Own Correspondent|Following loud cries by POLAD partners, over President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s move to Gazette the proposed ZANU PF 27 amendments to the constitution, government yesterday presented the gazetted proposed clauses to members of the Political Actors Leaders (POLAD).
Before the amendments were presented to them, POLAD partners loudly claimed that they had agreed that he was not going to Gazette the proposals before discussing with them.
POLAD consists of 18 political party leaders that participated in the 2018 harmonised elections.
Briefing media after a closed POLAD meeting held at a Bulawayo hotel, POLAD co-convener Ms Margaret Sangarwe said Government presented the proposed constitutional changes to POLAD so that they make informed decisions.
“There was a presentation from the Permanent Secretary of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mrs (Virginia) Mabiza on the constitutional amendments and the highlight of this presentation was that the Bill was gazetted on the 31st of December 2019. Parliament will conduct hearings on the Bill after the mandatory 90-day period.
“It was mentioned that the presentation was mainly informative on POLAD members so that when they discuss, they do so from an informed position,” said Ms Sangarwe.
One of the POLAD members and MDC-T Bulawayo proportional representation MP, Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, said the group was yet to come up with a position on the proposed constitutional amendments.
She said POLAD would take advantage of cordial relations with Zanu PF in coming up with a position.
“The committees are clear about the outputs; the critical ones are going to be on the amendment of the Constitution and coming up with a POLAD position and beginning to engage with Government. We haven’t come up with our position but we have a technical committee that is going to look at those positions and proceed to then engage,” said Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga.
She said POLAD was also working on a shadow Bill for electoral reforms.
Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga said POLAD was keen on ensuring that governance issues were addressed and would be advising Government on a course of action after wider consultation on various issues.
THE political rejects that make up the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad) found out this week that they have nothing more than ornamental value when President Emmerson Mnangagwa ploughed ahead to gazette amendments to the constitution.
This is despite promises from the ruling party leader that he would debate with the motley crew of losers the proposed changes before they are gazetted and taken to Parliament.
“During the last meeting of Polad, one of the resolutions read out was that the proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill should not be gazetted, but instead brought to Polad where it would be discussed and other parties input,” one of the hangers-on, a member of the totally irrelevant grouping and lifetime National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) leader Lovemore Madhuku whined.
“It was agreed that a Bill would then be brought to Parliament with amendments also from other political parties and, instead of focussing on the Zanu PF needs, we will have an omnibus Bill, but that was not followed. But they went ahead and gazetted the Bill.”
In a further demonstration of just how useless the impact of the grouping is, Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi swatted away their concerns, as one would an irritating fly, pointing out that the government has no obligation to take bills to Polad. It is laughable that the leaders of parties that garnered less than 2% of total votes cast in the 2018 elections were demanding cars and allowances.
These opportunists, who have already burdened the taxpayer through their meetings which add nothing to the nation’s wellbeing, are shamelessly driven by self-interest. Any self-respecting political leader would have quit the grouping after such a monumental snub, but it is probably asking too much from those who list “visiting Cyclone Idai” — whatever that means — as one of their achievements in 2019.
That one member of this group, Bryan Mteki, has actually rejoined Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF shows just how much of a joke this platform is. They are truly shameful, greedy and pathetic political opportunists.