By A Correspondent- Independent legislator for Norton Temba Mliswa has blasted the Parliament’s Welfare Committee describing it as useless.
Mliswa said this during parliament Wednesday.
He said:
“Thank you very much for affording me this opportunity to once again contribute to this motion of a fallen hero, the late Hon. Gumbwanda. Let me say that it has become a way of life now that every month there is a Member of Parliament who we debate on.
What is important now is to debate on the circumstances that led to the death of Members of Parliament. The source of the death is what we want to talk about.
You are aware of the Welfare Committee that represents Parliamentarians. I will call a spade a spade and say they are absolutely useless. The Welfare Committee that represents Members of Parliament is useless. It has failed to discharge its dutieS.”
He was however asked to withdraw his atatement by the deputy speaker of parliament and he said:
“I shall withdraw the word useless and say they are dysfunctional. They are totally not functional at all because we can blame the Government but Parliament is an independent body. It is one of the three pillars of the State. Many a times the Speaker has attacked us for not contributing to the Budget. For the first time we contributed to the Budget according to what Parliament wanted and even surpassed that.
We took into consideration the welfare of Members of Parliament from salaries. The salaries have not been reviewed. We took into consideration the allowances, they have not been reviewed. We even went a step further to also accommodate the staff of Parliament. We spoke about the human resource which was less.
Hon. Members in this House, I want to take a minute to think. Parliament staff has been increased and nothing in our favour has been done. The clerks were hired but nothing was done for the Members of Parliament yet we are the ones who stood in this Parliament and moved the motion, contributed to the debate so that it is second in voting.
It was never second. So you have got one arm of Parliament which is staff which is being taken care of and you have got the other arm of Members of Parliament which is not being taken care of. You are now creating a rift and a division. This is why I am saying what is the role of the Welfare Committee in this Parliament. The Welfare Committee is a Committee which is supposed to stand for Members of Parliament.”