EDITORIAL COMMENT: Legislators must show the way

To promote transparency and accountability while reducing cases of corruption, Parliament ordered legislators to declare their assets.

According to the legislature’s code of conduct and ethics they were supposed to do so soon after being sworn into office after the 2018 harmonised elections.

We are pleased that 90 percent of them have complied with 10 percent yet to.

Parliament discussed the issue on Tuesday this week after African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption (APNAC) chairperson Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga raised a point of privilege in the National Assembly demanding that the House should take action against the defiant minority. She did a good thing, moving to remind the remaining few to do the honourable thing.

Speaker of Parliament Cde Jacob Mudenda told the Lower House that 90 percent of legislators, including Cabinet Ministers, had declared their assets.

He said the remaining legislators had up to Thursday next week to comply or risk being investigated.

“I wish to inform the House that to date, 244 members of the National Assembly; which represents 90,3 percent have declared their assets and 26 Members; which represents 9,7 percent have not declared their assets. In the Senate, 73 Senators representing 91,25 percent of the Senators have declared their assets while seven senators representing 8,75 percent have not declared their assets. The foregoing figures are inclusive of Honourable Ministers,” he said.

“All the Hon Members who have not declared their assets are given until Thursday 19th March 2020, to comply. Failure to do so will lead to the constitution of a Privileges Committee to investigate the matter and come up with the necessary censure. Please be guided accordingly.”

Ninety percent is a huge number so we commend the legislators who have complied with the best practice and their code of conduct and ethics.  

However, we are a bit concerned that the 10 percent haven’t. We are unsure why. We can legitimately speculate that some among the 10 percent or all of them are fearful that their riches are dirty, thus declaring them to Parliament might get them to answer a few questions.  It can be possible too that some among the 10 percent or all of them forgot to do the right thing. That is possible but curious at the same time. 

An MP worth their salt cannot forget to declare their assets, rather, cannot forget to uphold their code of ethics over 19 months. Be that as it may, we urge them to take advantage of the week’s grace period to comply. If they don’t file their documents by Thursday, we don’t think it would be a question of them forgetting; we will begin to smell a rat. The Speaker will count on our full support when his office or any other law enforcements agents, possibly the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission among them, begin investigating them.   

Declaration of assets by public figures is a worldwide practice. As we have alluded to earlier, this encourages transparency and accountability among our politicians.  Furthermore, asset declaration limits the chances of politicians acquiring wealth through corrupt means since the common practice is that they are expected to open themselves up for scrutiny from time to time during their terms of office.

They would thus, be aware that any asset accumulation that occurs would raise questions when they are forced to declare them. Therefore, they would be encouraged to be upright citizens who acquire assets through legitimate means.

If Parliament follows that up with regular lifestyle audits of legislators we feel the asset declarations would be more useful.  

We know that politicians are very influential persons.  They can get things done for the people, including the rich.  They have powers to influence the making of laws; they make them. They influence the signing of important agreements that can benefit or cause losses to businesspeople.  As a result, businesspeople can be tempted to offer inducements to the legislators to do their bidding.  

Also, the politicians themselves could be tempted to demand and accept bribes in return for coming up with laws or facilities favourable for certain business interests.

The policy for them to declare assets could help in reducing the chances of them demanding and accepting underhand payments. It can also assist in discouraging the rich from corrupting the politicians.