Speaker blasts Biti

Government departments.
In his keynote address during a pre-budget consultative seminar organised by Parliament and Treasury, Mr Moyo said Parliament was one of the three arms of Government with a constitutional mandate.
The seminar is being attended by Government ministers, legislators and captains of industry, among others.
“Why is it that Parliament has to queue alongside ministries to be served as though Parliament is a ministry?
“Why are the internal arrangements within the Ministry of Finance not reflecting the status and respect that should be accorded by one arm of State to another?
“Surely is the Ministry of Finance not aware of the difference between a Government ministry and a whole arm of State?”
He castigated Minister Biti for failing to adequately deal with errant ministries failing to submit monthly and quarterly reports to Parliament as provided for by the Public Finance and Management Act.
Failure to deal with such errant ministries, said the Speaker, frustrated the role of Parliament.
“It is sad, however, that such a good piece of legislation is not being enforced.
“Most of the ministries have not complied at all with this Act, with nothing being done by the Ministry of Finance to punish these errant ministries.”
Mr Moyo said such blatant disregard of the law affects governance.
Parliament, he said, has in many instances been blamed for being ineffective. He said some legislators had been ejected from hotels and failed to access fuel coupons all because of Treasury’s failure to provide resources.
Mr Moyo said MPs had to sell their fuel coupons to augment their meagre salaries.
He said Parliament would create a parliamentary budget office and had written to Minister Biti to make a budgetary provision in his 2013 National Budget.
“I would therefore like to call upon the minister to remain committed to the Parliamentary Budget Office initiative by availing the necessary funds.
“We must move towards a situation whereby Parliament controls its own budget in order for the legislative branch to be truly independent of the Executive branch in line with the call by the minister to enhance parliamentary independence.”
Mr Moyo said there was a need for all the arms of Government to be treated equally. He said the Executive wielded a lot of power and influence over the other two arms — the Legislature and Judiciary.
“The Executive sets unbalanced conditions of service, for example to date, the presiding officers of Parliament are yet to receive all of the conditions of service in full yet their counterparts in the Executive received theirs a long time ago,” he said.
Mr Moyo said it was critical for all Government arms to be equal.
“The country benefits nothing from one strong arm of the State wielding the power of the purse and the two other very weak arms of the State ever begging for funds to operate,” Mr Moyo  said.

 

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey