because of the paltry salary. My major question is why are we still talking about school fees 40 years after independence? Year 2000 had a vision of free education for all. Where did this vision go? Today those who are fully attending classes are those from well up backgrounds. The have-nots cannot afford to do that. The gap between the rich and the poor cannot be covered because there is no equality.
During the war we were told there would be free education but 40 years after independence there is nothing like that. Given the wealth that this country has, we should be having free education now. Education is a right for everyone but it is only a right for the rich ones. I could not attend to two Parliament sessions when I was in Chiendambuya because there is no network.
Come to think of it, if there is no network how would you implement e-learning? If there was free education we would not be talking about free sanitary wear. This should be basic and accessible to everyone. People should go beyond our borders to see how other countries are doing. We should copy the good things other countries are doing. Let us come together and think twice about this.
(v)*HON. MUTAMBISI: I just want to add my voice to the report given by Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga. Most of the things have been mentioned but I will just say a few that I noted when we visited these schools. One of the major problems we observed in these schools is lack of provision of water for school children. Water was only found upon the entrance but the classrooms had nothing which made it meaningless. During break time, children touch different surfaces and go back to the classrooms without washing their hands. Children were being asked to bring 5 litres of water per child. May the government assist on that issue?
Then coming to the issue of teacher turnout, one of the problems was teacher accommodation. You find that eight teachers are staying in one house. That way there is no privacy for them. This was a school in Nkayi. Given the pandemic this is not good at all. I think government should build infrastructure to enable teachers to have proper accommodation. The other issue is the lack of radio signal in these remote areas. Children cannot access these radio lessons and teachers had to travel to Bulawayo to conduct their lessons at Montrose studios. It is our wish that government increases the number on network boosters in these areas to enable them to have access to information. A headmaster walks 5 kilometres so as to communicate with those in the urban areas.
On the issue of sanitary wear we would like to thank government for their efforts in making sure that schools have sanitary wear. The problem was lack of knowledge amongst school children that there will be sanitary wear in the school. It is our wish that the Ministry makes a follow up on these donations to ensure they have been put to use. The other issue is that of lack of adequate sanitizers in schools. It was our request that these things be found in schools.
Lastly I would like to mention the issue of the school feeding programme. This is a very good programme but there is a problem of relish for these children. Some parents cannot afford to give their children money to buy food, hence they are left to suffer. We kindly ask government to assist in situations where parents cannot afford to pay fees. We are also asking Government to supplement children’s feed at each and every school, this must be uniform for all schools, not that this school is getting vegetables and the other school meat. This is what I wanted to add on as a lot of things have been said. The Government must supply water and help parents by paying school fees and Government must make sure that radio programmes that are meant to teach children reach all areas, even in remote areas and that transmission is available. I thank you.
(V)*HON. RAIDZA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to add my voice to this very important motion. It is a good report which touched on a lot of things. I will touch on the issue of sanitation and the availability of water in schools. This is an important issue especially looking at this COVID-19 era as schools needs a lot of water. We urge the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to work closely with the Ministry of Local Government because it is the one that is dealing with the issue of devolution. The Government disbursed a lot of money to our councils and these councils must supplement Government effort by providing clean water to schools.
Looking at this devolution fund we can see that part of the amount was used in curbing this COVID-19 pandemic. It is our wish that part of this devolution fund be channelled to develop school infrastructure and to help buy some personal protective equipment in schools. Now children are bringing 5 litres of water to school. I have witnessed that in my constituency in Mberengwa where children are asked to bring 5 litres of water to school and this is not fair to our children.
The other issue is on payment of fees. Government said that it will pay school fees in phases until we reach a point whereby our children will go to school for free. Whilst waiting for that to happen, I want to encourage the parents especially in rural areas that they must pay fees. Some of the fees charged, we see that they are very small amounts that are charged so that the parent pays something towards the education of their children. Long back, parents used to sell cattle, sheep, goats and farm produce in an effort to send their children to school. Now you will find that some schools charge as little as 200RTGs per term, parents must make an effort to contribute their part and Government will supplement.
The payment of fees will help the school in buying personal protective equipment like face masks, sanitizers et cetera. For schools that have sewing machines, I was suggesting that Government must give them materials so that they will sew their face masks. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for affording me this opportunity to add my voice on this very important debate, especially in this COVID-19 era.
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker, I move that the rest of the Orders of the Day be stood over until Order of the Day No. 29 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Twenty ninth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence.
Question again proposed.
HON. BHUDA-MASARA: Thank you Hon. Speaker for this opportunity that you have afforded me. I am making a wrap up of the motion that we moved as Zimbabwe Women Parliamentary Caucus in November, 2020 marking the beginning of 16 Days of Activism Against
Gender Based Violence.
Mr. Speaker Sir, on the 25th of November, 2020, the Zimbabwe Women Parliamentary Caucus moved a motion in commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence. The theme for 2020 was, ‘Orange the world, fund, respond, prevent, collect.’ As highlighted in the motion, cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) have been on the increase. The situation has been compounded by the
COVID-19 pandemic that has seen the rise of gender based violence. This can be attributed to psychological, emotional, social and economic factors among others, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Mr. Speaker Sir, allow me to take this opportunity to thank the Hon. Members for debating the motion in the august House. I would be ungrateful if I do not mention the support that was rendered to the motion as well as radio programmes by the male parliamentarians – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – This shows that, as a nation, we are now moving in a positive direction. I would also like to give my heartfelt gratitude to all the organisations that took part in the launch of the 16 Days Against Gender Based Violence.
Mr. Speaker Sir, gender based violence is not a women and girls issue only but includes every member of society. Reports show that 21 women are raped every 75 minutes and the sad reality is that most of the perpetrators are close relatives. This shows that rape sentences are not deterrent enough and need to be reviewed upwards. Therefore, it is the duty of each and every one of us to protect the victims of GBV. Issues pertaining to GBV should be an everyday talk until we begin to witness a decrease in the number of cases.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the issue of One-Stop Centres is a matter of concern. Currently, we only have four centers across the nation that are all run by Msasa Project. The centers are in Makoni in Manicaland Province, Gwanda in Matabeleland South, Gweru in Midlands and Chinhoyi in Mashonaland West. We now call upon Government through its respective ministries to establish more resource centers and safe shelters for gender based violence victims at district levels.
Hon. Speaker Sir, culture is proving to be a major hindrance in the fight against GBV. It is high time we review some of the cultural practices that perpetuate gender based violence. Yes, Zimbabwe is a patriarchal society and in order for us to reduce gender based violence; we need more male champions in the fight against GBV. [HON.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
Hon. Speaker Sir, at this juncture, I would like to once again reiterate the positive role that the Parliament of Zimbabwe played and continues to play in the fight against gender based violence through the enactment of laws such as the Criminal Law Act (2006); Domestic
Violence Act (2007) and the Sexual Offences Act (2001) among others. However, as highlighted above, these laws are proving to be inadequate as reflected by the increase in gender based violence cases. This means that there is need to review them.
Hon. Speaker, Parliament must seriously consider declaring gender based violence a national crisis. Activism against gender based violence must not wait for 25th November; it must be an ongoing process – 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days per year. Hon. Speaker
Sir, allow me to officially close the motion by saying that it is
everyone’s responsibility to end gender based violence. I call upon each and every one of us to take a leading role in the fight against gender based violence.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I now move the motion that this House -
COGNISANT that the Republic of Zimbabwe is signatory to the Beijing +25 Declaration, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the SADC Protocol on
Gender and Development and the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs);
RECOGNISING that Sections 17, 56, 78, 79, 80 of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe provide for gender equality;
NOTING the commemoration of 16 Days of Activism Against
Gender Based Violence Campaign from 25 November – 10 December
2020, being held under the theme “Orange the world: Fund, Respond,
Prevent, Collect”;
DEEPLY CONCERNED by the escalation of gender-based violence cases in Zimbabwe during the COVID-19 lockdown period;
WORRIED about the passion killings, abuse and harassment of women in public spaces;
NOW THEREFORE, in line with the eradication of Gender Based Violence and violence against women and girls (VAWG) campaign, calls upon
- Government to invest in issues of GBV and VAWG through gender responsive budgeting;
- Government to create an enabling environment for data collection and evidence which has always been a weakness in addressing violence against women because more is needed not just the number of the abused but knowledge and data that inform responses, policies and budgets;
- All stakeholders to participate and add their voice to GBV during this year’s commemoration campaign, be adopted.
Motion put and agreed to.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI, seconded by HON.
MPARIWA, the House adjourned at Eight Minutes to Six o’clock p.m.
until Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 24th February, 2021
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER VACCINATION AGAINST COVID-19
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to inform the House that
Parliament has secured vaccines against COVID-19 for all Members of Parliament as advised by the Hon. Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care. The vaccination exercise will be on a voluntary basis. The process will commence today, 24 February, 2021 at Parliament. For a start, the teams will be here today and tomorrow and thereafter, Members will be advised accordingly. Hon. Members are advised to come through the Third Street entrance in the car park and will be admitted one at a time. Please note that the exercise is slightly slow, so Hon. Members should be patient. The vaccination will be done on a phased approach until all Members interested are vaccinated.
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS THE HON. SPEAKER: We have received the following
apologies for leave of absence:-
Hon. Prof. M. Ncube, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development; - [HON. BITI: As always] – Hon. Biti, can you withdraw that statement because the Hon. Minister was here last week – [HON. BITI: He is a permanent ‘presentee’] – Do not be sarcastic, withdraw that – [HON. BITI: I withdraw.] – thank you. Hon. July Moyo, Minister of Local Government and Public Works; Hon. Daniel Garwe, Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities; Hon. Sithembiso G. G.
Nyoni, Minister of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium
Enterprises Development; Hon. Kirsty Coventry, Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation; Hon. Cain Mathema, Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education; and Hon. Dr. Anxious J. Masuka, Minister of
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement.
Hon. Biti having stood up to give a point of Privilege
THE HON. SPEAKER: Not on Wednesdays. You made a
decision that on Wednesdays, we do not have those matters of Privilege.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
(V)HON. MASENDA: My question is directed to the Minister of
Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries, Climate and Rural Resettlement. In view of the oncoming tobacco selling season, is there any policy to protect vulnerable farmers from illegal tobacco merchants who are making rounds buying tobacco from the barns as well as from the fields before it is even harvested? I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you, Deputy Minister? There are two deputies, where are they? They did not send an apology, so ClerksAt-The-Table write them down. Hon. Murwira, are you Acting Leader?
– [HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Yes!] – May you please proceed and
assist us.
THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): Thank you Hon.
Speaker. Hon. Speaker, I wish to thank Hon. Masenda for the question that relates to illegal trade in tobacco by unauthorised dealers.
The Government policy is very clear. This is an illegal activity and Government policy is against illegal activity. Government will work to the best of its ability to acquire resources to make sure that the so called ‘small farmers’, because I do not think that there is a small farmer anywhere; they may have small fields but they are going big on contributions. They are protected and the country benefits from their sweat. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you and as noted by Hon.
Masenda, it is an illegal activity so report to the police.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government and Public Works and if he is not present, I will …
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Do not worry about non-
present, just proceed.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government and Public Works.
Hon. Minister, what measures has Government put in place to ensure
that devolution funds are always released to local authorities? The second part is what is Government going to do about those devolution funds for 2020 that were not released to local authorities?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS (HON. CHOMBO): The devolution
measures are being put in place to make sure that the devolution funds are released. Devolution funds is a constitutional right and they have to be released as and when but it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance to make sure that they are released on time. Also, there is a law that does not allow a roll-over of devolution funds that have not been disbursed by the end of the year. So whenever the end of the financial year is over, the funds that have not been released are turned to the Ministry of Finance.
HON. MAYIHLOME: The issue of accountability or holding people to account, the Hon. Deputy Minister here is passing the buck, pushing the blame to Ministry of Finance. The communities that we represent want their pound of flesh like in the community that I represent, Umzingwane. They want to know why devolution funds for 2020 were not released and I want the person responsible for ensuring that those funds are released taken to account. Who is going to face that community and explain why those funds were not released because the pound of flesh is desired in my constituency?
HON. CHOMBO: When we talk of accountability it is different from the release of funds. We are accountable for the funds that would have been released by the Ministry of Finance, but as far as being accountable for the money that is yet to be released is, it solely lies within the Ministry of Finance. My Ministry is of course responsible and accountable for those monies that would have been released to the Ministry and also downstream to the local authorities. Before its release, it is entirely the responsibility of Ministry of Finance.
(v) HON. MADZIMURE: My supplementary question is: is it not the responsibility of the Ministry to ensure that all the monies that are due to local authorities are disbursed on time in order to achieve equity in the distribution of funds?
HON. CHOMBO: As I said before, it is a constitutional requirement that we release at least a minimum of 5% of the GDP to the local authorities. However, as I said before, the Ministry of Finance determines who gets what. As soon as that money or funds are released to my Ministry, we make sure that they go downstream to the local authorities, so I stand by what I said.
HON. MARKHAM: My supplementary is on the policy of how
projects are identified and my question is specifically which elected officials are consulted when it comes to identifying projects in each constituency or province?
HON. CHOMBO: The identification of projects is done from the community and mind you, these funds are not for consumption but capital expenditure like road maintenance, clinics and boreholes to uplift the livelihood in the community areas.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Minister, the question is who is responsible for identifying the projects to be funded by the devolution fund in local authorities.
HON. CHOMBO: As I said they come from the community. So when we are drawing up the budgets, the local authorities go around the communities or wards with the councillors and they consult the community to come up with the relevant projects that will uplift their livelihood. So the projects are engineered from the local community on the ground through their wards upwards.
HON. MARKHAM: I do not know one councillor in Harare that has been consulted on the 2020 devolution funds.
THE HON. SPEAKER: That is your responsibility as Member of Parliament to attend council meetings constitutionally and in terms of the local authorities as you are permitted to attend council meetings. So find out from them.
HON. BITI: Mr. Speaker Sir, the questions that Hon. Mayihlome has asked about responsibility and accounting, point even to the question of how those funds are distributed. The Constitution speaks of 5% of the Budget going to provincial governance. The problem that is arising Mr. Speaker Sir, is that we do not have the necessary requisite devolution law. The question to the Hon. Minister is why it has taken you more than eight years to come up with the relevant devolution laws so that the questions of accountability asked by Hon. Mayihlome and Hon. Markham do not arise. Where is the law Hon. Minister?
HON. CHOMBO: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. I think in one of the Bills that are coming up, there is one for devolution and definitely we are attending to that one.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you. I think the delay is being acknowledged Hon. Biti and that is why the Bill is on its way to this House. The delay obviously is not in the best interest of our good governance as far as the devolution funds are concerned.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Home Affairs. What measures have been put in place by the Executive to make sure that there is adherence to Section 35 up to 38 of the Constitution that seek to make sure that everybody, children, adults, are documented as citizens in Zimbabwe? After all has failed in terms of that Section; what measures have been put in place to make sure that everybody is afforded documentation, that is, birth certificates and IDs?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS (HON.
MABOYI): I am not ready to answer Mr. Speaker Sir.
The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (Hon.
Ziyambi) having stood up to respond.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Leader of Government Business! Can you please sit down? I needed to hear the Hon. Deputy Minister first – [HON. BITI: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Biti, please cool down. Order, order! COVID-19 can raise tempers. Hon. Deputy Minister, you were saying something.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS (HON.
MABOYI): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I said I am not ready to answer that question. I thought my Minister was here, I am not ready.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Alright. I hear you – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Oh he is here. Hon. Kazembe, you are a critical Ministry. The question that arose was, what is the Government doing to ensure that citizens get their personal identity documents, including birth certificates and IDs in terms of the requirements of the Constitution?
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS (HON. KAZEMBE):
Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the question. Yes, indeed Government is concerned like everyone else is equally concerned that citizens should get their documents as and when they require them. We are in the process of coming up with a strategy – in fact what has been happening of late is that due to COVID, we have not been operating full throttle. We were only issuing burial orders and death certificates but as soon as lockdown is lifted we will be able to start processing birth certificates starting with those that are at the top of the list coming towards the current requirements. Going forward Mr.
Speaker Sir, we have a programme that we are working on which I will be very much pleased to share with Hon. Members after it has passed through the necessary stages. We are working with the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education to try and computerise our operations, to try and improve our efficiency so that it makes life easier.
To be honest Mr. Speaker Sir, there are a number of issues which we were attending to. The first one being that of consumables for passports and we are attending to that one. There is also another issue without beating about the bush or skirting around the subject, we also have the issue to do with corruption that we have to deal with. That we have to deal with and the solution or mitigation is computerisation to remove the human interface between the client and the service provider.
So we are working on that Mr. Speaker Sir. I thank you.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I request Mr.
Speaker Sir, that the Hon. Minister favours the House with a Ministerial Statement that looks at whether the Executive can have a moratorium for those children who do not have parents and those adults who are above 18 years who do not have any documentation but who have failed to go and get that documentation...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. This is question time not debate please. The Hon. Minister’s response is very comprehensive and also further elucidation will occur when we deal with item 26 on the Order Paper .
HON. GONESE: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. I
have raised my hand for the second time and you did not recognise me again.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Is that a fresh question or it is a supplementary question?
HON. GONESE: It is a supplementary question to the Hon.
Leader of the House relating to the original question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Raise a fresh question because
Hon. Kazembe, the Hon. Minister of Home Affairs is around, I do not know how this relates to the Leader of Government Business.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI - MUSHONGA: Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. We may be opening our borders soon. I want to ask whether Government will ensure that people are tested at the border by rapid means, like South Africa is doing, to ensure that we do not have the problems that we had last time when we opened the borders. We ended up letting in people without COVID tests?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank
you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank Hon. Mushonga for the question. Yes, it has got two parts, the one to do with COVID issues but apparently she has addressed a very important point pertaining to border posts. As a Ministry, we are seized now in trying to see how best we can actually enlarge our ports so as to accommodate the numbers and also promote the issue of social distancing. So, I am sure she raised a very important point and we are seized with that in our Ministry. Thank you.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you Mr.
Speaker. I do not think the Minister heard me well. My question is, are we as Government ready to ensure that we make people be tested at the border like South Africa is doing. They do an antigen rapid test so that people do not cross the border without being tested? What plans are in place for Government to do so?
HON. MHONA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I think the
Ministry of Transport only ends on the management of borders, not necessarily the actual testing. Yes we work in conjunction with other stakeholders but our role as a Ministry is to manage the infrastructure at the border. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Deputy Minister of Health,
can you answer that part of the question?
THE HON. DEPUTY OF MINISTER OF HEALTH
AND CHILD CARE (HON. DR. MANGWIRO): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I would like to thank Hon. Mushonga for the question.
About screening of COVID-19 when people cross the border, it starts in South Africa. They have to come from South Africa with a negative certificate for COVID-19. When they come to our border as well, everyone who passes through will be screened for the COVID. Antigen is quite appropriate because it really shows us the particles of the virus in that person or system. So, definitely, we are going to make sure that anybody who crosses over our side is tested with the methods that are standard and fast like the antigen test.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Minister, you are talking of
travelers from South Africa, the question was travelers from Zimbabwe into South Africa, are they tested?
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Yes Mr. Speaker Sir. Before
anyone travels from Zimbabwe, we encourage people to stick to the regulations of the country they are visiting, which if they require an antigen test or PCR test if it is acceptable, we use that. As the
Government of Zimbabwe, we test people before they leave the country, especially when going to the neighbouring countries.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Do we have any
plans to ensure that at the border, we are going to be testing people like the South Africans are testing those that are coming into Zimbabwe. It means we will also make money from that process, why is Government not setting centres where they test people as they get to the border, so that they do adequate testing like South Africans are doing?
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Her question, if I understand it
correctly, is that she is asking whether we can set up centres to test Zimbabweans before they cross the border into South Africa, right at the border. There are laboratories by the border but we do not do it inside the border area. We have Beitbridge hospital and other centres and laboratories close to the border where people can get tested and cross over. To reduce crowding also at the border, we encourage people, if they are coming from Harare, their certificate should be 48 hours ready and we will still accept that. Rather than saying everyone by the border is tested, it will be overcrowded. Imagine travelers within buses, trucks and all those. So the testing can be done around the border, yes but we can also do it in hospitals, laboratories or centres next or near the border.
It does not make a difference, if someone is tested in Chivhu
and still proceeding to the border, it is highly unlikely that the results will have changed that time. So, really setting a point to say a whole bus stops by the border and start testing, there will be overcrowding. In short, everyone crossing over to South Africa must be aware that South Africans require that they be tested and be negative for them to cross over. If we find a Zimbabwean who is positive after being tested, we send them for isolation or to hospital depending on the stage or status of their disease.
(V)HON. GONESE: My supplementary question to the Hon.
Deputy Minister of Health relates to those people who come into Zimbabwe with negative certificates. In view of the fact that there is a window period, I understand that some countries have introduced a system where there is a test on day one, day six, day 8 and day 10 for instance, to ensure that those people might have been negative at the time they would have left their country of origin but during the intervening period, that negative test would have been taken at that point they were on window period. Is Zimbabwe thinking around that to ensure that those people who may have initially tested negative or those who may have used fake negative certificates are traced and identified?
THE HON. SPEAKER: I thought the Hon. Minister had answered the question, that they are working on the 48 hours period for those crossing the borders either way unless I did not understand you Hon. Minister and you may want to answer.
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: As a country, we say we want...
(V)HON. GONESE: I think the Hon. Minister is muted. I cannot hear him.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you.
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: When someone comes from South
Africa, he is treated the same way like everyone else, to say they must have a certificate showing negative COVID test from South Africa.
When they come into Zimbabwe, they go to different regions and areas. We have got teams that will follow them after the incubation period of the virus, which is about 10-14 days. If they are in an isolation centre, by day 10 we discharge them or if they get sick, we send them to isolation centres. In short, we keep track of anybody who has crossed the border into our country whether negative or positive. If they are positive, isolation centres – if negative, quarantine centre or can isolate in related areas but we continue to follow them up to monitor and to make sure that they do not develop symptoms and signs of the disease or they can seroconvert to positivity after they have been negative. So this follow up is very necessary and we do it quite thoroughly.
HON. MARKHAM: My question is directed to the Minister of Home Affairs. My question pertains to Statutory Instrument 25 relating to increase in fines. What is Government policy on the procedure at road blocks particularly with re-introduction of the Form F265 which for the benefit of the House, you were given a form and you were given seven days to pay the fine? If you look at the highest level, it is ZW$5 000.00. There are very few people who can find that amount and drive around in the event of a fine.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (HON. KAZEMBE): I suspect where this
question is coming from. We have heard situations where people are finding it difficult to pay fines at the roadblock because they do not have that kind of money. We are seized with this issue and we are trying to find out how best our citizens can find it easy to pay. We believe all the possible methods of payments should be made available at every point.
By that, I mean people should be able to swipe, Ecocash or pay in cash. The other issue that he has also raised is also something that we will have to sit down and discuss – that of giving people an opportunity to pay after some time. It is not something we have been thinking about at the moment but it is a very valid proposal which we will discuss.
HON. MARKHAM: I have a supplementary question Hon.
Speaker. I would like to thank the Hon. Minister for his frank answer.
However, the issue is very simple. If you do not have the money you are then on your back for payments. It is either you pay in US dollars or pay in Ecocash – both are very open to opening the door to corruption. The fundamental paper work for accountability starts with that particular form, the F265. Once you have got that form, your money is accounted for and you can go and pay at the police station.
HON. KAZEMBE: I thought I had answered the question when I said we will look into the issue with regards to the form but going forward, our long term plans – I spoke about the directions that we are taking, that of computerisation. It is premature for me to discuss it now but I will probably just share some of the things because it has not gone through the processes. We are planning to eventually get rid of these challenges. We are planning to integrate all these systems by computerising them.
This will assist in the event of someone being found guilty at the roadblock, because everything is integrated; all the information is available at the National Data Centre which was commissioned today by His Excellency. It will be possible for a police officer at the click of a button to be able to tell where Hon. Biti comes from and where he can be found. In that case, there is no need for him to pay immediately because they can be traced. Everything will be integrated. That is the direction that we are taking as Ministry of Home Affairs. In the meantime, we will attend to the proposal that the Hon. Member has made. I thank you.
HON. BITI: My supplementary question to the esteemed Minister of Home Affairs is - firstly, the police do not have point of sale machines, the minimum fine is ZW$5 000 and the maximum cash withdrawal you can get from the bank is ZW$1 000. Naturally, you cannot pay. Ecocash has had serious restrictions since the Reserve Bank took the measures it took in July 2020. Therefore, as citizens we are finding ourselves in an invidious position because we cannot pay. We do not have the cash. Hon. Minister, why not follow the law and allow the issuance of tickets so that we can pay after seven days or present ourselves to cour?
Secondly, who actually made Statutory Instrument 25 of 2021 because unlike other Statutory Instruments, it has no paternity? Is it you or the Minister of Finance and you know that there is a court case asking you to clarify whether it is you or the esteemed Minister?
HON. KAZEMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and I would like
to thank Hon. Biti for a number of questions. I will start with the last one, the issue of the Statutory Instrument. He has mentioned that it is before the courts, so it is sub judice, and I will skip it. The other issue he has raised which is very important is that of allowing people to pay in different forms. I thought I had addressed that Mr. Speaker when I said this is an issue that we are seized with currently to ensure that people are able to pay using Ecocash, swipe, et cetera. We are going to look at the form which will enable people to pay later. We have not considered it at the moment but I have admitted that it is a very good input which we will look at and see whether it is something that we can run with. I thank you.
(v) HON. JOSIAH. SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My
question is directed to the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. There are grain deliveries that have been made to the GMB depots but such grain cannot proceed to the wards because it is said there is no money to pay transporters. Considering the need for food among our vulnerable communities during this COVID-19 era, what measures have been put in place to ensure that such grain gets to the intended beneficiaries in time?
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MAVIMA): Let me thank the
Hon. Member for such an important question. Indeed, we have had few logistical problems. The first part is that we have had few instances where some of our GMB depots did not have grain and we intervened with coordination between the Department of Social Development at GMB to make sure that wherever there are deficiencies in terms of grain, grain is quickly moved to those depots.
The second aspect relates to transport money. Government took a very deliberate stance to say we should provide transportation money to ward centres where distribution of grain takes place. There have been a few instances where the release of those funds to the Department of Social Development has been late but I am glad to say most of the time, it is a one week delay and then after that the money is released by Treasury and grain is moved to those centres for distribution.
Mr. Speaker, we have had a few cases where the local leadership has made arrangements for delivery prior to payment and then transporters are paid once the money is released. By and large, we have managed to solve the problems where we have had delays. Generally, funds have been coming regularly from the Ministry of Finance and
Economic Development. I thank you
HON. T. MOYO: Hon. Speaker Sir, I am seeking your indulgence for me to make a request before asking my question. Internet connectivity here in Parliament is problematic. We cannot connect our gadgets since 1200 hours and, it is not like we are born before computers (bbc). We are able to connect them but there is a problem. I think we want to appeal to Parliament staff to upscale connectivity.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Alright, point taken.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Hon. Speaker. My question goes to the Leader of the House. One of the key policies pursued by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education as a mitigatory measure against COVID-19 is the issue espoused in the booklet which looks at the issue of downsizing of classes for Form 1 students. In that regard, we have witnessed schools which used to recruit 100 Form 1 students now being forced by circumstances to recruit 60 students, my question is how sustainable is that policy?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): As we move
forward in reopening schools, we are guided by the WHO guidelines in terms of social distancing and how we should operate. That is the thrust we are following. Should there be challenges, they will be addressed accordingly but in the meantime we cannot deviate if we are to open from WHO guidelines that guide us so that we ensure safety of learners at schools. I thank you.
HON. T. MOYO: What measures have been put in place by the Ministry to ensure that the vice of corruption has been solved because for one to be able to be recruited there is a lot of money going around in schools. As we speak, several students have failed to secure Form 1 places. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I do not think the question arises because you were talking about enrolment numbers and not the issue of corruption. That is a different question altogether.
HON. MAVETERA: I feel that the question was not very much answered by the Hon. Leader of the House. The question is what measures have been put in place considering that now we have reduced the amount of children that each school was supposed to be enrolling? What is it that the Ministry has done to make sure that all children will be able to go to school? As it stands, it means that if Goromonzi was enrolling 100 pupils, now it is enrolling 50 - so what then is going to happen to the other 50 that naturally or traditionally used to been taken by these schools?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. My response was that there are standard guidelines that we cannot deviate from. Every school would then have to determine how they are going to operate moving forward and that becomes a specific question that will deal with how each and every school will handle the situation that will arise because of the scenario that they have to adhere to WHO guidelines and other guidelines as determined by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. I thank you.
HON. BITI: Hon. Speaker, my question is directed to the esteemed Minister of Health and Child Care, Hon. Dr. Mangwiro. In view of the fact that the country has only imported 200 000 Sinopharm vaccines against a population of around 16 million, would it not be prudent that the Drugs Control Council of Zimbabwe registers other vaccines approved by the WHO, the Russian Sputnik 5, Sinovac, Astrazeneca, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson to allow medical aid societies, pension funds, trade unions, big corporations such as Delta and Econet to also import these registered drugs, with the Ministry playing a regulatory role to ensure that our people are safe? I think this supplementary private effort will then help the people of Zimbabwe. I thank you.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): Thank you Hon. Biti for that pertinent question and suggestion. I must say the 200 000 vaccine that were delivered from Sinopharm is just the beginning. We are in the process of bringing more vaccines not only from Sinopharm but we are almost through with registering the Sputnik he is talking about, Sinovac, Indians are also producing their own vaccines. So there are many vaccines that are being registered and the registration process has been made easy, instead of taking three months or so, it is now taking 2 to 3 days if all documents are there. Therefore, we have already registered 3 or 4 already.
Secondly, private players like medical aid societies for example CIMAS and other big corporates like Econet have already approached the Ministry with the wish to help out. As a Ministry, we said they are welcome, they bring in their money, tell us what they want to do and buy through the Government so that all the vaccines that are bought are registered in the country. So we will only monitor to make sure that the vaccines are registered here and that they are going to be kept safely. We are also going to be inspecting where the vaccines are going to be stored or if they want, they can come and pick their vaccines in drips and drabs tubes and give to their CIMAS members or all those people.
So, in short we have registered plenty of them and we are in the process of having applications from other vaccine producers so that we can register them as well. If you have any private company that wants to do this, they approach us and we redirect them to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development who has opened a special account for private people who want to buy these vaccines. We want to make it easy for all Zimbabweans to get it and we will not deny private players. I thank you.
HON. BITI: I thank the Hon. Minister for his answer but I do not understand the logic of the policy that you want Government to be paid the money to do the importation. For everything else in this country including drugs, ARV’s etcetera, private companies are bringing in, even food. The Government should only play a regulatory role to ensure that the drugs that we are brining are registered, safe and are kept in the proper refrigerated conditions. I thank you.
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Yes, it is correct that Government is making sure that things are safe for this new vaccine. We also want to make sure that Zimbabweans get this vaccine for free no matter the level. So the private players, if they want to bring in their vaccines, if there is any particular one that they want that is registered here, they are allowed to bring it but make sure that it goes through Government channels that they then distribute it. If the vaccine is meant for their workers, of course Government workers and nurses will ensure that they monitor and help them roll out these new vaccines which are coming into the country, no matter which ones but what we are saying is that it is Government that will allow them to buy through Ministry of Finance. How they are going to do it and making sure that they give the people free the vaccine, we definitely will be allowing them to but we monitor how they give that vaccine to make sure that it is safely given and kept and that every Zimbabwean is not then put into a position where they have to buy the vaccine or are unable to access the vaccine. The private players genuinely, many of them who have approached us, we have made it clear to them that if they are buying for their workers or members like CIMAS can buy for its thousands of members via Ministry of Finance coffers, then the vaccine comes CIMAS will have the ability and capacity to then distribute it to their workers as long as we make sure that these things are closely monitored. We do not want to miss any Zimbabwean who wants to be vaccinated should get the chance and we make sure that it remains for free for everyone.
HON. NDEBELE: I wish to seek clarity from the Minister, if everyone has to buy through the Ministry of Health, what is the exact policy that his Ministry pursues in choosing the covid-19 vaccines that are deployed in the country to say covid-19 vaccine X can be deployed here. What is the policy followed. What is the hesitancy around Covax - why is it taking us so long to sign up to this facility that ensures that poor countries get access to covid-19 vaccines cheaply?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): I will start with the last one about joining the Covax group. We have already signed for that long ago. Covax group includes all vaccines that are manufactured on earth and have been approved by WHO and has gone through the phases 1, 2 and some 3 and have all been registered and certified by WHO that they are safe. The policy is that before we bring in any vaccine into the country, our scientists must be satisfied that the requirements for any safe vaccine to be brought into the country are met. For instance, they must go through the dossiers for the first phase that was done, second phase and we also cross check with other peers in the world and finally we go to WHO to make sure that vaccine is registered. Whatever country that needs to have their vaccine brought here they are allowed to come in and register their vaccines via MCAZ and then the vaccine can be brought into the country. The most important thing is that our scientists and researchers have to be satisfied that this vaccine is going to be safe for the Zimbabwean population and wait for the next for the next deliveries because we are in the process of making sure that at least 10 million will be covered in the shortest time period.
Most of the buying is not done through the Ministry of Health but done by the Ministry of Finance. Those are the ones who are processing the buying, negotiating prices on how much we are going to get the vaccines. In short that is it, our scientists have to be happy. If anyone from the private wants to buy, they go to the Ministry of Finance and not Ministry of Health because even ourselves we buy through the Ministry of Finance. I thank you.
(v)HON KASHIRI: My supplementary question to the Minister is that do we now have oxygen concentrators in all covid centres around the country. Are consumables like testing kits available?
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: I want to thank the Hon Member for
the question. Oxygen supplies in the country are there, we have producers like BOC – the country has oxygen tanks in tonnes in central, provincial and other smaller hospitals and clinics have got oxygen cylinders that are filled up and ready to be used for the patients who need the oxygen. Oxygen concentrators are also a bonus, they have been brought in several hospitals and they are there and individuals also have those. Oxygen concentrators are there and we really encourage those who can afford them or as Government we have definitely oxygen supplies and we have made sure that we explore any other supplies of oxygen that may not be BOC.
Yesterday we were talking to oxygen producers in Kwekwe, the Steelmakers people, the oxygen supplies are quite safe but oxygen concentrators are a bonus. The oxygen that is required for use on a day to day basis has always been there and it is going to be ramped up like we have done and we have made sure supplies are there in oxygen tanks for bigger hospitals.
HON NDEBELE: On a point of order. I noticed that you just granted Hon Kashiri audience when he was not appropriately dressed. The gentleman had no jacket; this is why I have spoken before in this House that we must put these rules of interfacing on the digital platform in black and white so that they are predictable.
THE HON SPEAKER: Noted.
HON. MARKHAM: In view of the pandemic and the issues we
have got, I have been inundated with a number of businesses wanting to privately import. May I humbly suggest to the Minister that a statement or advertisement be placed on how people can import because all those who can afford it, let them take that burden off the state. Let them import and I do not care who it is. If they are going to pay for it, let them do it.
THE HON SPEAKER: Hon Member, there is no room for
suggestion. You can ask rhetorical question in future. The suggestion is taken.
HON. T MOYO: Thank you Hon Speaker Sir. My
supplementary is that if you allow private players like multi-national corporations to import COVID-19 vaccines, are we not shooting ourselves in the foot whereby we pave way to profiteering by the private players? I thank you.
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Thank you Hon. Moyo for the
question. I said it several times that even the corporates, when they bring in their vaccines via Government, we want to make sure they are bringing in registered safe vaccines into the country. However, private players like Econet are allowed to buy this vaccine for use by its workers for free as is the process and procedure. We are not going to have people who buy the vaccine as a commercial business entity because we are very clear that CIMAS is going to buy its vaccines but the policy is it will be provided to the CIMAS clients for free. So, if the large corporates can buy, it would be good for Government and we encourage it. We would love to have many of them buying and help vaccinate their workers and other people. So, we are not shooting ourselves in the foot because this is for free and the policy is clear to all corporates that the vaccine will be given for free. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: From next week all Hon. Members who
want to ask questions must submit their names to their chief whips so that we are more orderly.
HON. DUTIRO: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement. What is Government policy on providing safe potable water to small centres where councils might not be able to do so.
THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY
EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA) on behalf of THE
MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. DR. MASUKA): Thank
you Hon. Dutiro for the question. It is Government policy that to the best of our ability, we provide our population with safe water and
ZINWA is there to do that. In most centres that are small like that, ZINWA is actually providing that safe water. So, in terms of policy, it is very clear that we want to provide safe potable water to our population wherever they are. The percentage of achievement is another question but the policy is very clear. I thank you.
