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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Parliament’s legislative agenda has been disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown, with a backlog of 15 Bills presently before the legislature at various stages of promulgation.

The lockdown, which started at the end of March, has adversely impacted Parliament’s business and the situation was compounded by the suspension of operations at the end of July when two legislators, a driver and a journalist, tested positive for Covid-19 during a field visit.

The National Assembly briefly sat on Tuesday and adjourned business to next Tuesday while Senate will only resume sitting on September 15. In its latest Parliament Watch bulletin, a legal think-tank, Veritas, says there are several Bills before the National Assembly that were expected to have been completed by now, with the current Second Session of the Ninth Parliament expected to end any time soon.

Some of the Bills before the House include the Constitution of Zimbabwe (No.2) Bill, Attorney General’s Office Amendment Bill, Forest Amendment Bill, National Prosecuting Authority Amendment Bill, Financial Amendment Bill and the Zimbabwe Media Commission Bill, the Cyber Security and Data Protection Bill, which are still before the National Assembly.

The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.1) Bill, the Marriages Bill and the Constitutional Court Bill, are before the Senate, while the Pension and Provident Funds Bill and the Manpower Planning and Development Bill are yet to be tabled before Parliament although they have already been gazetted.

“In addition to the above Bills, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development will want the National Assembly to deal with the Finance Bill foreshadowed in the Mid-Term Fiscal Policy Review Statement that he presented in the House on 16th July.

“The Bill is necessary to deal with changes to tax laws mentioned by the Minister in that statement, such as the raising of the tax-free threshold to $5000 and the widening of the income tax bands,” Veritas said.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, who is also the leader of Government business in Parliament, said they were looking at completing those Bills that are almost done.

“Right now, we are hoping that Bills that are almost done and those that are before the Senate can be concluded before the President opens the next session.
“We are looking at cleaning up those that we can and those that we can’t we then roll over to the next session of the Ninth Parliament,” he said.