The complete debate on why Zimbabwe MPs opposed the National Competitiveness Commission Bill

Mr. Speaker Sir, judging from the levels of political violence that are occurring in our country that are coming from by-elections and so on that we have seen, we cannot begin to talk about business competitiveness and ease of doing business when you do not address those fundamentals.  Let us deal with the politics.  We need to address the framework to allow people to be free to express their minds politically even when we do not agree with them.  If we do that, they can vote in free and fair elections and the proximity of the elections is going to be a big problem for the Hon. Minister if he does not, with his Cabinet colleagues, seriously deal with that risk factor.

I will not talk about the police and the corruption Mr. Speaker Sir.  Lastly … – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MARUMAHOKO):  Order, order Hon. Members, there is a lot of noise in this Chamber.  Lower down your conversations.  If you want to continue, you go outside there and continue your discussions.  Hon. Member, you may proceed.

HON. MAJOME:  Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.  I want to just say a word or two about an executive commission that the Hon. Minister seeks to create.  We are a country that has a very sad history already, of just the abandonment and ignoring of even powerful organisations and institutions.  We are a country that has a judiciary whose orders of court in the highest courts in the land are actually kicked left, right and centre.

I will give an example of Hon. Justice Bere’s judgment on spot fines where he interpreted the law as obvious but if you go to the streets nowadays, any street, you will find the police officers wantonly collecting fines.  So, my question to the Hon. Minister that I would want him to answer is, what chance does a mere executive commission have of having its recommendations adhered to, listened to, by either himself or even anybody else if a whole arm of Government that is the judicial arm of Government can issue judgments and the police, for example, can simply ignore them?  In my respective view Mr. Speaker Sir, this commission would be another crying waste of tax payers’ money when we could do other things with our money.  Can the Hon. Minister utilise what we have already and listen to Parliament.

Finally, Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to say to the Hon. Minister in regard to this, may he perish the thought of this particular Bill and installing yet another Commission that will be redundant because it will be a Commission to tell us common sense. We have a lot of common sense in this country. We do not need a Commission that we will pay for to do that, which will also be another avenue possibly of corruption. May the Hon. Minister go back to the drawing board and start by reading the recommendations of Portfolio Committees of this Parliament and see that they are implemented. That way, business competitiveness will improve and the Hon. Minister’s headaches will be resolved. I thank you.

HON. CHIMANIKIRE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. First and foremost, I would like to express my disappointment at the attitude that ZANU PF Members of Parliament have displayed towards this debate. I think it is a very important debate. The Hon. Minister here occupies a very important position in our society as Minister of Industry and Commerce.

When we talk about competitiveness, there must be an existing industry and commerce. That is quickly disappearing in this country Mr. Speaker. So, it is important that when the Hon. Minister comes to Parliament, he comes forward with Bills that will assist recreate industry and commerce and not destroy it. What he has presented to us this afternoon Mr. Speaker, smacks of a network of patronage, creating another monster that will devour our economy into extinction.  Once upon a time Mr. Speaker, we had a viable economy in this country but where did it go to?

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