Story by Wellington Makonese
IT is all systems go ahead of the swearing-in of newly-elected legislators at the Parliament Building in Harare this Thursday.
The newly-elected legislators will be sworn in ahead of the official commencement of the country’s 10th parliament.
“We have been working round the clock since the desolation of the 9th Parliament and we can say it’s all systems go. What we expect is that we have the swearing-in of all the parliament members and then before the members resume business we have to start with the swearing of presiding officers. If for one reason or the other one fails to be sworn in tomorrow, they will be on Friday,” said Clerk of Parliament, Mr Kennedy Chokuda.
He also clarified issues related to pending parliamentary bills.
On the close of the 9th Parliament, all pending bills lapsed, they can only be brought forward, it is only after the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) and provision by the Ministers to bring out the pending bills to the table,” he said.
Expectations are that a total of 279 National Assembly members, including the 60 elected through proportional representation and 10 via the youth quota will be sworn in.
ZANU PF won 136 Constituencies out of 210 before getting an additional 33 out of the 60 women proportional representation seats and seven youth quota seats.
CCC won 73 seats and picked 27 from the Women’s Proportional representation and three youth seats.
A by-election in Gutu West will see the total number of National Assembly members coming to 280.
In the upper house, 80 senators will be sworn in, 33 of them from ZANU PF, 27 from CCC, 18 chiefs and two representing people with disabilities.
