Last week, we terminated our story of “my life in the service of my nation” at the point when I was describing the initial challenges posed by newly inaugurated multi-party Parliament at its new location in Dodoma.This was a major problem that I had overlooked, namely that separating the location of Parliament from that of the Government, would create huge operational problems, in view of the close involvement of many government officials in the business of Parliament, particularly those who are required to be available during Parliamentary proceedings, in order to provide professional backing and expert advice to their Ministers, as and when required.
In that regard, I had based my argument for shifting Parliament to Dodoma, entirely on the example of the South African Parliament, which is based in Cape Town, while the South African Government is locates in Pretoria; and assumed (wrongly) that this arrangement has created no major problems.
But I must admit that this argument had overlooked that other problem of the lack of guest accommodation in Dodoma at that time, when it still was a very small Town.
Thus, when the National Assembly Standing Committees convened for their first meetings in Dodoma, that is when the acute problem of accommodation for the many Government officials became apparent. Large numbers of officials from every Ministry came to Dodoma to attend Parliament Committee meetings (the attraction of per diem allowances accounted for those large numbers coming to Dodoma). Obviously, something had to be done, to solve that problem.
I therefore ruled that all Committee meetings will continue to be held in Dar es Salaam; and only the National Assembly sessions would be held in Dodoma.
But there were other challenges.
Two other challenges emerged during the very first multi-party Budget session of Parliament. These were: (i) the walk-out by the Opposition camp; and (ii) the orchestrated Opposition camp rejection of the annual Government budget.
The Opposition walk-out from the House.
This occurred at the time of voting in order to decide on the Government budget for the financial year 1996/97, which was the first Government budget to be presented to the new multi-party Parliament. After the normal 5-day debate on the budget had been concluded, I dutifully put to the vote, the traditional motion “That the Government budget for the financial year 1996/97 be now approved”. But because this was the first time that the new Parliament was voting on such a motion, and many of its members were completely new to the procedures of the House, I took some time to explain the special procedure that is always used in voting on budget motions, namely that the voting would be by roll-call, whereby each member’s name would be called out by the Clerk of the National Assembly, in alphabetical order, and he or she would indicate his/her vote by saying ‘yes’, or ‘no’, or ‘abstain’; as the case may be.
But immediately after my statement, Opposition member Dr. Masumbuko Lamwai, rose on a “point of order”, to raise objection to that procedure; suggesting that the voting should be done by ‘voice-vote’, as is the case on all other motions.
I rose again to explain the requirements of article 91(1)(b) of the country’s Constitution, which makes it mandatory for the President to dissolve Parliament in every case when the House refuses to pass the Government budget. Thus, I said, the roll-call method was the only way of establishing, beyond any doubt, that (a) there was a quorum in the House at the time of voting; and (b) that the decision was made by a majority of the members actually present in the House and voting. In view of these requirements, I ruled that “voting shall be by roll-call”.
That is when all the Opposition members walked out of the House, presumably in a demonstration of protest.
The Opposition camp’s orchestrated rejection of the Government budget.
In his tour of the Lake Zone Regions of Mwanza, Mara and Simiyu during the second half of the year 2018, President John Magufuli voiced his grave concern in some of his speeches, regarding the matter of the negative “No” votes which were cast by the entire Opposition camp in Parliament, in their futile attempt to reject the 2018/19 Government budget. The President was wondering why they did so, “considering the fact that it is this same budget which provides the funding for all the development projects which are being implemented throughout the country, including the constituencies which are represented by these Opposition MPs”.
The President’s comments were only in relation to the 2018/19 budget; but, in fact, perhaps unknown to him, the position is that the Opposition camp has, consistently and persistently, been voting “no” to all the Government budgets of every financial year, starting with the very first budget presented after the re-introduction of multi-party politics, as we have just seen above.
This Opposition camp’s action is totally puzzling.
The Opposion camp’s action in persistently attempting to reject the annual Government budgets, is not only puzzling, but it is also absolutely illogical, for very many reasons. The President’s argument that Government budget is what provides the funding for the development projects that are implemented in their constituencies, is only one of them. Other, more serious reasons, include:-
(i) the adverse constitutional consequences of rejecting the Government budget.
The Constitution requires a new general election to be held, whenever Parliament rejects the Government’s budget proposals. This because such action is regarded as a ‘vote of no confidence’ in the Government of the day.