HON. TSUNGA: The Hon Minister has indicated that the level of achievement is another question and that question warrants a response from the Hon. Minister. What measures have been put in place by government to narrow the gap between what is and what ought to be in terms of provision of potable water as per the dictates of our Constitution? Thank you very much.
HON. MURWIRA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I wish to thank Hon. Tsunga for the question that I seem to have asked myself and he took it. Government’s policy is to make sure that we provide safe and clean water to our people. There are a lot of examples that I can give of what has happened to date. You would know that for example the Gweru City Council has been helped by Government to make sure that they are able to provide safe and clean water. You would also want to know that work has been going on at Morton Jaffrey Water Works to ensure that there is safe and clean water especially in Harare and you would know that at this moment, the Prince Edward Dam has also kicked in to narrow the gap between expectation and capability. So, the issue is that Government at this moment is trying to make sure that we narrow the gap between expectation and effort. Just recently His Excellency, the President Hon. E. D Mnangagwa declared a state of disaster in our roads and service provision which means that these are efforts that are very visible in terms of making sure that we bring service to the people of Zimbabwe.
(v)HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Madam Speaker...
HON. NDEBELE: On a point of order Madam Speaker. I raised the issue that you cannot grant the gentleman an audience as he is inappropriately dressed. If we can respect our own rules, it will help. He needs to put on a jacket. It becomes unfair when the rules apply to this other side of the House and they are not applied to the other.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Ndebele. Hon. Kashiri, please may you put on your jacket. You have to be dressed properly.
(v)HON. KASHIRI: I want to find out from the Hon. Minister, there has been talk around the expenses that are incurred in purchasing chemicals for purification of water which are imported from Zambia into Zimbabwe. The price goes up three, four times. What is the Minister going to do to try and reduce the cost of purifying water?
HON. PROF. MURWIRA: Thank you Hon. Speaker, I want to thank Hon. Kashiri for the supplementary question. The question is on the purification of water. As the Ministry of Agriculture, we are concerned with the provision of bulky water. When it comes to the purification of that water, it is the responsibility of the councils but at the same time, what is very important is to know that the only way this country will be able to reduce the price of the purification of water is to start working on the local provision of chemicals making sure that we are capable of providing the chemicals locally that are used in the purification of our water. We cannot always import these things because we cannot control that price. So, the method which we can use as a policy, is as His Excellency the President has always said, let us do things that we can do locally. So, this is the policy and we believe as we move into this innovation and local production route, we will be able to reduce all the prices that have got a forex component.
(v)+HON. M. DUBE: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare. When Government recruits what measures are they putting in place to ensure that they recruit teachers who speak vernacular languages that are spoken in those communities especially teachers who teach ECD and Grade 1 up to 3?
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MAVIMA): Thank you Hon.
Speaker. I did not hear the question. Can the Hon. Member repeat please?
(V)+HON. M. DUBE: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare. When Government recruit what measures are they putting in place to ensure that they recruits teachers who speak vernacular languages that are spoken in those communities especially teachers who teach ECD and
Grade 1 up to 3? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. NDEBELE: The Minister can understand Ndebele. It is only that the Hon. Member was not audible enough; I understood the question because I have big ears. I think the import of the question is that the Ministry – [HON. MAPHOSA: Can the Minister respond. It is a very pertinent question Madam Speaker] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Maphosa,
please wait, Hon. Ndebele, please help the Minister understand the question.
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Hon. Speaker. He seeks clarity on which policy the Ministry pursued in hiring or engaging teachers recently, teachers that will be tasked with teaching from ECD up to Grade 3, what we call the infancy stage when those teachers are unable to speak the local languages, that is the import of his question.
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MAVIMA): Thank you Hon.
Speaker. This is a question that appropriately would have been answered by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education. It is a question that I can also answer. Government policy is very clear on who should teach at infant level. It states very clearly that those in ECD up to Grade 2 should be taught in their mother language. Hiring of teachers who should teach in the various localities should follow that because these learners should be taught in their mother language at that stage. We start introducing English as a medium of instruction at the junior level which is Grade 3 going forward. I am not exactly privy to how the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education conducted the latest hiring which I understand was concluded a few weeks ago. Government policy is very clear; it is part of the competence based curriculum to say we should teach our learners in the infant module using their mother tongue. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(V) +HON. MAHLANGU: Thank you Madam Speaker. I do not agree with the Minister when he says this is what recently happened. As we speak right now, we have teachers who teach infants who cannot even pronounce the sound ‘nxa.’ So what is the Minister doing to make sure that they make a follow up with regards to those teachers that are teaching ECD to make sure that they teach those students in the languages spoken in those communities? I thank you.
HON. PROF. MAVIMA: The question is not audible to me. I am asking if Hon. Ndebele can help again.
HON. NDEBELE: With all due respect Madam Speaker, I did not
get the direction of the question but I believe it is the same.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mahlangu please repeat
your question.
(v) HON. L. MAPHOSA: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
(v) HON. L. MAPHOSA: I think we had problems with the issue of languages when we resumed the Ninth Parliament Session, it was announced that Parliament has now engaged interpreters. Why is it that whenever an Hon. Member speaks in a language that she understands, there is always a request for another Hon. Member to interpret? Madam Speaker, may we all be treated the same whenever Parliament is in session. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Maphosa,
you have raised a very important issue. I think Parliament
Administration is sorting that out … - [HON. MAPHOSA: Inaudible interjection.] – Yes, it is going to be sorted out Hon. Member.
(V) +HON. MAHLANGU: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Minister
understands SiNdebele.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am being advised that the
Hon. Minister understands SiNdebele but Hon. Mahlangu, you are not audible – maybe it is because of the network.
(V)+HON. MAHLANGU: Let me come again Madam Speaker
Ma’am. My supplementary is that I do not agree with what the Hon. Minister is saying when he is alluding to the fact that these are people who were recently employed. This is something that has been going on for quite some time. I want the Hon. Minister to tell us what measures they are putting in place to make sure that infants are taught by teachers who are conversant with languages spoken in local schools that they are teaching in. If this teacher who is teaching infants cannot pronounce ‘qa’, how possible is it that the same teacher can teach this class without them being conversant in local languages? I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mahlangu, can you hear me? Maybe we lost Hon. Mahlangu. – [(V)AN HON. MEMBER: How can we have a new question without the Hon. Minister responding to a previous question?] – Order, Order Hon. Members, Hon. Mahlangu! – [[(V)HON. MAHLANGU: Madam, I am here.] – You were not audible and also I am being advised that it is not a question but a complaint. Maybe you can put that in writing so the Hon. Minister can respond to your question.
Please Hon. Mahlangu, put that in writing so that the Hon. Minister can respond to your question. You were not all that audible and I am also being advised that it is a complaint and not a question. – [(V)AN
HON. MEMBER: Hon. Mahlangu was very clear and you could hear her. She was speaking very clearly. Can the question be responded to?] – Hon. Members, Order please Hon. Members. Hon. Mahlangu, please put your question in writing so that the Hon. Minister can respond to your question.
HON. A. NDEBELE: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question
also fortunately or unfortunately runs on more or less similar lines. In the absence of the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, I will direct it to the Leader of the House.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: But if it is similar to the
question that was asked before, I do not think you have to repeat it.
HON. A. NDEBELE: But it is substantially different Madam Speaker. It has emerged that most of the IsiNdebele textbooks for the new curriculum are substandard with poor use of the language. In other words, with a plethora of corrupted words.
What is Government policy in ensuring that there is quality control in the selection of appropriate textbooks and that the introduction of the new curriculum does not reverse the gains in the education sector? I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY
EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): Thank you very
much Madam Speaker and I wish to thank Hon. Ndebele for such a very important question.
Education is a very important aspect of society because that is how we become what we want to become. We know that the introduction of the new curriculum is meant to improve the way we do our education by introducing the aspect of being practical, especially even at primary, secondary including at higher education. The aspect of quality is very important. I am sure that the Hon. Member asked specifically on the IsiNdebele language. that there might have been some errors spotted but errors may be in many other languages. So it is a very important question in terms of ensuring that we do our quality checks but quality checks are always a continuous process that we have to do.
In terms of policy, we know very well that Zimbabwe has these 16 languages and every one of them must be very well represented in terms of quality. So, Government policy is very clear. It follows the Constitution and if there are any errors that are noted, if every book that is written is written underneath, any errors noted should be given to a publisher – that is one of the quality checks so that we do our things properly. When things are noticed not to be well, it is very important that they are stated so that they are rectified. The issue is about; do we have a mechanism for rectification? I say, yes we do. Whenever an error has been spotted, it will be rectified.
(V)HON. NGULUVHE: My question is directed to the Minister of
Health and Child Care. In view of the current heavy rains, what is
Government’s policy with regard to malaria control?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): We know definitely with these heavy rains that malaria is quite rampant and is all over. Government policy is; we continue to make sure that we keep our citizens safe by encouraging them and making sure that pools of water do not spread this disease. As Government, we continue to make sure that we provide medication for those who have contracted malaria. We are sticking to prevention and treatment of the acutely sick by giving them what they require and this time we are actually doubling the effort because we know that malaria is much more rampant because of the large amounts of rain that we have received. We are also encouraging that we continue with the awareness programmes that have always been there. We also encourage Members of Parliament here present, that we continue to spread the word of the dangers of malaria, prevention and treatment and that people should visit their hospitals early and be treated. Most of the medicine is well supplied in the hospitals and everywhere. So the policy is straightforward. We need to continue fighting malaria at high scale, particularly that this is a rain season. Thank you.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON.
DEPUTY SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
RELEASE OF FUNDS BY ZINARA FOR COMPLETION OF ROADS
IN KADOMA
- HON. CHINYANGANYA asked the Minister of Transport and
Infrastructural Development to inform the House when the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (ZINARA) will release funds for the completion of the two projects, namely; Bonda Road and Leopold Takawira Street in Kadoma.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Let me
take this opportunity to thank Hon. Chinyanganya for asking this question. Due to the declaration by His Excellency, of the disaster of road infrastructure, all local authorities are to submit their projects for funding. It is therefore up to local authorities to identify their priority projects.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: I want to thank the Hon. Minister for his response. I had submitted the question last year around August, so the funds were finally released last year and those roads were completed.
However, just like he said that the roads are now terrible, I think it is now urgent that Government releases funds to local authorities to address the roads that have been damaged by floods. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your question then?
HON. CHINYANGANYA: When is ZINARA going to disburse
funds to local authorities to address the roads that have been damaged by the incessant rains?
HON. MHONA: Let me thank the Hon. Member for seeking
clarity on that issue of the disbursement and truly with this declaration, we are currently on phase one where we are going to attend to urgent issues which have been referred to by the Hon. Member. As we speak, funds have been disbursed towards that noble cause. So I am sure local authorities are now busy prioritising their roads and the Hon. Member will be seeing works on the ground.
(v)HON. MBONDIAH: My supplementary question to the Minister is; what mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that bridges that were washed away by the rains are replaced or repaired putting into consideration that schools will be opening soon and the COVID-19 vaccine is in our midst which needs to be transported to rural areas?
HON. MHONA: Let me assure the Hon. Member that there are working groups as we speak from the road authorities that are busy and are seized with the logistics. Truly speaking, the first phase will actually take care of the wash-aways so as to facilitate movement of goods.
Thank you.
STRATEGIES TO MITIGATE EFFECTS OF DIVERTING FROM
BEITBRIDGE ROUTE TO KAZUNGULA BRIDGE
- HON. RTD BRIG GEN MAYIHLOME asked the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development to inform the House the strategies that the Ministry has put in place to mitigate the effects of diverting from the Beitbridge route to the Kazungula Bridge whose construction will be completed soon.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank you Madam Speaker. Let me also thank Hon. Brig. Gen. (RTD) Mayihlome for the question. Madam Speaker, Zimbabwe is centrally located and is a transit country for most countries in Southern Africa. The movement of traffic into South Africa from countries such as Zambia, DRC and Malawi has primarily been through Beitbridge, mainly because of the distance to the ports in eastern and south-eastern South Africa. Key to the response is identifying the problems emanating from Beitbridge Border Post and the related routes. As you may be aware, the Ministry adopted a number of strategies which will see a number of projects being earmarked for rehabilitation and upgrading.
This includes the country’s major trunk roads and border posts such as Kazunglua and Beitbridge Border Post located along the North South Corridor. The aim is to increase capacity and movement of traffic in and out of Zimbabwe.
Kazungula Bridge and One Stop Border Post
There are a number of issues at Kazungula, which will need
Government to consider. This includes consideration of the swampy
area at Kazungula, the movement of wild animals in the area, the existing traffic passing through Kazungula and the corridor, the development of similar infrastructure, as Botswana and Zambia and the resultant need to develop a One Stop Border Post. The Ministry is engaging a consultant to carry out a study on the border post and bridge and how Zimbabwe can be part of the project. The terms of reference for the consultant include the issues raised above among other issues such as office space and relevant IT systems for integration purposes.
Beitbridge Border Post
Construction started in 2019 and expected to be completed in 2023. The scope of the project includes the upgrading of the border post with new terminal buildings and commercial facilities, construction of a fire station, upgrading of sewer and water reticulation for Beitbridge Town including a reservoir plant and animal quarantine facility and the construction of staff housing for border agencies. Progress however stalled because of the COVID-19 outbreak as the contractor based in
South Africa could not be on site for the major part of 2020. Once the project is compete, this should be able to streamline operations at Beitbridge and increase the movement of traffic as it normally becomes congested.
Major Trunk Roads
Work is underway to rehabilitate the major trunk roads in the country to become more trafficable and efficient. The Ministry prioritised the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge Road as one of the key roads in Zimbabwe. In addition to the proposed works by the Ministry are the Harare-Karoi-Chirundu Road and the Harare-Nyamapanda Road. These are among other roads the Ministry is working on. As you are aware, the Ministry engaged local companies to work with the department of roads in the rehabilitation and upgrading of the Beitbridge-MasvingoHarare and Harare-Karoi-Chirundu Roads. Current works are being done on the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare Road. Progress has however slowed down due to the rains and the limited workforce due to the covid-19 outbreak.
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Madam Speaker. Could the Hon.
Minister kindly explain to this House why the selection of a South African contractor at the expense of so many experienced Zimbabwean companies that are involved in civils.
HON. MHONA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Let me also thank Hon. Ndebele. It is unfortunate we did not cover the first part of the question whereby the Member was asking for the update on the Beitbridge road. Apparently, we have got local contractors and pursuing the issues of domestic resource mobilisation and trying to empower our people. We are using the available resources within the country. You will find that even the contractors that have been engaged are also local but not necessarily saying that foreign contractors are not good contractors at the end of the day.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question
to the Minister is with regards to restrictions that have been reported in the Press by the Zambian Government on commercial traffic lorries crossing the Victoria Falls Bridge into Zambia. Can the Minister confirm exactly what this is about?
HON. MHONA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Let me also thank Hon. Markham. I think those are hearsays and I am sure as a Ministry we are also trying to look into it, but I cannot respond to the Hon.
Member to that effect of hearsays. Thank you.
DELAYS IN TOLLING OF URBAN ROADS
- HON. BRIG. GEN. (RTD.) MAYIHLOME asked the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development to explain to the House what it is that which is delaying the tolling of urban roads and
Government investment in urban mass transportation systems.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank
you Madam Speaker. Let me also thank Hon. Brig. Gen. Rtd.
Mayihlome for the question. Madam Speaker, at the initial attempt there was no by in from the stakeholders. The programme is being reconsidered. Thus, consultative processes are to commence with stakeholders to be conducting including the motoring public. At the same time, studies will be done on how other countries have done it, how they set up their institutions and how they are managed.
The investment in urban mass transportation systems is very critical and is part of Government’s key strategies for efficient and economic transport systems. The Ministry in one of its strategies in the National Transport Master Plan and also as highlighted in the National Development Strategy (NDS1) identifies the need to promote mass transportation. Mass transportation reduces congestion in the urban areas and at the same time promotes green transportation by reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions. As you may be aware, Government engaged in a drive to capacitate ZUPCO and partner other bus operators to buttress efforts of Government for mass transportation. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, please allow me to check with the Hon. Minister when he intends to expand the toll plaza into and out of Harare along Bulawayo Road. I notice it remains a two way plaza whereas the one in Kadoma is a three-way plaza. – [An Hon. Member
on virtual having said Hon. Ndebele is inaudible.] - I am connected, audibility is a question of network. Please allow me to check with the Minister when he intends to expand the toll plaza in and out of Harare along Bulawayo road as it is frustrating people who are willing to pay money into his Ministry?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank
you Hon. Speaker. Let me thank Hon. Ndebele for that question. With your indulgence Madam Speaker, I still need to consult with my team and then revert back to the House. I thank you.
UPGRADING OF MAWABENI-ESIBOMVU-MBIZINGWE-
BULAWAYO ROAD
- HON. BRIG. GEN. (RTD) MAYIHLOME asked the Minster
of Transport and Infrastructural Development to explain to the House when the Mawaben- Esibomvu-Mbizingwe-Bulawayo road in
Umzingwane/Matobo Constituencies will be upgraded and surfaced?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank
you Madam Speaker Ma’am. Let me also thank Hon. Brig. Gen. (Rtd.) Mayihlome for the question. At the moment the road is on the priority list provided by the Department of Roads and when funding is made available for the implementation construction will start with the identified projects in priority order. I thank you.
CONSTRUCTION WORKS OF THE SHAMVA-GOORA ROAD
HON. BUSHU asked the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural
Development to inform the House:
- When construction works on the Shamva –Goora Road will commence?
- When resumption of work that had stalled on the Shamva-
Nyaguwe Road will resume?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): Thank
you Hon. Speaker Ma’am. I also want to thank Hon. Bushu for the question. Madam Speaker Ma’am, Shamva-Goora Road in the Shamva
district is currently being maintained by the Department of Roads. The activities which can be done on the road are shoulder widening or shoulder gravelling. At the moment the road is on the priority list provided by the Department of Roads and when funding is made available for the implementation constriction will start with the identified projects in priority order.
Hon. Speaker Sir, ZWL$500 000.00 was disbursed towards the Shamva-Nyaguwe Road re-gravelling in 2018. With the availed funds the Department of Roads, Mashonaland Central Province was able to re-gravel 5 km. The project stalled due to lack of funding. The regravelling project will continue as soon as additional funding is made available to the project. I thank you.
*HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I would
like to ask the Minister of Transport in relation to the question he was responding to. Those areas with damaged roads due incessant rainfall which need gravelling and like, local communities are doing this on their own right now because they want to use those roads to ferry their produce to the market.. Can you not assist those local communities by providing funding or resources through local authorities so that they continue working on the roads?
*HON. MHONA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like
to thank Hon. Togarepi for the issue he raised. Every time when there are road works in an area, local people usually come to assist because they value development in their area. He had also raised an important issue of supporting local communities with resources so that they work together with other departments on the road rehabilitation. Committees that are ceased with roads should take Hon. Togarepi’s advice. I thank you.
HON. NDEBELE: Thank you Hon. Speaker. His
Excellency has declared our roads a state of disaster, correctly so and in good time, what has the Minister done in terms of plucking financial loopholes that we learn about year in, year out at ZINARA in anticipation of huge sums of money that are going to be moved through this agent to fix our roads?
HON. MHONA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker.
Unfortunately, I do not know which question are now relating to or you have just opened the floor for discussion. However, let me hasten to thank Hon. Ndebele for that question. Let me assure the Hon. Member that according to the programme that has been put in place by His Excellence, the Emergence Rehabilitation Programme Tool, which is going to be in four phases and the anchor, the funding partner there being ZINARA, the one that he has referred to. I can actually relate to the national policy on monitoring and evaluation, which has been enunciated by His Excellency to safeguard against such malpractices whereby people were just engaging in projects without supervision. I can say now with the NDS1, wrapped together with the national policy on monitoring and evaluation, we are now going to be monitoring the projects. It is no longer an issue of project funds being released and no monitoring mechanism. If you look at eh way the programme has been designed, the first phase, which is going to take about 60 days has been allocated 20% of the fund, which in this particular case, the $400 million. So $80 million is going towards the first phase. Soon after completion of the first phase there will be monitoring and evaluation of the project. I am glad that with the work the Committee will be doing together with the Ministry – I wonder Hon. Ndebele if you are in the Transport Committee. If you are in that
Committee, you will also be engaging and working together with the Committee so that they will also witness what has been done on the ground. I want to assure the Hon. Member that yes, funds were actually flowing in wrong hands previously but with the advent of the new dispensation, mechanism and policies that have been put in place, we now want to emphasise the issue at hand of monitoring and evaluation. I thank you
MEASURES TO ENSURE EXPEDITIOUS REHABILITATION OF
MALFUNCTIONAL MORTUARIES AT PUBLIC HEALTH
INSTITUTIONS
- HON. TSUURA asked the Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care to inform the House the measures being implemented by the Ministry to ensure the expeditious rehabilitation of mal-functional mortuaries at public health institutions.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): We have functional and non-functional
mortuaries in the public health sector. The Ministry of Health has set aside a budget for the refurbishment of the non-functional mortuaries in 2021. Some of the mortuaries require upgrading to meet the demand and we have put in place plans to do phased upgrading and rehabilitation of the mortuaries in the 2021 financial year.
PROVISION OF ADEQUATE PERSONAL PROTECTIVE
EQUIPMENT TO FRONTLINE HEALTH CARE WORKERS
- HON. TSUURA asked the Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care to inform the House whether the Ministry has provided adequate personal protective equipment (PPEs) to front line health care workers including Village Health Workers (VHWs) countrywide during the COVID-19 pandemic era, and if not, to explain measures being taken to ensure a constant supply of PPEs to this key group.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): Continued procurement of PPEs is being
done at national level.
Health education on rationale use of PPE to be continuously given to health workers.
Continued engagement with Ministry of Finance to avail funds to procure PPE on time.
Ministry is advocating for use of Results Based Funding (RBF) funds at clinic level to procure PPEs for clinic staff including VHWs.
COVID-19 RISK ALLOWANCES FOR VILLAGE HEALTH
WORKERS
- HON. TSUURA asked the Vice President and Minister of
Health and Child Care to inform the House when Village Health
Workers will receive their COVID-19 risk allowances and to state the amount to be paid per individual.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): The Ministry of Health and Child Care has disbursed COVID-19 risk allowances for VHWs to all the provincial accounts and the provinces are currently disbursing the allowances to the individual accounts for VHWs. However, some of the VHWs are facing challenges in opening bank accounts. The COVID-19 risk allowance for VHWs is $1.500 RTGs per month and US$75 per month on top of the usual US$45 per quarter.
HON. MARKHAM: Hon. Speaker, I would like to clarify on
COVID allowances. The COVID allowance for nurses in urban areas as well is not being received. Harare and Bulawayo have both received two at the local Government level. This has led to approximately a 100 nurses resigning from the local authority here in Harare. Could the Minister give us assurance that the US$75 is being paid to front line workers in the medical profession?
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: Payments are being directed to the individual’s accounts. If there are any specific problematic accounts or anything, I will be glad to entertain that together with my team at the Ministry.
OVERCROWDING OF WARD 3 BIKITA SOUTH CONSTITUENTS
IN A MAKESHIFT STRUCTURE
- HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE asked the Vice President and
Minister of Health and Child Care to inform the House why people from Ward 3 in Bikita South Constituency continue to overcrowd at a makeshift structure at Odzi Clinic while a new standard clinic which was constructed and completed long back at the site, using the utilisation of devolution funds, still lies idle.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
(HON. DR. MANGWIRO): The construction of a new clinic in Odzi is now complete. The Ministry of Health is currently working on additional room loading and commissioning as well as handover from the Rural District Council. Plans are in progress to open the clinic this year 2021 and the paperwork is being processed. I thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir.
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker Sir, in some rural areas where distances between clinics and communities are still very long, sometimes members of communities decide to use some idle buildings they might have or to build a structure for them to receive basic medical care. Will you be able to supply nurses in such areas?
HON. DR. MANGWIRO: I want to thank Hon. Togarepi for that
question. Yes, as Government, our job is to make sure we reduce the distances that the populace walk to get treatment or get availability of any help they might need medically. It is our policy that if communities work together with our Ministry of Health officials to make sure the structure is built and also that the quality of the building is good and if it needs to be upgraded, it should be upgraded and then we work together and be able to supply personnel since this thing will have been done together with the Ministry of Health, that we can make sure everyone is helped. I thank you.
WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
PROGRESS ON RESURFACING HARARE-MASVINGO-
BEITBRIDGE HIGHWAY
- HON. I. NYONI asked the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development to apprise the House on progress made in resurfacing the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge Highway.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): The
number of kilometers completed to date on Harare-MasvingoBeitribrdge road is now at 153.15 km.
Bitumen World 40 km (184-224km) Bubi section
Fossil Contracting 33.22 km (146.2 -186.2km) Chivhu
section
Masimba Construction 29.33km (241-281km) Chartsworth
section
Tensor Systems
section |
27.10 k. (59.6-99.6 km) Beatrice |
Exodus & Company | 16.3 km (50 – 90km) Maringire section |
DoR Inhouse
section |
7.20 km (56.6 – 59.6 km) Beatrice |
+ (142-146.2 km) Chivhu section | |
Total | 153.15 km |
CURBING OF ROAD CARNAGE ALONG HARARE-
BULAWAYO HIGHWAY
- 8. HAMAUSWA asked the Minister of Transport and
Infrastructural Development to:
- inform the House the measures being taken to curb the road carnage along Harare-Bulawayo Highway, particularly the high accident-prone zone between the Harare Agricultural Showground and White House suburb?
- explain whether the Ministry has any plans to redesign this road stretch?
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. MHONA): The
zone or section has got speed limit of between 60 and 70 km/hours derestriction falls away after White House suburb.
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development
had plans to design traffic circles at each junction but due to lack of funding these developments remain outstanding. The major causes of accidents in this zone are over speeding and road indiscipline. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development will only be able to put rumble strips selectively as a speed reduction measure.
CRITERIA ON SELECTION OF BENEFICIARIES
OF THE COVID-19 CUSHION ALLOWANCES
- HON. HAMAUSWA asked the Minister Public service, Labour and Social Welfare to explain to the House the criteria used to select beneficiaries of the COVID-19 cushion allowances and to further elaborate on the measures being taken to ensure that all eligible persons benefit from this programme and other Government support considering that most deserving citizens from Warren Park Constituency have not yet received anything at all.
THE MINISTER PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF. MAVIMA): I want to thank the Hon. Member for the question. Selection of the COVID-19 cushion allowances is drawn from diverse interest groups such as;
- Local authorities
- Vendors Associations
- Informal sector groups
- Small to Medium Enterprises Department
- Women’s organisations
- Walk-in clients to our district offices
If you have persons whom you feel deserve to be beneficiaries under any of the Government’s Social Protection Programmes, you may refer them to our District Social Development Offices for assessment and possible assistance.
The Ministry is also working with cooperating partners in providing social protection to vulnerable populations through the country. There is also an emergency Social Cash Transfer Programme which is covering Warren Park community. Those being covered under this programme cannot be covered under the Government scheme.
Development and Cooperating partners are there to complement Government efforts. However, some stakeholders do not understand the complementarities between Government and development partners. As a Ministry, we are also working hard to eliminate double dipping in all social protection programmes. Under the emergency cash transfer programme, beneficiaries are entitled to receive USD$12 per head up to four members per household. In Harare, a total of 5 906 households are being covered.
DESIGNATION OF WORK SPACES TO INFORMAL SECTOR
OPERATORS IN WARREN PARK CONSTITUENCY
- HON. HAMAUSWA asked the Minister of Local
Government and Public Works to inform the House when the Ministry will designate work spaces to informal sector operators in Warren Park Constituency in view of the fact that structures were destroyed by the Harare City Council during the COVID-19, lockdown thereby leaving thousands of people without any means for their formal livelihoods.
THE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC
WORKS (HON. J. MOYO): Harare City Council is currently working on constructing smart markets in all the areas including Warren Park that are COVID-19 compliant and meet WHO guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in urban centres. Plans for each suburb have been approved and Public Private Partnership (PPPs) are at advanced stages.
The markets meet minimum health standards.
TABLING OF AUDIT REPORT
ALLIED TIMBERS FORENSIC REPORT
THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE
CHANGE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY (HON. M. NDLOVU):
Mr. Speaker Sir, following the ruling that you made on the 3rd March, 2020, regarding the tabling of forensic audit report. I rise to table the forensic audit report for Allied Timbers, 2015 in terms of the Audit Office Act, [Chapter 2218].
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE
CHANGE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY (HON. M. NDLOVU):
I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 28 on today’s Order Paper be stood over until Order of the Day Number 29 is disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
SECOND READING
FOREST AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 19, 2019]
Twenty-Ninth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the
Second Reading of the Forest Amendment Bill [H. B. 19, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE
CHANGE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY (HON. NDLOVU):
Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to thank you for the opportunity to give responses to the debate on the Forest Amendment Bill. I wish to start by thanking the Committee on Environment and Tourism for conducting informative and interactive consultations and indeed for coming up with progressive recommendations which, I have no doubt, seek to improve the Bill. I also want to thank all the Hon.
Members who debated the Bill and the report.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I will then address the recommendations that came from the Committee as well as the input that came from the Hon. Members. The first recommendation from the Committee is that the Minister of Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and
Hospitality Industry should include guiding principles in the text of the Bill. Mr. Speaker Sir, this recommendation is duly taken note of and I will cause for the inclusion of the guiding principles.
The second recommendation that the Minister of Environment,
Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry must ensure that the Bill includes a person recognised for his/her ability or expertise in human resource management on the composition of the board; I also do not have any objection to the inclusion of this recommendation.
The third recommendation was that the Minister must ensure that the Bill provides for competence based gender balance recruitment on the Commission’s employees. While I do not have any objection to this recommendation, I however believe this is an issue that can be addressed in the guiding principles which we are going to include as part of the text in the Bill.
The fourth recommendation that the Minister must consider the upward revision of penalties that are stated in the Bill in all instances– the penalties that are in the Bill are in terms of the levels that we have seen the Minister of Finance and Economic Development revising upward. While I welcome the recommendations that the levies should be deterrent, we believe that the recent review of these levies have brought in the deterrent sought by the Committee.
Recommendation number 5; the Minister must include a clause that outlines the specific timeframes for appeals. This is an important recommendation considering the devastation occasioned by fires. However, the suggestion for determination of appeals is rather difficult considering that the responsible person maybe seized with other matters similar or otherwise. Therefore, I humbly suggest that the matter be determined within a period of 10 working days. In this instance, the matter may still be determined expeditiously even within the proposed two days or more but the period will not exceed the 10 working days.
So again, it is a recommendation that I have taken on board.
Recommendation number 6; that the Minister must include a clause in the Bill stating the minimum precautions and responsibilities an employee should effect before requiring an employee to use fire for operation - while the Act provides for precautions, specific details will be included in the regulations to avoid overcrowding the Bill.
Recommendation number 7; that the Minister must include a clause to provide for a calculation of an approximate value of forest resources lost during veld fires - Mr. Speaker Sir, again this is an important issue but rather also very complicated. I will therefore, duly consider the best way to proceed but I must hasten to add that this is a complex issue with no quick fix and one that may not be operationally feasible to be included in the Act.
On the eighth recommendation that the Minister must also include a provision on civil and criminal liability - I duly take note of this recommendation. However, considerations to do with civil and criminal matters are competently dealt with in other laws of the land.
Recommendation number 9, that the Minister must specify limits of the search powers given to forest officers to avoid abuse of power - I have noted this concern and will duly streamline powers of the forest officers contained in the particular clause.
Recommendation number 10, the Minister should specify the purpose for which occupants in forest areas may be permitted when making regulations - this matter is noted and will be addressed.
The eleventh recommendation from the Committee was for the Minister to establish a forest levy under the Forest Act that should be deducted from persons who use forest resources for commercial use. This is a welcome recommendation. However, it is important to note that Government approved a tobacco levy which is already being used by the Forestry Commission to implement the Tobacco Wood Energy Project. I however request Parliament to assist with imploring Treasury to give the Forestry Commission further regular budgetary support for forest management.
I now turn to other interventions that came from Hon. Members as they debated the report. Hon. Togarepi; I want to thank him for his comments. However, most of the issues raised by the Hon. Member have already been addressed in my responses above. A number of interventions were made by Hon. Mayihlome and I wish to thank him for his question on how we can derive benefits from forests. On this issue, the Ministry has already commenced a process of quantifying our forest cover to establish our carbon credit which will be sold on the international market for the benefit of the said communities.
I wish to point out that the commercial value of trees is just but one of the many values that society derives from trees. Others of equal importance include ecosystem service value, social value, cultural value, nutritional value and medicinal value among many innumerable benefits.
Concerning accessing benefits of trees by local communities, inhabitants of communal areas are provided with legal access to exploring forest produce for own use under Section 4 of the Communal
Land Forest Produce Act which is also administered by the Forestry Commission.
In terms of establishing exotic plantations in all parts of the country, this is a function of the prevailing growing conditions for such trees in various localities. Some types of trees cannot successfully grow under certain agro-ecological conditions. However, our research continues to explore opportunities for suitable exotic trees desired by communities to be grown in various parts of the country.
Concerning conflicts between forestry and mining operations, Government is seized with the matter and the Mines and Minerals Bill and Statutory Instruments are currently being developed to bring about harmony in mining on protected areas.
Mr. Speaker, I turn to Hon. Dutiro who raised the issue to do with chiefs and headmen which is an important one. Under the Traditional Leaders Act and the Rural District Councils, chiefs and headmen have powers that allow them to be involved in forest matters. In this instance, SectionS 5, 9 and 12 of the Traditional Leaders Act allow chiefs and headmen an important role in overseeing the sustainable management of natural resources including trees. This Act is administered by the Minister of Local Government. It is therefore not prudent to include this in the Forest Act as it is already covered.
Issues on fire management are currently covered under the
Forestry Act as well as Statutory Instrument Number 7 of 2007, the
latter being administered by the Environmental Management Agency also under my Ministry. Some of the issues are already catered for but we appreciate the additional suggestion which we will consider seriously. The disbursement of the forestation fund money to the Forestry Commission is a matter that I am currently seized with and engagements are underway within my Ministry and Treasury.
I want to thank Hon. Nyabani and his observation on educating communities first before punishing them for tree cutting. I want to thank the Hon. Member for the suggestions and observations. Community education and awareness is part of what the Forestry Commission does as part of the extension service delivery. I would appreciate the need for intensifying these. We are also exploring ways of increasing tree planting and ensuring that all planted trees survive. National Tree Planting Day commemoration which was held in December was not only a launch pad for the tree planting season but it has always encouraged the nation to plant trees all year round as long as we can water them and the growing conditions permitting.
I wish to attend to the contributions by Hon Chikukwa whose view is that the Bill should address how to plant medicines which can be accessed legally. We sincerely appreciate the observation by the Hon Member and we will consider an appropriate statutory instrument route to address the proposal.
From Hon A. Mpofu, it is the link between conservation of forests and the need for energy and other forest products to appropriate research on forest issues. Again, I want to thank the Hon Member and this proposal will be taken into consideration.
Hon Masenda’s contribution was that we should legislate a requirement for tobacco merchant companies who contract tobacco farmers to produce resources to prevent deforestation. I want to thank the Hon Member. Mr. Speaker Sir, we have that covered in our current proposed amendment to Statutory Instrument 116 of 2012.
As I conclude, I would like to thank all the Hon Members for raising pertinent issues as well as proffering recommendations with the sole purpose of advancing sustainable management and development of forest matters. It is only with such commitment and dedication that we will continue as a country to progressively realise the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well being as well as the protection of the environment for posterity. I move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: Thursday, 25th February, 2021.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT,
TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY (HON. M. N.
NDLOVU), the House adjourned at Nineteen Minutes past Five o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 23rd February, 2021
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
SWEARING IN OF NEW MEMBERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, we have the swearing in of new Members. In terms of Section 39 (7) (a) of the Electoral Act, [Chapter 2:13], the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), notified the Clerk of Parliament that the following persons, nominated by the MDC-T party to fill the vacancies that occurred among the Party-List Members of the National Assembly, following the recall of the incumbent Members by the MDC-T party on the grounds that they had ceased to be members of that party, have been appointed as Party-List Members with effect from the 5th of February, 2021:
- Hon. Nomvula Mguni, Bulawayo Metropolitan Province;
- Judith Chimwanza, Manicaland Province; and
- Hon. Miranzi Base, Mashonaland West Province
Section 128 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that before a Member of Parliament takes his or her seat in Parliament, the Member must take the Oath of a Member of Parliament in the form set out in the Third Schedule of the Constitution. I, therefore, call upon the Clerk of Parliament to administer the Oath of a Member of Parliament.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN
HON. MGUNI NOMVULA, HON. CHIMWANZA JUDITH and HON. MIRANZI BASE subscribed to the Oath of Loyalty as required by the law and took their seats – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] -
NOMINATION OF NEW MEMBERS TO SERVE IN THE COMMITTEE ON STANDING RULES AND ORDERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: I also have to inform the House that the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders (CSRO) nominated Hon. L. Zemura and Hon. J. Madhuku to serve in the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. MAVETERA: I rise on a point of national interest Mr. Speaker. Let me join the rest of Zimbabwe in commemorating the National Youth Day on the 21st February, 2021 and indeed, this is the fourth anniversary that we had. This is a day which is set aside for your people to be able to realise their importance in this nation. Let me also be able to commend the stance that our President took which reiterated on the burial of the late hero, Cde. Mpofu.
