ZANU PF chief whip Pupurai Togarepi has proposed changes to the Constitution to allow the President to appoint all ministers outside Parliament to avoid a situation where Cabinet ministers holding senior positions in the ruling party look down upon committee chairpersons.<\/p>\n
In a report presented in Parliament yesterday on the performance of MPs in portfolio committees, Togarepi said some ministers looked down upon portfolio committee chairpersons, and this had affected Parliament business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be separation of powers so that the President appoints Cabinet outside Parliament so that there is no arrogance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There have been cases where ministers have refused to appear for grilling in Parliament, with others accusing committee chairpersons of using their positions to pursue personal agendas.<\/p>\n
Togarepi also proposed that MPs be barred from being members of several committees, as this compromised their performance, leading to delayed finalisation of reports.<\/p>\n
The recommendation was supported by Foreign Affairs Portfolio Committee chairperson Kindness Paradza, who revealed that some MPs were in the habit of attending committee meetings only to sign the attendance register and then leave.<\/p>\n
Paradza added: \u201cWe experience difficulties in committees where most of the time, it is only the chairperson talking and other MPs do not contribute, they just sit and listen or they come in and register, and then they go. We need interaction and capacity-building workshops for our MPs so that they are able to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his report, Togarepi said: \u201cOf concern is that committees are taking time to conclude enquiries and to submit reports to the House and we recommend that no committee should embark on new activities before reporting on the second activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the Second Session of the Ninth Parliament, the Standing Rules and Orders Committee seconded each MP to two or more committees to allow expediting the huge workload of committees, but MPs had many committees which they did not attend.<\/p>\n
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ZANU PF chief whip Pupurai Togarepi has proposed changes to the Constitution to allow the President to appoint all ministers outside Parliament to avoid a situation where Cabinet ministers holding senior positions in the ruling party look down upon committee chairpersons. In a report presented in Parliament yesterday on the performance of MPs in portfolio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":23164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-27516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-zanu-pf"],"yoast_head":"\n