Chombo moves to block debate

Parliament Mr Austin Zvoma, Speaker of the House of Assembly Mr Lovemore Moyo and Senate President Mrs Edna Madzongwe last Tuesday expressing his reservations to the Bill. Mr Zvoma confirmed receipt of the Minister’s letter.
“We are looking into it and we will respond to the minister,” said Mr Zvoma.
The Bill was presented to the House of Assembly by MDC-T House of Assembly representative for Buhera Mr Tangwara Matimba. It was tabled before Parliament last week and is due for second reading.  There have been relentless efforts by the MDC-T to have Minister Chombo’s powers curtailed. The MDC-T controls the majority of councils in the country.
Reads part of the letter written to Parliament by Minister Chombo: “I write to express my reservation to the introduction of the proposed Urban Councils Amendment Bill into Parliament.  While every member of Parliament is generally entitled to introduce a Bill in terms of schedule 4 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, that privilege was lost to the members in 2009 in terms of section 15 Act No.19 of 2009 (Amendment No.19),” said Minister Chombo.
He said a new schedule 8 was added to the constitution of Zimbabwe. The Minister, in his letter, cited Section 1 of schedule 8 that provides “as follows — for the avoidance of doubt, the following provisions of the inter-party political agreement, being Article XX thereof shall during the subsistence of the inter-party political agreement, prevails notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this constitution”.
Minister Chombo argued that the obligation of presenting Bills to Parliament was therefore vested in the Cabinet quoting Article 20.1.2 (c).
“The Cabinet shall have the responsibility to prepare and present to Parliament, all such legislation and the instruments as maybe necessary to implement the policies and programmes of the national executive,” he said.
Minister Chombo also indicated that he was already in the process of amending the Urban Councils Act.
“May I also mention for the record that my ministry is undertaking the process of amending the Urban Councils Act and the other three major local government Acts namely the Rural District Councils Act, the Provincial Councils Act and the Traditional Leaders Act,” he said.
“The amendment will have the effect of producing a single Local Government Act to govern local governance in the country.”
Members, he said, would be given a chance to participate in the process through the consultative meetings that will be held. He said Treasury had already provided funding for the process. The proposed Urban Councils Amendment Bill seeks to bring a number of changes to the Urban Councils Act among them to repeal section 4 that provides for the appointment of special interest councillors by the minister.
The Bill also seeks to amend section 80 of that Act by inserting a section requiring the minister to consult Parliament’s portfolio committee on Local Government before appointing caretakers and limits the caretaker’s term of office to 90 days without the possibility of renewal. It further requires an election to be held as soon as possible to establish a new council for the local authority concerned.
The Bill also amends section 103 that deals with the election of a mayor, deputy mayor, chairperson and deputy chairperson.
“Currently the election of a mayor or council chairperson is presided over by the district administrator and in the case of Harare and Bulawayo a provincial administrator,” reads the Bill.
“The amendment seeks to have the town clerk or in his or her absence a person elected by councillors present to preside over the said elections. The amendment also seeks to restrict councils to elect a councillor as a mayor as opposed to the current situation whereby any other person can be elected as a mayor.”
It intends to remove ministerial approval for allowances paid to councillors and requires the minister to set a maximum limit of the allowances by way of regulations.
Further, the Bill seeks to remove the minister’s power to approve by-laws and to leave the local authorities to approve their own by-laws and the minister will only be expected to gazette the by-laws at councils’ cost.
It also removes ministerial approval of general and council rates while also removing ministerial appointments of auditors to audit the accounts of local authorities where the minister deems it fit.