His Excellency went on to say that it is of paramount importance to make sure that we avail land to the young people of Zimbabwe. He said that young people are going to be given a priority when it comes to distribution of land since the land audit like what His Excellency said, has been finished. Therefore, we are looking forward to an expeditious implementation from the aforesaid Minister of Lands and Agriculture to make sure that at least young people are able to benefit from this land.
Hon. Mr. Speaker Sir, we also expect that and also look forward to the Minister in line with the stance that His Excellency Dr. Mnangagwa whereby he said there is no corruption that has to happen in this country and we should minimise corruption. We are looking forward to making sure that there is transparency when it comes to distribution of land. We are expecting that the Hon. Minister will be able to at least publish the aforesaid beneficiaries of this land. We are looking forward to having it as public as it can so that we can enhance transparency and accountability.
We believe that as Zimbabwe we are an agro-based country and indeed, if young people are going to be availed this land, we are going to see young people getting employed through farming. Therefore, we are looking forward to make sure that if there is anything that still needs to be done on the land audit, we are looking forward to the Minister of Finance also making sure that he has to get a budget to make sure that this is finalised and that the young people benefit land. We want to continue thanking our Government’s efforts towards the inclusion of young people’s issues and we so much hope and wish that this is something that we shall always be hearing every time.
HON. BITI: I rise on a matter of importance and national attention. One thing that has been self evident, given the abundant rains that God has blessed us with this farming season; has been the state of our roads and the deplorable condition of those roads, particularly in the countryside, which is in the rural areas where bridges have been swept away and roads have been made impassable.
The issue and the condition of our roads has brought to the fore the issue of even an equal development in our country. More importantly, it has brought to the fore the important outstanding issue of devolution. It has been eight years that the country approved a Constitution which in Chapter 14 of the same enjoins the legislature to come up with a law that provides for devolution. It is sad that eight years after the passage of that Constitution the law providing for devolution has not yet been passed by this august House. What is even sadder is that the Ministry of Finance is actually making our patience in the budget to legislative legally non-existent provincial councils in terms of the non-existent devolution law.
So I implore Hon. Speaker that the Minister of Justice, who is here present, does everything possible to make sure that the country urgently enact the law regarding devolution. It is not about the law per se, it is about development. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: The issue of the roads, I am not sure Hon. Biti had come out of the House when a similar concern was raised to the Hon. Minister of Lands on how the transportation of the bumper harvest would be done because of the poor state of the roads. He did advice this august House that Government had declared a national state of disaster for our roads and that Central Government was taking over the rehabilitation of all our roads, both mainstream and rural, including urban areas. On the issue of the devolution law, the Leader of Government Business should be tabling the Constitution Amendment No. 2 which, among other things, deals with your concern that the law must be in place in order to ensure that devolution sits on a firm legal foundation. So any time from now, the Leader of Government Business should present Amendment No. 2 of the Constitution, among other things.
HON. BITI: Mr. Speaker, I am concerned. You make reference to the Constitution Amendment No. 2 Bill which is a fair point. It touches on devolution, but the Constitution Amendment No. 2 is seeking to amend a law and a process that has not been implemented. Our submission, with great respect is: implement devolution first, you can amend later but implement on the basis of the Constitution as it currently stands. There is nothing that has prevented you for the past eight years from implementing the law as it currently stands, but Minister July Moyo wants to amend first before he has implemented. Implement, then amend. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I think it is a question of logical semantics. It all comes to the same in the sense that my understanding is that the Hon. Leader of Government Business who is the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs will deal with the matter holistically as it affects also other pieces of legislation. So it will be done, I am sure in the shortest possible time. Your concern is noted.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: I move that all Orders of the Day be stood over until the Ministerial Statement from the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education has been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
2020 GRADE 7 EXAMINATION RESULTS
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. SEN. MATHEMA): Mr. Speaker Sir, this is the Ministerial Statement to Parliament on the 2020 Grade 7 Examination Results. The 2020 Grade 7 examinations were written from the 3rd to 17th December 2020 in an environment which was unprecedented in the history of Zimbabwe and the world. This was the COVID-19 pandemic environment that forced the examinations to be moved from the traditional timetable of October to December. No single person or groups of persons knew when COVID-19 pandemic environment was going to end yet the academic lives of our students had to go on. Many nations’ school calendars, including ours responded to the pandemic environment differently by providing learning platforms for children in both electronic and face to face formats. As a nation, we had to make serious decisions to ensure that learners continued with their academic lives.
Certification
The Grade 7 examination marks the end of primary school by measuring what candidates know and are able to do. After this examination, all students are absorbed in the secondary education system because the Grade 7 examination is not a terminal examination but a formative one which gives information to receiving teachers in the secondary school system. Grade 7 examination is graded on a system that has the following nine grades:
Grade 1 – 85% to 100%
Grade 2 – 77% to 84%
Grade 3 – 70% to 76%
Grade 4 – 60% to 69%
Grade 5 – 50% to 59%
Grade 6 – 40% to 49%
Grade 7 – 30% to 39%
Grade 8 – 20% to 29%
Grade 9 – 0% to 19%
Zimbabweans need to know that the Grade 7 examination is not the old standard 6 certification which was a terminal examination that could give candidates/students avenues to professions. The Grade 7 examination in its current form, simply directs candidates, parents and teachers to areas where candidates need assistance in competency development and enhancement in their secondary school academic lives.
Year on year comparability of candidates’ performance
It is important to note that Grade 7 candidate performance has been erratic over a number of years. The year-on-year performance changes because of a variety of reasons which any academic is able to put forward. Some of the reasons academics put forward are:
Access to teachers by learners; favourable economic environment which make parents access resources to support their children in school; and access to electronic learning platforms as the learning environments change.
The table below shows that the 2020 Grade 7 exams pass rate is comparable to some past years.
National Pass Rate 2009 – 2020.
Year | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 20171 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
National
Pass Rate (%) |
20.11 | 25.00 | 28.89 | 31.50 | 32.20 | 38.13 | 41.87 | 42.90 | 44.73 | 52.08 | 46.90 | 37.11 |
Attention needs to be drawn to the performance of Grade Seven examination candidates in the COVID-19 pandemic environment and that of 2009 to 2014 during the time of economic meltdown which affected learning by students. During this period like in 2020, teachers were involved in industrial action (strikes) or were claiming incapacitation to carry out their work. There was no meaningful teaching in some schools. These are the factors that affect pass rates in any country in the world.
Provincial Performance of Grade Seven Candidates.
Comparison of the Provincial Pass Rates and candidates by Gender for 2019 and 2020.
2019 | 2020 | |||||||||||||
Gender | Males | Females
|
Provincial
Pass Rate |
Males | Females | Provincial
Pass Rate |
||||||||
Province | Entry | Pass
Rate |
Entry | Pass
Rate |
Entry | Pass
Rate |
Entry | Pass Rate | ||||||
HARARE | 19 166 | 68.93% | 19850 | 76.03% | 72.52% | 19722 | 62.29% | 20555 | 70.55% | 66.51% | ||||
Manicaland | 24240 | 41.27% | 24485 | 46.71% | 44.0% | 24776 | 32.13% | 25070 | 36.11% | 34.13% | ||||
Mash East | 18690 | 36.10% | 18814 | 42.8% | 39.47% | 18469 | 27.19% | 18228 | 32.85% | 30.00% | ||||
Mat North | 9420 | 24.58% | 10400 | 32.38% | 27.25% | 9071 | 12.56% | 10182 | 18.83% | 15.87% | ||||
Midlands | 19555 | 44.84% | 20897 | 50.57% | 47.80% | 19916 | 33.29% | 21703 | 37.53% | 35.50% | ||||
Masvingo | 19824 | 47.28% | 20892 | 51.51% | 49.45% | 20.408 | 36.06% | 21950 | 40.63% | 38.43% | ||||
Mash Central | 13562 | 33.37% | 14335 | 37.12% | 35.30% | 13421 | 20.87% | 14247 | 24.49% | 22.73% | ||||
Mash West | 18706 | 33.28% | 18591 | 38.14% | 35.70% | 18676 | 24.68% | 18987 | 27.92% | 26.31% | ||||
Mat South | 8807 | 31.19 | 9359 | 46.3% | 38.97% | 8521 | 19.69% | 9353 | 30.25% | 25.22% | ||||
Bulawayo | 6780 | 74.72% | 7074 | 83.69% | 79.3% | 6976 | 61.48% | 7326 | 71.92% | 66.83% | ||||
The table above shows provincial pass rates for the 2020 Grade Seven examinations. Bulawayo province had the highest pass rate (66.83%), followed by Harare with a pass rate of 66.5%. Matabeleland North recorded the least pass rate of 15.87%. Female candidates performed better than males in all the provinces.
Schools with all candidates in Grades Seven to Nine category in all subjects.
The table below shows the number of schools per province that had all candidates in the Grades Seven to Nine category from 2017 to 2020. It can be noticed from the table that Harare and Bulawayo Provinces had some schools with all candidates in this category in 2018 only over this period but all the other provinces had this problem over the years indicated. There are reasons which can be put forward to explain this phenomenon and among them are:
- Infrastructure that support learning at schools;
- Access to teachers by learners;
- Access to learning materials;
- Access to equipment that support the teaching and learning processes;
- Disruption to the school calendar by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The table below shows school per province with all candidates in the Grade Seven to Nine category since 2017.
Province | Total No. of Schools in Province | No. of Schools in 2020 with all candidates in Grades 7 to 9 category | No. of school in 2019 with all candidates in grades 7 to 9 category | No. of schools in 2018 with all candidates in grades 7 to 9 category | No. of schools in 2017 with all candidates in grades 7 to 9 category |
Harare | 230 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Manicaland | 804 | 23 | 10 | 4 | 9 |
Mashonaland
East |
631 | 46 | 10 | 8 | 15 |
Mashonaland Central | 621 | 61 | 23 | 8 | 17 |
Masvingo | 804 | 29 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
Midlands | 724 | 33 | 5 | 5 | 11 |
Mat South | 460 | 43 | 13 | 5 | 12 |
Mat North | 476 | 86 | 20 | 17 | 20 |
Bulawayo | 123 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Total | 5303 | 346 | 91 | 64 | 96 |
In conclusion, I implore Hon. Members to continue to call for more funding for the education sector so that we continue to increase the support which ultimately leads to better performance by our learners. The Ministry on its part, will continue to coordinate all the arms of the Ministry in this endeavour. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Observing what the Minister had told us in his report, I think the results of 2020 is not the issue. The issue I think is the overall – if you look at all the other years that he has indicated with low pass rate, so we cannot target 2020 alone but the whole system of education. The system should really improve performance in Grade Seven if we find results that come out of grade seven to be important, it is important that we overhaul the whole system that gives us those results.
HON. BITI: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. For a country that had pride of place in Sub-Saharan Africa because of its strong education system, as a country, we should be embarrassed. We should bow our heads in shame in respect of 2020 examinations that we can have provinces achieving as low as 15%, some schools achieved zero pass rate and some provinces; this is simply not good enough. Let us address the real issues. The first issue is the disinvestment that we have made to education over the years. When you take out the share of wages to the education sector; the education sector both high and lower primary school education now takes less than 9% of our budget and that is not good enough, once you take away the salaries.
We see this in the physical infrastructure….
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, we are not debating, we are seeking clarification on the Ministerial Statement.
HON. BITI: My question to the Hon. Minister is, why are you allowing a situation where there is disinvestment in agriculture in real terms? Why are we allowing a situation where now education, particularly primary school education, has less than 5% of the budget, once you exclude the salaries. Secondly, why are we not rewarding teachers adequately and in US Dollars to avoid the disruptions caused by teachers exercising their right to strike, which is enshrined in the Constitution, demanding better conditions of service? Thirdly, why is the Minister not working to increase the student text book ratio; why are we not achieving the 1:1 ratio which is standard? Fourthly, why are we not working towards increasing the teacher-pupil ratio which at the moment is a disaster? In other words, why is the Minister not ensuring that there is adequate funding for education because that is a major cause?
Lastly, why is it that teachers are deployed in certain provinces when they cannot speak the languages of those provinces? Surely, that will have an effect on the quality of results. Please deploy teachers who speak the mother language of that area to that area to ensure that we have maximum input and output from teachers. I thank you.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker and let me use this opportunity to thank the Hon. Minister for coming in with the Ministerial Statement.
Hon. Minister, you indicated that Grade 7 is not a terminal examination but we know that it is being used for purposes of enrolling children into form one. As we speak right now, we have parents who have children who are unable to enrol in schools but the basis for that enrolment is the Grade 7 result. It is important for us to then understand why, if it is not terminal it is used as a criteria of allowing the child to go into form one.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, address the Chair, otherwise you end up fighting.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Oh sorry Mr. Speaker – [Laughter.] –Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
The second issue of clarification is for those children that would have failed and are moved on to form one. What happens with them? What we have noticed in the education system is that once they failed Grade 7 they fail O level. We have not heard situations where a child is pushed on to form one and then proceeds to pass O level. What are the interventions that we are putting in as a Ministry to ensure that if a child is pushed into O level even though they have failed, they have proper remedial support to ensure that when they move on to places that are to do with O level they are able to go in?
Lastly, about the message that has been sent to boarding schools – they have been told that for 2021, they have cut in half the number of children that they are getting into school. We are noticing that because it is being done on line, there is no way of knowing. We actually have examples from the Committee, of children that have passed all the subjects but out of the three schools which they are asked to get in online they are told you cannot go in and parents have no idea of what they will do because their first three schools that they have given in have all said no, we cannot take you in. You cannot talk to the headmaster because it is supposed to be on line. You cannot talk to the Ministry to afford you another school for your child to go. What is going to happen with this online where you are just talking to a machine and you have absolutely no idea? As I speak right now, many of the parents have no idea where their children are going to go to school.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Hon. Speaker, did you recognise me?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna, I will rule you out of order. I can see your hand on the chat.
(v)HON. NDUNA: The name that you called sounded like Hon. Nduna. I am sorry.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I seek clarification from the Hon. Minister. I would like firstly to thank him for the Ministerial Statement.
Secondly, I thought the Minister was going to use this platform to dispel the rumours which were circulating on social media. There is a rumour which said that 88 schools in Zimbabwe had zero percent pass rate. Is that true Hon. Minister? I did not hear that in your presentation.
Thirdly, on disparities between rural and urban schools, I have noted that from the presentation that the students who performed better are those in Harare and Bulawayo because the infrastructure is very good. What happens to students who are in rural areas – those that we represent; Gokwe North for example? They do not have electronic platforms. You spoke about electronic platforms, we are in a pandemic and the pandemic is ongoing. As a Ministry, what are you doing to ensure that you are going to bridge the gap between rural and urban schools in terms of performance? What are you going to do about electronic platforms so that students in Hwange, Binga, Dotito and Gokwe North will also have access to internet connectivity so that they can do e-learning?
Finally, quite a number of students performed dismally. It is not an issue of Zimbabwe alone, but it is a global challenge. Yesterday I was watching results for South African students as they were coming out – there was a 5% drop. What then happens to students who did not perform well? Are they going to repeat? Are you going to give them remedial examinations? Are they going to proceed to form one? What is going to be the fate of those students? I thank you.
(v)HON. TSUNGA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and I would like to thank the Minister for his statement. I just have a few issues for clarification as we all realise that there has been an outcry about the examination results at Grade 7 level.
Firstly, it is noted that factors contributing to the high failure rate manifold. My point of clarification is that are these factors as articulated by the Hon. Minister, a result of empirical inquiry or they are unverified hypothesis of assumptions off the cuff?
Secondly, what action is the Ministry contemplating to take to counteract the identified problems?
Thirdly, I noticed that the Ministry has already indicated that exams for 2021 will go ahead but I want to understand if factors contributing to the high failure rate would have been addressed by the time students sit for the examinations this year or we are going to be having the same problem?
Lastly, why is the Ministry considering increasing the number of examinable subjects at Grade 7 level at a time where the failure rate is so high? Is that not going to compound the problem? Is the Ministry not seeing this? Also, what role are teachers unions and teachers associations such as ZIMTA, NASH and various other teachers unions playing in trying to address the problems experienced in schools that are contributing to the high failure rate? I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
(v) HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I just have four points of clarity. The first one that the Minister alludes to is the issue of lack of gadgets or ICT penetration which has actually degraded or not given capacity to our rural learners to actually undertake e-learning on e-platform. I propose to the Hon. Minister that he confers with the gold finger, the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development to reduce or to remove duty on computer gadgets and information communication gadgets so that our children can have these computer gadgets for their online learning, if not for the whole of Zimbabwe…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, why do you not ask questions for clarification?
(v) HON. NDUNA: My question is coming as a proposal on the first one; that there be removal of duty on ICT gadgets to enhance e-learning in order that our children can have good learning platforms for Grade 7 results.
The second question is the issue of the results that the Minister alludes to. Certainly I have been given results of children in other constituencies, but in my constituency because parents have not been able to pay the fees, the kids have not been given those results. Would it be prudent for the Minister to implore the headmasters to release Grade 7 results irrespective of the fact that parents have not been able to pay for their children because of the COVID pandemic? Certainly, the children have written but they have not been given the results…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, you are repeating yourself.
(v)HON. NDUNA: The third and most probably the last one is the issue of Form 1 places, for those that have received their results. For the Form 1 places, secondary schools are basing it on proficiency from 5 to 11 units in the constituency where I come from. May the Minister implore the secondary schools to take children irrespective of their low pass rate? Otherwise a lot of our children will not be able to go to Form 1.
(v) HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. In most rural schools and peri urban schools, there are no teachers to teach even in primary schools resulting in poor results. What is it that the Ministry of Education going to do in terms of ensuring that there are enough teachers in these schools especially in rural primary schools, and peri-urban areas?
During this lockdown, given the situation prevailing in Government schools and council schools, is the Ministry contemplating giving some funds to these schools so that they can buy stationery and books for learners?
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. SEN. MATHEMA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Hon.Togarepi’s questions are similar to what Hon. Biti asked as well. In terms of investment in our education system. Indeed, we need more investment in the education system. More investment not just from the public sector, central government and local authorities, but we also need the private sector to invest in our education system. We have many schools that are privately owned. We also have quite a lot of mission schools, but the bottom line is that we need more investment and therefore, what that means is that the economy has to perform better than it is performing now. The economy has to perform so that there are enough resources that go to education. I cannot debate that one and I cannot deny the fact that we need more investment in the education system.
Having said that, we also need support from the international community in education as well but as long as there are sanctions, we will have a big problem. We already have a challenge because of the economic sanctions that were imposed on our country. We therefore cannot continue with a situation where there is less investment in the economy as a whole, we need the whole economy to rise. We need more entrepreneurs in the system.
As for the teachers being paid in USD - well, that decision is made by the relevant authority, that is the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Let them work on that one to see how feasible that is but it is definitely not feasible at the moment. We cannot pay them as we just said the economy is not performing as it should and we just cannot do that.
As for languages, I could not agree more with the idea that if you are in Tonga Land or in Binga, a teacher cannot speak the local language, especially for ECD. If you are in Matabeleland or even in Chipinge children speak Ndau that side, so, you cannot send a person who cannot speak Ndau there to go and teach ECD children. This is what the Ministry is doing to prepare to make sure that we employ as many teachers as possible, particularly the local teachers. Let us have local professional people working in their own areas.
Indeed, as I speak now, one Hon. Member talked about the issue of human resources; yes we are working on that one as a Government. His Excellency, the President, wants every trained teacher in Zimbabwe to be employed because logically there is no sense in training teachers every year when we do not employ them again in schools.
However, we need more schools at this moment in time, we need at least 3 000 more schools and more teachers. Recently, we employed 3 000 more teachers into the education system.
Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga – yes, the terminal issue, there is no child in this country who has done a grade seven examinations who will fail to go and do form one except that one of the biggest challenges we have is that more and more parents wants to send their children to boarding schools. We only have 24 600 places for boarding schools in this country - both for public schools, mission schools as well as private schools. I have just said that we had over 300 000 learners who sat for Grade Seven Examinations and again we still need more investment both from the public sector and from the private sector so that those parents who want their children to go to boarding schools will let them go.
I would like to see a public school that rejects a child because they failed. Every child in this country deserves to do their Form 1 and it is illegal for anybody to stop them from doing their Form 1. It is their right to go to school.
Hon. Moyo – the issue of the zero pass rate. Madam Speaker, I just read to you the grading system that we have and this is a system that has been there for years and years. A child sits for five subjects and passes with four points in four subjects, in other words the best result and then gets nine points in one subject. The system that we have then refers to them as having failed. We need to sit down as a country and redefine what we mean by zero pass rate. So let us be very careful what we mean by zero pass rate.
As far as I know now; children who sat for their examinations, the two subject areas that they failed in was mathematics and agriculture, the rest of the subjects, particularly the languages, the children got more than 50%.
The disparities between urban and rural school that is a disparity that is there in our country. We have all agreed that Zimbabwe is a mainly agricultural economy but if you look at what His Excellency is doing now – we are moving out of our way to make sure that we urbanize every part of this country. We move to a situation where there should be no difference between an urban school and a rural school in the provision of ICT and electricity. Again, all that is required there is increase in investment in education. There is absolutely no reason why we should continue with the old system that says this is rural, this is urban. As long as our economy moves forward, we are going to achieve that and that is what we are doing.
Madam Speaker, the education system that we have is such that all school officers must look at the grades of these children from grade seven but never stop them from going ahead. They must look at the weaknesses of each child, it does not matter how brilliant a child is, the child still has some weakness. Myself as the Minister responsible must make sure that no child is disadvantageD because of the low grades that they got from grade seven. We should train more and more specialists in each subject area that our child goes through. So we are doing the best we can, hence we are employing more and more teachers – [HON. BITI: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Biti!
HON. SEN. MATHEMA: The subject matter that we discussing is such that all the time the Ministry, Hon. Members and trade unions have to be on their toes so that we all together understand the challenges that we face. If there is research, let that research go ahead and research is continuous whether it is empirical or not as the Hon. Member said, let us do research all of us.
An Hon. Member talked about what the role of trade unions is in Zimbabwe. I work with trade unions, I have met with them, they also have their concerns but let us bear in mind that the trade unions themselves are representing the human resources of the Ministry. So we consult them, we work with them and then we move forward because none of us can do this thing on our own, we have to debate and assist each other. I thank you.
(v)HON. NDUNA: On a point of order! I wanted to hear the proposals that I have put across to the Hon. Minister of Primary and Secondary Education and there were just three of them after Hon. Tsunga’s questions. I thought he was going to respond to me on issues to do with removal of duty on ICT gadgets and recruitment of Grade 7 pupils even though they have not been given their results by the primary schools. Lastly, the issue that headmasters be implored to release the results so that the children get to know what their results are and that the secondary schools be implored to recruit these kids even though they have an astronomical pass rate.
HON. SEN. MATHEMA: Yes, indeed I had omitted the issue of ICTs. Indeed we are working on ICTs in schools because we want children of the future who will stand tall in any part of the world and fly to the moon. That is what we want. As a result, I am working very closely with the Ministry of ICT and Ministry of Energy and Power Development so that we bring ICT education, that is, online learning to every school in Zimbabwe. That is what we are doing.
The issue that no school head must stop a child from receiving their results – let each school head work with the parents or guardians with regard the issue of whether school fees has been paid or not. Every child must actually know their results. I am happy that Hon Members have raised that issue and I will take it up upon myself to make sure that every child in this country receives their results.
HON. DR. KHUPE: I listened attentively to the Hon Minister responding to issues and his report. I have one issue that I would like to add my voice on. Education is the foundation of this country. In order for one to be an engineer they must be educated, in order for one to be a doctor they must be educated. In order for one to be a Speaker of Parliament they must be educated. My problem Madam Speaker is that those same people who are laying the foundation for this country – who are building the foundation for this country are not being looked after very well. The Minister in his report alluded to the fact the other contributory factor to the low pass rate is industrial action by teachers from 2016 up to 2020.
Surely, as a Government, it is important that after realising that industrial actions are contributing to low pass rates of our children, something needs to be done. I would like to implore on the Minister and Government to say please can you remunerate teachers very well because they are building the foundation for this country. We want a strong foundation for this country but as long as teachers are not remunerated very well, we will not have a good foundation, hence the low pass rate in our examinations.
HON. MADZIMURE: If the examinations do not determine the progress path of a child why do we have examinations? If selection of our children into Form 1 is not based on their performance why do we still have examinations? It is common knowledge that Bulawayo and Harare performed better because of extra lessons. Parents have been going very far paying teachers and this is a fact. We have got classrooms at our backyards and that is why we have that pass rate. How is a rural child going to cope with such a well prepared child from Harare and Bulawayo in Form 1? Are you going to assign teachers to deal separately with those children who have performed dismally from the rural and those from urban areas because their levels are not the same? What are you going to do about that?
The Minister also said there is no child who should be turned away because of their performance, what yardstick are these schools supposed to use when selecting?
What plan do you have because covid-19 is here to stay for some foreseeable future? What plans do you have on the learners themselves because we still have problems where some teachers are skeptical about going to school because of the unavailability of PPEs?
What is your plan as far as remuneration of the teaching staff is concerned to ensure that industrial actions are a thing of the past.
HON. MOKONE: Before I ask the Minister I would like to say thumps up to the fact that you alluded to the fact that female candidates performed better in the past examination. With the current pandemic that has led to the revision of teacher pupil ratio in schools, what strides has your Ministry taken to come up with more classrooms in school in order to address that?
We have seen children learning outside their classrooms due to lack of proper infrastructure in schools, are you going to put ICT gadgets outside because the state of Government schools is despicable.
(v)HON. S. NDLOVU: I have three points that need clarity from the Minister. In rural areas we have shortages of classrooms, what is the Minister doing about that?
Most schools are far from each other, that means children walking up to 12 kilometres and here we are talking about more children in ECD, what is Government doing about that as well?
On motivation of teachers, like what the other Hon Member said, teachers need to be motivated so as to teach our children in the manner they do. What is the Ministry doing about it? The last thing is, we are talking about e-learning. How can we talk about e-learning when there is no network at all in some parts of the rural areas? Even here in towns and Parliament, we write and say network has failed. What are we doing about the network because when we talk about e-learning, we are talking about a phone and network? Unless the network issue is looked into, then we are not going anywhere because those in areas with no network will never know about e-learning. If Government could look at issues of phones and try to make them a bit cheaper so that even those in the rural areas can afford to buy the gadgets. When teachers teach our children, no one marks their work.
HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndlovu, you just need to ask your question and not to debate.
(v)HON. S. NDLOVU: Okay, my last question is, what is government doing about network problems? Thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)*HON. CHINOTIMBA: I have four questions. Hon Minister, long ago, we used to make the children repeat when they failed grade seven but currently they are all pushed into form one. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, does the Minister agree that those children who failed should repeat because the children never got proper teaching? Is it possible for Government to chip in and pay fees for those children because the parents had difficulties raising fees for the two terms though they were not going to school. Now if they are going to repeat. they need financial assistance. Is it possible for Government to declare these results a national disaster as they did with roads, then Government takes the responsibility to pay for those repeating because just pushing them to form one is unfair.
My second point is for Government to negotiate with teachers after opening of schools. When schools are closed we never see the teachers trade unions and Government negotiating salaries, so they can start school after all issues are sorted out. If it is done during school time, children lose out because the teachers will not be teaching as they concentrate on issues pertaining to their welfare. What is Government doing to ensure that negotiations are done during school closure? I agree with previous speakers that in the rural areas, we do not have electricity. Government declared disaster on the roads but we also have disaster in ZESA. Our MPs have to travel 10km to 20km to be on zoom when in the rural areas. What plans does Government have to ensure all children can access the internet for e-learning?
THE HON DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Chinotimba, please ask your question only and do not debate.
(v)*HON. CHINOTIMBA: What is Government’s plan in ensuring that there is internet in the rural areas so that all people can access the internet?
*HON. NYABANI: I want to know if the Minister knows that there are some grade seven students who wrote exams but they have still not received their results and they cannot look for form one places. The places are filling up before the children have their results which should be distributed timeously so that all the children are able to look for form one places.
(v)HON. MAHLANGU: Thank you Madam Speaker. I have three questions and my first question is, since 2020 grade seven results were so poor due to COVID-19 and now the Government wants to add another subject. Is it a good idea in this pandemic situation? Secondly, may the Minister explain to the people the issue of fees? It is obvious we have spent two to three months of the term without going to school for the first term. May we have a circular whereby the Minister will explain the way the fees is going to be paid. Lastly, some independent schools with government affiliation are not yet enrolling form ones claiming that Government has not yet approved their fees. What is Government doing about that?
+HON. A. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, I have three questions. Firstly, Hon. Minister, the teachers are earning how much? That is the first question. What are you doing on the issue of salaries for the teachers? What are you doing with regards to teachers’ salaries and also on pensioners. Teachers were a good example of good educated people in the yester years. We loved them as they taught us everything including good hygiene as we were growing up. Today pensioners cannot even afford a sweet, so we need to know what is happening with regards to salaries of those in the teaching fraternity and those receiving pension. We also need to know when we are going to see the end to the misunderstandings between Government and unions. Those who suffer during these misunderstandings are the students.
Let me touch on the results, I am a Member of Parliament for Magwegwe. I refuse Madam Speaker to accept the fact that results in towns are better than those of schools in the rural areas. I would like to highlight the fact that results of schools in the high density suburbs are as bad as those of schools in the rural areas. This is my view and I do not know what the Minister is going to say.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Ndebele, I think you are now debating. Please ask your question.
HON. NDEBELE: I am asking questions at every point, ask those who understand Ndebele. I have not missed a question.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Okay go ahead.
HON. NDEBELE: With your indulgence Madam Speaker, I will proceed. Our results are bad in the high density suburbs, which is an example of the fact that there is a difference between those who can afford and the less privileged. I would want to find out Hon. Minister, how the Government is rectifying this because COVID-19 has made this difference come out clear. If you go to the low density suburbs, students spend the greater part of their time doing e-learning. I also take this back to teachers’ salary challenges, in the low density suburbs, parents are able to pay extra towards teachers’ salaries whereas in the high density suburbs, we are unable to have teachers do extra lessons for our students. So my question to the Minister is, what is Government doing to make sure that all students are treated the same, that is the one in Magwegwe and the one in Hillside? Talking too much does not help us because a continuous analysis of these results shows that Bulawayo is not Matabeleland; therefore, it is not pleasing to celebrate good results for Bulawayo only yet there are bad results for the whole of Matabeleland.
Therefore, Minister do you know of the study that was carried by Lupane State University and Lupane area which showed that out of 381 students in Grade 7, 160 are non-readers. Yes, they wrote Grade 7 exams and you let them go further but these are non-readers. What is the Ministry doing to make sure that our students get to Grade 7 being able to read in a way that we expect a Grade 7 student to be doing.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Ndebele, I am going to read two question which came through zoom chat and I will give the Minister the chance to respond – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – It is okay Hon. Members, I can see you all, Hon. Mpariwa, Hon. T. Zhou, Hon. Makonya, Hon. Dube I will recognise you later. Order Hon. Members, I will recognise you all.
(v) HON. S. SIBANDA: Hon. Minister some of the pupils wrote the examinations whilst sick from COVID-19. Can we honestly expect someone who is supposed to be in hospital to write a life defining examination which will determine where they will have secondary education?
(v)HON. MUNOCHINZWA: Hon. Minister, why is the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education rushing students into writing examinations without proper preparations?
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Madam Speaker. The question from Hon. Khupe on teachers remuneration, I tried to answer it earlier on and said teachers have trade unions and those who do not have trade unions all know what channels to follow when they need to make their grievances to seek higher remuneration. In deed, teachers must be happy at their places of work but there are channels, they all know that the Ministry of and Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and Public Service Commission is there. So, let them discuss those issues in detail with the relevant authorities or offices.
Hon. Madzimure asked a question ‘why have examinations at all’. Like I said, examinations at Grade 7 are meant to show how far children have gone and this is not a new policy, it has been like this for years and we need to discuss. I have no problem with that but that is what policy is. Every child must sit for their grade 7 examination and move onto the next level of education. We will never stop any child who would like to do form 1 upwards and say because you have failed. We do not have any terminal examinations at grade 7 at the moment. That is what we used to do when we did standard 6 ourselves but the situation has changed.
As for the issue of provision of PPEs, Madam Speaker, your schools already are producing PPEs, that is one way of actually making sure that we have enough PPEs for every child, every school employee and every teacher. We have textile technology in schools and science; they are actually producing the PPEs as we sit here. It is one way, not the only way, of making sure that each school has the necessary PPEs in addition of course to the funds from Central Government, Ministry of Finance and Funds from our international partners who are here.
In any case, one of the ideas that we have in the Ministry is that each school needs to engage in some commercial activities and there were plenty of these schools right across the country that are engaged in commercial activities. For instance, Chipindura High School in Bindura, produces milk every day, litres of milk and they have used the funds from that they have made out of that milk to build new classroom blocks, dormitories and many schools across the country. So these are some of the efforts we are trying to make so that each school is able, not only from Central Government, partners but from themselves as well.
Honourable, sorry I could not hear the name, pandemic and lack of ICT; like I said, I am actually working with the Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services on the availability of networks out there – Hon. Minister Muswere and I are working on that one. Hon. Soda, we are also working together to ensure that there is electricity everywhere and where there is electricity and schools are not connected, we are working on that Madam Speaker so that we connect every school. We may be facing challenges at this moment in time that some schools do not have electricity or networks that are working but the idea is that we are moving towards enabling each school to have requisite networks or infrastructure for each school to be able to provide online learning countrywide.
Hon. Ndlovu, the idea is to eventually have a situation where no child walks for more than 5kms to school. We are working towards that and we will achieve it – come rain, come sun. No child must walk for more than 5kms to school. These are our children and we want them to get to classrooms when they are already tired. We are moving towards removing that.
Hon. Chinotimba, again, it is virtually the same question that has been asked by other Hon. Members. We will do everything to make sure that every child accesses what they are supposed to access and as demanded by the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Again, it still rotates or revolves around the economy – on what the economic situation is out there Madam Speaker.
Hon. Nyabani on Grade Seven results, like I said before, every parent whose child has not received their results must get in touch with me. We do not want a child to suffer because the parent or guardian is unable to pay what they are supposed to pay. We will work around these issues and discuss together.
Hon. Mahlangu, we cannot have a situation where we are proud that a child is unable to proceed to Form One. Every child in this country must go to school, whether they have the fees or not. We have Government funds, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare will assist every child in this country, those who come from vulnerable families to go to school. I would want to see a child who has failed to go to school because they cannot afford to pay school fees; Government is paying for that.
Hon. Ndebele, again he is repeating what other Hon. Members have said. We will do everything we can except that you brought in the issue of comparing results in high and low density suburbs. Like I said, we will do everything to make sure that every child is given the opportunity to sit for examinations whether they are in rural areas, high or low density suburbs. That, we will do. Again, the bottom line like everything in life Madam Speaker, is based on the economy of the country and on how other countries treat our country. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Members, let us avoid repeating questions that have already been asked by other Hon. Members. Please, may we listen carefully when other Hon. Members are asking questions so that we avoid repetitions?
HON. DR. NYASHANU: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am, I just have a point of clarification that I am seeking from the Hon. Minister. Hon. Minister, what is your Ministry doing about school administration that is failing to manage the affairs of schools?
There is a general laxity especially in rural areas. When you visit a school, you will find that children are not being taken care of, they are just roaming all over the grounds. When you try to find out what is happening, you will find that there is no teacher looking after those children. What is your Ministry doing to ensure that there is discipline in teachers? I understand that there could be those grievances that teachers are bringing forward to your Ministry, to say possibly they are not receiving enough salaries but the discipline on the ground causes a lot in terms of managing schools. Thank you.
(V)HON. SARUWAKA: Thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am. My first point is; I want to know from the Hon. Minister whether he was surprised by the 2020 poor results or not? Were the Hon. Minister and the Ministry surprised that the results came out as badly as they were? Was he expecting any different results or miracles after the breakdown in communication between his Ministry and the teachers over the command education system that his Ministry has pursued in dealing with genuine grievances aired by teachers? The question is - was he surprised?
The second question Madam Speaker Ma’am is that I have never heard the Hon. Minister speaking on the improvement of teachers’ welfare. When is the Hon. Minister going to stand for and with the teachers instead of turning against them? This particular question is motivated by him always …
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! Hon. Hamauswa, may you kindly mute your gadget?
