Parly must find its teeth

THE foundations of any democracy are built on strong institutions and pillars, with the legislature, judiciary and the executive each having an oversight on the other, so that neither are too powerful and negate the other or others.

Source: Parly must find its teeth – NewsDay Zimbabwe December 3, 2016

Comment: NewsDay Editor

The legislature, as the representative of the people, should be able to keep the executive in check to avoid excesses and enhance democracy.

Once the executive becomes too strong, it runs roughshod over the legislature and becomes unaccountable to the electorate, undermining the basic tenets of democracy.

This is the situation Zimbabwe finds itself in, where the executive has become all too powerful, rendering the legislature a paper tiger, whose job is just to rubber stamp decisions of the government.

President Robert Mugabe has used the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act usurping the legislature’s primary role of making laws.

The government’s disdain for Parliament was glaringly evident this week when Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa said government could by-pass the legislature.

Mnangagwa also refused to answer questions on where bond notes were being printed, while Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa is yet to tell Parliament about the terms of the murky loan agreement with the Africa Export and Import Bank.

The simple thing to do was to charge Mnangagwa with contempt of Parliament, because failure to answer these questions makes a mockery of the Constitution and the legislature itself.

There is no point in having a Parliament if it cannot do its most basic role of holding the executive to account, therefore, there is need for the legislature to find its teeth before it is rendered useless.

There have been several reports of ministers failing to turn up to Parliament, particularly during question and answer sessions, which shows they have little regard for parliamentarians and literally are doing as they please.

All this points to an executive that is contemptuous of Parliament and instead of the legislature finding its teeth it is pliant enough to allow the government to do as it pleases.

It does not matter what party one belongs to, but there is need to restore the dignity of Parliament, as it is now nothing more than a politicians’ talk-shop with little or no results at the end of the day.

Parliament is known as the august House, meaning an honourable place, but this is now a misnomer, as there is no honour in legislators failing to carry out their most basic of tasks.

Failure by the legislature to carry out its roles also contributes to the Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess, because ministers are doing as they please and checks and balances are almost non-existent.