DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS E-mail: veritas@mango.zw Website: http://www.veritaszim.net

VERITAS MAKES EVERY EFFORT TO ENSURE THE PROVISION OF RELIABLE INFORMATION, SUPPLIED. BUT CANNOT TAKE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR INFORMATION

Extracts from the uncorrected version of Hansard. In the National Assembly Tuesday 17th May 2022

## CONTINUATION OF SECOND READING DEBATE ON PRIVATE VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS AMENDMENT BILL CONTRIBUTIONS BY HON GONESE AND HON MLISWA

HON GONESE: GONESE: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir for this opportunity to add my voice to the debate on this Bill. This Bill was gazetted last year and it was introduced in this august House by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs in his Second 12th Reading speech on April 2022. The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare presented the Committee report last week. I listened to the Second Reading speech of the Hon. Minister and contributions made by Hon Members. Firstly, I want to say that this piece of legislation and before I go into the meat and flesh of the contents of the Bill, I want us to ask ourselves a very critical question why we are here. In terms of Section 117 of our Constitution, it is clear that we are here among other things, to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of Zimbabwe. We need to ask ourselves that critical question. Is this law, if passed, going to add to the good governance of Zimbabwe? If we go further to Section 119, it is incumbent upon us as Members of Parliament and representatives of the people to ensure that we hold the Executive accountable and we articulate the views and aspirations of the people who voted for us. My question is, are we doing that if we were to proceed to pass this particular Bill? The second question which I want to pose is - why now? I want to remind Hon. Members who may not be aware that in 2004 we had a Bill which was brought before this august House. It was called the NGO Bill and Hon Biti et al who were in this Parliament at the time, may remember that we burned the midnight oil debating that Bill which was a draconian piece of legislation which threatened to take away the rights of the people of Zimbabwe, particularly the right enshrined in Section 58 of our Constitution, the right to freedom of association. At the end of the day, I am happy to say that sanity prevailed and ultimately the Bill was not passed. Unfortunately, several years down the line, today we are seized with a Bill which in my opinion is actually worse than the one which we had at the time. I will explain why I say it is worse. Among other things, it is trying to interfere with even trusts, for example, which are not covered by the provisions of the current Act, universitas and so on and so forth. I believe that we must interrogate, introspect and say to ourselves; is this good for our country? Mr. Speaker Sir, after having listened to the debates last week, it is very clear that we live in a polarized society. Again, another question we must ask ourselves is, why do we have so many NGOs in Zimbabwe? This is the question that we have to ask, and that is the question that we have got to address Mr. Speaker Sir.