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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Acting British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Simon Thomas has paid a courtesy call on Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda to explore ways of improving ties. Mr Thomas said there was scope for cooperation between Zimbabwe and other parliaments of Commonwealth member states.

“We have had a very useful meeting this morning, this was a courtesy and introductory call on the Speaker as part of our engagement with Zimbabwe,” he said.

“We are keen on not only talking to the Government and foster people-to-people links, but also look at the role of Parliament.

“Our parliaments for historical reasons have very strong relationships and of course Parliament has a really important role to play in enforcing the Constitution and ensuring that Zimbabweans of all backgrounds urban or rural, male or female are able to enjoy their constitutional rights.

“We also talked this morning about the agenda of Parliament going forward and thinking of ways our two parliaments can work more closely together in the period ahead.”

Mr Thomas said Parliament had an important role to play in carrying oversight on Government as it implements its reform agenda.

“We have explored a couple of areas, I mean just recognising that there are new MPs at the moment, recognising the important roles that individuals select committees will have in holding the Government to account in very complex areas of economic reform, (how the) security sector is doing, trade and business, electoral reforms and gender as well,” he said.

“There are all sorts of areas we can cooperate not only between the UK parliament and Zimbabwe Parliament, but also we think there is an important role for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and a lot of Commonwealth countries have similar parliaments and similar systems and I believe all these international links are an important part of Zimbabwe’s re-engagement.”

Meanwhile, Ghana’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Eric Odoi-Anim, has pledged to expedite the establishment of a Joint Commission between the two countries to facilitate trade and economic relations.

Ambassador Odoi-Anim said this when he paid a courtesy call on the Speaker on Tuesday. “I had a very fruitful meeting with the Right Honourable Speaker of Parliament,” he said.

“We talked about the need to deepen relations at parliamentary level between our respective parliaments who are representative of our people.

“We also talked of the need to deepen economic relations and I promised to jump start the seeming delay regarding the permanent Joint Commission of trade and economic cooperation between our two countries.”

Ambassador Odoi-Anim said they had also discussed how the countries could cooperate on value addition of their respective products.

“I also had the opportunity to discuss the initiatives the Mission is taking to ensure that economics and politics go hand-in-hand, but with emphasis to do more to add value to things we produce and to do more to ensure that the generation of youthful leaders is equipped with skills to be able to contribute effectively and to take the mantle of leadership from the current generation,” he said.

Advocate Mudenda said Ghana was an important country on the continent for taking the lead in promoting Pan-Africanism as espoused by its founding president Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

“Ghana, through Dr Nkrumah, became the godfather of Pan-Africanism which has given birth to the current AU,” he said.

“We feel very proud of the contribution of the people of Ghana.”

Adv Mudenda extended his condolences to the people of Ghana following the death of former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan in August.

“I have also exchanged ideas with the ambassador on the need for us to mentor a new crop of leadership in all spheres of human endeavours so that these young leaders can take over from us to move the continent forward,” he said.

Adv Mudenda talked of the need to strengthen parliamentary relations between Zimbabwe and Ghana.