(V)HON. SARUWAKA: My last point Madam Speaker Ma’am is, I heard the Hon. Minister saying that all teachers are commanded to release results without delay so that school children can continue with their education. The flip side that I want the Hon. Minister to explain is, with such a scenario, which parent is going to pay fees? Which parent is going to be motivated to pay fees when those who have not paid will not face any challenges with their children continuing with school?
In that case, is Government taking over or proposing to take over the paying of fees so that we do not have a situation where other parents will start refusing paying fees because there are no repercussions so as to speak, just like what happened in local government where those who did not pay rates were pardoned and it caused other rate payers not to pay. My question is; for education, is this not a populistic stance to say all those schools that are not releasing must release immediately without offering to finance education in those schools? Those are points for clarification Madam Speaker.
(V)HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Hon. Madam Speaker. I am not sure as to whether or not these questions have already been asked but I hope they were not. I just want to find out from the Hon. Minister what the level of preparedness is so as to redress a repeat of such results? Between the Minister and the teachers union, has he actually tried to engage them so that they can usher in issues to improve staff moral and working conditions because these also contribute to the performance at work and the results of the pupils.
(v) *HON.T. ZHOU: My question to the Minister is with regards to our S.I pertaining to the lockdown which states that all schools will be opened. I represent Mberengwa North Constituency and the community has no means of obtaining basic goods but in urban areas those ATS schools are doing online lessons and still sit for the same examinations as rural students. Pupils who pass are those who have access to online lessons. Those in the rural areas, because of the digital divide have no access to education. Does the law apply selectively? Is there a law for the elite and the poor?
(v)* HON. MAKONYA: Minister, what measures are you putting in place with regards to those schools that are enrolling only students that did very well, that is mostly up to ten units at Grade Seven leaving those that did not yet it is not their fault because of COVID-19 challenges? What are you going to do as a Ministry to ensure these children continue with their education?
HON. MAYIHLOME: My question to the Hon. Minister is that, given the policy that every child should proceed to Form One regardless of the performance at Grade Seven, has your Ministry done any study to see where these non-readers who fail Grade Seven end up after going through four years of secondary education. What are we creating as a nation? What kind of people are we producing? Is it worthwhile to continue with a policy that even non-readers will just go on and on to study things that they do not understand because they cannot even read at Grade Seven level. That is in addition to questions that have been asked previously but I think that point is important so that a study is done to see whether this policy is effective or worthwhile.
*HON. MAVETERA: My first question is with regards to satellite schools to say, why is it taking too long to have these schools approved by the Ministry so that we can have more children writing examinations? I would like to plead with you to look into that issue.
My second issue is - what measures is the Government taking with regards to children who are epileptic and are not getting any help? They should have special teachers or get speciliased attention because when we grew up there used to be special classes but it looks like we no longer have special classes. I think the Ministry should channel funds towards children living with disability, especially epileptic children because these are some of the issues contributing to low grades. I think the Ministry should come up with plans on what can be done to help those children.
HON. MADHUKU: My question to the Minister is that we hear that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has embarked on a competence-based curriculum. In my view, what this means is that if it is a competence-based curriculum, there are other areas where learners are good at other than the academic area, which means that we are trying to take everybody on board even those who are not academically able. In view of this, if this is correct to say that we have embarked on a competence-based curriculum, why then would we still continue analysing our results in a fashion that has a total bias on those that are academically gifted?
Secondly, if we have embarked on a competence–based curriculum, is it necessary therefore to continue ranking schools to say this school has performed very well and is ranked number one or two in Zimbabwe? Are we not disregarding the other areas of ability where our learners are good at other academic areas?
*HON. MUSARURWA: Madam Speaker, we have other children who failed to write Grade 7 exams and that has been reported in the media. Mashonaland Central and Matabeleland Provinces are provinces have been affected. My question to the Minister is, do you have any plans in place as Ministry for the affected children to write their Grade 7 examinations? The ZIMSEC public relations officer was asked and failed to respond to the question.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. SEN. MATHEMA): Thank you Madam Speaker. Hon. Nyashanu, clearly this is an element of indiscipline on the part of the schools’ administrators if they are not making sure that teachers and other school employees do what they are supposed to do. We are very clear on that one and we will do the best we can to make sure that indiscipline does not prevail in our schools. Hon. Saruwaka asked whether I was surprised by the results. I, personally was expecting that because of covid-19, the environment in the education sector, like in all the other sectors of the economy of society could not perform as much as it is expected to perform. Indeed, like my statement indicating as far as back as 2009 that we have always had these poor results for one reason or another, but under covid-19, surely not only in Zimbabwe but all over the world, I could not have expected our children to perform better. Even if that is the case Madam Speaker, we have children who did very well in both public schools, private sector and mission schools in spite of the fact that we had Covid affecting all the sectors of economy.
Hon. Mpariwa, to be honest, I could not understand her question at all. Hon. T. Zhou, Statutory Instruments from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education apply to all schools in this country. We do not discriminate whether the school is Government owned, council owned, church or religious organisation owned or private. Statutory Instruments apply everywhere because all schools in this country fall under my purview. If there is a question of indiscipline again Madam Speaker, we take the necessary steps. Hon. Makonya, my answer is all children in this country must go to school. I do not know of a law that says a child who supposedly got low results in Grade 7 must not go to school. All children must go to school and that is the law of this country. Hon, Mayihlome, the issue of non-readers, yes it is a challenge that we face. We must rectify that challenge and make sure that we do not have a child who goes to school and fails to read. This is why I said earlier, we need all of us to work together from parents to guardians, to school heads, to teachers, and the Hon. Members themselves that they know what is taking place in their constituencies. This is something that we need all of us to work together in order to get rid of a situation where some children go to school but cannot read and write.
Hon. Madhuku asked on competence based curriculum. Indeed, everything has its time Madam Speaker. We have started this competence based education for the good reason that we cannot continue with a situation where we just look at the academic side of things. We need to look at the situation and we are starting the competence based examination so that a child is continuously examined. The testing is continuous until they get to certain level of education because what happens if a child is good in music, metal work or agriculture. The child still has to be assisted to go to school in the area where they feel or where they show competence in doing that part of activity which will make them benefit in life.
We want every child who goes to school in this country to be able to live independently when they finish school. We do not want a situation where children fail to move on with life because each child is born to be able to live alone whether parents or guardians are there. Yes, competence based education and testing is a new thing that just started. We will continue with it but you are rest assured whatever happens, no child will fail to do their form 1 or their secondary education.
Hon. Musarurwa, all children go to school like I have said. They will go to secondary education and we will do the best we can. We will recruit as many teachers as possible or train specialist teachers in every inability that any child has. Everybody, whether they are disabled or they are hard of hearing, must be assisted to go to school. Therefore, the education system in Zimbabwe must be able to train teachers that are able to impart knowledge to every child, disabled or not disabled. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)*HON. NYAMUDEZA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Minister, is new curriculum of any benefit to our nation compared to the old curriculum since we are now experiencing challenges of children failing to go to school and it now demands use of many books. What is the reason for migrating from the old curriculum to the new curriculum? If children are to go to school in March or April, how is the social distancing going to be achieved in schools when there is no construction of new classroom blocks?
(v)+HON. G. DUBE: Thank you Madam Speaker. In my constituency, you will find that schools are facing challenges when it comes to books, especially text books. You will find 100 children sharing one text book. So what are you doing as a Ministry about those challenges? The second issue is what are you doing as a Ministry when it comes to language issue because we have some pupils who speak Nambya, Ndebele or Venda but they are being taught by someone who is Shona speaking. This might be the cause of some of the poor results we are getting, especially for grade 7 because they would not understand each other. This might be the cause for some parents not to like those Shona speaking teachers especially in Matabeleland.
Hon. Nyathi having not been asking directly his question
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nyathi, please ask your question.
(v)*HON. R. R. NYATHI: My question Hon. Speaker is what measures are you going to take to motivate teachers so that we do not have a repeat of this scenario where we have children in Grade 7 failing to such an extent? Secondly, those who wrote grade 7 were allowed to sit for exanimations without paying school fees but expected to pay upon collection of results. Now results out and Government is saying they should collect their results without paying fees. What precedence are we setting for those who will sit in the coming examinations in future?
(v)+HON. I NYONI: I want to ask two questions. Firstly, I know that Grade sevens have already collected their results - what is going to be done to those who did not perform well because boarding schools prefer those who have good results? Secondly, some of the parents do not have formal jobs, they are vendors. What is going to be done especially when they are not up to date with their school fees as they do not have formal jobs. How are you going to recover the money as a Ministry?
(v)<HON. DR. MURIRE: Thank you very much Speaker for giving me this opportunity. My question to the Minister is on the schools that were affected by the cyclone in Musikavanhu Constituency as well as Chipinge. Roads were swept away and we declared it a national disaster, what are we then going to do with schools because children are stranded. There are actually five schools in Chipinge that were destroyed, what plans do you have to fix that situation?
(v)*HON. CHIKUKWA: My question is what measures have you put in place for those schools in rural areas where they cannot even access mobile networks even to access them with a generator that will help. Some homes do not even the cellphone, can you just buy cellphones for use by such pupils in those schools? Since these schools are remote, they suffer unlike urban schools.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. SEN. MATHEMA): Thank Madam Speaker. I would like to thank the Hon. Members for the questions they have asked. Hon. Nyamudeza, social distancing in schools is a requirement by the Ministry of Health by World Health Organisation Protocols. We have had a history that COVID-19 did not start this year but last year. We had done our best to make sure that social distancing in all schools is observed.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Minister. you are not connected. Sorry you can go ahead.
HON. SEN. MATHEMA: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I was saying that Hon. Nyamudeza, yes social distancing is a requirement. We follow the guidelines and the protocol from the Ministry of Health and Child Care. We follow protocols on social distancing from the World Health Organisation because we do not live in isolation as a country.
We have had a history of COVID-19 from last year and no school failed to observe social distancing. We should live by the requirements of the WHO at all times in any school whether boarding or day school.
Hon. Dube – yes indeed the ideal situation is that every child must have his or her textbook and computer. Like I said earlier on, it depends quite a lot on how the economy is performing and I agree entirely that every child must have their own text books and computers. We are working with our partners as well as other ministries. Minister Muswere is in fact working on these issues as well so that all our children have access to computers and are online.
Hon. Nyathi on rural schools – I could not understand the question there but it was something to do with rural schools and social welfare. There is the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare which is actually responsible for this and they have gone out of their way to make sure that each child, whether in town or in rural areas, is afforded the opportunity by monies which come from central Government which is Ministry of Finance, for them to make sure that they go to school.
Hon. Nyoni – all children, like I have said Madam Speaker will go to school. There is no reason why any child in Zimbabwe cannot do form one or cannot go to secondary school. There is no law that says so. I will make sure as Minister responsible that every child goes to school. I know that sometimes we have groups of people who try to prevent their children from going to school for religious or cultural reasons. As far as this Government and Constitution of this country is concerned, every child has a right to go to school, and if you go out of your way to prevent a child from going to school, that is a criminal act and the law will take its course.
Hon. Murwira – yes I am working closely with Hon. Minister July Moyo to make sure that all the schools that were affected by Cyclone Idai – all the infrastructure must be repaired. In addition to that, each school needs new infrastructure as well because children and teachers need accommodation.
Hon. Chikukwa – again we will do the best we can to make sure that every child accesses education. There is no law that says some children have to go to school and some do not. As Government we are responsible and we are saying all schools will be available for every child in this country. It does not matter what grade they have got at Grade 7. They are all entitled to go to any public school to get their education. We will do that and we will make sure that teachers, school heads, Provincial Education Directors and schools with inspectors make sure that it happens.
In addition to that, I am imploring the Hon. Members to work together with us; this job belongs to all of us and assist each other. I thank you very much Madam Speaker.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. TOGAREPI: I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 21 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 22 has been disposed of.
HON. MAVETERA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON WOMEN AFFAIRS, COMMUNITY AND SMEs DEVELOPMENT ON FACT FINDING VISITS TO ASCERTAIN LEVEL OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY RELATED TO SGBV AND COVID-19
HON. MADIWA: I move the motion that this House take note of the report of the Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development on the fact finding visits to ascertain the level of public service delivery related to SGBV and COVID-19 in Zimbabwe.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
HON. MADIWA:
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Since the end of 2019, the world has experienced a global pandemic caused by the Novel Coronavirus now commonly referred to as COVID-19. Countries the world over, grappled to contain the virus and used the public health approach which imposed lockdown measures such as restriction of movement. On the other hand, the Government of Zimbabwe imposed a nationwide lockdown in April 2020, directly affecting livelihoods of over 80% of Zimbabweans whose livelihoods are heavily reliant on the informal sector. The impact of the pandemic has seen a widening of existing gender inequalities. It has also clearly laid bare the systematic gender based violence exacerbated by the economic hardships that most communities faced. The COVID -19 pandemic has exposed women and girls to all forms of gender based violence such as sexual, physical, emotional, and socio-economic violence.
Zimbabwe enacted the Domestic Violence Act (Chapter 5:16) on 26 February 2007. The Act came into force on the 25 October 2007. The Act addresses many forms of violence, physical, emotional, sexual, economic and emotional abuse which are forms of gender based violence as well. The Act also provides for protection and relief to survivors of domestic violence. The Act further aims to protect women and criminalises domestic violence and such acts as abuse derived from any cultural or customary rites or practices that discriminate or degrade women. Also contained in the Act is the establishment of the Anti-Domestic Violence Council which among other functions, is to keep under constant review the problem of domestic violence in Zimbabwe and to take all steps to disseminate information and increase the awareness of the public on issues of domestic violence.
The Act provides for the establishment of safe-houses for the purpose of providing shelter to victims of domestic violence, including their children and dependants, pending on the outcome of court proceedings.
On the other hand GBV One-stop centers are part of the Zero Tolerance for GBV 365 National programme and has been birthed from a partnership between the UNFPA, the governments of Britain, Ireland, Sweden and the European Union (EU) through the UN-EU Spotlight Initiative to end the problem of GBV in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has established One-Stop Centres for survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV) with the aim of creating a safe and supporting environment for survivors of GBV. The model is designed to reduce the number of institutions that a survivor must visit to receive basic support (medical, legal, and psycho-social services) following an incident of GBV.
Government seeing the critical importance in the provision of critical services to survivors of gender based violence, has partnered with civil society organisations such as Msasa Project, Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) and Women and Law in Southern Africa (WILSA). Under the signed Memorandum of Understanding with Government, Msasa Project provides funds for the construction of safe shelters and one-stop centres whilst Government provides land and technical support in the form of construction works under the Ministry of Public Works. On the other hand, ZWLA provides legal aid services to survivors of gender based violence for free. WILSA is obligated to conduct legal rights education, empowerment and capacity building programmes on women rights, gender justice and also provide legal aid services.
The findings, observations and recommendations of the Committee are contained in this report.
2.0 OBJECTIVES OF THE FACT FINDING VISITS
The main objective of the enquiry was to ascertain the level of service delivery to survivors of GBV by the Government at safe shelters and OSCs, during the COVID-19 lockdown. The specific objectives include:
- To ascertain the impact of COVID-19 on the provision of GBV services;
- To assess state of service delivery at safe houses and one-stop centres focusing on availability of services, accessibility, staff, infrastructure, essential equipment, and follow-up, and
- To ascertain Government adherence to the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act in combating gender based violence.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
The Committee therefore, resolved to conduct an enquiry into service delivery in relation to SGBV in light of COVID-19 pandemic at safe shelters and one-stop-centers in five provinces to assess support and public service delivery to survivors of domestic violence guided by the following;
1) Oral evidence from the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs;
2) Fact finding visits to the following areas from 28 September to 01 October 2020:
- Gwanda One-Stop Center;
- Bulawayo Msasa Safe Shelter;
- Gweru One-Stop Center;
- Gweru Msasa Safe Shelter;
- Masvingo Nemamwa One-Stop Center;
- Bikita Msasa Safe Shelter;
- Marange Msasa Safe Shelter;
- Makoni One-Stop Center; and
- Harare, Msasa One-Stop Center and Safe House
4.0 BACKGROUND
The Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) (2015) reports that 45 % of women aged 15-49 have experienced physical, emotional, or sexual violence at some point in their lives. According to the 2019 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), at least 10 121 women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced sexual violence, with 55.1% of perpetrators being current husbands, partners, and relatives. The survey further highlighted that 39.4% of girls and women have experienced physical violence, with 71.4% perpetrators being the husband or partner. Childline Zimbabwe in 2019 recorded 4,239 cases of children who were sexually abused, the majority of them by trusted close relatives and family members. During COVID-19 lockdown, cases of gender based violence increased by 70% according to Msasa Project reports.
Since the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act in 2007, the Government of Zimbabwe has only set up four One-Stop Centres to provide much needed medical, legal and psycho-social services to survivors at no cost under one roof in Gweru, Rusape, Gwanda and Chinhoyi. This intervention is under the Integrated Support Programme for Sexual and Reproductive Health (ISP) which is supported by the Governments of Britain, Ireland and Sweden. The Government is also closely working with Msasa Project in running safe shelters in provinces and districts. The Ministry has not provided safe shelters apart from the one at Nemamwa, in Masvingo which was under construction at the time of the visit. Eleven of the shelters around the country are established and funded by civil society organisations.
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community and SMEs Development works closely with UNFPA Zimbabwe and other civil society organisations to ensure the provision of services to gender based violence victims. These civil society organisations partners working with the Ministry include Msasa Project, Adult Rape Clinic, Family AIDS Counseling Trust, Family Support Trust, Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT), Zimbabwe AIDS Prevention and Support Organisation (ZAPSO), Zimbabwe Community Health Intervention Research Behavioural Change Programme (ZICHIRE) and World Vision. The combined efforts include equipping all supported gender based violence facilities, static and mobile one-stop centres, shelters and safe spaces, with COVID-19 infection, prevention and control (IPC) supplies.
5.0 COMMITTEE FINDINGS
5.1 Root Causes and Contributory Factors of Gender Based Violence
Understanding the root causes of gender based violence can be difficult, as it requires looking beyond what one sees with the eyes. A number of factors will be involved in the likelihood of gender based violence case. At all the safe houses and one-stop centres visited by the Committee in Gwanda, Bulawayo, Masvingo and Makoni in Manicaland, deep seated perceptions of women as subordinate to men in society, women's work were at the root cause of gender based violence. Some of the contributory factors highlighted to the Committee included poverty and economic challenges, lack of education and alcohol abuse. In Gwanda, the Committee was concerned to receive reports that gender based violence cases were particularly high in communities close to gold panning areas, while in Bikita high cases were often increased during the agricultural produce marketing season due to the conflicting ideas on how the disposable income from sold produce should be spent.
5.2 High Incidences of Gender Based Violence During COVID-19 Lockdown Period
The Committee sought to understand the prevalence of GBV during COVID-19. This proved to be a very complex issue since most of the cases are concealed in communities and as such, GBV cases were under reported. Therefore, the statistics and figures of gender based violence given to the Committee by the Ministry and Msasa Project were accepted as estimates that only serve to demonstrate the widespread nature of gender based violence in communities. The Committee was informed by Msasa Project, which closely works with the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development that, at national level, during COVID-19 lock down period, cases of gender based violence sharply increased by 70%. The Graph below shows GBV reported cases from 2019 to date.
The trend indicates that more cases were reported during COVID-19 lockdown period. The COVID-19 lockdown period increased risks of gender based violence in scale and scope as victims were trapped in 'lockdown' with their abusers due to restricted movements. Restricted movements resulted in restricted economic activities within communities in which the majority survive on subsistence livelihoods (hand to mouth). Such a scenario resulted in the short supply of basics thereby fuelling tensions among couples and GBV being the outcome.
5.3 Disproportionate Impact of Gender Based Violence on Women
The Committee found out that gender based violence disproportionately affects girls and women, particularly through certain common forms of violence such as child marriages, intimate partner violence, and sexual abuse. The Committee was informed that women and girls often experience violence at home, from physical punishment to emotional or psychological violence. Msasa Project indicated that acceptance of violence as a ‘private affair’ often prevents others from intervening and prohibits victims from reporting.
The table below shows gender disaggregated data for GBV services access reports and calls made during the lockdown period at national level and selected areas.
Gender | National Level Access During Lockdown | Gwanda | Gweru | Makoni |
Women | 94% | 75% | 83% | 85% |
Men | 6% | 25% | 17% | 15% |
Msasa further informed the Committee that at national level, from July to September 2020, an increase in psychological violence recorded 55 % of total cases as compared with previous months.
5.4 Gender Based Violence Survivors Access to Services During COVID-19 Lockdown
The Committee was pleased to find out that Gwanda, Gweru and Makoni one-stop centers were situated at Government hospitals to ensure access to holistic services (health, psychosocial support, legal and police services) to survivors under one roof and free of charge.
However, the Committee was greatly concerned that during COVID-19 lockdown period, gender based violence victims faced difficulties in accessing these critical services. In that regard, COVID-19 emergency responses have been gender insensitive. In Gweru, the Committee was informed by Ministry officials that reduced public transport availability restricted access to safe shelters and one-stop centers by GBV survivors. The personnel also had challenges in coming to work. The most affected were those from long distant areas such as Nembudziya in Gokwe, Mberengwa and other outlying areas.
5.5 Inadequacy of Safe Houses and One-Stop Centers
While it is Government policy to have one-stop center and safe house at provincial level and in each districts, the Committee found out that Masvingo Province had only 3 shelters out of 7 district, and a one- stop center was still under construction at Nemamwa Growth Point, courtesy of partnership between the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development and Musasa Project. The Committee was informed by Ministry officials that as of September 2020, the Ministry had only commissioned four one-stop centers in Makoni in Rusape (Manicaland Province); Gwanda (Matebeleland South); Gweru (Midlands); and Chinhoyi (Mashonaland West). The Committee was told that Makoni One-Stop Center refers survivors requiring accommodation to a safe house in Buhera, which is over 100 kilometers away.
In the Ministry’s 2019-2023 Strategic Plan, the Committee noted that the Ministry had a budget of USD241 000 earmarked for construction of two one-stop centers, awareness which included UN calendar events commemorations and coordination meetings.
The Committee noted with concern that the Ministry was still far away from meeting the requirements of the policy for one-stop centers and safe shelters given the meager resources allocated in the strategic plan.
The Committee was pleased to learn that in December 2019, the Government with the support from the UNFPA Zimbabwe, alongside with the European Union, launched mobile one-stop centers to improve access to gender based violence services. The initiative is aimed at taking GBV services to the people in the grassroots.
5.6 Challenges Affecting Safe Houses and One-Stop Centers
The Committee witnessed lack of office and accommodation space at safe houses and one-stop centers. For instance in Gwanda and Makoni, structures were made of temporary make shift material, and office space was inadequate. At Gwanda One-Stop Center, the Committee was told by officers manning the center that there was no office space for private counselling services. As most safe houses were located in city centers, with restricted spaces, victims of gender based violence were not able to engage in life skills and economic empowerment training programmes such as gardening, poultry, and sewing.
The Committee was told that the advent of COVID-19 led to a sudden halt in provision of safe space for victims of gender based violence. This was in compliance with the requirement that any client should be tested first before being admitted at the centers, yet the cost of COVID-19 testing were said to be estimated at US$60.
At Gweru One-Stop Center, the Committee was informed that disability friendly facilities such as wheel chairs were inadequate and even ablution facilities were not conducive for victims of gender based violence living with disabilities.
The Committee was also told that the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs had no vehicles at all the one-stop centers. Due to non-availability of vehicles, the Committee was told at Makoni one- stop center that officials were not able to adequately conduct GBV awareness campaigns and follow-up on cases.
It was also submitted that one-stop centers operated Monday to Friday, from 0800 to 1700 hours, and there was no access to health services during weekends and public holidays. There was also lack of funds for the payment of hospital bills for survivors’ who required access to medical services outside the Government hospitals. They had inadequate human capital and financial resources to conduct awareness campaigns at ward level. For instance, the Committee was told that Masvingo had only 10 ward coordinators to cover 32 wards.
Food shortages for clients were also mentioned as affecting smooth running of Gwanda One-Stop Centre, which was depending on food from the hospital administration. One-stop centers did not have access to statistics of GBV under ZRP Victim Friendly Unit. This negatively hindered identification and hotspot mapping of gender based violence areas which is critical for planning for intervention programmes.
The Committee was informed that there was limited male participation in gender based violence programmes and this negatively affected the effectiveness of the awareness campaigns.
In addition, the Committee noted that victims faced challenges in reporting cases to the police due to long distances one has to travel to the nearest police station. Victims also suffered stigma and inaccessibility of legal services due to high costs. Despite the existence of one-stop centers, the Committee expressed concern that prosecution and conviction of perpetrators remained a major challenge.
5.7 Positive Impacts of Safe Houses and One-Stop Centers
The Committee was pleased to be informed of the positive changes that had been brought about through the establishment of safe houses and one-stop centers, despite underlying challenges affecting their operations. At Gwanda, Gweru and Makoni one-stop centers, the Committee received reports that the multi-sectoral response services were being offered successfully and these included medical, legal, law enforcement and psychosocial services. They also provide reproductive health services to survivors of gender based violence such as provision of treatment services that include emergency contraception and post exposure prophylaxes. Strengthened referral system under one roof and counselling services were reported to be very effective in minimising the risk for secondary trauma for gender based violence survivors, which may be caused by the movement from one office to the other narrating their ordeal repeatedly in search of services.
The Committee was also informed that safe houses and one-stop centers visited had incorporated community outreach and preventive work such as media awareness campaigns, community education and mobilisation activities. These were designed to increase knowledge and change attitudes and behavior regarding GBV among men, women, service providers, community leaders, youth, children and duty bearers. Reports received indicated that the multi-faceted community mobilisation platforms, that included police, churches and traditional leaders, had successfully brought attention to gender based violence issues.
One-stop centers for gender based violence support services that are located within Government buildings or departments with other functions, such as health clinics and hospitals, were said to be less likely to expose victims to stigma, thus encourages those affected to make reports and seek services. These were more preferred than standalone one-stop centers.
However, in the stand-alone model, medical staff are not available 24 hours a day, and survivors need to be driven and escorted to a health facility for services not available at the stand-alone center, for example surgery, stitches and x-rays.
There were some who also preferred standalone set up for being private since they may be located in secluded areas.
The Committee was further informed that in addition to providing safety, safe centers offered life skills to ensure economic emancipation of survivors who are mostly women. At Msasa Project safe house in Bulawayo, the Committee was told that the center, in conjunction with the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development trained their clients in floor polish making, detergent making, sewing, baking and gardening on the limited space available.
5.0 COMMITTEE OBSERVATIONS
The Committee made the following observations;
5.1 The Committee noted that the Ministry has not prioritised safe houses over the years since the 11 safe shelters were established by CSO’s indicating too much reliance on donor funding for the provision of GBV service. This is despite the increase or spike in GBV cases every year.
5.2 That GBV increased dramatically during the COVID-19 induced lockdown as many women and girls were locked up with the perpetrators.
5.3 The Committee observed that one-stop centers and safe shelters at provincial centers are inaccessible to many gender based violence survivors in outlying districts.
5.4 The Committee noted that there was urgent need for a coordinated multi-sectorial approach between Government and CSO’s with clear prioritised roles to curb GBV as it is on the increase.
5.5 It further noted that there are legislative gaps that need to be addressed by gender equality and sexual harassment laws.
5.6 That Government did not consider GBV service delivery as critical or essential service during the COVID-19 lockdown period.
5.7 The Anti-Domestic Violence Council was not fulfilling its mandate and as a result was being overshadowed by civil society due to its financial incapacitation as Treasury was not allocating it a meaningful budget.
5.8 There is lack of political will by Government in ensuring adherence to the provisions of the National Gender Policy which among other policy strategies provides for setting up of new or strengthening existing institutions and mechanisms for the effective provision of services to protect, care and support GBV survivors and to offer correctional and rehabilitation services for GBV perpetrators.
6.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Committee, therefore, recommends that:-
6.1 The Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development should prioritise funding economic empowerment projects for GBV survivors through the Women’s Development Fund 2021 budget. The Committee therefore expects the Ministry of Women Affairs to make a detailed submission with budget lines highlighting how GBV survivors will benefit from the funding vehicles under its purview by end of January 2021.
6.2 Government should, with immediate effect, recognise GBV service delivery and personnel as essential services in this COVID-19 era and other future pandemics.
6.3 Custodial sentence for sexual abuse and rape perpetrators is recommended in strengthening the legal and policy framework to ensure efficient prevention and response to gender based violence. To realise this, the Committee therefore implores the Ministry of Justice to urgently bring to Parliament the Sexual Harassment Bill, Child Justice Bill and amendment of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act[Chapter 9:23] Section 65(1) by providing minimum mandatory sentencing for rape and sexual abuse by end of March 2021.
6.4 Government should show its seriousness in curbing GBV through its 2021 budget clearly outlining budget lines for construction of one-stop centres and safe shelters with timelines. The Ministry of Women Affairs should therefore, submit to Treasury a detailed road map on one-stop centres, safe shelters to be constructed and the budget for allocation of additional funding from the unallocated reserve by end of March 2021.
6.6 The Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development should continue to carry out sensitisation and awareness-raising on gender based violence in communities as a prevention strategy. The Committee expects a detailed programme of GBV awareness activities from the Ministry by end of February 2021.
6.7 Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development should submit to the Committee a detailed plan of action on how they intend, in 2021, to build and support the capacities of community leadership to deal with gender based violence related cases at grass roots level by end of March 2021.
6.8 The Ministry of Finance should avail funds from the unallocated reserve for the procurement of at least four vehicles to cover GBV hotspot provinces which are Manicaland, Matabeleland North, Masvingo(Rural) and Mashonaland Central by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
6.9 The Government should, from the unallocated reserve, provide adequate budget for the purchasing of assistive technology, facilities and devices for victims of gender based violence that are living with disability in 2021. These include disability friendly toilets, bathrooms, wheel chairs, adjustable beds, Braille and walking sticks. A disbursement plan to be submitted to Parliament by end of April 2021.
6.10 The Government should heavily subsidise COVID-19 testing cost for survivors of gender based violence so that testing services can be accessed by these vulnerable groups in accordance with the WHO guidelines before and after admission at the centres by end of the first quarter of 2021.
6.11 The Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and SMEs Development should ensure that staff at one-stop centres receive ongoing and refresher training, mentoring and support to provide the best possible care to survivors, and also so that they are informed of emerging issues and approaches. Budget in this regard should be shared with the Committee by the beginning of 2021.
6.12 Government must increase surveillance and monitoring of GBV cases and survivors by fully funding the Anti-Domestic Violence Council in 2021.
6.13 The Government should submit to Parliament a decentralisation plan of one-stop centers and safe shelters to the grassroots to ensure access to all requiring GBV services by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
7.0 CONCLUSION
GBV is a scourge that we all need to take collaborative efforts to eradicate in our society. It is high time that our legislation has deterring penalties for offenders and invest more in prevention initiatives. Enactment of a gender equality law will go a long way in addressing most of the challenges highlighted in this report. I thank you.
(v) HON MOLOKELA-TSIYE: I rise in support of the motion presented by Hon Madiwa. I am in full support of the report that was presented by our Chairperson. The most important point to highlight is the fact we have been talking for many years about gender based violence and its consequences. We need to move away from the empty rhetoric. What is coming out from this report is that we need to increase political will, financial investments and public awareness against gender based violence. It is time to say enough is enough and it is time to unite the people of Zimbabwe and make sure that gender based violence becomes history.
From the report that we have got, you will realise that even though women constitute the majority of citizens of Zimbabwe, when it comes to their rights, especially related to GBV they are still being treated as secondary citizens. Their rights are still being ignored and not being prioritised. This report based on the visit that the Committee has undertaken is confirming that GBV, including the strategies around mitigating it - there is still a lot that needs to be done even though we have been talking about the need to end GBV. We have 16 days of activism against GBV but it looks like they are a drop in the ocean. Now with the advent of COVID-19, the committee has confirmed as shown by this report and corroborated some of the research findings from civil society that COVID-19 has also worsened the situation with regards to GBV. It has moved it from bad to worse. We have seen the number of cases increasing rapidly.
As Parliament of Zimbabwe we need to encourage everyone to stand up and stem this type of GBV. The Committee findings also confirm the fears of many activists and many people in that space. Unless something more is done, we will continue to lose the fight against gender based violence. We need to invest more in terms of new strategies and innovation to ensure that we defeat it. We need to increase public awareness, especially by investing more into new information technologies. We have powerful social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter which we need to start using effectively to create awareness and improvement strategies of awareness around fighting and standing up to GBV.
Related to that, we also need to increase funding because right now we are dependent a lot on international development partners and NGOs. Our own government facilities and mitigation strategies lack funding. It is important for the Ministry to continue knocking on the door of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development so that the infrastructural situation that we witness should be addressed urgently and the human resource capital situation that we witness should be addressed urgently. We also need to continue to change the legislative context around the fight against GBV. In particular, we note with concern that a lot of people committing GBV are still getting away with murder so there is need to tighten the laws to reduce those who are escaping conviction or those escaping with lighter sentences. We need to also push for new laws such as the Sexual Harassment Bill to ensure that it becomes law so that sexual harassment becomes a criminal offence and not just a social offence.
There is need to implement such laws as the Domestic Violence Act especially as you notice from the report, the Council has not been properly structured and it is not effective. So we need to ensure that even the existing laws are enforced to ensure that screws are tightened against GBV. The other thing that I want to emphasise is the need to come up with a clear strategy around monitoring and evaluation of progress or even lack of progress because right now we are relying a lot on civil society. I think we need more monitoring and evaluation from the Ministry itself and from the Parliament of Zimbabwe. What the Committee did is a step in the right direction but we need more to be done in terms of follow up to ensure that there is clear progress.
I would like to appeal to all Members of both Houses to take a strong stance against GBV and to take a leadership role to ensure that we lead from the front as legislators. This is not a job for women, NGOs but a job for every citizen of Zimbabwe. As Members of Parliament let us go beyond the political rhetoric by holding the Executive accountable and play our legislative role. Let us represent the millions of Zimbabwean women and girls who are being exposed daily to GBV. Let us unite to end this GBV problem that we are having as a country and stop it from getting from bad to worse. COVID-19 is here to stay and we cannot give it as an excuse but should come up with strategies beyond COVID-19 to reduce GBV. I so move Madam Speaker. I thank you.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIR: Thank you very much Hon Molekele.
HON. T. MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker for affording me this opportunity to contribute to this very important debate that has been moved by Hon. Madiwa and seconded by Hon. Molekele. Gender Based Violence is an offence and a violation of human rights. GBV is endemic in our society. There are so many victims of GBV who are being ill treated every day and every night. It is the duty of this Legislative Assembly to ensure that GBV is stopped without further delay. Cases of GBV escalated dramatically especially during the lockdown period.
Why did that happen? It was because there was a barrier to communication. People were unable to report their cases to law enforcement officers and that affected most victims of GBV. We must come up with lasting measures to eradicate GBV. We want deterrent measures so that those who may want to perpetuate such heinous offences will be dealt with severely. It is regrettable to note that the most affected are women and girls, though to a very limited extent there are men who are also victims of GBV. Because of stigma they are they are so shy to report to law enforcement agencies. I want to deviate a little bit from the Committee’s report. I totally support their report but I want to go a step further and identify some men who are victims of gender based violence, who are ill-treated by women but to a very limited extent. I want to support a report by Hon. Madiwa that cases increased by 70% during lockdown period, people had challenges reporting those cases because of transport and also the fact that the couples spend most of the time in their homes.
Let us support the recommendations of the Committee that there is need for funding, the idea of a one stop shop is highly commendable whereby if victims are able to report at one centre, there will be a police station, you can get legal representation and also be given psychological support by specialists. There is need for provision of transport, to provide funds to Women Affairs so that they can buy off road vehicles and they can visit victims of gender based violence.
On legislative gaps which are there, I think as Parliament of Zimbabwe, we also need to find ways of fast tracking our laws so that they can protect victims of gender based violence and also the perpetrators of gender based violence can also be brought to book. We need to tighten our laws so that those perpetrators of gender based violence may be given custodial sentences or if it is possible for those who sexually abuse women, to be castrated. With those few remarks I want to thank you for this chance.
(v)+HON. R. R. NYATHI: Thank you Madam Speaker, I want to add my voice to a motion raised by Hon. Madiwa. It is very important that we know that it is not right to abuse the vulnerable. If you assault someone you will have violated their rights and this is not good. We must promote communication through all forms of media or even using our headmen, chiefs or politicians, we must tell people that gender based violence is not right, especially in this House, we are expected to come up with legislation that anyone who engages in gender violence be penalised.
