By A Correspondent| Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda says Members of Parliament have unnecessarily turned themselves into charity and social welfare officers for their communities against their roles set out in the country’s constitution.

He was addressing a combination of new and returning legislators during an induction seminar in Harare on Monday.

Legislators in Zimbabwe play three roles which are representative, legislative, and oversight during their five-year terms.

But when campaigning for seats, MPs usually make superfluous pledges to influence developmental and charity projects within their communities, things that do not fall under their purview.

By so doing, Chokuda said, MPs unnecessarily heighten expectation from their constituents to a point of being viewed as community benefactors.

“For the public, when they see an MP, they see a social welfare worker; they also see a funeral assurance body; they also see someone who is responsible for paying school fees for their children.

“But I think it’s important for the public to know that it is not your role. There are other government departments and structures responsible for that,” he said.

Chokuda said parliamentarians’ roles are legislative, representative and oversight based.

“Those are basically the mandate of parliament; not to pay school fees, not to bury people, not to fund graduation parties and so on.

“I know when you were campaigning, you may have promised people differently. You will have to deal with it, but these are your roles,” he said.

Speaking at the same occasion, Deputy Senate president Michael Nyambuya also said legislators were being ‘abused’ by their constituents through some ridiculous demands and expectations during their tenure.

“MPs are really being abused out there. For you to be an MP now, you really need to have resources and it’s not happening here only but in Nigeria, in Ghana,” he said.

Veteran legislator Irene Zindi, a Zanu PF senator, agreed that MPs were overwhelmed.

“Think of a situation where you have 10 or 20 people dying in a month in a constituency and the MP is expected to fund the funerals. This is when you end up hearing MPs with fraud cases trying to make ends meet,” she said.