By Tendai Valentine Ruombwa
Parliament did not sanction the construction of the multi-million dollar defence college being built by the Chinese just outside Harare, a government Minister has said, exposing the ever-widening cracks in the coalition government.
Deputy Minister of Gender and Women’s affairs Jessie Majome (MDC-T) bemoaned the abuse of parliament by the executive saying the parliament was a lame-duck being used as a conveyer-belt to rubber-stamp executive decisions.
“The defence college deal was a done and sealed deal when it was brought to parliament; we were not consulted or asked to debate the issue,” she said.
Majome accused the executive of overlapping and over-shadowing the role of parliament in a democracy “no critical debates are carried in the house of assembly and senate because the executive have manipulated the critical role parliament is supposed to play,” she said.
Zanu PF’s Goodson Nguni accused the MDC formations of crying victim in a system they are part of:
“The MDC’s love telling lies and playing victim. They were in parliament when the deal was sealed and their chairman Lovemore Moyo who is speaker of Parliament appended his signature on the deal”
Constitutional law expert Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the role of parliament under the inclusive government was peripheral as every decision is made at the executive level.
“We have a lame-duck parliament that is not critical of the executive but a conduit through which the latter pass their decisions. Parliamentarians are being remote controlled. The legislature and executive should act independent of each other,” he said.