They should not just be taken to police to pay fines but we should come up with stiffer penalties so that people are afraid to engage in gender based violence. If you beat your spouse using harmful tools, you should be given at least a minimum of one year in prison. This will make us understand that human life is very important because men were created in the image of God. Gender based violence cases increased during lockdown. The figures might not be true because they are some people who could not go to report because of the lockdown restrictions, some did not have money and some did not have transport.
During lockdown some people do not have sources of income; I think from 2019 to date, the figures that were reported might be half of the true reflection that is happening on the ground. We want to appreciate the report for opening our eyes so that as Zimbabweans we understand that it is not good for people to fight. Every Zimbabwean has a right to live peaceful without being violated by another person because death is inevitable, people must live happily whilst they are alive.
I really support the Committee’s report. We must enact laws that will help us ease gender based violence, educate people and avoid courts. We must create awareness so that people do not engage in gender based violence. I thank you Madam Speaker for affording me this opportunity to add my voice on this very pertinent issue which affects the less privileged, women and girls. All people were born by women so we must treat women with respect and dignity.
(V)*HON. J. SHAVA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker. I would like to support what has been said by my Hon. Chairperson. It is true that when we moved with the Committee, we witnessed a lot of problems at these One-Stop Centres.
It is during this lockdown period that we saw a lot of problems being experienced by people; with people walking very long distances to report domestic violence cases. It is a situation whereby a woman cannot walk long distances to report a case and in many instances, they would end up committing suicide because they would have given up. We looked at building shelters in nearby communities so that victims do not walk long distances to report cases. In the past, young girls would walk 10kms to seek assistance in police stations. These are some of the challenges that we came across as we toured with the Committee.
It was in Mashonaland West Province where we saw that some of the shelters being used to accommodate domestic violence victims were not comfortable and conducive to accommodate victims because there was not enough security. We are saying that with proper shelters now being built, they should ensure that there is sufficient security to make sure that victims are well protected. I thank you.
(V)*HON. CHIKUKWA: Thank you very much Hon. Chair, I just want to say a few words in support of what the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs said. I also stand in support of what we saw and experienced as a Committee.
It is true that we do not have proper infrastructure for these One Stop Centres. They are just mere shelters that are not properly built. Government has not done much in terms of building proper infrastructure. Let us make sure that our Ministry is financed so that they can build proper shelters. Some victims are afraid to go and report domestic violence cases because it is quite a distance for them to travel to report a case. I would also like to encourage relatives and parents to say when a minor is abused by a parent, we should not encourage silence but make sure that such cases are reported to the police and the victims get assistance as soon as they can because if we allow such cases to prevail, then we are creating a bigger problem.
The law should prevail and we should report such cases despite existing relationships. Other people actually report when they are sick from sexually transmitted diseases and upon being asked where they would have contracted the disease from, that is when such issues come out. Let us have a law to say, irrespective of who the perpetrator is, they should face the full wrath of the law. I would also encourage men who are abused by women to come up front and report such cases. I thank you.
HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I am equally touched by the report that was tabled in this House by Hon. Madiwa and seconded by Hon. Molokele. It shows that the scourge of domestic and gender based violence is still with us and more effort has to be made to ensure that we eradicate it and reduce gender based violence.
I looked at the issues that she was talking about in terms of what they saw when they went out during this very difficult time where we are trying to save ourselves from the COVID-19 pandemic. They discovered that even now in the prevalence of COVID-19 and when people should be trying to live in a civil way to protect themselves from COVID-19 and its effects; there are still people who are abusing others. Gender based violence, according to their report, even became worse and the victims had no recourse because they could not go anywhere to report since they required letters, for example, to move from one place to another in order to make a report, meaning that they would suffer in silence. I see this as a very challenging observation and feel it is critical that as a people, we find a way – different stakeholders, Government, the ministry itself, traditional leaders, churches and non-governmental organisations who are involved in protecting the interests of women, children and social interaction in general to work together.
These issues are deeper than what we then deal with after the occurrence of the crime. The best way is to eradicate the source of this especially when we look at violence against women. It comes from a long history and tradition that men believe that they are superior to women – that they are in charge and women are asserts to men. Hence, respect from there is negated. So it is critical that we change the mindset of our society to understand that we are equal and that men and women respect each other. If we can get to a point where we respect each other, then there will not be any violence and we will definitely reduce violence.
I also want to thank our Government that like many other governments throughout the world, we have laws that have tried to deal with this scourge. I think this has serious benefits because of the fear of being arrested, they then stop being violent to their partners, men or women, but the majority are women who are being taken advantage of and abused, and girls also are victims because they are a weaker sex. It is very important that we continue to look at our laws, the same laws that we already have collectively as a Government. We need as Parliament to look at those laws and see whether there are gaps that are being taken advantage of by some of these criminals so that we close those areas and ensure that whoever is involved pays enough for his/her deeds to save our people from this gender based violence experience.
Madam Speaker, I also feel that it is important that all these players who are involved in dealing with gender based violence and creation of those safe houses and so forth should receive Government support. These are very noble ideas and those organisations are critical to try and mitigate the challenges of GBV. I would also want, as they get resources towards dealing with this scourge, this challenge of GBV, let the resources be disbursed to the intended victims. We need transparency there.
They want resources, vehicles and all that, we want all these things when they are put together to deal with the issue and we need to get statistics; not growing statistics. We want to see their efforts in reducing GBV. When we have those safe houses, we disburse money there and buy all those vehicles and everything having been done, we want to have them showing out statistics of the achievements. They should not come and campaign for money, yet GBV is going up. What is the purpose?
Are they only statisticians who are supposed to be coming here to tell us how ballooning it is or they should come up with scientific methods of dealing with the sources of domestic or gender based violence and find solutions to eradicate it and we are seen on the world map that here is Zimbabwe with its partners; domestic partners, our Committee and Ministry here and say this is what we have done for the year 2021 and it has really reduced the prevalence of GBV.
We cannot go on and on seeing these figures. If there are laws that are supposed to be promulgated, let us have the laws come to the House. Let us enact those laws and punish the perpetrators and with those punishments, if we see the cases going down, then we say here we have organisations or partners who are really working not people who are going around picking numbers and bringing them to us. What are we doing? It is like we are all spectators in a football match! This is not acceptable. We cannot have a country where we see ballooning of something that is illegal.
We have laws that are dealing with these things. How are we failing to use those laws? Are there gaps in those laws? What are we doing to correct those gaps so that we deal with the perpetrators? My submission is, we really need more work and I think the Committee, despite that, you have come out with a very good report which is very insightful but we need more work from you so that we have tangible solutions. What are our milestones as we go to the end of 2021? What is it that you have done with your partners in the Ministry of Women Affairs, police force and civic organisations? Are we really pushing awareness?
We do not want to go and meet people and those people tell us they are seeing violence in their areas, no. We want to go and meet people, ask them what they want us or Government to do to lessen or reduce GBV within their communities. We want to see solutions. We cannot have our country on the map as one of the worst countries in terms of GBV. I heard you mentioning provinces that are leading in doing this heinous thing. What are we doing about it? Can we not come up with a list of those who have been convicted so that their names are published, showing their bad deeds? This will correct some of these things. Nobody would want to see his name in a newspaper because of a bad deed.
Up until we look for solutions, then we are not going anywhere. My prayer is let us look for solutions. If the solutions are in the law, can we quickly come up with a way of proposing those amendments in the law so that we corner these people and ensure that we deal with them? If it is in the awareness, let us have more resources to the Ministry and the Committee to go around and look for the solutions and deal with that so that we reduce the prevalence of GBV. It is very important that as a country we deal with this and we start to live with each other in harmony and respectfully.
Women are a very important group of people in terms of the development of this country. If we do not give them space and violate them psychologically and so forth, it means they will not contribute to development and this country will not develop as fast as it would with women and men working together putting all their efforts. If somebody is downtrodden, how will that person perform? She comes to work thinking of that bad husband at home. She will not concentrate on that job and that production that you want increased in the country.
So, it is critical as a country, leadership in our communities, ministries and these civic organisations that maybe we come up with a conference where you say within the context of our people or traditions, how can we deal with GBV. We want statistics every year that show a reduction in the prevalence of GBV, especially in those provinces that you have already mentioned. We want to see the strategies, what is the plan to eradicate or reduce the prevalence of GBV.
The safe houses, let them be well looked after and rehabilitation of those who will have been put in those safe houses, because if you do not look after them and give them enough support, they will go back into the hands of the same abuser or get married to another person with the same character. We will never achieve anything if these people live the rest of their lives in a lot of torture. We need these safe houses to have a good plan that will rehabilitate and empower those people who will have been rehabilitated or protected from GBV. Thank you.
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to air my voice as well to this report from Hon. Madiwa, seconded by Hon. Molokela-Tsiye. The effects of COVID-19 on women have a large bearing because these are the people who look after the children and in a number of ways they look after their spouses as well. Spouses may just come late in the evening and say, have you cooked – with what? So women have a greater job during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has been mentioned that in Bikita women were mostly abused during the harvesting period because Bikita grows cotton. In the past people used to get paid good sums of money. The men disappeared and would come back when they no longer had the money. Even now when they are given commodities they sell 2 litres cooking oil or soap bars in order to go and drink. Generally, we see our women at a disadvantage.
I also strongly feel that there is need of some awareness on the issue of gender based violence because we still continue to witness abuse of women and the girl child. They do not know what it means to report the abuse and what type of abuse should be reported. In some communities traditional belief are still acceptable, that if a boy plays wrongly with a girl they just say it is well; they do not understand the outcome of that.
We need to go back to the role of our traditional homes because some of the issues end up at the police when they could have been resolved at home. Madam Speaker, when people know that there is somewhere they can get assistance they tend to go there even without looking at the possibility of having that issue resolved within the family. I am not saying solve in the wrong way but in the proper way. At times before people receive counselling someone goes and report but at the end of the day the person you have reported will still be acquitted and it becomes a serious problem.
I want to applaud the work being done by Msasa Project. However, I feel after assisting a victim of gender based violence, Msasa should continuously check on whether what they have tried to do has been achieved. We have witnessed cases where a person is arrested for committing GBV but after a day or so the person is back. In a way it creates some psychological fear in the person who would have reported and other people would say, why did you report? I understand a situation in my constituency when there was a time when Msasa people came and they sensitised people on GBV. Only one man was arrested for raping a 12 year old girl. Surprisingly, the person was given community service and was made to work at a local clinic. When people witness that, they feel it is not something serious at all. We need to have more punitive punishment.
During COVID again, we have witnessed a lot of challenges with the girl child. A number of school-going girl children dropped out of schools because of pregnancy. Some of them got married early. Such situations are not good for our nation because it destroys our young ones. We need to support them so that tomorrow, they become our future leaders. We should try to make a research into some of the issues that pertain to men and women to find out if it is the woman who is always a victim. There is a certain percentage of men who are also victims of gender based violence. I have two cases in my constituency whereby men hanged themselves. We need to find out because at times someone begins the fight and the other person in trying to resolve the issue will be the loser.
Finally, I want to say the Sexual Harassment Bill is long overdue. We must chat a way to reduce gender based violence in our communities so that we have less cases of gender based violence. That will help our people to focus towards development because when men and women are fighting, even during this rainy season, you will find there will be no production. People will not go to the fields because of misunderstandings. Children will end up following suit because they feel it is proper for a father to batter the mother. So when they grow up, they tend to do the same. I thank you.
(v)HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to add my voice on the report raised by Hon. Madiwa seconded by Hon. Molokela-Tsiye. A lot of women were at risk of domestic violence during the lockdown especially stress, loss of income and isolation. All these increased and contributed to the risk of violence. Reduced public transport and non-availability to both urban and rural set up for survivors of gender based violence remained a challenge. I therefore call for our Government to provide life serving services for gender based violence during this lockdown period. Women were going through abuse during the lockdown period. Those who were going through this abuse could seek support from various support structures that exist in their communities. Many women are in lockdown with their abusers while they are being cut off from normal support services. I therefore in conclusion, ask especially Hon. Members to support the police and justice actors to provide suitable services.
(v) HON. MAGO: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am going to be very short and precise. The issue of gender based violence does not show humanity when people fight. My advice, is since we have so many male Members of Parliament they should talk to their fellow men in the communities to say women are human beings. They have been beaten left, right and centre all along and there have never been violence from women. It is only men, and women have realised that if we leave these men to go on, it would not keep us right. So please Hon. male Members, advise other males that we should stop gender based violence. I thank you.
(V) * HON. PRISCILLA MOYO: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to support what was said by other Hon. Members on the issue of gender based violence, especially the issue that was raised by Hon. Molokela. The issue we are discussing is sensitive and painful. Those mostly affected by GBV are women and girls because they are not protected by these laws. The police officers who are supposed to protect them normally let them down. If they report cases of GBV, the next day they see the perpetrator back home and they are not even informed of what would have transpired. Even in rural areas, the headmen and chiefs do not protect women and girls because they do not get the help they deserve.
I think there is need to enact a law which strictly protect victims of gender based violence, not only have laws on paper but in practice they do not exist. When cases go to court, the perpetrators should get stiff penalties so that they are deterred to repeat the same. Now, what we notice is that after the ruling you will find that you would have wasted time reporting such violence because the penalty will be too lenient. There is a lot of corruption at police stations and courts and that need to be stopped if we really need to protect women and girls against gender based violence. I thank you.
(v) *HON. CHINOTIMBA: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I also want to add onto this debate of which violence cuts across on both men and women. There are some women who cause gender based violence by their actions. Some women entertain men in front of their husbands to the extent of being touched by those men. If the husband fails to control himself, he might react violently but the perpetrator here is the woman. There are also other men who leave their wives to look for other women. When they are asked by the wife, they start beating the wife. So on the issue of gender based violence we should look at both sides because some women also abuse their husbands. They even send them to fetch water for them and the man becomes a laughing stock. If the man asks the wife why she does that, violence starts.
Women must look after their families. Disputes are normal in families and sometimes arise from very small things, so it is very important for families to resolve these minor disputes amicably. If a woman is beaten by her husband and reports the issue to the police, when the woman comes back and want to withdraw the issue, the perpetrator must face the full wrath of the law. There must be stiffer penalties for perpetrators. I really support what the other Hon. Members said about the issue of gender based violence. In a peaceful family set up kids are brought up with good morals and in that family there is prosperity. In the country there will also going to be peace and harmony. Women and men must learn to respect each other. Men must respect their wives and all women. Also, women must respect their husbands and the husbands must also respect their wives so that there is harmony and progress in the family. If the husband does perform well in bed, she should consult the aunts. It is not good to look out outside wedlock as it causes GBV. It also applies to the husband, he should consult his wife and marry another wife. He should inform his wife so that they do not fight.
Every family is called a family because there is a woman. There is no man who must stay without a woman. As men, we must learn to respect our women and all women in the country so that there is peace, development and harmony. We should respect and take care of our God given gifts – our wives. I thank you.
*THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MAVETERA): Thank you Hon. Chinotimba. When you are debating, you must use proper parliamentary language. I encourage you to use dignified and parliamentary language and not use other words which are abusive and may need to be explained.
(v)HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Let me add my voice to the motion before the House. I fully subscribe to the motion that gender based violence (GBV) has no place in our homes. It is archaic, of redundant thinking and does not only exist in the physical assault of either the woman or the man in the union between the two. It extends beyond that.
GBV includes financial indiscipline by either party, for example is I am married to Mrs. Chikwinya and I sell our house without consulting my family, my wife in particular; that is gender based violence because it precisely affects her emotions, which emotions are the same as if we are equating to being attacked physically by a fist, knife or anything of a physical nature. In my view, there are a lot of men out there who have gone uncontrolled for lack of a better word, where they dispose of property without consulting their spouses. I think our laws should be specific that where a union exists, you cannot dispose of a property without the consent of the other partner in order to protect the emotions of both parties. We are not assuming that it is only the husband who can sell. We are assuming that either of the party can do things that can cause emotional injury to the other partner to the extent that to me, it is defined as GBV,
Secondly, GBV also exists where perhaps this cannot necessarily be legislated but those who say love cannot be legislated I am sure we need to think again. If I harass my family – I am in love with my wife but harassing my children; I am not quite sure how we can legislate towards that and I am not privy to the intention of course. The motion has got its prayer but to what extend the mover of this report intends for us to protect the family as an intergral component of our society. For example, if I can kiss my wife but I am not paying school fees for my children, what am I saying or doing to my girl or boy child. What culture am I inculcating to my family as they grow up to become community members who are supposed to become responsible and non violent in terms of their nature and mind.
When we speak of GBV, I purely understand that people are looking at the physical aspect of violence. I would like to thank most of the civil society organisations which are now going beyond the aspect of physical violence and thinking of anything that disturbs the other party, either being the male or female with regards to their emotional settlement, emotional well-being and both emotional and physical. I want us to interrogate all the law faculties that have a direct impact on the issue or aspect of GBV. There has been a stipulated mandatory sentence of GBV – I totally subscribe to that. I also want to urge Members of Parliament and the civil society – I see that there is a bias when we relate to gender, the majority of which believe that gender is purely speaking about the feminine aspect. I want to believe that there are also men who need protection. Let us speak in equality and equity. Let us speak to an extend whereby we build a society that respects the emotional and physical well being of individuals regardless of their sexual orientation.
The other aspect is that we must be able to interrogate the provisions of our Constitution. What is the intention of the legislature when we are protecting ....
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I am sure we have lost you Hon. Chikwinya.
(v)+HON. S. NDLOVU: Thank you Madam Speaker Maam. I would like to add my voice on the motion brought by Hon. Madiwa, seconded by Hon. Molokela-Tsiye.
I am very pleased to debate on this motion which is about GBV which affects especially women and children. As a Committee, we went out and spoke to the community about GBV in Gwanda, Bulawayo and Masvingo. We found out that if women are abused, they go and report to the police but the police do not have transport to make a follow up. When three days lapse, they will be no more evidence to prove that case; so they need to be attended to quickly.
(v) +HON. L. SIBANDA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to thank the Committee for the report on gender based violence. Gender based violence by its nature, is a bad thing and I condemn it. When wife and husband fight, that also leads to problems to their reproductive system. Sometimes it leads to unwanted pregnancies when a woman is raped. Madam Speaker, sometimes a woman gets pregnant even if she is not prepared. That leads to unsafe abortion. They also risk contracting HIV and these other diseases because during rape, normally they do not protect themselves.
So I would like to thank this Committee because gender based violence is very bad and with this Corona pandemic, sometimes the men stop going to work and that increases violence against women because they spend most of the time together. I would like to request that the Committee visit rural areas to educate people, especially women to report gender violent cases. They experience these cases but fail to report. I really support the recommendations made by this Committee.
Madam Speaker, I come from Matabeleland North and we see a lot such as a 12 year old child who may be mentally disturbed after being raped. They do not report because they are afraid of being attacked. So this Committee should not only go to urban areas but they should also go to rural areas. These other areas have access to WhatsApp and other information communication technology information on gender based violence. With these few words, I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v)HON. MAPHOSA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I would want to add my voice to the report that was presented by Hon. Madiwa and her seconder. Madam Speaker, gender based violence has become a pandemic not only in Zimbabwe but in the whole world. People especially women are being abused day in day out. There is great need for us as a country to intervene and make sure that this comes to an end. Like what one of the previous speakers has said, we traveled in Zimbabwe, including in rural areas where we were seeing how gender based violence was affecting even the livelihood of the people in Zimbabwe.
Madam Speaker, it is very sad to note that even in this day and age – people, including children are being sexually violated. They are being physically abused and the perpetrators are not punished at all. Madam Speaker, we also visited safe houses where there were women and children who would have been taken away from their homes for safety. What is heartbreaking Madam Speaker is that these people will be protected from their own family, a family that might be there to protect them.
Children are being raped by their fathers, grandfathers and brothers, people who should be there to protect them. So I think as Government, we should take stiffer measures to deal with the perpetrators of such violence. Madam Speaker, these days you witness that a husband can chop his wife because they have run out of a basic commodities before the end of the month. Those are issues that we are having as a country. I think there should be a minimum sentence and sterner measures for the perpetrators.
Madam Speaker, just last week I receive a message from an organisation and I still have that message of a six year old that was killed by her own father because of airtime. He was sent to buy airtime of 20 bond and the child mistakenly bought airtime for 40 bond and a child was killed for that. I think people need counseling. I was very happy that at one of the centres, there are counselors who think that it is important for people to have counseling. I think this counseling should be done at these centres. The counseling should include community leaders. Some of these problems might be caused by economic hardships, so this needs counseling. In a normal economy no one can kill anyone for 40 bond. So having said that, I agree with all Hon. Members who have debated and even the issue that has been raised by people that we must have more mobile stations throughout the rural communities. We see that these mobiles go maybe once in a month or once in two months but we are having gender based violence happening every day especially in these times of lockdown where people are not able to go out and work for their families. The stress is too much because maybe there is no food at home; families are together 24/7. So we need one-stop centres in the rural areas also and we need counsellors because what is happening right now is not normal at all. Having said that, let me thank you for this opportunity.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Indeed, I am sure it very much worth noting that we are having a lot of HeforShe advocates when it comes to women’s issues in this Parliament. That is very enlightening to note.
HON. MADIWA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. TOGAREPI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 24th February, 2021.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI, seconded by HON. TEKESHE, the House adjourned at Twelve Minutes to Seven o’clock
p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 18th February, 2021
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORTS RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that I have received non-adverse from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on
Statutory Instruments that were gazetted during the month of December, 2020. I have also to inform the House that I have received non-adverse report from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on Statutory Instruments that were gazetted during the month of January 2021 excluding Statutory Instrument No. 25/2021.
ADVERSE REPORTS RECEIVED FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY
LEGAL COMMITTEE
Additionally, I have to inform the House that I have received an adverse report from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on Statutory
Instrument No. 25/2021.
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to advise Hon. Members that they
are required to log in for the sitting of the House using their full names or indicate their names on the chat platform. If members fail to do so, they should seek assistance from the ICT department. If that is not done, the attended benefits will not accrue to them.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: On a point of privilege
Hon. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What is your point of privilege?
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you Mr.
Speaker. It is in connection with our communication virtually. Yesterday, I was connected virtually and it was almost impossible to hear anything in the House, the request is that perhaps the IT could mute everybody and ask Members of Parliament if they want to speak or to do a point of order to raise their hands virtually because it then becomes very difficult to hear anything. It was really problematic to engage or to listen through to the conversations that were taking place. I just thought you needed that feedback.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you I thought during the process, I made that announcement and also asked ICT to mute the Hon. Members. We need a new Standing Order rule to make some people comply accordingly. I hope the Hon. Members who are online have heard your concerns and will act accordingly, Hon. Misihairabwi-
Mushonga.
(v)HON. GONESE: I cannot hear you Mr. Speaker. I do not know whether it is my gadget or whether it is the system of the gadget.
THE HON. SPEAKER: But I can hear you.
(v)HON. GONESE: Yes, I can hear you now but the last words that you spoke, I did not hear you clearly.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What I said was, I hope you take note of what Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga has indicated, that you remain muted unless if you are to speak and raise your hand accordingly so that we can control the voice cross-overs.
(v)HON. GONESE: I hear you Hon. Speaker.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I know that you made a ruling and I would like you to reconsider the ruling.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Which ruling?
HON. T. MLISWA: It is to do with the ruling that you made Mr. Speaker Sir on the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to come and give a report on the bad results. Mr. Speaker Sir, I would like you to consider the following points which I will raise now. There was COVID-19.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, do not speak for the Minister. Let the Minister come and do the Ministerial Statement.
HON. T. MLISWA: I was not speaking for the Minister. I saw in my constituency, most of the bad results are out of COVID-19.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Can you allow the Hon. Minister to come and give his Ministerial Statement. You are not his advocate.
HON. T. MLISWA: No, I was not saying that. I just represent people…
THE HON. SPEAKER: You do not debate my ruling after 12
hours, that is not permissible.
HON. T. MLISWA: Okay Mr. Speaker Sir, I stand guided by you.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I ask that you recognise me on a point of privilege if you may.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Yes.
(v)HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. You have just made a ruling on the ICT gadgets in terms of registration for Members that are on virtual. I ask having gone through yesterday’s session of question time, that Parliament administration makes available two permanent gadgets on the table for Hon. Ministers and for the Members that are there in the House so that it expeditiously deals with your business in the House and makes sure that there is no muting, unmuting and back and forth in that regards. That eases the work in the House.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! All Ministers and all Members of Parliament were issued with tablets and I cannot go beyond that. Yesterday I said everybody must bring their gadgets or get assistance immediately from someone who has got a gadget nearby, otherwise there is no excuse.
FIRST READING
PENSION AND PROVIDENT FUNDS BILL [H. B. 17, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE) presented the Pension
and Provident Funds Bill [H.B. 17, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I move that Orders of the Day, Numbers 1 to 15 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 16 has been disposed of.
HON. MPARIWA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON MINES AND
MINING DEVELOPMENT ON PETITION SUBMITTTED BY THE
ZIMBABWE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ASSOCIATION (ZELA)
HON. MKARATIGWA: I move the motion standing in my
name that this House takes note of the Report of the Portfolio
Committee on Mines and Mining Development on the Public Hearings on the Petition submitted by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA).
HON. MADHUKU: I second.
HON. MUKARATIGWA: The portfolio Committee on
Mines and Mining Development, received a petition from the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) in May 2019, calling for the speedy review of mining laws, in order to address contemporary challenges dogging the industry such as irresponsible investments and degradation of the environment. This was informed by the Constitution of Zimbabwe and the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Business and Human Rights. Section 13 and 73 of the Constitution provides for the need for communities to benefit from resources located in their areas and for protection of the environment respectively. The UN Guidelines on Business and Human Rights are premised on three principles. Firstly, the state has primary responsibility to protect human rights. Secondly, business enterprises should respect human rights and thirdly, there should be mechanisms to address human rights violations. After wide consultation with different stakeholders in various parts of the country, the Committee observed that there was general consensus with the views of petitioner calling for the review of the Mines and Minerals Act, so that it is in sync with the Constitution as well as regional and international legal frameworks that govern the extractive industry.
However, a minority group namely the Peggers Association of
Zimbabwe was not in support of what was raised by the petitioners.
- Objectives
- To get an insight on the impacts of investments made into the mining sector.
- To understand the importance of reviewing the Mines and
Minerals Act.
- Methodology
In July 2019, the Committee held a consultative workshop in Kariba to discuss the petition raised by ZELA as well as to interrogate the loopholes in the current Mines and Minerals Act. The petitioner Mr M.
Dhliwayo outlined the concerns and expectations of the petition. In order to get a fuller appreciation of the petition, the Committee conducted public hearings in the 10 provinces of the country from the 19th to the 23rd of August 2019. The hearings were conducted at the following centres; Filabusi, Bulawayo, Bubi, Shurugwi, Kwekwe, Banket, Shamva, Penhalonga, Makaha, Mashava, Shamva and Harare. The participants were drawn from: mining communities, associations of small-scale miners, an association of peggers, students from Zimbabwe School of Mines, workers from mining companies, investors in the mining sector, officials from local authorities, education officers and the public in general. The hearings were highly interactive and the participants expressed their views on the mining sector. The major challenge with the hearings was that some of the participants digressed from the issues raised in the petition and focused on other mining related issues.
- Findings
3.1 Investments into the Mining Sector
Major investments into the mining sector worth billions of dollars are usually made by multi-national organisations, most of whom invest in the gold, platinum, lithium and chrome sectors. In the last 2 years, millions worth of investments were made into the platinum and lithium sectors, largely by Karoo Resources and Arcadia Resources. The Committee observed that there was little or no input received by large scale producers at these public hearings. However, other stakeholders, particularly local authorities and mining communities, gave their perspectives on the mining investments within their vicinity. Some of their concerns included the following:
- Local authorities expressed concern on revenues collected through unit tax levied on producers. With the advent of highly mechanised equipment, unit tax was no longer meaningful, since it was levied on the size of human capital. As such a call was made for the review of unit tax so that local authorities benefit from minerals mined within their jurisdiction. In the same vein, Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) was called upon by local authorities to plough back to the communities from the gold proceeds mined in their jurisdiction. Furthermore, local authorities raised concern that there was no policy regulating the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of mining companies and where CSR activities were taking place, they were not in sync with the developmental programs of the local areas.
- At Old Nic Mine, the Committee received submissions to the effect that the mine had changed ownership several times in the past decade. The workers were the most affected in that each new investor brought in his or her own terms and conditions, some of which were prejudicial to the workers. A recommendation was given that there is need for mining companies to disclose the identity of investors, so that the rights of workers and other interested parties are not violated. Furthermore, a call was made that there should be declaration of profits or losses by companies in order to reduce incidences of smuggling of minerals and other forms of illicit financial flows.
- In Bubi and Shurugwi districts, a call was made for disclosure of mining agreements and that they should be written in the local languages as well as in braille. This would empower the local community to hold investors accountable for their actions. In the same vein concern was raised that local communities were not fully benefiting from minerals mined in their vicinity, in line with section 13(4) of the Constitution.
- It was highlighted in Shurugwi that there is need for competitive bidding among investors. This will enable the country to get investors who are principled and abide by international and national law. It was further highlighted by the public that there should be disclosure of identity of the shareholders of a company so that they can be held accountable. It was observed that a company can change its name several times, yet the shareholders remain the same. An example was cited of King Daughter’s Mine (formerly Red Wing) where a new company called Properties Amenities is now operating at the site and the identity of the shareholders remain obscure.
- Mining communities in Mudzi expressed concern on the behaviour of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development which was allocating claims in sacred places, such as burial places for chiefs.
This violated the community’s social and cultural rights. According to the community, this was a sign that the investors do not respect the community’s culture, values and rights as outlined in the UN Guidelines on Business and Human Rights. Furthermore, investors were called upon to plough back to the community, in order to curb vices such as prostitution and drug abuse among young people. In Chiadzwa, there were complaints of human rights abuses by the mining companies, who at times beat up villagers on the grounds that they were encroaching into their mining claims.
- Where mining operations result in relocation of communities, a call was made for investors, to ensure that the affected persons are left in a better position than they were before the relocation.
Concern was raised that some families that were relocated from
Chiadzwa did not receive compensation through a verbal
agreement entered into with the investors. As a result the villagers were struggling to get redress from the mining companies. Whilst there were several complaints raised against investors, one investor complained of unfair treatment by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development where he narrated of the challenges encountered whilst trying to get a mining concession. Investors are at times coerced into paying a bribe in order to speed up the licensing process or to get a mining concession. The investors also lamented the fact that the approval or rejection of an application can take as long as 9 months and, in the process, stifling investment into the industry. Therefore, it was recommended that the Ministry of Mines, should introduce a one-stop centre that will process and facilitate investments into the mining sector.
- Environmental Management Issues
The Committee noted that there was lack of enforcement of environmental laws by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA)
particularly where there are illegal mining activities. In the process, this infringed on the rights of other land surface users, such as farmers, wildlife, livestock, and communities among others. The Committee was informed of unacceptable dust levels emanating from mining operations, which were affecting the health and well-being of pupils and the community in Insiza, Shamva and Mudzi districts. In the same vein, mining communities from Chiadzwa complained of water pollution emanating from diamond mining operations. In Mashava, there were complaints that Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), were not broad enough to include the local leadership such as Chiefs. However, the Committee did not get an opportunity to interact with EMA due to time constraints, in order to understand their constraints in enforcing environmental laws. A call was made that there is need for formalisation of all unregistered artisanal and small-scale miners and a holistic approach was needed for this process to succeed.
- Strengthening of Institutions Within the Mining Sector
The petition by ZELA outlined the need to promote principles of good governance such as transparency, justice, accountability and responsiveness. During the public hearings, the Committee received complaints on the operations of some State institutions such as Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR), the Ministry of Mines and Mining
Development and the Environmental Management Agency. FPR was accused of paying lip-service to the challenge of curbing gold leakages in the country. Producers outlined that a lot of gold was traded on the black market because the buyers offered better returns than FPR. Although FPR is the sole buyer of gold in the country, it is paying 55 percent in USD and the balance in Zimbabwe dollars. Due to inflation, it was difficult for producers to recapitalise their operations. Furthermore, some small-scale producers complained that FPR, was not visible in all gold producing areas. This forced some miners to trade on the black market, to avoid travelling costs to the nearest gold buying centre. Corruption was identified as another source of conflict in the mining sector, particularly by officials from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. These officials were accused of being biased and demanded kickbacks for one to get a service or for a decision to be made in one’s favour. A call was also made that any increase of fees and charges by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development should correspond with service delivery. A recommendation was made that an application for a mining claim should be processed within one month in line with the Ease of Doing Business reforms. Furthermore, a call was made for the speedy implementation of the computerised cadastre system in order to reduce conflicts in the mining sector.
- Review of Mining Policies and Legislation in Zimbabwe.
The Committee observed that there was a general consensus on the need to review the mining laws in Zimbabwe, particularly the principal Act, the Mines and Minerals Act. These were some of the provisions that were outlined at the workshop held in Kariba in July 2019 and also during the public consultations:
- The composition of the Mining Affairs Board should be expanded to include other stakeholders such as civil society, communities, among others.
- The powers of the Mining Affairs Board need to be decentralised so as to speedily resolve mining disputes or farmer-miner disputes. It was highlighted that decentralisation will speed up the resolution
of disputes, which often-times are counter-productive. A recommendation was made that mining disputes should be resolved within 3 months, so that productivity and revenue continue to be generated.
- There is need to enforce the ‘Use it or Lose it’ policy to enable investors and locals to get access to unutilised claims. Large-scale producers were accused of holding on to vast tracks of land which they were not fully utilizing. In the same vein, the Committee received complaints from small-scale miners that a lot of land had been placed under Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO), hence disempowering local communities especially the youth who have limited opportunities for sustainable livelihoods.
- A call was made that the new Mines Bill should be crafted with a gender lens. A number of women miners expressed concern that they were treated unfairly by State institutions such as FPR, the police and EMA.
- It was highlighted that there is need to craft a compensation model for relocated communities. This will empower affected communities to hold the investors accountable for any social and economic impacts they encounter as a result of mining operations.
- A call was made that the Mines Bill should be in harmony with other laws such as the Environmental Management Act. Furthermore, it emerged at the workshop held in Kariba as well as during public hearings that there is need to review the Gold Trade Act, particularly sections that touch on the possession of gold. A number of small-scale producers have been arrested for the possession of gold. Whilst pronouncements have been made by the Executive that gold be traded on a ‘No Questions Asked’ basis, this policy has not yet been translated into law. In the process artisanal and small-scale producers remain vulnerable to policy inconsistency and uncertainty.
Whilst the majority of the stakeholders called for the review of the Mines and Minerals Act, the Peggers Association of Zimbabwe highlighted that they were satisfied with the current piece of legislation hence there was no need to review the law, save for a few changes. The Peggers Association called on ZELA to report to the police those investors that were violating the laws of the country. The Peggers Association went on to highlight that the reasons for degradation of the environment was due to the lack of enforcement of the existing laws.
Whilst mining laws are critical in regulating the operations of the sector, it was highlighted that there is need to ensure that mining laws are in harmony with other laws that touch on agriculture, the environment and those governing local authorities.
- Committee Observations
The Committee made the following observations:
- There was a general lack of information on the contents of the Mines and Minerals Act. As a result, the bulk of the stakeholders were not aware of some of their rights as enshrined in the law. For example, there was a call that the Mines and Minerals Act should have provisions on the prohibition of mining near public
infrastructure, such as dip tanks, homesteads, yet this is already provided for in the law.
- There is lack of harmony between laws affecting the exploitation of natural resources, particularly those that relate to the management of the environment, local authorities and mining sector.
- There is no parity on the taxes levied by local authorities on mining producers. Each local authority imposes a mining levy different from the others making investment expensive in one district compared to another. Hence there is need for the association of local authorities to address this matter, in line with the ease of doing business reforms in Zimbabwe.
- There are some companies domiciled in Zimbabwe where ownership changed hands but the transactions for change of ownership is done outside the country. In the process the country is not getting any capital gains like tax and the identity of the
shareholders often remains unknown. This makes it difficult for workers and communities to claim their rights.
- State institutions working or affected by mining operations are not working together or are not cooperating on issues that directly affect them. For example, local authorities are not aware of all mining licenses that are granted by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development within their jurisdiction.
- Rural district councils are not fully implementing the laws as they relate to the pegging of mining claims particularly in communal areas in line section 31 (h) of the Mines and Minerals Act. As a result, local authorities are unable to monitor mining operations in their jurisdiction leading to environmental degradation and mineral leakages.
- Whilst the Mining Affairs Board can be decentralised to all the mining provinces, the Committee noted that the responsibility of resolving mining disputes should be delegated to mining commissioners, to lessen the workload on the Mining Affairs Board.
- There is low participation of women in the mining sector due to gender-based violence. Some women miners narrated their ordeal of losing their mining claims by the mere fact that one is a woman.