(ii) The adverse financial consequences to the MPs themselves.
Because there will be no money to pay them their salaries, allowances, and the other benefits that they entitled to.
(iii) The adverse financial consequences to the whole nation.
Because this, in effect, will be a complete financial ‘lock down’; which means that no money will be available for carrying our any of the numerous social and economic activities, that are normally funded from Government sources.
(iv) The sheer insanity of the action itself.
It is insanity because the Parliamentary rules provide very clearly, that the ‘Opposition camp’ is always comprised of the minority groups inside Parliament. Hence they know, or ought to know, that being the minority, their action is inevitably doomed to failure, in the face of the majority ruling party MPs. what, then, could be the logic, if any, behind their repeated action?
The history of the British Parliament has an interesting story, which says that centuries ago in the 1820’s, when the first ever Opposition party was established in that Parliament, namely, the “Whig Party”; the idea of an official ‘opposition party’ being established inside Parliament was such a novelty, that, understandably, part of the British press became curios, and wanted to know what the role of such an ‘opposition party’ was going to be. Thus they interviewed the leader of that party, seeking to know the actual functions and duties of his new party. The record shows that his only curt reply was: “ our job will be to oppose everything; to propose nothing; and to throw the Government out of office”. Could, perhaps, the Opposition camp in our own Parliament be blindly following this “rule of thumb” which was established by their British ‘ancestors’ several centuries ago?
Reminiscences of my time as short-term acting President.
The ten years of Benjamin Mkapa’s presidency, coincided with a large part of my tenure as Speaker of the National Assembly. There is something memorable which occurred to me during the period of Mkapa’s presidency which I consider worth mentioning in these memoirs. It is that during that particular period, the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977, in its article 37, made provision that “whenever the President and the Vice President were both out of the country, the Speaker would take over the duties and responsibilities of the President, until either of them returned to the country”.
Now, it so happened that during his Presidency; and because of his many international commitments and obligations, President Benjamin Mkapa had to make frequent travels outside the country. On three such occasions, it so happened that his departure coincided with that of the Vice President, Ali Mohamed, who was at the same time out of the country on some essential business. It was on such occasions that I assumed the duties and powers of the President of the United Republic, but with certain specified limitations, which were also clearly specified in the Constitution. For me this was, to say the least, a very memorable life experience; more so because, towards the end of my tenure as Speaker, the Constitution was amended in a way which removed the Speaker from the privileged list of ‘successors to the throne’ , and was replaced by the Prime Minister of the United Republic. Thus, no other Speaker can now look forward to enjoying such rare privilege and experience!
Other reminiscences of my tenure in the Speaker’s Office.
My first tenure in the Speaker’s Office was during the period 1960 – 1970; when I worked there first as Clerk-Assistant, and later as Clerk of the National Assembly. During that first tenure, I happened to have the rare opportunity of being in a position to create, and implement, some new ideas of my own creation; an opportunity which I believe was facilitated only by my good luck of being there at the right moment, which was a moment of great transformation and reconstruction; when new ideas are clearly needed. That was the time of fundamental transformation from colonialism to independence, followed by a period of reconstruction of the governance systems, in order to realign them with the new environment, and the new circumstances, I was directly involved in the reconstruction of the Parliamentary system.
My second tenure in the Speaker’s Office starting from 1990; also coincided with another great transformation, this time from the single-party, to the multi-party political system; followed by a period of similar reconstruction of the country’s governance systems; and I again got the same rare opportunity of being in the position of authority to create, and implement, some new ideas of my own creation, with regard to the reconstruction of the Parliamentary system.
The Books of Authority on the subject of “leadership” have a provision that explains how people become leaders, which reads as follows:-
“Some people become leaders because they possess certain talents, or charisma, or passions; or because of their wealth, job title, or family name. Others become leaders because the possess great minds, or ideas, or can tell compelling stories; And then there are those who stumble into leadership, because of the times they live in, or the circumstances in which they find themselves”.
In the light of the particular circumstances described above; I humbly and sincerely believe, that I probably belong to the last category of leaders, “who stumble into leadership because of the times they live in, or the circumstances in which they find themselves”. In other words, I just happened to be there at the right time. It could have been someone else!
(Will be continued next week)
piomsekwa@gmail.com /0754767576.
No comments:
Post a Comment