Published: Friday, 26 October 2018 08:00
Bulawayo residents have raised concern at the seriousness of Parliament thematic committees after a stakeholder consultative meeting held by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance and Economic Development was abruptly ended shortly after 11am instead of 1pm the scheduled time on mobilisation messages.
The meeting which was relatively well attended with close to 100 participants at a local hotel was pre-maturely concluded with portfolio committee members arguing that time was no longer on their side and they therefore could not continue taking people’s submissions.
The all-male, six-member committee, spent the whole morning struggling to respond to some issues raised by members of the public. One participant complained that the committee had come to be spoon fed with no written down agenda or research that they could share with the public.
In the last meeting we requested that when coming down you should first forward a concept note on the issues to be discussed and let the members of the public know how long it will be because these are critical issues. Share the objectives as well, because besides that it is as good as rubber stamping an already drafted budget.
Bulawayo Councilors also in attendance were not spared a tongue lashing as participants accused them of failing to raise even one budgetary issue at the consultative meeting. The committee also failed to answer as to why they did not have any female colleagues as part of the committee.
Some of the ideas that were brought out by participants included having peace related initiatives included in the national budget.