- Recommendations
- The Ministry of Mines should ensure that it brings before Parliament amendments to the Mines and Minerals Act by 30 September 2020 as agreed upon at a workshop in Mutare, July 2020.
- Civil society organisations such as ZELA should work towards raising awareness on the contents of the Mines and Minerals Act, so that communities and ordinary citizens can claim their rights as enshrined by law.
- Associations of local authorities should empower their affiliates with knowledge on the Mines and Minerals Act and the Rural
District Council’s Act so that local authorities can fully engage the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development in order to claim their rights and taxes pertaining to mining operations in their jurisdiction.
- Conclusion
The Committee on Mines and Mining Development, concurs with the petition submitted by Zela, that there is need for responsible investments in the mining sector that respect the rights of the citizens of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, there is need for the review of the Mines and Minerals Act which will go a long way in the improvement of service delivery by the Ministry of Mines particularly with the introduction of the cadastre system. Therefore, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development should endeavour to bring before Parliament the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill which is critical in promoting investments into the country in line with the Ease of Doing Business Reforms and in ensuring that country is able to attain its status of becoming an upper middleincome economy by 2030. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. Your guidance is sought in this matter. Listening to it, it seems the Mines Amendment Bill is really the sticking point. A number of workshops and stakeholders meetings have been held and I remember the last time that we worked through it so that a few areas could be worked on. Should it again go for public hearing or the specific areas which had been picked up by His Excellency are addressed? Does it require another stakeholders meeting or what? This has gone on for a while and for as long as that Bill is not through it will take time.
It concerns me because as a Committee we worked hard and I see that there is not much progress. Should it go back again to the public or the concerns raised by His Excellency can be dealt with by the Attorney General? It is incumbent on the Committee to bring the Minister before the Committee and give him a deadline that can this be done. Workshops will always happen but the implementation of this; we met stakeholders before unless there are other new people - the Chamber of Mines, Zimbabwe Miners Federation and so forth. Your guidance is sought in this regard. When can this be brought to finality? The last time we went to Kariba, I always follow this...
THE HON. SPEAKER: You are now debating Hon. Member.
HON. T. MLISWA: Okay, just to conclude; the last time there was a workshop in Kariba and I remember you saying it will now be finalised. It is still not been finalised. I do not know how your office can assist in ensuring that there is some communication between the Committee and the Minister in terms of the rules. How can it be resolved once and all?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Mliswa. If you listened carefully, public hearings were conducted in response of the petition by ZELA and the Committee is obligated to involve the public through public hearings about that petition. They confined themselves to issues raised in the petition.
As for the conclusion of the Mines and Mining Bill, when the matter was brought to the attention of the House, as you will recall and you rightly indicated, some further issues arose which required Cabinet debate in terms of certain aspects of the Mines and Mining Bill as suggested for amendment by His Excellency the President. So it had to go back to Cabinet because there was some extensive review of that Bill beyond what His Excellency had indicated. That has been done. What needs to be done is final agreement amongst all the stakeholders through final workshop to look at new proposals that had gone through Cabinet so that they wrap it up. My understanding is that Hon. Mkaratigwa is organising with the Ministry and they agreed that come next month, the Bill should be finalised and be ready for tabling in the House.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to begin by thanking the Chairperson of the Committee on Mines and Mining Development, Hon. Mkaratigwa and the entire Committee for doing a sterling job in view of this petition by ZELA. He has touched on several issues of importance that are critical to the country reaching a middle income economy by 2030 as propounded by His Excellency, President
- D. Mnangagwa. The mining sector plays a very pivotal role in meeting this objective. I want to zero in on two or three important issues.
Firstly, I want to talk about the issues on eight of the extractive industry transparency initiative. I think this is a very critical issue in terms of giving accountability and transparency to some of the issues which are bedevilling the mining industry. I want to recall that earlier last year, the Minister of Finance alluded to the fact that Zimbabwe was supposed to be a member of the extractive industry. If my memory serves me well there was a budget set aside for this important issue but up to now we have not joined this important organisation and yet if we become a member of the Extractive Industry Transparent Initiative (EITI), we are going to get rid of some of the issues. There is going to be transparency, accountability and publication of payments made to the Government of Zimbabwe by companies both domestic and
international.
This is very important because from what the Hon. Chairperson of the Committee was saying, there is a grey area in terms of remittances of the companies and even what they are producing as well as their corporate social responsibility. You will see a company saying they have ploughed back to $5 million a community and there is a tendency of making a lot of noise and ballooning this figure like they have done something very big yet the question is; how much did they get from these local resources for them to give back $5 million? The local communities continue to be prejudiced yet if we were a member of EITI that would shed a lot of light on what should be ploughed back. Therefore, we are calling for the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to expedite the process of joining this important organisation. Being a member can also eliminate corruption because it is very clear even from the newspapers that there has been a lot of corrupt activities in various departments of the mining sector. There are also a lot of conflicts in mining between the miners and the land holders. These issues could be looked at if we were members.
We also talk of the issue of poverty resource case or the paradox of plenty. We continue to have a situation whereby a country blessed with a lot of resources continues to lag behind other countries which are less privileged in those resources. Therefore, it is very critical that there has to be a correlation between the resources which are extracted and the level of development of the country. We are also talking about the awarding of contracts and licences. It is also a very grey area. Ownership is also not very clear. We have a company which is registered here but we do not know the directors. In some instances they are outside the country and the remittances are done outside the country or via another company which is not domiciled here in Zimbabwe. I urge the Minister of Mines and Mining Development to ensure that this issue is addressed.
There is the issue of gender impact. We need to see a lot of women in mining. They are there but they are so much disadvantaged because they are abused by men because the law does not seem to protect women yet they are supposed to be key players inasmuchas the youths are. We want to see this issue addressed. The environmental impact is a critical area, we cannot continue mining leaving our country looking like a desert. We are not going anywhere. Those mining are supposed to reclaim the environment and leave it in a better state than which they find it. All these issues can be resolved if Zimbabwe joins EITI. There will be so many benefits such as accountability and transparency.
I also wish to talk about the CADASTRA system. This is to do with the records in the mining sector, who owns what pertaining to the mining claims. There is chaos in terms of the records. They are in shambles as they are done manually, whereby there is a tendency to have double or multiple allocations because of the manual system. The Chairperson of the Committee is calling for the computerisation of the whole system so that it becomes effective. When one wants information, they should be able to get correct information and no mix up on who owns which mining claim. We pray that the amendment to the Mining Act will take care of this and resources are going to be put in place to ensure that there is going to be computerisation.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Chairperson spoke clearly on the other issues but I thought I could zero-in on these two important and technical points. I am happy that the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic
Development is here. He did talk of factoring the CADASTRA system in the budget. I think he will assist by ensuring that this situation is expedited. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
(v)HON. PHULU: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to congratulate the Chairperson of the Committee on Mining and the seconder for bringing such an important motion. I would also like to recognise the stakeholders who brought about this kind of petition. I also want to take into mind before I proceed what Hon. T. Mliswa has said-to say look, there is need to quickly finalize the issues do to with the Mining Act. I would like to take a slightly different view to say inasmuch as there is the Mining Bill that we are waiting for when members of the public made such an important intervention, I think that this is the opportunity time for us to consider the importance of this discussion for another perspective.
The Mining Act is one of those important Acts of Parliament that we have ever passed in our lifetime. There is an important question that we need to consider which is raised throughout that report, that is the question of the current Mining Act that we have. We must consider that when it was put in place, the politics of the times were different from what we have now. For instance, the people who brought about the Mining Act, their aim for coming to our country was primarily in order to harvest what was underneath the ground so that they could go and build their own countries. Over a large number of years, that is what they have done. They have built all their major cities using minerals and proceeds that they extracted from our country. If you go to Malawi, Zambia, the colonizers were not settling in those countries, they were just merely looting their minerals and their riches. In Zimbabwe we have some settlers who settled for their own purpose in order to come and take over the country and mines.
The other thing was that what was under the ground was more valuable than the natives who lived above the ground. You can entirely understand their legal policy to say that if you find a village with merely Africans, they could easily just tell the villagers to move and they did not care where those villagers would go. What they wanted were the minerals under the ground to take outside the country. So, their notion of development was to take the minerals and sell them for great money.
Our new Constitution envisages a different situation. Section 13 says that we now have a right to development and the way we look at the right to development is in tandem with how the African Charter looks at the right to development and other developing nations - every time what they call African Vision. Our development is not merely extraction, for extraction is not the most important thing that is in the Mining Act. We have distribution and extraction and that is not what all mining is about - but certainly issues to balance against the humans who live in the communities where this gold is going to be mined and where this oil or gas is going to be mined. To us the Africans who live above the ground are more important than the gold underground. So we must adopt an entirely new concept on how we view a Mining Act.
I think that the Bill that has been proposed has not changed in terms of looking at this whole thing of extraction versus development. I think this is calling for greater scrutiny on those issues. Development entails as we have set it out in the Constitution, it entails participation of local communities, it entails people benefiting from their own resources, it is there in our Constitution and anything that is referred to should have an enquiry on some of these important issues. I would like to say that certainly this is an area where we need a consolidated Act, quickly so that we put it back but certainly one that will ensure that members of the public are not disadvantaged, villagers and people in communities can also add in their words as we consider the Mining Act.
I will not go into the technicalities of the Mining Act but in the
Company’s Act that we passed in this House takes care of some of those issues. Another point which I can support is the issue to do with registration, double allocation and the way, in which these provincial mining commissioners do not take their offices seriously, they are not computerised, we have double allocations. Those jobs are very important - I think that there should be a total overhaul in terms of status of those offices to ensure that they work in the manner that is satisfactory. Another element is that the Mining Act actually also envisages that any mining claims must be registered, that has not been often happening. I think that there are a lot of important areas that need to be looked at. This is one Act that I was saying a multi-stakeholder Committee should be set up by this House to actually look into the things to do with the Mining Act to ensure that the product we have at the end of the day takes care of local authorities, international standards and so forth. It is not the one that we can quickly rush through because it has implications on our developments and our progress as a country in the future regardless of our political affiliation, our age and so forth, this is one Act that we must take very seriously. There must be a Parliamentary Committee to look into mining because there are multidimensional, and multi-stakeholders who are approached from different points of view for instances those who deal with the environment, safety issues and so forth - Africa looses a lot of revenue year in and year out.
Mining is one area where we really need to slow down to ensure that they do it properly. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
(v) HON. TSUNGA: Thank you very much for affording me this opportunity to contribute to this very important motion my Hon. Mkaratigwa seconded by Hon. J. Madhuku. Indeed, it is important to recognise the important role that civil society needs to display to complement Government effort and for this petition by ZELA. Having said that Mr. Speaker Sir, a number of important issues have been raised and discussed in the report. A good many of the issues are quite disturbing and they require definite steps to be taken by the authorities to ensure that some sort of sanity prevails in the mining sector. Indeed, mining has to bring about lasting improvements and progress in people’s lives but at the current rate it does not look like the generality are benefiting from the mining activities and there is need to take this report very seriously and implement a good many of the recommendations as suggested by the Committee.
Mr. Speaker Sir, some of the issues include the issuance of mining permits. A lot of issues arise here. The delays from the time of application to the time of issuance are worrisome and inbetween a lot of khaki envelopes may be exchanging hands. So there is need to ensure that the issuance of permits is streamlined and that the process is expedited so that we curb the likelihood of corrupt tendencies taking place.
The other issue relates to the invasion report, the degradation that is going on in the various mining sites. Mr. Speaker Sir I come from a mining constituency. Mutasa South Constituency has one of the mines that the Committee has cited as an example and there is a lot of degradation going on around that mine. So if this is the trend nationwide then there is really need for decisive action to be taken to ensure that we address the rate at which land degradation is happening at the mining site. For example Mutare River in Penhalonga in Mutasa South Constituency will soon become history because that river is no longer flowing and it has been diverted and some sections have been badly eroded and silted because of the mining activities around that area. So it requires again EMA to be proactive and to ensure that it is visible in the various areas where mining activities are taking place to ensure that degradation is contained.
There is also a lot of unfilled or unclaimed pits as a result of artisanal mining or illegal mining activities. There is a lot of dust that is going towards residential areas and it certainly is impacting the quality of life of the people and the quality of air that they are breathing. So all these, among other issues would need to be addressed.
The other issue, Mr. Speaker Sir, is with regards to corporate social responsibility. In several mining sites there is no indication that a lot of resources are coming up from those areas because the profits are not ploughed back or a proportion thereof. It is not ploughed back to the communities to help in developing these communities. For example simple things like crossing points to allow people to access social services, schools, clinics and markets should be built because people are swept away trying to cross flooded rivers, whereas there are mining corporates in those areas. So simple projects like crossing points need to be prioritised – housing, clinics and roads - these need to be considered. If you want to cross from perhaps say a location called Tsvingwe to go across Tsambe River to St Augustine’s Mission, you cannot cross. There are no crossing points when there are mines which are making millions out of resources in that area.
Another aspect Mr. Speaker Sir is that of artisanal miners. We all know that artisanal mining is contributing a good chunk to national revenues and we may not be talking about prohibition, but let us talk about regulation so that the sector is properly regulated without necessarily prohibiting it. So once we focus on regulation, I think there can certainly be order in that sector and the people of Zimbabwe will be able to benefit from their resources through artisanal mining activities. For example youths can be organised into groups and mining claims awarded to these organised groups and then they can be able to mine in a systematic way and be able to contribute to national revenues without
the environmental degradation that we are seeing in the various mining
sites.
So there is need for sustainability so that we enjoy the resources we have now, but not at the expense of future generations to also enjoy the benefits of these resources. Mr. Speaker Sir, the report by this Committee I think should provoke some introspection into those tasked with the responsibility of superintending over mining activities in this country so that they are able to come up with policies, programmes and projects that are sustainable and that help this country move forward.
Mr. Speaker Sir the recommendations if implemented should help bring out sanity in the sector. I therefore am also in support of this report and look forward to the tabling of the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill in the House in the shortest possible time.
HON. BITI: Madam Speaker, I rise to join in the debate and support the report by the Chairperson of our Mines Portfolio Committee. The issue of protecting the environment is key and it is protected in section 73 of the Constitution. That provision is codified and produced
in section 4 of the Environmental Management Act or the Environment Act of Zimbabwe.
When you juxtapose, Hon. Speaker, the issue of the environment and mining, there is a contradiction and that contradiction arises from the way that mining has evolved in this country. The whole basis of the movement of the Pioneer Column in 1898 into the country that later would become Southern Rhodesia was the hunt for minerals. They thought that when they moved up north crossing the Limpopo river the gold belt would continue into our country. Sadly that was not the case.
The current Mines and Minerals Act was passed by the South Rhodesia Parliament in 1923 and as Hon. Phulu has alluded to the philosophy was one thing and one thing alone, it was extraction. It was an accumulation model, Madam Speaker, based on extraction through imperial giants which still exist in our country at the present moment. One needs to look at companies such as Zimplants, RioTinto, the old defunct Lonrho, Caledonia and other companies. We still have the same extractive accumulation model based on extraction, extraction and extraction.
Ninety five percent of the minerals that are produced in this country are shipped out of the country, which is unfortunate. So if you are to wake Cecil John Rhodes right now, from his beautiful grave at Matopo; the productive sector would not shock him because the accumulation model has continued 100 years later.
There is a problem Madam Speaker Ma’am, with a model that is based on extraction because it is under development. If you go to Rio
Tinto’s Renco Mine in Masvingo/Chiredzi, to give one example – you cannot travel the 90km stretch of road from the mine to the Chiredzi road. It is the most under-developed and harsh road that one can ever travel, you know emaguswini - a terrible road. This mine has failed to develop its own surrounding, there is no spatial development and there are no hospitals, clinics, universities and processing plants to add value to the gold that they are extracting – that is just one mine Madam
Speaker.
Go to ZIMPLATS, only two days ago, a mine shaft collapsed at ZIMPLATS and a miner was killed because ZIMPLATS has failed to put in place adequate protective measures for its workers. Madam Speaker, I happen to act for a number of former miners who have been exposed to dust in the mining environment – underground and have developed lung diseases. One of the lung diseases is called pneumoconiosis but there is a Pneumoconiosis Act in Zimbabwe that deals with workers who suffer this disease from consuming and being exposed for years and years of dust.
Speaking about ZIMPLATS again Madam Speaker Ma’am, it has
been in this country for more than 10 years. It has failed to construct a refinery so that we can process the platinum metals that they are mining. So our platinum is taken to South Africa where there are potentially 10 metals that can be extracted including palladium and others and they only account to one thing and one thing alone – the platinum but not the other minerals and metals. Diamonds, Madam Speaker Ma’am,
USD$15 billion worth of diamonds was stolen in the five years that alluvial diamonds in Chiadzwa were at their peak. We have got so many minerals Madam Speaker Ma’am but the contribution of the mining sector in this country is so insignificant compared to that of Botswana.
Botswana, is a mono-mineral country with one mineral – diamonds. Diamonds have developed that country into an upper middle income country with per capita income of USD$9 600.00 and as I am talking to you right now, Botswana has foreign currency reserves of at least USD$10 billion just arising from one million. Madam Speaker, between 2009 to 2012 – USD$3 billion was lost in Zimbabwe through illicit financial flaws that involved transfer pricing, think capitalisation and the companies that are largely involved in these nefarious and illicit activities are these huge mining corporations – ZIMPLATS being at the centre of the shenanigans against the Republic of Zimbabwe.
So, if we have to have a correct balance between business and mining consistent with Section 13 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe
Madam Speaker Ma’am, the Government of Zimbabwe needs to revisit its policies towards these multi-national corporations, its policies towards these imperial giants and with great respect, what I have seen in the Mines and Minerals Act is not adequate. We have to tackle these big imperial fascist companies Madam Speaker.
Look at the environmental degradation. I come from Murewa
Madam Speaker Ma’am and every day, I pass through these huge trucks carrying huge blocks of granite from Mutoko. If you go to Mutoko
Madam Speaker Ma’am, you can hardly breathe because the atmosphere has been corrupted by these foreign miners who are extracting black granite in Mashonaland East and they are digging big holes. If you go to Chiadzwa, I have been privileged to go to Chiadzwa, Anjin, the biggest diamond mine there has started what is called, conglomerate diamond mining because alluvial diamond mining has ended. So with conglomerate diamond mining, you dig huge holes in the ground to extract the rock Madam Speaker Ma’am. Yet these holes, when they leave, are uncovered.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, if a child, a human being or a car falls into those pits – you will die, they are huge. So, the environmental damage that is being caused is massive. I propose a model of mining that has got spatial linkages and spatial linkages, I am proposing a method where if an investor comes into Zimbabwe; he/she must be asked on what linkages he/she is going to have in that community. That is forward linkages, backward linkages or spatial linkages that include the upward holistic development of that community. So corporate social responsibility is not enough because corporate social responsibility as Hon. Madhuku said, a huge company will give ZWL$5 million that is tax deductable anywhere. So they recover it very quickly but there is no meaningful development that actually takes place and mining is ephemeral – it is not permanent.
Go and see the ruins of Mhangura Mine in Mashonaland West to see how damaging mining is. Mhangura is a good example because when the mine died – the community died. When I grew up, there used to be a famous football team called, Mhangura United and that football team died. So you want to create a situation when you push for spatial development, you want to push for a situation where if the mine dies, the community does not die because other industries have been grown out of that community and industry. We need Madam Speaker Ma’am, I am glad that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, is here. When we look at mining, we need to move from a taxation method that looks at net profit – that just looks at dividends because if you are just going to look for dividends, they have got a creative accountant who will make sure that you get nothing. So go to, I do not necessarily support indigenisation in the sense of ownership because it means nothing.
Go for a structure where the country participates in the growth income of the company – Botswana does it. Botswana literally takes
85% of every dollar that is produced from its diamonds and the huge De Beers is there because the 15% that they get is enough to justify their existence. So, I am proposing Madam Speaker Ma’am, a taxation model that makes sure that the country has a major stake in the growth income of the wealth that is being created in the ground – I am proposing spatial development.
Thirdly Madam Speaker Ma’am, I am proposing value addition. We need to move away from extraction to value addition. What can we do with our diamonds for instance? It pained me during the Government of National Unity Madam Speaker Ma’am. I had occasion to visit a little village called, Surat Gujarat in India. There were 76 000 women, employed to polish Zimbabwe’s diamonds. You do not need a degree or anything Madam Speaker Ma’am, to polish diamonds but they were exporting our diamonds to create employment yet we have 95% unemployment here. So value addition is key and that is the future for our country.
Fourth Madam Speaker Ma’am is a strong regulatory framework. The current regulatory framework that the Ministry that issues out the licences is the same that does the regulation. This cannot work because you cannot regulate yourself. So, I am proposing that there must be a strong regulator that consists of multiple agencies including our Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and civic society to monitor the nefarious activities of many of the mining houses here.
Fifth Madam Speaker Ma’am is the acquisition of mining rights. Mining rights in Zimbabwe are acquired opaquely, so someone ends up taking Great Dyke investment. Someone ends up with a platinum concession in Norton and someone ends up with a huge diamond concession. If you go to Chiadzwa, we do not know what criteria was used for Anjin to get a mining concession. With these high value minerals, what most countries are now doing is to auction them transparently. You employ your experts, fantastic accountants, financial advisors and you auction those rights transparently. When you auction, it is possible now to say what you are going to do; what is going to be the better bid and so forth.
The other point is international evaluation; this is where the importance of joining the extractive industry transparency initiative is important because you are making yourself accountable to international processes. Finally, we need to push the United Nations (UN) to come up with a protocol, treaty or convention that deals with illicit financial flows. In the same way that we have got protocols and conventions on women, you know CEDAW, on children, on torture, on terrorism and on prostitution. We also need an international protocol or convention at the UN against illicit financial flows because when we have that, when the naughty boys from China, Russia or the West come into Zimbabwe, the UN will be able to act under the guise of an international protocol. If we do not have an international protocol against illicit financial flows, it means little vulnerable states like Zimbabwe will remain at the hands of these behemoths like Zimplats, exploiting our resources through thin transfers, pricing, thin capitalisation and illicit financial flows.
Lastly, we need to find a way in which we make money, developmental and transformational for the person we have classified as artisanal/small scale miner. The image and structure of artisanal mining in Zimbabwe is that of a korokoza. So we have got boys who work so hard, get a few dollars, get a few grams of gold, they go and sell it to a miller, mostly Chinese millers extract 60/70% of what they are mining.
So at the end of the day, in the value chain, the artisanal miner is working for the miller or is working for the smuggler who buys that gold and goes to sell it to South Africa.
It is estimated that 75% of the gold that is currently being processed at Rand Refinery in South Africa is actually Zimbabwe gold and gold has got a DNA. So scientists are able to say this is
Zimbabwean gold; this is Botswana gold; this is Ghananian gold. If it were not for those leakages, Hon. Minister, we could easily do 50 tonnes of gold in Zimbabwe but we are not going to be able to do that. So let us revisit the structure of artisanal mining so that the boys that are actually mining do not just labour in the value chain of mining with smugglers like the McMillians extracting gold to South Africa. I thank you Madam Speaker.
(v) HON. MASENDA: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me
this opportunity to add my voice to the motion that was moved by Hon. Mukaratigwa and seconded by Hon. Musakwa. I would like to highlight a few issues towards the motion. Firstly, the Bill must aim to move from mere extraction of minerals. We have numerous minerals in this country and if we move from extraction to value addition and beneficiation, we can realise proper value of our God given resources and we can also create employment for many people.
The Bill must also aim to empower makorokoza and the name itself must be removed. They should be equipped with proper mining equipment and skills. They should have legal recognition so that we curb smuggling.
The Bill must also strictly address the issue of collapsing mines; we are hearing of mines collapsing and people die in the process. There should be a policy that everybody who is involved in mining should be obliged to protect employees from injuries or deaths that might be caused by unsecure mines. The other issue is the Bill must address….
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Masenda, please
remember we are debating on the report of the Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development on the public hearings on the petition submitted by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA). I just thought I should correct you. We are not debating the Bill.
HON. MASENDA: Thank you Madam Speaker. We should also
look at restriction of leaking of our minerals. We find that there are small airports dotted around the country whose purpose is strictly to smuggle minerals out of this country. This should be stopped, otherwise industries will not be able to give us what we expect from gold. We are losing a lot of minerals through leakages. The other issue which I would like to address is the restriction of using corrosive substances in mining such as the use of mercury to extract gold from the ore. We should therefore put into place measures that protect the environment, people and animals whose consumption of water that has been polluted will put their lives in danger.
Lastly, we should guarantee for example safety of the miners. We have been reading through the newspapers, watching TVs on issues of maShurugwi, the machete yielding gangs which go around robbing and killing people. We should address issues related to that very strictly so that anybody who gets into the mining sector their safety is guaranteed. I would like to thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity.
HON. MADZIMURE: I have a lot of things to talk about but I
will start with the issue of corporate social responsibility where the best interest of the company should be interpreted within the parameters of the company as a sustainable enterprise and the company as a responsible citizen. It is important that as companies operate and as companies come into an area, they must understand that the area has people who live in the area.
(v)HON. KASHIRI: Hon. Madzimure should speaker louder because we cannot hear him.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Madzimure, please may
you raise your voice?
(V)HON. MADZIMURE: I will try to be louder. I was saying that the best interest of the company should be interpreted within the parameters of the company as a sustainable enterprise and also the company as a responsible citizen. As the company comes or moves into an area, it must understand that there are people who have sustained that area for a very long time. As a result, its operations must not disturb their lives to an extent where they regret the coming of the company. It is important that every company follow through regulations that Government must have put in place to ensure that after its operations, people that it found in that particular area can still live sustainably. It is important that, that is taken into consideration.
I once paid a visit to a certain area in Kenya in Ivasha where there are companies that grow flowers. Because of the regulations that the Government put in place to ensure that companies which grow flowers co-exist with the community, you find there are secondary schools, hospitals and ECDs that are top class. The business environment around has transformed lives of the people to the extent that you now have companies which have got nothing to do with flower growing but because people benefit from the business, they have also started other businesses and you now have real towns around the areas where flowers are grown.
This is one of the models that we must copy as Zimbabwe to ensure that the area around a place where mining is taking place can give birth to other industries so that at the end of extraction, and because it is common knowledge that when you mine you do not grow any other gold underneath, it is depleted completely. We must ensure that we have got a policy as Government that wherever an activity takes place, at the end of that extraction, there is something that is left behind. We also have short memory as Zimbabwe. I still remember some six years ago when there were a lot of community benefit schemes and these have just died a natural death. No one is talking about them anymore. No one ever audited what was given to the community and no one is talking of what the benefits were out of those schemes. Madam Speaker, it is still important for us to say what was wrong with that particular scheme. Were we are just showcasing or we just wanted people to see that there was something happening. I think it is important that we revisit it and say what really happened.
Another issue that I would want to talk about is the issue of transparency in the extractive industry. When people talk about joining the extractive industries transparency initiative, the whole idea is to make sure that we do our business transparently so that the people of Zimbabwe benefit from our own minerals. It does not say if you join you are going to contribute all your proceeds. It is just that we want to be accountable so that this correlation that Hon. Madhuku talked about - between the resources that we claim we have and the development out of what we have as a country; if there is correlation between the minerals that we have and the extraction that is taking place which is massive extraction, it will be better for us to stop until we put in a system that will benefit the people of Zimbabwe.
The example that was given by Hon. Biti, of Botswana – it is for all of us to see. In the early 80s, someone would celebrate to come to Zimbabwe from Botswana and buy some things like shoes from Bata and linen from Merlin in Bulawayo, but this is not the case anymore. They do not even want to see us in Botswana. This is because they have managed to look after their resources and they are accountable to the people of Botswana. That is why a lot of people are now talking about the Bill which will never come. I do not know whether I will be there to see it in my lifetime but who is benefitting the current Bill for them to feel so comfortable with a Bill that was left by Ian Smith? Why can we not have a new Bill? That is one other area – excessive industries are transparency initiative that I think it is very important.
Lastly, the cadastral system - who tells the other what he has? Is it us as Zimbabwe or the investor? Until we have a system where we can say this is the deposits we have in this particular area. There is no way we can maximise on our resources to wait for an investor to come and do the surveying and the like and then determines what is underground and say, let us go into a partnership. Will he ever disclose what exactly is underground? That will never happen. I think a budget is needed for us to ensure that as Zimbabwe we know and understand where our resources are. As Zimbabwe we also have areas that we can say for this particular period we are reserving for the future generation, otherwise we are mortgaging the entire Zimbabwe today leaving nothing for the future generations.
I thank Hon. Mkaratigwa and Hon. Madhuku who seconded for bringing this debate to the House. It is commendable that the Minister of Finance has been in the House and listened to the debate, he will take it up with Cabinet. Looking at the Minister of Finance, we are talking of almost a Prime Minister. The Minister of Finance is responsible for all our resources. Because of that, he has an important job to do. I think this particular debate is a wake-up call for the Minister of Finance because his own credibility hinges on what we are talking about here. The legacy he is going to leave as a Minister depends on what we are talking about. I hope he would also want to leave a situation where people will always say this is what Hon. Mthuli Ncube left for this country. I thank you Madam Speaker.
*HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am not going to say much. I want to thank the Chairperson, Hon. Mkaratigwa and Hon. Madhuku for bringing the report to the House. I did not want to stand up and speak but there is something which touched me the most. It took zeal to see that something has happened here. There are people who are being abused. They are beaten and some of them are being chased away by those who claim that the place belongs to them. When all this happens, there are women and children who are involved because people will be relocated from their homes, which means women and children suffer.
I want to thank ZELA and Mr. Moyo, through the Chair Hon Mkaratigwa who embarked on site visits as a Committee to see the situation on the ground. I want to leave a question to this august House, Committee and to all Hon Members. Only few areas were visited and we heard about their challenges but what about other areas not visited which constitute the greater percentage? We hear incidents happening at mines every day. In English they say it is an eye opener. It is very crucial Hon Speaker, to see that all areas are visited so that we know what is happening there. I want to thank him for it opened our minds and it showed that they are dedicated because the moment they heard about it they rushed there to see and come up with a report. I want to thank them.
Secondly Madam Speaker, I see that in his report he also talked about the rights of workers which are being violated. He said at Fidelity Printers, I am happy that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Hon. Prof. Ncube is here. Fidelity Printers has a lot of things to do with Ministry of Finance. There is need for thorough investigations to see which human rights are being violated. It must not end on investigation but we must come up with a probe which helps to know what is really happening and how many people are affected. There are some people who opt to resign if their rights are violated. There are also some who are being abused and decide to keep quiet. Some are failing to do their work. We want all these issues to be addressed and resolved. We must see that workers rights which are being violated at Fidelity Printers and some other mining companies are resolved before things go out of hand. Hon Biti and the Chairperson of the Committee have already spoken about that. Many mining companies do not do social responsibility. In some areas there is nothing, even water. Zimplats is a good example. You see that there is nothing which was done there. When you are coming from Kadoma, you see lights to show that there is a big company there but across the road where vendors operate, there is nothing even a shade to hide in cases of rains or sunlight but there is a company called Zimplats. There are many things we expect these companies to do since they are mining minerals in these areas. These companies must help us as Zimbabweans because the minerals they are mining belong to Zimbabweans.
Madam Speaker, we are talking about rights of workers, issues of women and children on how they stay in different areas and their rights in terms of their social lives. When we seek for findings, the
Committees for Labour, Justice and Gender must work together with the Mines Committee to investigate other areas that were not investigated. If we continue to focus on one angle, we will miss a lot of things which need to be addressed as tabled in the report from the Mines Committee.
Lastly Madam Speaker, what has been said in the report tabled by Hon Mkaratigwa, those who are beating people and chasing away villagers in their homes saying the area belong to them must be dealt with. They must face the full wrath of law so that others will not repeat the same thing. I thank you for giving me this opportunity Madam Speaker.
(v)*HON. NYABANI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would want to add my voice on the debate of the on Mines Report. There is massive destruction of the environment and natural resources. This negatively has an impact on people living in these areas. At the same time people in these areas do not benefit anything. When we went around to places like Rushinga, companies mine and leave open pits. These holes are left open and during the rainy season they get filled with water. Livestock fall into these pits. Minerals are finite resources and it is my view that in the long run, Parliament is going to become a laughing stock and be called a toothless bulldog which could not deal with issues that were happening. What is happening in Rushinga is what is happening in Uzumba, Maramba, Pfungwe and all over the country. After 20 years you may not have any country to talk about. They say a stitch in time saves nine; we should timeously attend to these leakages and all these problems.
The borders should be properly secured to curb the leakages because Zimbabwe is losing a lot of revenue. We should have laws to ensure that those who come to mine our resources will be able to sustain us into the future because what we are mining is a finite resource. The mining that is being done in Zimbabwe and the minerals that we have – is it contributing to the development of Zimbabwe. There is siltation and infrastructure is being destroyed and something should be done
about it.
The Executive and Parliament should ensure that we look after our heritage. The country has fauna and flora, it has rivers and mountains. These should be conserved so that we will not become a laughing stock and go down as the Parliament where Hon. Nyabani was a member and did not do anything to write home about and ensuring that the resources are conserved for the future generations. I thank you.
(v)HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to salute the petitioners who brought this very important petition and the
Committee led by Hon. Mkaratigwa for interrogating this petition and asking people their views concerning this very important issue on the development and welfare of our people. However, if it is not handled well, mining can also be a source of disaster for our environment, livelihoods and health as a people. It is therefore very important that we do mining with enough checks in terms of sustainability. Are the people mining bringing value to our people or just digging and creating pits that are not going to be filled? If we do not have those checks in place, we are going to be poorer after decades of people extracting our minerals.
Our provincial mining commissioners are a very corrupt lot. They should be facilitating for those who want to be miners but they are creating conflict everywhere. They are part of the same people who constitute the machete gangs and korokozas, yet they are supposed to give guidance on how our Minerals Act operates. They are involved in shoddy mining deals. I think we need laws that will protect those who really want to be miners.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: We cannot hear you Hon. Togarepi.
HON. TOGAREPI: I will end here if I am no longer audible.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Togarepi.
HON. DR. KHUPE: Thank you Madam Speaker. First of all I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Mines Committee for their report and for taking into consideration the issues raised by the petitioners. Our grandchildren are going to be spitting on our graves because they are going to be reading from history books that Zimbabwe was a very rich country, endowed with enormous mineral resources and yet they will find nothing. All they will see are just holes. I am saying this so that we understand that minerals are God-given and they are supposed to benefit every Zimbabwean. As we speak right now, the majority of Zimbabweans will never see or touch gold, diamonds or platinum, but they can only see these from the built roads Madam Speaker. People are abused Madam Speaker from clinics, schools and hospitals but to go areas where we have got these big mines and see what is happening, the situation is pathetic. These people are mining these minerals and yet there is absolutely nothing that goes to show that they are mining platinum, gold and diamond in those areas. Go to Chiadzwa right now and see what is happening, is there any development in Chiadzwa, there is absolutely nothing but where is the diamond? Where is the money from diamond going, where is the money from gold going?
Madam Speaker, I am saying these things so that we understand that these mines which are operational must understand that at the end of the day, they are supposed to plough back to the communities through social corporate responsibility and these are some of the issues which are supposed to be looked into when this new law comes into this Parliament so that the Minister understands that these minerals are supposed to benefit the communities.
Our unemployment rate is very high right now and yet we are exporting jobs to other countries. We are exporting our minerals in raw form and when they get to those countries, jobs are created in those countries and yet our own people here do not have jobs. This Act must address the job creation in this country and that this business of exporting jobs Madam Speaker comes to a stop, this is what other Hon.
Members were talking about that we are supposed to value add our minerals. We are not supposed to export our minerals in raw form. They gave an example of platinum, it comes out with 10 other minerals and yet we are selling it in raw form, yet we will be getting gold, palladium, radium but we are just selling it in raw form and we are getting nothing.
I would also talk about the issue which was raised by the Committee which has to do with mining claims for women. Women are given mining claims but when men realise that that mine has got a lot of gold, they then go around and start saying. “no, we made a mistake, this claim was already given to somebody and therefore we are withdrawing this claim from you”. Madam Speaker, this must come to a stop because I have heard of stories from women that their claims have been withdrawn because people realise that their mines have got a lot of gold. This must come to a stop because women also want to be big miners, just like any other person and they must be given that opportunity so that they also become big miners. I think women will perform better.
Women will make sure that their mines are making a lot of money, they will build schools, clinics, roads, sink boreholes for communities so that communities benefit.
