dyton mupawaenda
Farirai Machivenyika-Senior Reporter
Parliament staff should remain loyal and dedicated to their duties as they are a critical part of the institution’s drive to fulfil its constitutional mandate, National Assembly Speaker Advocate Jacob Mudenda said yesterday.
Presenting Parliament’s long service awards at the new Parliament Building he said loyalty and dedication were two critical virtues that would give sustainable service to the institution of Parliament.
“Loyalty implies that first and foremost you are loyal to yourself; you must be faithful to yourself believing that you can do the assignment that you have been given, faithful also to your immediate supervisor and thirdly be faithful to the institution itself.
“Give your institution utmost faithfulness so that the institution can continue to rely on you,” Advocate Mudenda said.
Staff should be dedicated through working hard and being committed to their given assignments.
“So, let us stay on and be guided by our vision and through your contribution we will, therefore, realise our vision of a strong, independent, people-driven world class Parliament and that will help the institution to achieve its mission to protect the Constitution, to make laws for good governance and effectively represent people through the elected MPs and hold the executive and the public institutions to account. That can only happen if we have a very strong support staff like yourselves,” said Advocate Mudenda.
The staff were the backbone of Parliament and he challenged them to continue with their strong work ethic.
“The challenge therefore, is that as staff, we have to apply ourselves in terms of maintaining excellence in our work portfolios otherwise if we don’t, we will be contradicting this institution’s marvellous architectural design which is an envy of many other parliaments,” he said.
“We must be guided by our values, the values of integrity, to do what we must do with minimum supervision and to that which is right and expected by the institution.”
During the ceremony, two staffers were recognised for long service, with Ms Juliet Zenge serving for 35 years and Ms Christina Mupita for 38 years. Both are now retired.
“I managed to serve the institution this long due to commitment, hard work and assistance from my supervisors and colleagues,” said Ms Zenge.
Online Reporter