Suburban
THE Speaker of Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda has requested Harare North Member of the National Assembly Mr Allan Markham to put in writing his inquiries to Cabinet Ministers, which have not been responded to, so the head of the legislature could follow them up.
Suburban Reporter
Advocate Mudenda’s request followed complaints by Mr Markham in the National Assembly two weeks ago that questions with notice to Cabinet Ministers were not getting responses or were being just shelved.
“Honourable Speaker, my point of national interest is my concern on questions with notice that are going unanswered or hazily put aside. I have a list of things that I personally have been promised and have not been done. I am glad the Minister of Finance is here. He said on global settlement deed of trust that he would avail the documents to us. As of now, nothing has happened and it is two months now. The same can be said about the 38 million of the Dutch loan. Even yesterday, we asked for the ZAMCO and the debt assumption that came in with the budget, we have not been given what we asked for,” said Mr Markham.
The Harare North legislator said the Ministers of Local Government and Transport had also not provided the information they had promised to give him concerning the land problems in the capital city and the repair of roads under Government’s Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP).
“I also have two Ministries.
The Minister of Local Government assured me we could have a meeting on the land problems that we have in Harare. To date, I have tried to contact them three or four times and as of now, I have not met with the Deputy Minister.”
Mr Allan Markham
Mr Markham said although the Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona had fulfilled his promise to meet him, the Ministry was yet to provide Members of Parliament with information on the ERRP.
“The Minister of Transport has eventually met with me and I thank him for the meeting.
““One of the issues that we asked for was for the emergency road repair programme to be made available to MPs. As of now, that has not been done. Of the eight issues I have asked for and have been promised, not one has been met. I have left the ninth issue because you Mr Speaker promised to look into the release of the Justice Uchena Commission and we had no feedback on that either,” Mr Markham said.
Advocate Mudenda requested that Mr Markham put his inquiries in writing so he can follow them up.
“Excellent observation. Can you favour me with a small write up? You summarise that so that I can deal with each Minister concerned, in a written form so that I have a record,” said Advocate Mudenda.
“You will have that tomorrow. Thank you Honourable Speaker,” said Mr Markham.
However, the Speaker asked Mr Markham to do the write up that very same day and the legislator undertook to do so.
Members of Parliament recently demanded explanations on the criteria used by Government to allocate State land either for housing or commercial development citing corruption in some of the land deals. The lawmakers were firing the questions to Local Government and Public Works Deputy Minister Mariam Chombo during a question and answer session saying some politicians and the well-connected were ending up with vast tracts land acquired from the State. State land and municipal land is generally cheaper than land sold by private developers. Some of the private developers would have acquired the land from the State or local authorities before developing and demarcating it for sale.
Deputy Minister Chombo said there was no set criteria and undertook that her Ministry will soon be presenting a Ministerial statement to Parliament on the matter.
MPs demanded that the Justice Tendai Uchena report on land allocation should also be presented to Parliament to make its findings public as it had probed the land deals.
The lawmakers also wanted to know the criteria the Government was using in prioritising roads earmarked for repairs and what action was taken against contractors who were doing shoddy work.
