National Assembly adjourns to February

National Assembly adjourns to February

National Assembly has adjourned for the year and will resume sitting next year (2022) in February unless they are summoned by the President.

The Lower-House as it is often referred to adjourned after approving the Finance (2022) Bill and the Appropriation (2022) Bill.

Reading the Appropriation Bill Second Reading speech, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the Bill will help the government finance the National Development Strategy objectives.

‘’Mr Speaker Sir, the Appropriation Bill so proposed before this House will go a long way in financing the Government’s National Development Strategy objectives, making sure that we can maintain macro-economic stability, we can finance infrastructure, and we can ensure food security, we can promote value chains right across our economy.

‘’We can support our youths to promote gender equity and make sure that we keep going on our re-engagement and engagement process. This Bill covers all those areas which are critical pillars of the NDS strategy.

‘’After all, this 2022 Budget is the instrument for enactment of our NDS1 strategy.  I do believe if we approve it, it will go a long way for us reaching that goal of being an upper-middle-income economy by 2030; at least contributing to that road map,’’ he said.

The Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill will not be transmitted to the Senate which is expected to sit this coming week.

Senate was had adjourned on the 25^th of November, however, not much debate is expected in the Upper House as the government is trying to conclude the budget before the year-end.

There are fears that there might a surge in COVID-19 cases which will result in the country being put under lockdown. The fears are emanating from the current surge in cases in the past weeks which saw the country recording above 4 000 cases every day. The last time there was a lockdown, Parliament was forced to suspend its sittings.