I would like to propose that women be protected when it comes to mining because I do not think that women are getting enough protection, they are being harassed, left, right and centre. Madam Speaker, other colleagues spoke about the extractive industries transparency initiatives which are the global standard for the good governance of mineral resources. I think as Zimbabwe, it is important that we belong to the extractive industry’s transparency initiatives. This is going to assist us because there is going to be transparency in the issuance of claims like I was saying that women are being discriminated when it comes to issuance of claims. Women are applying for claims but most of them do not get those claims, I am one of those that applied two years ago, it took a lot of time for me to get these claims. There must be transparency in the issuance of claims, mining of our minerals so that we know how much has been mined, how many kilograms of gold has been mined, how many karats of diamond has been mined? How many tonnes of platinum has been mined and at the end of the day we will also know there is going to be transparency in the selling of these minerals.
Right now there is no transparency in the mining sector; people are giving wrong information of what they are mining like if they mine 1kg of gold they will tell you that they mined 300grams of gold. So it is important to know how much they have mined and it is also important that we know how much that platinum, gold and diamonds have been sold for so that that money is ploughed back to the communities. Like I said, these minerals are God given, they were given to every Zimbabwean and do not belong to foreigners or to a few individuals, they belong to every Zimbabwean. Therefore our minerals are supposed to benefit every Zimbabwean. There is a new law which is supposed to come right now, we cannot rely on the old law, and we need to come up with a new law which is going to ensure that our God given minerals benefit every Zimbabwe. Right now instead of our minerals giving us and communities joy, they are giving communities problems, dust and other problems as highlighted by the Chairperson.
We want these minerals to give people joy, we want people to enjoy and say yes, this is what we have as a country and this is what we have benefited from our minerals and this can only happen if as a country we become firm in our laws. We want laws which are very firm, strict and which are going to protect our minerals and also protect our people because when our minerals are protected, our people will be protected because at the end of the day, they are the ones who are going to benefit from those minerals. I rest my case Madam Speaker.
HON. RTD. BRG. GEN. MAYIHLOME: Thank you very much
Madam Speaker. I just want to start by thanking the Chairman of the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development Hon. Mkaratigwa, seconded by Hon. Madhuku for bringing this very important report to Parliament. Most of the issues that I was going to touch on have been covered well by other contributors. I just want to highlight one or two issues relating to the cost benefit analysis or the cost of mining to other sector of the economy. This country tends to celebrate the contribution of mining to the DGP and celebrates the contribution of small scale artisanal miners, illegal miners as well; surprisingly, when they are known to be breaking the law, but they are celebrated for bringing so much gold into the fiscus.
It turns to turn a blind eye on the cost that this sector is incurring to other sectors. Starting with the environment - the environment degradation, the pollution they are causing to the environment. The pits that they cause to the communities, farms and other users of the land, I will give an example. In 2020, I lost 31 herd of cattle into mining pits. No compensation whatsoever from anybody and nobody is talking about it; talking of just one farmer. Imagine if there were 100 farmers like that, how much we are losing in terms of livestock or wild life falling into pits that nobody is taking responsibility for? Nobody is being held accountable for them. We are saying even if Government position is that miners must cover their pits, who is ensuring that those pits are covered, nobody. Even if they were to be charged levies for destroying the environment, where does that money go, does it go back to the individual farmers, to the community, rural district council? Nothing happens. It is one cost just to the rest of the other sectors. Look at the rivers that have been destroyed, dams silted, roads destroyed and they are not contributing anything and nobody is holding them to account. The ability of the security sector to enforce laws as far as mining is concerned is virtually at a very low level. In fact, if I would rank it on a scale of one to ten, it is maybe at 0.5% enforcement because everybody is turning a blind eye. The gold panners wreak havoc in communities – violence, crisscrossing people’s properties, cutting fences, destroying the environment, littering and human faeces all over the place. We cannot talk of even the mercury, things that we cannot even quantify the damage that it is doing to livestock and human beings and we are turning a blind eye. I think perhaps in generations to come, the toll will be very high on the environment, degradation or the damage that mining has done to the other sectors.
Then you look at the security of our minerals. Many of our Hon. Members have touched on these leakages and so forth. As a country we seem not to even have the capability to monitor what is there. In some other countries, seeing or touching a diamond is a serious offence but in this country, everybody seems to think that you can just get it and get away with it without anybody worrying. You cannot do the things that you do in this country in handling of minerals in countries like Botswana – handling of diamonds and gold, even daring to go to an airport carrying kilogrammes of gold because our systems are just not strong enough or developed enough to enforce what we extract and how we handle those minerals.
So this law, if it was first crafted in 1923 and perhaps amended in 1961, it is too old for it to be used currently in this modern era. It is high time it was revamped. Communities are deprived of what is basically theirs but I will not belabour this because so many of my previous colleagues have talked about it but I am saying communities are crying for development and yet their money or their resources are being taken away, extracted and sent to other countries to develop other countries.
Communities are going without schools, education and health and the money is being used to develop other countries in Europe, America, China and India. Even the cost that mining brings to the society, in terms of accidents, it is not the miners, illegal miners, or mining sector that pays for that. When CPU is activated, it is the whole nation that contributes resources, fuel, time and everything to recover the bodies of people that would have died there. The hospitals that treat these people when they get injured or when they are affected by pollution, who is paying that? It is the taxpayer who is not benefiting at all but the mining sector does not contribute to all that.
So I believe that it is time that mining was taxed appropriately and when this Bill comes to this House, the House should ensure that such issues are factored into the Bill so that mining really pays the price they should pay. I do not want to go on and on but it is an issue that is very close to our hearts and one wonders why it is taking this long for Government of this country or the Executive to bring this Bill to Parliament. Who is benefiting from this chaos, lost lives, accidents, pollution and this non development of our areas? When the situation is so chaotic we cannot be celebrating illegal things. As a country we need to bring this Bill to Parliament and have a law that will be helpful for
Zimbabweans and for generations to come. I rest my case Hon. Speaker.
*HON. CHIKUKWA: Thank you Madam Speaker I would like to add my voice to the report tabled by Hon. Mkaratigwa seconded by Hon. Madhuku. My request Hon. Speaker is that on a daily basis the President of this country is on record as asking people to maintain the environment from degradation but this is falling on deaf ears. We must have laws that also look into the issues of artisanal miners and that the women and the youths should also be licenced and be given the mining licences. Those that have the money are given the licences. There are those that have been waiting to get permits since 2016 but there are those that come today and they are given. Where I come from in Mashonaland Central they will tell you that they already are issued with the mining claim even if you have been there for quite some time. So there is need for a law that puts an end to this chaotic allocation of mines.
When diamonds were first discovered and before those companies came to mine, we observed that communities were able to build houses and it was self evident that the proceeds from diamonds were now improving the lives of the community in Mutare, but at the moment, people are now suffering. There should be a law that puts a stop to those people that take advantage of others and that those that mine gold should follow stringent laws that are laid down by the Government so that they will be a stop to leakages. That is what I have decided to add to this report. The law should come as quickly as possible so that communities do not continue to suffer. I thank you Madam Speaker.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that the
debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 23rd February, 2021
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE), the House adjourned at Four Minutes to Five o’clock pm until Tuesday, 23rd February, 2021.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 18th February, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
LOGGING IN ON VIRTUAL PLATFORM
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the Senate that all Senators are required to log in using their full names for identification purposes or indicate their name on the chat platform. This will assist officers in the compilation of attendance registers.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I do not have a list of apologies from ministers. On the front bench, I can only see the Leader of the House and Minister of Information, Hon. Sen. Mutsvangwa and the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Hon. Murwira, he always comes. Those are the ministers we have at the moment. There is also Hon. Phuti, the Deputy Minister of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services, the Hon. Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. All ministers, you are welcome to Senate.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
HON. SEN. KHUPE: Thank you Madam President for giving me this opportunity to ask a question. My question is directed to the Hon. Deputy Minister of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services, Hon. Phuti. In view of the fact that it is a Government policy that information is accessible to all Zimbabweans throughout the country, what are they doing as a policy measure to make sure that some areas which we know by now that there is no network also have network? All the three networks are not functioning. I just wanted to find out.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you Hon. Sen. Khupe. Before the Minister gives us the answer, the Hon. Minister for National Housing has walked in, Hon. Garwe.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY, POSTAL AND COURIER SERVICES (HON. PHUTI): Thank you Madam President. I would like to thank Hon. Sen. Khupe for the question that he has posed. Yes, a lot of places in Zimbabwe are still underserved and the Government has been working on bridging the digital divide between places, particularly between towns and rural areas to the extent that…
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order Hon. Minister, you are not connected. While they are sorting out on getting connected, those with questions to other Ministers can proceed.
*HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: Thank you Madam President for giving me this opportunity to direct my question to the Leader of the House. We want to understand the variant which we have heard is emanating from South Africa. We want to establish if we have the variant of the virus here in Zimbabwe and what the different is between the Covid-19 that we know of here in Zimbabwe and this one.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you Hon. Senator, the Vice President is coming in to give a statement, if we can just wait for that statement.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NGEZI: Thank you Madam President for giving me this opportunity. My question is directed to the Leader of the House. There is human and wildlife conflict that is happening. To be specific, elephants are destroying crops. In other areas people are being killed by animals. What initiatives are there to safeguard human beings from wild animals?
*THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Thank you Madam President. I would like to thank the Hon. Senator Chief Ngezi for the very important question. This is something that the Government is working on, working together with other development partners to ensure that there is harmony between humans and wildlife, and to make sure that crops are not destroyed. The money is channeled through the Zimbabwe National Parks to make sure that human life is guaranteed to be safeguarded from wildlife. In Manicaland in Mutema area, we have evidence of animals destroying crops. Government has always been channeling funds towards such projects. We are very sorry in cases where human life has been lost because of human and wildlife conflict.
The other problem is that humans go on to destroy the fences that have been put to safeguard them. So we are educating people on the use of fences and that they are there to safeguard their lives.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Madam President my question is directed to the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education. From what he is doing on COVID vaccines, are there other plans for them to come up with pre and post emergency chemicals which are used in farming because herbicides are a challenge. Our crops are not growing because of weeds.
*THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): Thank you Madam President for the question that has been asked by Senator Tongogara. Our education should be practical. For one to be called an educated person, it is to be skilled in a certain area but not that you are educated and you cannot do practical things. I want to talk about all the work that is being done, including coming up with the herbicides. We have a very good plan for us. There is what we call armyworm; we have come up with an insecticide which we made from indigenous trees. We did this with the innovation hub of the University of Zimbabwe and we have tried it on 400 hectares which the University of Zimbabwe has ploughed. The insecticide that we used, we came up with it at the University of Zimbabwe. So, we are looking that with time we are going to channel it through our laboratories into the factories.
On the 4th of December, 2020, His Excellency President Mnangagwa opened the first factory at the University of Zimbabwe. That is where we are going to put factories that are making those insecticides. The insecticides that we are making these days are environmental friendly that is why we are making them from our indigenous trees. So, in short, let us say it is still in the pipeline. We do not win all the time but we do it, we will come up with something. This one for armyworm we have it but for the weeds we are also looking at it. Our wish is that we should not import food, we should do all our things and import luxury things. For a country to go on we cannot rely on imports.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I think the Deputy Minister is now ready.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY, POSTAL AND COURIER SERVICES (HON. PHUTI): Thank you Madam President. The question from Hon. Sen. Khupe was about the unfair distribution of network provision in the country which leaves a digital divide between places particularly cities and rural areas.
Government through my Ministry is working on making sure that there is access to network, there is connectivity throughout the country. There is BOT model that has been embraced that has to do with a partnership between POTRAZ and mobile network operators. This is where POTRAZ as the telecoms regulator in the country provides funds through the universal service fund to enable construction of base stations. This is where then telecoms operators, the three of them as we have currently, will then use an approach called infrastructure sharing where we are discouraging from erecting base stations…
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Minister, may you address the Chair, do not address the Hon. Senator, it is for the whole House.
HON. PHUTI: Thank you Madam President. The infrastructural sharing model allows that universal service funds builds base stations in very underserviced places and allow the three operators to operate from one base station and serve expenditure especially foreign currency.
There are places where you find duplications and at times you find the three of them being found in one possible hill. We have approached this by encouraging them to agree amongst themselves which two of them are going to move those base stations to other underserviced places so that we accelerate on ensuring that base stations cover throughout the country. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. MUZENDA: Thank you Madam President. My question is directed to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. In his absence, the Leader of the House can answer. From what I have read from the newspapers and what I gathered from teachers around the country, some provinces did not do well in the recently announced Grade 7 results. I do not know whether these results were so poor because most schools were doing e-learning or that some even failed to access e-learning especially in the rural areas. I thank you.
*THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): Thank you very much Madam President. I would like to thank the Hon. Senator for the question pertaining to the Grade 7 results. I would like to tell this House the importance of schools and how busy the Government and parents are concerned with the issue of having children attending classes in schools.
Children are not going to school due to the pandemic that has troubled the whole world. It has greatly affected the education sector. Yes, it is true that there have been disturbances in the education sector in this country. However, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is not going to leave any stone unturned. They are doing everything they can to make sure that children find something to do with regards to educating them.
I would like to thank Zimbabweans for following the rules and regulations with regards to the COVID 19 pandemic. With regards to the Grade 7 results, I have been talking to Hon. Mathema who said there is a study being conducted to establish challenges that were faced by these schools which obtained 0%.
The Ministry of ICT is doing everything within their purview to make sure that the whole country has network and children are able to access e-learning and not just to sit at home. That is why you are seeing money being channeled towards devolution so that everyone is involved in the development of this country. E-learning is very important to us as a country. A lot is being done by the Government to make sure that everyone is glued on e-learning.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: I am kindly requesting the Minister that when the research and study on 0% pass rate is done, may you also look at those schools which obtained 100% pass rate yet schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In my view, that 100% pass rate is also suspicious since children were not attending classes.
*HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA: I would like to thank Sen. Chief Charumbira with his supplementary question. However, it is also important to help the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in their research by releasing names of such schools that obtained 100% during this COVID-19 pandemic. We have introduced e-learning because of COVID-19 not that it was a sustainable solution.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: My question is directed to the Minister of Local Government. We are told of the recent Government policy of trying to get rid of informal settlement and bringing in orderly settlement within the urban set-up. What is the Government policy on the timing of demolitions happening within the country because the timing appears to coincide with the rainy season whereby the affected people will be subjected to more hardships?
THE MINISTER OF NATIONAL HOUSING AND SOCIAL AMENITIES (HON. GARWE): I would start by making a correction; we are not the Ministry of Local Government but Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities. There are no demolitions taking place right now. The demolitions that took place sometime in October last year under the instruction of court orders. They were not haphazard demolitions. However, Government intervened and stopped these because the demolitions were being engineered by the local authority.
We have a policy on human settlement which is going to be launched very soon and now gives us directions as to where we build, how we build and protect wetlands in the process; prohibit people from building in river basins and river banks. We also have a policy that is being developed right now of wetland which prohibits people including local authorities, councillors and others involved in this scam to stop passing land in wetlands to people to build houses. I thank you.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: We have recently seen some notices where local authorities were giving people time to demolish their structure and after that date, there will be no warning, which means the local authorities would come and implement whether it is a court order or whatever. This is where we are worried. We are in the rainy season and these people will live in uncertainty. How do you expect them to demolish their structures currently? I thank you.
HON. GARWE: The local authorities are not giving people notices. If they are, please inform central Government.
However, what is happening right now is that there is a Committee that has been set up by the President chaired by Hon. Vice President Dr. Chiwenga to deal with issues of people that are resident in wetlands and in river banks. This Committee is going to break down the implementation process in three phases; the first phase/category consists of people that were settled in river banks and basins – areas which are prone to floods. These are going to be relocated to safer ground. The second phase is of people that are in wetlands and areas that are designated for the provision of recreational facilities and other social amenities. Those will be relocated immediately after the Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities, working closely with the Ministry of Local Government and local authorities, provide plans and serviced settlements. They will be moved there. The Third Phase refers to people that occupied areas set aside for social amenities. They will be removed accordingly to well planned and identified areas suitable for human settlements – well planned, serviced with water roads and sewer. Government will come or invite the private sector or any other players to build vertical buildings or flats. This is what we are calling densification. We have said in the policy that 40% of all the land set aside for human settlement must be set aside for the provision of vertical buildings/flats. That is the programme that Government is running right now. I promise that there are no demolitions that are taking place. If there are any, they are imaginary demolitions.
*HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Before I pose my question, I would like to pay my condolences for the departed Hon. Senators. We suffered a great loss. From Mashonaland East where you come from Madam President, we lost quite a number – my sincere condolences to you.
My question is directed to Hon. Minister Murwira. We have this pandemic and we have been told that there is no medication. Some countries have come up with vaccines. We have seen your expertise and you have just talked about the other medicines that you have come up with. Do we not have scientists and doctors who can come up with vaccines? We have Zumbani – can you not do something so that we can also be on the world map with regards creation of vaccines? Can you not put the local herbs together so that we come up with a vaccine for COVID?
I am saying this because we have seen a lot of people surviving by doing steam baths using these local herbs. Minister, you are one of those scientists, can you not do something so that we come up with a vaccine in Zimbabwe and get some money.
*THE MINISTER OF HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION, INNOVATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. MURWIRA): In short, Hon. Sen. Hungwe’s question in short is ‘what are we doing in the face of this pandemic’?
Firstly, we said that our front, masking, our social distancing, sanitising and washing hands. This took us somewhere. Our second phase is that we get vaccinations or medicines. When the Chancellor of the State Universities, His Excellence Dr. E. D. Mnangagwa said heritage based education, he meant that we should look at what we have in this country. In support of that, the medicines that we know are our herbs – whatever they are doing anywhere, the medicines are coming from herbs. We know that when we go to Gokwe, Chipinge, Hwange and when we are coming from Hwange to Chipinge; when you get there, you would eat the soil there. Those are the vaccines.
Because of that, we are busy doing our research on medicines and we are also bringing scientists and doctors so that they come up with a vaccine. It is very important for a country to be able to protect itself from hunger, diseases, poverty and any other challenges. All this can be done through research. I am promising you that we are not going to be 100% successful – that is why it is called a research but keep watching, you will see it. This country is going to succeed and move forward. This will only come from one thing, which is the desire to go forward. That is what we are doing. I cannot say everything in this House but something is going on. Today, I have seen that one of our universities in Mutare, Africa University, has come up with zumbani cough drops. There are a lot of things that we are doing with zumbani. Just keep watching. I cannot get into detail but something is coming.
(v)*HON. SEN. KOMICHI: I have a query Madam President that those who are contributing in the House are not giving a chance to those who are on virtual. We are not getting quality access of what is happening. We are not getting what is happening or being said by those in the House. We want to hear the person who is debating clearly. We are not getting them clearly.
My question is how far are we with licencing of other television stations.
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): I would like to thank the Hon Senator for his question. I would like to notify this House that the Second Republic was concerned that we were one of the few countries in the 1960s to establish a television station yet we still have one television station. We are focusing on freedom of the skies to make sure that people have a variety of content. What they want to watch is what they are supposed to watch in terms of content.
Our first objective was to make sure that the statutory body, the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe is well structured to make sure that everything is in place before we go any further. As we speak, BAZ which is the statutory body responsible for giving out licences has, for the first time, given out licences to six different commercial companies. These are commercial television channels. The setting up of a television station is not an overnight event, but it is something that takes time. It will indeed happen. Let us keep our eyes glued to the television sets, something will definitely happen in terms of that. When people are given licences, there is a timeframe which they are given before they can broadcast because there is a lot that is involved when one is given a television licence. The process is not very long but it has to be followed. That one is very important. Six television stations are meant to start.
We are making sure that all communities have access to these television stations. The main objective is to make sure that everyone in Zimbabwe has access to information. That is the fundamental thing that we are looking at. We will get there.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA): I move that Questions without Notice be suspended to allow the Vice President to make a Ministerial Statement.
Motion put and agreed to.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
COVID VACCINE DEPLOYMENT AND ROLLOUT PLAN
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. RTD. GENERAL DR. CHIWENGA): The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the country resulting in 35 423 positive cases and 1 418 deaths as of yesterday 17th February 2021. High numbers of both positive cases and deaths has prompted the country to plan for the introduction of a vaccine but at the same time, we are not amiss to our own research and development. The country has already secured 200 000 doses of the vaccines which were donated by the People’s Republic of China which will be administered to priority groups countrywide.
In addition, an operational budget to fund the implementation of planned activities is in place and has been shared with Treasury. The COVID-19 vaccination and deployment plan identifies key areas for successful roll out of the vaccine.
OBJECTIVES OF COVID VACCINATION PLAN
Madam President, the National Roll-Out, Deployment and Vaccination Plan (DVP) is a guiding document that provides a framework for implementation of the programme. I launched this programme today at Wilkins Hospital - [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.]. The broad objective of the COVID-19 vaccination is to enable high quality vaccination services and reduce morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 disease.
Specific Objectives
- To vaccinate eligible population on a voluntary basis for free.
- Vaccinate a minimum of 60% of the total population to achieve head immunity.
- To initiate vaccination through eligible high risk target populations.
- To provide adequate vaccines and supplies for the activity.
- To ensure availability of functional cold chain equipment at all levels. This starts from the manufacturer. If we are to get our vaccines at a certain temperature, like for instance, the current vaccines have to be at a temperature of between 2-8ºC. So from Beijing, from the factory they were loaded on to the plane at that temperature and had to fly all the way to Harare at that temperature, offloaded and sent to our National Pharmaceutical Holding Company at that same temperature. Today, when we introduced the vaccination it was at that same temperature because if anything goes wrong then either the vaccine is rendered useless and is thrown away. So that is the cold-chain we are talking about.
- To monitor progress, adverse events following immunisation (AEFIs) and provide corrective action. When somebody has been given the vaccine, not all people will react the same. In here Hon. Members we can be given Stopayne tablet because we all have a headache but some will react to it and some the headaches will quickly go away, and this is what we are talking about- the AEFIs. After the immunisation what is the reaction? Are there any adverse reactions or has somebody reacted to the vaccine? This is what we want to take care of and this has been part of the training which has been going on and which has always been within the Ministry.
- Create demand for immunisation.
Regulatory Framework
The COVID-19 vaccine is an emergency vaccine registered by Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) under Emergency Use Authority. This is in terms of section 75 of the Medicines and Allied Substances Control Act Chapter 15:03. The registration which we have done on all the vaccines which have been looked at by our scientists, our professionals and experts, we have registered them under this Emergency Use Authority and we have done not only Sinopharm but we have also done Sinovac, Sputnik Victory which is normally SputinV and we are also doing other vaccines from other countries but the procedure will be done by MCAZ who are our experts who will deal with this thing. That is why we have got our scientists who are trained to do this kind of job.
The Pharmacovigilance and Clinical Trials Committee will implement vaccine vigilance plans to monitor the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine in use. Each vaccine consignment shall be physically verified and cleared by the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe upon arrival. For this last consignment, the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care had to lead the delegation and the head of MCAZ was also part of the delegation together with the Ministry of Finance. He had to come with the consignment and make sure that all procedures were been followed. Each consignment shall be cleared on the basis of the standard vaccine lot release documentation.
The Regulatory Framework
The Ministry will set up and implement the safety monitoring plan
to enable swift detection of any Adverse Events Following
Immunisation (AEFI). Lastly, the Ministry is to consider a study to
confirm immunogenicity of the product in the local population
Planning and coordination
Training of provinces and districts training of trainers has already been conducted. This programme has been completed successfully. Training of the vaccinators will be conducted from 20-21st February, 2021. Vaccinations will be rolled out throughout the country on Monday 22nd February.
Resources and Funding
Treasury has raised US$100 million for purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. We want to safeguard all our citizens, life cannot be bought and it is the right of each Zimbabwean to survive – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – Corporate partners requested to meet with His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde. Emmerson. Dambudzo Mnangagwa on 26th January, 2021 and pledged to assist in fund-raising, though Government will decide which vaccines to be purchased. That meeting was successfully done Madam President. As I speak, the Account has been opened and we are receiving a lot of donations from corporate partners, these are Zimbabweans – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] –
The estimated overall operational budget, excluding purchase of vaccines for COVID-19 vaccination is US$6 778 777.00 for Phase 1. The Budget Summary for Phase 1, Stage 1 and for all stages is indicated in the tables below. Madam President, I have asked for the photocopying of copies for Hon. Senators so that each one will have a copy and can follow the programme as we go on. So, it is tabulated from training right up to waste management.
Overall Budget | Cost USD |
Planning and Training | 909,165.00 |
DSA and lunch for vaccinators | 1,442,600.00 |
Fuel for outreach teams | 21,000.00 |
Preparedness assessments | 118,700.00 |
Support supervision | 234,850.00 |
Coverage survey | 200,822.00 |
Post Implementation evaluation | 19,460.00 |
Advocacy and communication | 1,268,450.00 |
Vaccine distribution | 30,750.00 |
AEFI Surveillance | 46,620.00 |
Data collection and tools | 1,216,360.00 |
PPE | 1,200,000.00 |
Waste Management | 70,000.00 |
Total Cost | 6,778,777.00 |
The target population for vaccinations, Phase 1, Stage 1 and 2, we are looking at 3 662 279 people, which will constitute 22% of our population.
Target population for vaccinations
Population | % of population | |
Phase 1 ( stage 1 and 2) | 3 662 279 | 22% |
Phase 2 | 3 050 855 | 18.4% |
Phase 3 | 3 050 855 | 18.4% |
Subtotal | 9 763 988 | 58.8% |
Total population under 16 yrs | 6 795 000 | 41.2% |
Total Populations | 16 558 987 | 100% |
Madam President, the figures I have given here are estimates but as you are aware, the census will be done next year where we are going to get the actual figures, but we are using estimated figures as Ministry of Health and Child Care.
Target population for Phase 1, Stage 1 – here we are talking about that population which we said we want to immunise first; the Ministry of Health, which is the health sector, we are looking at 49 000, which require to be vaccinated.
Target Population for Phase 1 Stage 1
Department/ Ministry | Total |
Ministry of Health and Child Care | 49000 |
Ministry of Heath Private Sector | |
Zimbabwe Defence Forces | 30000 |
Zimbabwe Prison Service | 50000 |
Zimbabwe Prisons Service and Correctional Centre | 13000 |
ZIMRA |
The Security forces, we are looking at the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Zimbabwe Republic Police, Zimbabwe Prison Services and Correctional Service but we are not looking at the totality. For example if we look at the Zimbabwe Republic Police, they are 50 000 but we will be looking at 500 plus of their health workers. They are the ones to get the first priority. For the Defence Forces, we are looking at 3 000 plus and for the Prison Services we are looking at 700 plus. In addition, we have ZIMRA, Immigration and Agritex, we want these to be in the Phase 1, Stage 1. There are other small groups which will be in this but in the main, these are the categories of people we are looking at in Phase 1, Stage 1 to be vaccinated.
Target group for vaccinations, Phase 1, population at high risk, Stage 1, these are the frontline workers which I have talked about like the health workers, port of entry personnel, ZIMRA, Immigration, Security services, Funeral Parlours and Agritex. These are in the Stage 1.
Stage 2, we are looking at chronic illnesses like diabetic patients, those with underlying conditions, it might be diabetis, cancer, HIV/AIDS or those who have had multiple operations. We want to save them because they are people in a risky category; the elderly population who are 60 years and above. So I hope the majority of the Hon. Senators here will be eligible – [Laughter] – Prison population and others as well as confined settlements like refugee camps are considered to be in stage 2 as they are likely to get this disease because of staying together in big numbers. Those in the prisons - it does not necessarily mean that when a person has gone for correctional services he has been sentenced to death. He is still a good citizen, we want him or her to be corrected and then come back. We have got few refugee camps in the country and those people are living in concentrated areas. We want them to be considered at this stage because we do not want them to be infected with this disease. Even some of our urban settlements are not the best settlements we can talk about. So, we will look at that and make sure that those people are saved.
Going to Phase 2, we are looking at lecturers, all school staff populations and other staff at medium risk depending with the epidemiological picture of the disease at that time. We will also be looking at how the disease will be playing havoc in our population.
Phase 3 will be the population at low risk which will be the last group. We have divided our people into three phases but Phase 1 has got two stages which are frontline workers and those with underlying conditions, that is stage 1 and stage 2.
Training – development and adoption of training materials for all activities
The Ministry has arranged trainings of trainers (ToTs) for provincial and district trainers.
Provincial and District trainers will in turn train health workers at service delivery centres.
Expanded programme on immunisation or EPI will support planning and conduct of the (ToTs).
Online in-person and blended learning, that is the combination of online and in person which are the most common methods that will be used to train staff.
Areas of training to include vaccine storage, communication, surveillance, vaccination and monitoring and evaluation, the AEFI and waste management. As you are aware, when we talk of waste management, we are talking of the real virus. So waste must be well managed.
Vaccination Service Delivery
The actual administration of the vaccine will be done at fixed and outreach points.
One to two outreach teams will be allocated per rural district depending on the size of the district with five people per team. For example, City of Harare will be allocated 11 teams, Bulawayo four teams, Chitungwiza two teams to deal with the vaccination. So vaccination teams will require fuel, lunch and daily subsistence allowances. That is why we talked about that operational budget. The assumption is that vaccination will be conducted over 10 days in the first round and five days in the second round. You might be asking why 10 days first – it is because our staff is still learning and obviously when you are starting something you have not yet learnt the tricks. By the second round, we think they will be more experienced and will do it faster. We want to deal with this thing as fast as we can because the faster we go means our people will be given the necessary antibodies and that their bodies will be able to fight the virus. So the numbers will continue to be reduced. Supervisors drawn from head offices, provinces and districts will monitor planning, implementation and outcomes.
Let me go to the supply chain management. The immunisation supply chain of Zimbabwe consists of four levels which are central, provincial, district and service delivery. Vaccine distribution follows this channel from central vaccine to 10 provincial, 63 district vaccine stores and then to more than 1800 service delivery facilities. The central vaccine stores distributes vaccines to provincial vaccine stores. Provinces distribute vaccines to district vaccine stores and district to service delivery as well. Distribution of COVID-19 vaccine will follow the existing distribution structure of routine vaccine and supplies. In this case, there will be a slight difference.
The vaccine will be received at the airport and distributed to provinces and districts under police escort because we do not want to hear that two doses cannot be accounted for – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear] - We want the vaccine to go to the intended people. The vaccine distribution flow chart is there.
Madam President, distribution planning is based on targeted population per province. We will ensure adequate supply of potent vaccine to all eligible population. We shall ensure functional cold chain equipment at all levels. This will require that we have generators at every point where the vaccines are going to be stocked lest we have breakdown from ZESA. We need to have other means to keep the vaccines in good shape. There will be police escorts accompanying Zimbabwe expanded programme on immunisation distribution vans. So those vans which will carry the vaccines will be escorted by the police; distributed to provincial cold rooms with capacity of 9m3 under police escort and distributed to districts with cold chain capacity of an average of 200 litres or two to three refrigerators; logistical support for vaccine distribution and cold chain management throughout the period from planning to implementation. Lastly on distribution, supply fuel for central level and provincial standby generators.
On Information dissemination, advocacy communication and social mobilisation - advocacy meetings and activities to be conducted at all levels. Whilst we do this, we also ask Hon. Members to help in this matter, that it is the duty of everyone to make sure that our people are educated.
There will be national vaccination launch to be conducted virtually to rally all stakeholders for COVID-19 which we have already done. This will continue to be done as we go to the provinces, districts and health delivery centres. We will be working hand in glove with the Ministry of Information to make sure that this information is well publicised and that people know what is happening.
Social mobilisation is going to be done at all levels in order to create demand for the vaccine. Community mobilisation for vaccination will be conducted via radio, television programmes and announcements; interpersonal communication with target groups, newspaper articles, advertisement and social media campaigns, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and bulky SMEs and lastly billboards, banners, posters and both media and crisis communication addressing serious AEFIs. However, we would like to plead with everyone that misusing these social media platforms for other motives will not work because when your life is taken then you cease to be on social media. So we request and we also ask Hon. Members that wherever you are teach our people. There are people who will write all kinds of nonsense on the social media and at the same time they are the first people to ask for vaccination. This is not the time of misuse or playing around with the lives of people because life can never be bought.
Let me now come to vaccine safety monitoring and management of AEFIs and injection safety. In partnership with MoHCC-ZEPI, the National Pharmacovigilance and Clinical Trials Committee and MCAZ are the main drivers of vaccine safety surveillance. COVID-19 vaccine safety surveillance will be guided by already existing MoHCC’s Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) surveillance guidelines and the WHO COVID-19 vaccines safety surveillance manual. Safety surveillance for COVID-19 vaccine will be further strengthened through additional:
- Training of national stakeholders and investigation teams.
- Training of national AEFI committee on casualty assessment of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
- Training and preparation of health care workers on identification, management and reporting of potential cases of anaphylaxis and ensuring availability of comprehensive emergency tray at all vaccination points.
- The trainings will be provided as part of comprehensive COVID-19 vaccine introduction trainings.
Instituting active surveillance of Adverse Events of Special Interest following COVID-19 vaccination.
ZIMBABWE AEFI REPORTING
Biohazard and immunization waste management
Management of waste related to COVID-19 vaccination requires special attention due to the infectious nature of the virus. Waste generated from COVID-19 vaccination will be according to the country’s existing waste management guidelines for treatment of health waste. There will be waste segregation at point of generation following existing protocols. All medical waste will be incinerated either at point of generation if there is a functional incinerator or at some central incineration point in which case transport will be provided to move the waste to the incineration point.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Development of Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to guide planning and implementation;
- There will be pre vaccination demographic data collection;
- Conduct Preparedness Assessment to assess readiness at all levels;
- Development of data collection tools that is tally sheets, summary sheets and vaccination cards – I now have mine;
- Consolidation and reporting of the number reached will be done on a daily basis using existing platforms and structures;
- Disease surveillance will include AEFI monitoring;
- There will be blood collection to determine antibodies before and after vaccination – mine has been done;
- Conduct of a Post Campaign Coverage Survey to validate administrative data and lastly, conduct a post introduction evaluation to assess the quality of the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine and help inform future introductions.
Tentative Timeline of Activities
Planning will be on going. Training was started on 12th February for the provincial and districts. We finished on the 16th of February. On procurement, the first batch of donations received from the People’s Republic of China arrived on the 15th of February and it was collected. We have already started the processing together with the Ministry of Finance for the next batches to come. The next batch will be 600 000 and 1.200 000. We are hoping to be getting these vaccines every two or three weeks so that the programme which we have started continues and does not stop until all our people are vaccinated.
Vaccine distribution has already started and by 26th February, we would have completed distributing to health delivery centres – which is at ward level. The cold chain inventory is ongoing. Advocacy, communication and mobilisation have already started. We started on 8th February and it will continue until this vaccination on COVID 19 is complete
Monitoring and evaluation will also continue until we finish the exercise. We started vaccination today and it will continue until everybody in Zimbabwe has been vaccinated. With this brief Madam President, I finish my presentation on the rollout plan of COVID 19.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you very much Hon. V.P. and Minister of Health and Child Care. I think our Hon. Senators may need some clarifications on some areas they may need to understand better. This is the time whilst the Vice President is here.
HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: Thank you Hon Vice President for your elaborate presentation. It shows that there is concern within Government on the situation of citizens. However, I want you to clarify on the issue of people with underlying conditions. I was reading somewhere where they said certain doses are not supposed to be administered on people with underlying conditions like sugar diabetes and blood pressure. You have said Government will continue to monitor the aftereffects and I would have thought that maybe we should do a few experiments in the laboratories before we experiment on the population so that we know which people are affected by what maybe because of where we come from.
I am also appealing to you as Government to look at a situation where we really get down to business in terms of trying to find our own treatment and solutions. I would be grateful if you would give us figures of any of the vaccines that you have bought to add to what we might get as donations. I thank you.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Allow me to thank the Vice President and Minister of Health for a comprehensive report on the state of COVID in the nation. I would like to take this opportunity Madam President to applaud Government for taking the initiative because it was long overdue. My area which needs a bit of clarification is on the issue of cold chain. I just want to find out from the Minister whether the current vaccines which have landed in the country have got a way of monitoring if there happens to be breakdown in the cold chain. I think it is very important because electricity can go down over the night and tomorrow you can come back and say we are still maintaining the cold chain because some other vaccines have got a way where there is a colour which can change when you actually have breakdown in the cold chain. What safety mechanisms are we going to have with these vaccines to ensure that the cold chain which is key to the vaccine is maintained?
Recently, there are reports that in Zimbabwe, 61% of the COVID variant is the South African variant and very little of the other variants from other quarters. My question to the Minister is of the two potential vaccines which we are going to use, the Sinopharm and the Sputnik, to what extent are they going to be sensitive to the variant which we have? In fact, we are basically living in South Africa because it is a South African variant that we have and whether there is need for us to look at the effectiveness before we unleash the whole vaccine to the nation.
We want to hear from the Minister what plans do they have for private sector participation in this vaccine rollout because it is common cause that as we speak right now about 50% of health service delivery in Zimbabwe is being offered by private sector.
