Senate shoots down Posa amendment Bill

the Bill.
The party’s chief whip in the House of Assembly, Mr Innocent Gonese, had steered a Private Member’s Bill, which security experts said sought to make the police redundant and create anarchy in the country.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, told Senators yesterday that the Bill was not procedurally brought before the House.
He said the MDC-T wanted to smuggle a matter, which was under negotiations under the Global Political Agreement.
“I have to remind members that we are in an inclusive Government where we are all ruling parties. Negotiators in the GPA came up with regulations, which yielded amendments to Posa where as negotiators we looked at security regulations in other countries like Australia, South Africa, Namibia and Zambia.

“We dismissed the Australian and the UK ones in light of what they were advocating.
“We felt the South African one was more appropriate and we settled on it and made amendments. The current Posa is a product of joint parties’ negotiations,” he said.
Minister Chinamasa said he had told Mr Gonese that what he had done was irregular since the matter was covered under the elections roadmap drafted by the three parties in the inclusive Government.

“The matter is before the negotiators. It is in the roadmap and we don’t want to create unnecessary divisions and undermining of the inclusive Government.
“I have asked that the Bill be not debated again. This Bill will be allowed to lapse naturally and I appreciate Honorable Gonese’s understanding when we discussed about it earlier,” Minister Chinamasa said.

Stand-in Senate President, Chief Fortune Charumbira, then requested Mr Gonese to clarify on the matter.
“I am not withdrawing the motion and considering that the session is coming to an end tomorrow (today), the proper thing to do will be for Minister Chinamasa to adjourn the debate. I have to clarify that I have not withdrawn the motion,” he said.

Chief Charumbira then said: “Honourable Gonese what you are saying is confusing. Is the Bill dying a natural death or what? Minister Chinamasa can you clarify on that?”
Minister Chinamasa said: “It is actually face saving that usually I don’t want to clobber a man when he is already down. I now move that the debate be adjourned to August 30,” he said before the debate was adjourned.

Justice and Legal Affairs Deputy Minister Obert Gutu, who is MDC-T Senator for Chisipite, tried in vain to debate the Bill saying he had not been informed of the arrangement.
He was, however, told by his fellow party senators that the issue had been resolved.

In interviews after the sitting, Minister Chinamasa and Mr Gonese stuck to their guns with the former saying the Bill was dead, while the later said it was still alive.
“We have made it very clear that the negotiators are seized with the matter. We don’t believe it was a Private Member’s Bill because Mr Gonese is a senior member of the MDC-T who obviously pushes his party’s agenda.

“We are very clear that if there are any concerns they have to be brought through negotiators and not the back door.
“As it stands, Posa is a product of the three parties and we wouldn’t want that to be undermined by one party. Whatever we agree on has to be collective and as it stands the Bill has died,” Minister Chinamasa said.

Mr Gonese on the other hand said: “The ultimate objective of this Bill was to bring change to the operations of the police and if the objectives can be achieved through other means I have no problem with that. Any motion can be restored on the Order paper and be debated in the next session because we have done that before. All we want is to bring change to the law.
“We will evaluate the situation on what the negotiators would have come up with before looking at what to do next.”

The Bill was passed in the House of Assembly in December last year but the police had already indicated that the amendments were going to make the country ungovernable.
Home Affairs permanent secretary, Mr Melusi Matshiya, last year told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs and Defence that if the amendments were effected, it would weaken the police and make their operations ineffective.

Under proposed amendments the powers to prohibit public gatherings would no longer be vested in the police but the magistrates courts and that a court order would be required to stop such meetings. The Bill also sought to clarify that the police have no authority to ban gatherings. Mr Gonese said the police were only supposed to be notified and not seek clearance from them.