Zimbabwe legislator says MPs should not ask Deputy Ministers questions because they have deputy answers

A member of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday complained that legislators should not ask questions to deputy ministers because they did not have answers since they did not attend cabinet meetings.

“We only have deputy ministers who have deputy answers and who have never been in cabinet meetings,” Musikavanhu legislator Prosper Mutseyami said at the beginning of Question Time in Parliament yesterday.

“So, it is important for this House to appreciate the importance of having ministers in this House to answer questions.  This country is bleeding right now and it needs answers and solutions but ministers cannot come to answer so that we have solutions of this country.  People are suffering out there but ministers cannot come here.  What are we doing?  Why are we here?  Where are the ministers?  Where are they?”

When Deputy Speaker Mabel Chinomona responded that ministers were attending a cabinet meeting and deputy ministers present could answer questions, his colleague Innocent Gonese said the country’s supreme law, the national constitution, specifically said that ministers “must attend Parliament”.

He therefore demanded that the ministers must be charged with contempt of Parliament.

“In terms of Section 3, the constitution of Zimbabwe is a supreme law of this country and the same constitution has a provision which obliges Vice Presidents and Ministers to attend Parliament and the language which is used is peremptory.  It says that ‘they must attend Parliament’.  As a result, the constitution obliges Ministers to take the business of this House seriously,” Gonese said. 

“As we speak, we are wasting taxpayers’ money and they should not have scheduled their cabinet meeting to coincide with the sitting of Parliament because today, on a Wednesday, the whole nation would be waiting expecting answers on issues which are pertinent to the welfare and the wellbeing of the people whom we represent.

“Hon. Chamisa, a few weeks back, raised the same issue sighting both the constitution and also the Standing Orders and the Speaker promised that he was going to look into the matter.  The specific plea that I am now asking for Madam Speaker is that the Hon. Ministers must be charged with contempt of Parliament because they are in contempt of Parliament. 

“It is something in which your office, through the Speaker, made a promise and undertaking and that has not been fulfilled.  We therefore demand that the Chair charges the relevant ministers with contempt of Parliament.”

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