As a nation, we need to address the politics of vaccines. We need as Government to come to tops with our information dissemination because right now there is negative publicity and we will never stop such people. I wish we had a position of law where we would control when people peddle such lies for things which have public health importance. We understand these two potential vaccines, the Sinopharm and Sputnik, they have not yet gone through phase three. Johnson and Johnson and Astrazeneca have passed phase three. Can the Minister guarantee the safety of the population taking into account what I have just raised?
COVID is a public health disease, what is Government policy in terms of vaccination whether it is going to be voluntary or we have to immunize our population because this is not just an individual. It is an issue of public health importance and sometimes individual preferences or rights cannot be more than the public good. I would recommend that Government puts a policy where everyone is vaccinated unless there are contra indications to them receiving the vaccine for the greater good of the nation.
*HON SEN CHIEF CHARUMBIRA: I stand up to give my view. Most of you were not in the Senate yesterday. We really praised Government and the President irrespective of party affiliation for the good work that they are doing. We came together to praise Government for their response to the pandemic. Their efforts and initiatives are next to none, it is one of the best. We are in support of your actions towards combating the pandemic. Together with your Ministers, may you continue to work hard? If there is anything that is important in the lives of citizens, it is to come before this House and deliver such information. We kindly ask you to continue contributing to a good cause in this country. We want people to be empowered so that they can go out there and disseminate information. They should leave the House with full information with regard to the pandemic. This should be done by all Ministers. Some Ministers do not do as such. Some are afraid or maybe they are lazy. We commend you for that. Some Ministers are afraid to come and give us detailed reports on what is happening in the country.
I just want to find out when you talked about three stages of rollout, are the chiefs and headmen part of the rest of the population? Where are they in the vaccination schedule? Seventy percent of the population of this country is rural and we all know that, but this schedule favours those in the urban areas. Those are the ones who are going to have access to information with regard to information dissemination of this vaccination programme. We are looking at social media, television, radios and we know quite a few in the rural areas have access to television and radio but we have quite a number of people in the rural areas who have no access to mainstream media, that is the radio and television. We do not want a population that is left in darkness.
The role of community leaders is not coming out well. It is our wish that this be written down in a document to say community leaders and MPs should work together and have a role. They may not be technically inspired but they should be taught to at least be part of the vaccination process. Thank you.
HON. SEN. MWONZORA: Mr. Vice President, I should say that I was very impressed by what looked like your mastery of the subject matter at hand. Please accept my kind compliments. My question is in relation to the poor members of our community. What specific measures is the Government taking to ensure the access of the vaccine by the poorer communities, the accessibility preferably free of charge of protective wear and sanitisers to the poorer communities? In the event of an infection, the accessibility of treatment by the poorer communities, hopefully free of charge? In the unfortunate event of death, will there be assistance of the poor with funeral expenses and the assistance of poorer families during this time. Lastly, will there be assistance of smaller companies and informal sector that has been affected by this disease? What, if any, is the Government doing towards these issues?
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I also want to thank the Vice President for the presentation that he has made to us. Most of my questions have been overtaken by events but I want to buttress one point for some of us who stay at border towns whereby we have cross borders. Today they are in Zimbabwe and tomorrow in South Africa, how are they going to take care of those people?
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: My question to the Vice President is that when the research was done I heard a lot of researches were done but was there a research that was done on pregnant women? What was the outcome from nursing mothers and what happens to the children they will be breastfeeding? We want to know whether when we are given these vaccines we are Corona free that we can mix and mingle with people and not get affected.
*HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I want to thank the Minister of Health who is our Vice President for the clear statement. I was thinking that on the categories that he talked about, I think if it were possible, as Members of the Senate, we should be prioritised so that when we go to our provinces we would be witnesses that we have been vaccinated. What we need is a strong awareness programme because people are afraid and do not know how good the vaccine is. So they want assurance that when they have been vaccinated we are not doing away with WHO guidelines. People need awareness and teaching in the rural areas. I once attended a funeral and they were saying there was no COVID and for them to be vaccinated it would be a challenge.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NGEZI: My request is that when good things such as these are taking place, may we have vibrant educational programmes working with Chiefs and headmen. If a message or information is delivered to chiefs, people are quick to accept.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: We would want to thank the Vice President and the Ministry of Health for his report. We are thankful for the work that the Vice President has done. All of us know that health is very important for us as humans. On the side effects or reaction to the vaccine, is there an antidote if someone reacts to the vaccine?
*HON. SEN. DR. SEKERAMAYI: I stand up to support what other Senators have said. This is a very big war of COVID-19 where you cannot see the enemy but you can feel the pain. I would like to thank the President and the Vice President for explaining the measures that have been put in place to combat the pandemic through vaccination. Now vaccinations have come from China. We are expecting other vaccines to come from other countries. When they have arrived it is important that us as Members of Parliament should be foot soldiers that go to the majority of people to explain and disseminate the impact this pandemic has had on people.
This is a dreadful disease to the whole nation. Globally, it has affected everyone. Let us explain to people and encourage them to be vaccinated. Whenever there is a programme, we do have people who de-campaign a good cause, but it is our responsibility and up to us to encourage and highlight as we disseminate the information - the good thing about being vaccinated. We should explain fully so that people are motivated to be vaccinated. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I just want to remind Hon. Senators that we are not debating, we are actually seeking clarifications from the presentation which has been made by the Hon. Vice President.
HON. SEN. KHUPE: Thank you Hon. President. I also want to thank the Hon. Vice President for this comprehensive presentation. It is a very good report, it cleared all suspicions which people, including me have been having. On the categories, I think I want to make a suggestion. The categories which I think were not mentioned or were left out are of persons with disabilities especially those who stay in institutes, they are so many. I wanted to request that we revise the categories and take into account these people since some of them may not have access to the centers where medication can be provided. We may also decide as Government to visit them at their places.
*HON. SEN. CHMBUDZI: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to ask questions to the Minister. Before I seek clarification, I would like to thank the Vice President for the presentation. Let me pass my condolences of the Hon. Ministers and people who passed on because of the pandemic.
My question is on the issue of social media. Social media is distorting information. Government has a very good programme with regard to vaccinating this nation but the problem is that we are getting a lot of distorted information. There is a lot of chaos, what is Government doing about this chaos? We once heard the passing on of Hon. Sen. Chief Charumbira and the Vice President of the Senate which turned out not to be true.
THE VICE PRESIDENT AND MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. RTD GENERAL CHIWENGA): Before I respond, I will ask for your indulgence, on some of the scientific and technical questions, I will ask a team of specialists and scientists who are with me, if you might allow them to express on technical questions which were asked by Hon. Senators. Some of the information that has been asked will need our experts to give us detailed information with regard to the exact medical explanation as to what exactly we should do or which direction should we take
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: It is either you or the Deputy Minister.
HON. RTD. GEN. DR. CHIWENGA: Thank you Mr. President, if I may proceed to the first question or points of clarification that was posed by Hon. Sen. Mudzuri. People with underlying conditions – I think when I was making my presentation, I tried and gave examples of those people with conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer. I even went to the extent of giving major operations – they are what we have termed to be in Phase 1, Stage 2. They qualify to be in there because we want to make sure that when the disease attacks them they will survive.
The second question you asked was, why not do that in the laboratories. We do not experiment on people. The Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe is a council of our scientists, specialists and experts. They look at all these – I know that a lot has been published on social media or debates on various electronic media platforms that have been viewed by our nationals including Hon. Senators here but for us to register any drug, it must meet certain qualifications or conditions. The trials have already been done and trials on Phase 3 of the other drug, we have them. When we go out there, you will not see them. There are voluminous documents that are looked at by the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe for them now to say, yes we can agree that this drug/vaccine can come into Zimbabwe. We do not experiment on people.
The figures on donations, we have received so much – just a few days ago, the President received donations from the Russian Federation. Companies are coming up with donations to give and the quantum of it, we can always bring the total but we have had some companies giving us 10 000 doses, others have pledged 25 000 doses. We have received so many pledges and believe that when those doses land in Zimbabwe, that is when we advise. Yes, we have been given by various companies or even countries or federations but we will announce it when we have sent people to say that they are now coming. Otherwise we do not also want to give a lot of expectations then somebody turns around and says, aah iya mari iya yandakanga ndati ndinokupai yakazopinda matambudziko. Tichaenda futi kuvanhu kunovataurira kuti mari iye yakapinda matambudziko? Hawugone kusunga munhu ati arikuda kukupa, kukupa hazvirevi kuti chave chikwereti. Ari kukupa asi kana chauya tinokutaurirai.
So when we have been promised a donation with reference to the vaccines, what we promised you is that whenever we receive that which was promised to us, we will without fail notify the nation upon receipt of the donation but we cannot force those countries that have promised us something to deliver to us now.
The Hon. Deputy Minister will explain in detail on the procedures because he is a physician, he will elaborate further on what I have already told you.
Hon. Sen. Dr. Mavetera, monitoring of the cold chain is something that we give great attention to. The moment electricity supply is cut off, we will trigger the generators. I have already stated that these vaccines are escorted by the police. In other words, where our vaccines are, we have got people there to make sure that nothing goes wrong. In the case that you referred to, that would be treachery and absolute sabotage. It is now a different thing altogether because there are people who are there 24hrs round the clock. So if they allow that to happen under their watch, it is no longer an accident but something completely different that now the law enforcement agents will have to look into. We are saying measures have been taken in the event of power outage.
Sixty one percent of COVID-19 variants are from the Republic of South Africa, let me say that it will be explained. We have these variants; we have got the variant in South Africa, United Kingdom, Brazil and I think the one from the United Kingdom is B.1.1.7 and we have the Brazilian one which is again another ‘B’, then we have the one in South Africa. Let me say Hon. Senator that there are now 22 variants and the virus mutates. In short, it is like us here. I will tell you something that a lot of people never put in their minds. We marry in order to procreate and regenerate the human species because we are all going to die one day. That is what the clan of the virus is like – [Laughter.] - It needs to survive. It does not want to perish, hence it continues to mutate. If there is any form of cure or medication put within the system, it changes and if the medication is changed, it continues to change. Nobody has ever chased a virus and caught it. We only need to immunise or vaccinate against the virus. I will give time to my scientists so that they elaborate more clearly. It does not mean that the virus that is in South Africa kills more than the one in Zimbabwe – it is just violent and more infectious. If we liken it to alcohol, it is stronger and a few pints will make one drunk. We just have to vaccinate ourselves from this virus.
When I came from the launch of the vaccination – I saw Dr Fauci from America; he was on television saying that we should make sure that our people are vaccinated in order to prevent COVID 19. If our generation is to continue, we should take the vaccine or else all of us will perish.
You have rightly said that there is political vaccine – I had never heard it in my life that there would be vaccine nationalism. I had never heard that phrase. I do not think Hon. Senators here had heard that phrase but it is now common. Countries and people are buying and they are stocking. It does not matter whether other countries have got the vaccine. I think you are reading what is happening in Europe on the vaccine nationalism. This is why we are saying as Zimbabweans, we are not going to sit akimbo but we are going to make sure that our people survive.
The issue of the phases – that is exactly the nationalism on the vaccine. People will be trying to play down the Sputnik Victory but in their own admission, they have said that it is the best vaccine at 92-96%. Even the British have said that they would use their own Oxford Astrazeneca and the Sputnik Victory. V stands for victory and not for five. It has been competition and it should not confuse us. We only want a vaccine which will work on the Zimbabwean people, politics aside.
All Zimbabweans should be vaccinated against COVID-19. Hon. Senators, if you listened to my statement at Wilkins, I did not say voluntary or mandatory, I said you should be vaccinated but it is everyone one way or the other we must educate our people about the vaccine. It is just like any other disease. We had HIV and AIDs and we still have it. When it started killing people, people came up with a lot of theories; some said it was witchcraft. At that time, I was advantaged because we moved around with Dr. Marova and Col. Tapfumaneyi; we visited all the herbalists and we asked for all their herbs so that they could be tested in the laboratories. We found that from those herbs that we were given, it was like bioplus which is not effective. We then concluded that we had not come up with a drug yet.
Let us go and educate our people; it does not matter how long it will take, let us not tire. Zimbabweans have never failed. We are winners in everything that we do. Let us go and educate our people so that everybody gets vaccinated and prevents oneself from this virus.
Thank you Hon. Chief Charumbira, for commending Government and the President and also acknowledging his wisdom from the onset of the pandemic when he called for the whole country to unite so that we fight our enemy which we cannot see through our eyes and it helped us. Regionally, this has made us to be people who are aware of what is happening in the rural and urban areas. We know what is happening in the four corners of this country. Yes, we can miss here and there but we know what is happening on the ground. That will give us strength to continue to move forward and we will remain united. Whenever we face challenges we will come back to you and let you know the challenges which we would have encountered and this is how we plan to move forward.
What you have talked about Hon. Sen. Chief Charumbira that the vaccination awareness roadmap favours people in urban areas, yes you have said it correctly. We are saying, maybe I did not articulate it well, all of us including Hon Members from the National Assembly, as our leaders, let us go out there and unite with the chiefs, headmen, and councilors and we educate the people. When we are addressing these people we should remember to put them in small groups that should not exceed 30 people. It can be teachers or headmasters, go out and talk to them. Government employees are encouraged to play a part in the awareness campaign. Everyone who is able to articulate these issues should go and tell the people.
In response to Hon. Sen. Mwonzora’s contribution, we have said the vaccine is free and we are making sure that everyone who needs to be vaccinated is vaccinated. It is not them who are coming to us but it is us going to them. There should not be any problem on that aspect.
We have been given some donations and even in areas where we have clinics and public places in terms of sanitising the area or helping at gatherings to make sure that people are sanitised, we have been helping but also at the same time, just educating our people to say, you have visited the toilet or you have shaken somebody by accident go and wash your hands with running water. We try to do that. In terms of assistance at funerals, we have been trying and we are asking Hon Senators that you must educate the people. If somebody dies in the village the nearest hospital should confirm whether the person has died of COVID or not. If that person was positive, everything is done in terms of WHO regulations and the Ministry of Health must be involved in the burial of that person because we do not want that virus to spread. We do not know at the moment when somebody dies, what form of variant would have killed that person. This is why you see all COVID cases, even the pallbearers will be in their PPEs and even the coffin, there are certain things which will be done and I will ask Hon. Dr. Mangwiro to expand on that.
On food assistance, this is a question which can be answered fully by Hon. Prof. Mavima. As Government, we are putting money for the urban population and we have said they must open their bank accounts. We know there was a time when the monies could not move properly in the banks. Initially, we started with $300 payouts but now we are assessing to increase the amounts. We are trying to cushion those families in urban areas. We are not only giving food to those in rural areas but also in urban areas. There could be problems here and there and we are asking Hon Senators that when you get to such situations, the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare must be informed that this particular area needs assistance. This is why as Government, in the last Cabinet, we declared a state of disaster on all roads in urban and rural areas. We want to repair all roads so that people are able to visit each area.
If you watched ZTV yesterday, there was a bridge which was swept away which was being repaired because it is a link to communities which require to be fed on the other side of the river. You saw what we did when we had the cyclone in Chimanimani and in Gwanda at Mbembesi. We had to close the road and give the contractor some instructions to work 24 hours a day. We are trying to do that.
Hon. Sen. Mwonzora you are aware that last year the Government
gave a stimulus package but we will assess. If this goes on, Government
is not going to turn a blind eye on that, it will react but at the present
moment, this is why we are still on level 4 but we took our time to relax
some of the measures like from 1500 hours to 1700 hours and the curfew to between 2000 hours to 0500 hours. We are quite concerned about that but we are going to see. The President is going to assess and we will be monitoring the situation for the next two weeks.
Even if we do not want to lose any lives but when we get four from
the figure which I had in January of 70 per day coming down to four, we
see there is a drastic improvement. Also, our recoveries are now 89,2%
and so we are seeing improvement from the measures which His
Excellency has put in place. I want to leave Hon. Chifamba’s question
on pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and other activities to my
scientist here.
Hon. Sen. Muzenda, I think I have said people from 60 years and
Above, so if you are in that range, surely as leaders we want to first take
care of our people then we follow but we do not forget the elderly 60
years and above. The education, I have talked about it that people are
ignorant, correct and we must continue to educate them.
Hon. Senator Chief Ngezi, I thank you and agree with you that we
should go and educate our people. Hon. Senator Tongogara, I will leave
the issue on side effects to my scientist. However, at every vaccination
centre, there will be a trail to assess on those who will have reacted. We
had to take time to confirm and inspect what they would have done.
Hon. Dr. Sekeramayi, I would like to thank you for your support and
appreciation of everyone in Government who had a role to play in
coming up with such an initiative. We are acknowledge that. As you
mentioned, as Senators you have constituencies and we know working
together with Members from the Lower House, non-constituency
Members, we expect people to understand. We should unite and work
together despite political affiliations to fight this pandemic in those
constituencies because the next victim is unknown. We should
encourage each other to work together.
Hon. Senator Khupe, the categories you wanted to understand,
those are the vulnerable groups. The disabled are in the vulnerable
groups so that area is covered under the vulnerable groups and also in confined areas. So those are the areas we are going to visit and will also depend on you Hon. Senators to give us information in the event that we overlook some of these vulnerable groups. I think people did not realise that there is such a place. I would want to ask Hon. Senators to assist, we are in this together.
*Hon. Sen. Chimbudzi, we want to thank you for the message of condolences on the loss of Hon. Ministers, this happened in a short space of time. A lot of people died including Dr. S. B. Moyo. Arch. Matiza and General Zimondi, they died on the same day. It was touching, it is very difficult for us to just get rid of such memories. It is very painful. We want to thank you for that message, but I say it was God’s will. Let us continue as a nation to fulfill their dreams and vision. I know in this House you have lost quite a number of people, Senator Shiri, Senator Moyo and Senator Gwaradzimba. We all know their visions, if we are able to fulfill their vision, that will comfort us.
On social media, I think the Minister responsible for media is here. She has her hands glued on the Bill. We do not deny people to go on social media but we expect them to be responsible, ubuntu - people to behave and not to engage in dissemination of fake news. If you are insulted you feel pain, but if you are inflicted with pain you complain. It is good when you enjoy it on others but you complain when that is now done on you. Mwari paakasika munhu haana kuisa mutemo asi akazoisa mutemo maererano nokutadza kwedu. Before the death there was no such law to do with murder, what is happening is now out of control. We need to have a law that curbs such behaviour on social media. It is uncalled for. In other countries they are banning such behaviour. We do not want people who abuse social media. Whenever they cannot sleep, they engage in insulting people. People cannot buy clothes for themselves but they will be busy concentrating on insulting people on social media. People create fake accounts and get themselves into social groups. You find that one person will be changing accounts and insulting people during the night. So those with the responsibility of coming up with a law are working on that.
Thank you Hon. President, if you may allow me to ask Hon. Minister Mangwiro to answer some of the technical questions.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON. DR. MANGWIRO): Thank you Mr. President. I will explain on the issue of vaccine, traditionally that is what we call nhomba. What we call a virus, what we are referring to is something that has destroyed people globally. It is now known these days that if you contract the virus and kill it – when someone is injected with that virus, antibodies come out to fight those dead viruses that have come through the body. There is what we call antibodies in the immune system. When a virus comes through, it will be destroyed by those antibodies, that is what we are calling vaccine. You will have been given a virus, what we call attenuated whose strength has been removed. It is a way of fighting the virus indirectly. This virus will not have strength when it attacks you because you are already protected now. This is how the virus works. This was seen in the ancient days by Louis Pasteur, this vaccine issue but it had started in West Africa. What happened is that people are vaccinated with this vaccine. There is a way of killing this vaccine or using it until it gets to the person. Firstly these vaccines way back needed 15 years for it to be used on humans, but because of advanced technology, nowadays we are able to come up with a vaccine over short period of time.
The Sinopharm vaccine that was given to us was looked at by experts. They actually did phase one then phase two. Before it is administered on people, we have what we call WHO which is the one that named this pandemic Covid-19. They write to confirm that yes, this vaccine does work. For example to see how it works, it can be administered on a sample of five or ten healthy young men. We can have university students being experimented on to see how this vaccine works. What we have now in the country is a vaccine that has been dealt with already. They have studied it fully. We cannot continue to do further studies on the vaccine, we have what we call Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe that has the mandate to look at issues related to this. They do extensive research on such matters to obtain full details of how the vaccine works. They even reach out to countries as far as Chile, countries that would have volunteered to do such experiments. They actually confirm to acknowledge the information to see whether it is true with the World Health Organsiation that these vaccines went through them.
I want to assure you and highlight to you that nothing comes into this country without being looked at thoroughly to see the side effects. We have scientists who are very good at looking at all these things; we are above board with regards to such matters. These things would have been looked at by Zimbabwean experts who are very much knowledgeable in this field.
There is the issue of the variant from South Africa; we are saying 61% of the infected people have the South African Variant. Like what the Vice President has said, viruses mutate every day, it needs a year to say the virus has mutated over 24 hours. We cannot come up with a vaccine over 24 hours. When it comes to mutation, nothing is changing, what is changing is the structure but it still remains the same with regards to how it looks. There is nothing to be afraid of, variants will continue coming on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The virus is also trying to fight the efforts to thwart it so it is ever changing on a daily basis.
The issue of people getting buried; people would have died of COVID 19; there are rules and regulations of handling the corpse, that have been outlined. Those procedures should be followed and those who will be doing this on the front line should be having adequate personal protective equipment. They will be having their suites, glasses, goggles because any mistake in handling, they contract the virus. We have come up with such regulations because a corpse can no longer communicate with us but the mourners also can no longer practice the traditional practice of touching the corpse or any other traditional practices that are followed when one has passed on. Things have changed because of the pandemic.
At every funeral, a health personnel should be present and they should make sure that protocol and procedure is followed and we encourage people at funerals to continue doing social distancing, sanitization and putting on of masks. Whenever you go to a funeral, at the entrance there should be that precaution for people to wash hands.
A question was asked on pregnant women and those breast feeding. As far back as the old days, pregnant women and those breast feeding do not get vaccinated because of side effects of the medicines. However, if we find a vaccine which stipulates that we must do that; then we may, but these side effects of the virus - some may react and faint because their blood pressure would have lowered. However, when the vaccine was made, there was no side effects found, anaphylaxes and actcaria, when such happens there are ready trays loaded with adrenalin, drips and needles to administer to individuals who react in that manner to the vaccine.
There are those cross borders who go to South Africa; everyone should be vaccinated. When they are traveling to South Africa, they should be able to show proof that they would have been vaccinated. We are also going to encourage people to be vaccinated before crossing borders. So, it is very important for people to get vaccinated before traveling to help people combat the spread of this pandemic.
We are going to be proactive - we will have to go to the borders before people cross to the other side and make sure that people have been vaccinated.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I would like to inform Hon. Senators that the Vice President’s presentation has been sent to your e-mails. So you will have time to go through it. Secondly, I also want to remind Hon. Senators who come here physically to debate to always bring your tablets so that when you debate, other Senators who will be out there will be able to follow the debate. Without those gadgets our virtual is rendered a failure. I thank you.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA), the Senate adjourned at Sixteen Minutes to Six o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 17th February, 2021
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
MOTION
RATIFICATION ON THE HARMONISATION OF SEED REGULATORY FRAMEWORK IN THE SOUTHERN AFRICA DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY (SADC)
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS) on behalf of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr. President of the Senate. I rise to move that;
WHEREAS Section 327 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that any convention, treaty or agreement acceded to, concluded or executed by or under the authority of the President with one or more foreign states or governments or international organisations shall be subject to approval by Parliament;
WHEREAS the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Harmonisation of Seed Regulatory Framework in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) was adopted to address regional seed insecurity through integrating smaller and national seed markets into one large SADC seed market;
WHEREAS the Republic of Zimbabwe is desirous of acceding to the regulatory framework;
AND WHEREAS in accordance with Article 13 of the MoU, the MoU shall enter into force 30 days after the signature by two thirds of the Member States and in terms of Section 14 of the MoU, the MoU shall remain open for accession by any Member State and;
NOW THEREFORE, in terms of Section 327 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, this House resolves that the aforesaid Memorandum of Understanding is hereby approved for accession. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, WATER, CLIMATE AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS): I move that Order of the Day, Number 2 be stood over until the rest of the Orders of the Day have been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Mr. President. I am happy that you are alive, we have heard rumours that you had passed on. I am happy to see you with us today. I would like to thank you for affording me this opportunity to say few things with regards to the Presidential Speech. There are issues that were mentioned by His Excellency. He talked about the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic had ravaged the country, it is taking children of this land, those who were chosen to lead the nation, those who were going to be responsible to champion the development of this country. They have been taken by this pandemic.
His Excellency was warning us that this disease is real and the disease does kill. The President will not be just talking, when he speaks to the nation, you can see that he cares for his people. That is why we see him putting measures to combat the spread of this disease. That is why we hear of vaccines that have arrived from China. This is a way of trying to combat and try to make sure that the pandemic is put to an end.
Hon. President, when we look at the measures put in place by His Excellency, it is an effort to stop the spread of the pandemic by asking people to stay at home. When the pandemic started in this country, people stayed in their homes to combat the spread of the pandemic. There was an improvement in trying to combat t the disease, but people started relaxing, they were no longer observing the regulations put in place by Government to stay in their homes. So we saw a peak on the pandemic in the country, people were now attending parties, having fun, no longer wearing masks and were no longer adhering to the stipulated number of gatherings.
So we believe these requirements put in place and the vaccine that was brought in the country will help combat the spread of the pandemic. It is my prayer that because of these measures put in place, we will be able to combat the spread of the pandemic.
Hon. President, the President talked about climate agricultural programme. What it shows us is that the leader of this country has a great vision. Zimbabweans are hardworking people. His vision is utilisation of skills on the people of Zimbabwe, especially for the people in the rural areas. They are assisted and that way ensures food security for the people. He also mentioned that climate change has affected many countries, the world over.
THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order, Hon. Sen. Tongogara. You can see that some Senators are not in the Chamber but they are following the debates. They are in different areas of the country because of this pandemic we need few people in here. So you have to use your gadget for virtual purpose so that those who are outside this Chamber can hear what you are saying and they can also debate. Please use your gadget.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Mr. President, let me continue. The President mentioned about the tripartite negotiations and outlined that it would be an advantage because we have many ideas. If there are problems that we have, it is better to resolve them because of a pool of ideas that we will be having.
The President, in his speech mentioned the National Disaster Fund. This will be helpful to the people, it is a noble idea. It is good to know that there is a fund whenever disaster befalls a country.
The President also mentioned new products on the market and the role of the Standards Authority of Zimbabwe. It is always good that people get original and best products whose standards have been verified.
In his Speech, the President also talked about reforms of State enterprises, that is, parastatals. There is need to help these enterprises so that they do not get losses. These reforms will help parastatals perform as expected and help them avoid making losses every year.
*HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to debate on the Presidential Speech on the State of the Nation Address. This address had one vision of having a middle income economy by 2030.This sets a tone to develop our country as we would be able to sustain ourselves as a nation. That is the vision the President set for this country.
For the nation to achieve Vision 2030, the nation should be healthy. He touched on a lot of areas including health. On the COVID pandemic, he talked about what Government has done in order to curb this disease. This pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons in this country – it is important for a country to be well prepared in case there is such a pandemic. We should build our own hospitals because when COVID hit the world, no one was allowed to travel beyond the border. We used to get donations from donors but COVID removed all that and we were left without assistance. The President now said that hospitals, hospital staff and civil servants get support on health so that we have a healthy nation. We should have policy on health as a country. We should get to a stage whereby our leaders are treated locally when they are sick – this would reflect that we are ready health wise.
All our hospitals should be well equipped so that if there is a pandemic of some sort, we will be home and dry. It would look like politics when our leadership seek medical attention outside the country. People complain pertaining to that. If our leaders are treated locally, we will have faith in our President because if they are treated out of the country, we do not know which drugs they are given there. As a country, we will not be safe. We will only achieve our vision if the nation is healthy. I would like to thank the President for he wants a healthy nation. This should not end here.
On agriculture, the President said that the nation should be well fed. He touched on Pfumvudza programme which is bearing fruit now. We want Zimbabwe to be the breadbasket of Africa. For now, we have challenges because we do not have money in the country. We are importing everything from soya to maize. People import onions which is not necessary. We want that to be rectified in our country so that the irrigation skills which were talked about will be viable – Tokwe-Mukorsi should be fully utilised, so that it would be able to sustain the country. We are pleading with Government that the agriculture sector should be well resourced so that our country may be food sufficient. With what has been tabled before us, we are looking forward to the resuscitation of irrigation schemes. What is hampering all this is corruption which was mentioned by the President? You will find that the same people will be allocated land in the irrigation schemes at the expense of the whole country. Vision 2030 can only be achieved if we follow the President’s vision that the country be self sustainable.
The President also talked about devolution. Devolution is very pertinent in the development of our country because it is well articulated in our Constitution. Devolution has not gathered traction since 2013 when the current Constitution was passed. It is being politicised. Devolution is all about local development and it eradicates unequal distribution of wealth. Devolution also helps when it comes to evaluation and monitoring because the local people are involved in the distribution of wealth.
The President also talked about corruption. In Zimbabwe, we have educated and hard working people but now we are famous for the wrong things. We are ranked highly amongst the most corrupt countries in the world. The fight against corruption which is headed by ZACC should bear results. When ZACC was commissioned, there were high profile cases that were put before it but to date, nothing has been resolved. ZACC is not doing any work and that is what people say. Since its inception, no one has been convicted of any crime. They behave like people who do not have the expertise to handle cases. There is nowhere we can go as a country if we allow corruption to take precedence. We should deal precisely with corruption issues as a nation.
We should unite as a nation in the fight against corruption as per our President’s plea. We should investigate ZACC so that we find out whether we have competent people in order for us to achieve Vision 2030. I thank you.
HON. SEN CHIRONGOMA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON SEN. KOMICHI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February 2021.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE 47TH PLENARY ASSEMBLY SESSION OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD VIRTUALLY IN NAMIBIA
Fourth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the 47th Plenary Assembly Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum held virtually on 9th October 2020 in Windhoek, Namibia
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: Thank you Madam President for the opportunity you have given to add my voice in support of the motion raised by Hon. Sen. Mohadi. The COVID-19 virus is very painful and it does not matter what your age is. It is different from other diseases where you can be operated. We are grateful for what His Excellency the President has said and the measures he has taken that people should avoid unnecessary movement. What exactly is the problem for people to stay in their own homes? People are just moving unnecessarily something that can be avoided and are not wearing their masks properly. People only wear the masks when they come across a soldier. This is your life and it is very important so you should take precautionary measures to make sure that the disease is not transmitted to you.
In some communities, there are no radios and televisions such that people have no access to information through that mode of communication. It is therefore our wish that the messages transmitted using other modes of communication so that people also get the message to take care of them against this pandemic. There are also people who are suffering economically, may they get assistance because they are braving the pandemic to say I would rather die of COVID-19 rather than hunger. We are talking of those who survive on vending and because of this pandemic people are no longer able to go about their normal activities.
It was a good measure which was taken by the President because in beer halls is where COVID-19 is transmitted, those are the hot spots. There are a lot of things that happen within bars. Yes, there are people who may be affected economically because there are no longer getting business out of the ban of the sale of alcohol but it is important as these are the hotspots of COVID-19. Those who are working in hospitals should get protective clothing to fully protect them. There are a lot of people who do not have protective clothing so their contact as they do business is not as usual so they sort of withdraw themselves because they do not have enough PEPs. It is important that they get PEPs because their working conditions are terrible and are taking it head on, and need to be protected.
We encourage those members who are in this House to also strive to spread the correct message. There are a lot of fake messages being circulated to say the vaccine has killed so many people in a certain country but we have established that these are lies. Let us be exemplary when it comes to this pandemic. If everyone refuses to take the vaccine, no one will take it serious or agree to be vaccinated. Let us do it and the nation sees that we are been vaccinated. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: I also want to support the motion that was raised by Hon. Sen. Mohadi with regard to the meeting that was held in Namibia. It was a very big meeting indeed. During the discussions, a lot of issues were raised including the issue of COVID-19. This is now a world pandemic though initially we had thought we were safe but now it is with us. We are grateful that our President managed to secure vaccines for us. We also saw the Vice President who is also the Minister of Health and Child Care receiving the vaccines.
However, I want to thank the Minister of Health who is leading the medical fraternity and all the security forces who are at the forefront. As a people, we started believing that this virus was deadly after losing our relatives and close friends. We lost some of our relatives out there and some Government officials. This is for us to know that this is a deadly disease. As leaders, we should know that this pandemic is out there. If we want to meet our leaders, we have to be tested before we do that, this is a very good thing. There are some journalists who peddle fake news concerning vaccines. For the President to implement the lockdown, it is because he loves us. Our scientists and doctors have approved the vaccines which are coming in. The President has been advised by his advisors on the vaccine, which is a good thing. If a pregnant woman is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, she can deliver a healthy baby because of the expertise of scientists in developing vaccines.
I am encouraging everyone to unite with the President. We should not be afraid because we are the leaders of the Government as Senators and Members of Parliament and all the other leaders. We should support our Government as we were taught. We should support the President on his extension of the lockdown for another two weeks, this disease exists. In the rural areas, we have pastors and civic organisations that hold awareness campaigns on the disease. We still have challenges at funerals where people are not following World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. I think it is because of lack of education and understanding. We should unite in the fight against this pandemic and follow the WHO guidelines. This will help us as a nation. Thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. FEMAI: Thank you Madam President for affording me this opportunity to add my voice to this debate on the motion which was tabled by Hon. Sen. Mohadi on the SADC virtual Plenary Session which took place in Namibia.
Firstly, Madam President, I would like to thank the opposition leader, Hon. Sen. Douglas Mwonzora for allowing us to debate on every motion. Previously, we would ask for permission to debate on any debate, now we are debating on motions that are developmental – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We were not free to air our views. This House is not partisan, it is called Parliament of Zimbabwe.
To show that the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) was a very important meeting, it was opened by the Vice President of Namibia. It was an indication that SADC has now woken up. Black people now want to unite and work together in Africa to bring development to Africa, especially in the SADC region. I want to congratulate the people of SADC and their leaders that now they want to develop Africa so that there will be development in Southern Africa. They spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic, that is why I stood up so that we work together.
We thank our President for what he managed to do within his means but he is not a prophet, witch-doctor or a doctor, what he could do he did and we all saw it. We are now waiting for our scientists, traditional healers and doctors to come together for a solution. Those who believe in the traditional way of praying heard about this pandemic way before it came. During ancient times, traditional people are told of impending danger before it takes place. Government announces to us that they are going to acquire vaccine but it is also important for us to make thorough research before acquisition of things like vaccines. There is danger in these donated vaccines, we need to be vigilant.
Mr. President, I am in support of Government’s initiative of getting people vaccinated but experts within the Government should check this vaccine before it is administered to people. It is medical procedure that a doctor has to understand what exactly is wrong with you before they administer any medication on you, whether you have an ailment that may affect you because of the medication. There is no medication that can be manufactured to kill all the people in a country. We admit to get the vaccine administered on us as Senators in front of the nation because it is something that has been verified by experts.
Madam President, I also got the virus and I was asked to isolate at home. That is why my experience tells me that traditional healers and doctors should consult each other. I had to inhale steam mixed with herbs like zumbani, guava leaves and lemon as a way of combating the pandemic. In the first place, I never thought I had the virus. When I tested positive, it was a difficult moment for me but I think it is very important that people do a research on the use of herbs to combat the virus. Why then do we ignore traditional healers who can assist us? If we are able to acknowledge that everyone is important and contributes to a good cause that way we will make significant progress.
I am not a traditional healer but I once had a dream. I dreamt being directed to take a particular herb to heal a leg ailment that I had had for two years. Maybe this was cancer, we could have found a solution. What I am saying is, the fight between traditional healers and medical doctors does not help at all develop the nation, they should instead come together.
I heard there is a programme to have traditional healers and medical doctors work together – that will be a good initiative. I will be very happy if that is implemented. Thank you.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February, 2021.
MOTION
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS NETWORK ON DEVELOPMENT EVALUATION (APNODE) HELD IN ABIDJAN
Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Zimbabwean Delegation to the 5th Annual General Meeting of the African Parliamentarians Network Development Evaluation (APNODE).
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February, 2021.
MOTION
REPORT ON THE VIRTUAL EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION (IPU)
Sixth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Extra Ordinary Session of the Council of the IPU.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February, 2021
MOTION
PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Seventh Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the 16 days of activism against gender based violence.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. FEMAI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February, 2021
MOTION
CONDOLENCES ON THE DEATH OF HON. SEN. RTD. AIR CHIEF MARSHALL PERRANCE SHIRI
Eighth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the death of Hon. Sen. Rtd. Air Chief Marshall Perrance Shiri.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 18th February, 2020.
On the motion of HON. SEN. MATHUTHU, seconded by HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA, the House adjourned at Six Minutes past Four o’clock p.m.