PVO Bill: Is this law going to add to the good governance of Zimbabwe?

PVO Bill: Is this law going to add to the good governance of Zimbabwe?

Mutare Central legislator Innocent Gonese has quizzed the rationale behind the Private Voluntary Amendment Bill (PVO Bill), arguing that it will not add to the good governance of Zimbabwe.

The Second Republic is trying to amend the PVO Act to give itself more powers to control and monitor the operation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

From the public hearings of the Bill that were conducted by Parliament, people across the country rejected the proposed amendments.

Zimbabwe who attended the meetings are united in calling on the government to disregard the amendment.

If passed, the Bill will add to the shrinking of civic space in Zimbabwe starting with the Cyber and Data Protection Act.

Below is the full text of Honourable Gonese’s debate on the Bill in the National Assembly.

HON 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 Reading speech on 12^th 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.

          In my view, we have got various NGOs and PVOs that deal with a wide range of issues.  What we must deal with is why we have got so many organisations that are trying to help the people of Zimbabwe.  We have got organisations that deal with health, education, governance and human rights issues.  I believe Mr. Speaker Sir, that our Constitution has got a very elaborate chapter on the issue of human rights starting with the Declaration, and the elaboration of the Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms that are enshrined in Chapter 4. 

I have already alluded to the provisions of Section 58, and also go further Mr. Speaker Sir, to remind all Hon. Members that apart from the provisions in our Constitution, we are also party to International Human Rights and Instruments.  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights, and those instruments, together with our Constitution, speak to the same thing.  As already alluded to, we have got Social, Economic, Civil and Political Rights and they are all important and not divisible – that is a point that we must be alive to. 

The intention of this particular Bill Mr. Speaker Sir, is very sinister. In his Second Reading speech, the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs asked us to look at the memorandum and I have done so.   When you look at the memorandum, you will see that there is a very long paragraph… – [^(v)HON. KASHIRI: We cannot hear anything Hon. Speaker, the Hon. Member is not connected.] –  I will just confirm; I think I am connected but let me speak to the microphone.

The point Mr. Speaker Sir is that the memorandum is very long and it talks about compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).  However Mr. Speaker Sir, as Members may be aware, on 4^th March this year.  Zimbabwe was removed from the grey list, from the list of those countries, that were at the time when the recommendation was made, deemed not to be in compliance.  I want to quote the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development on what he said on 5^th March – that was after Zimbabwe had been removed from the FATF grey list following an onsite evaluation exercise carried out in January this year. 

I also illustrate that point by stating that when we look at the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Reserve Bank, when we look at their reports and the people that it fingered, there is not a single Private Voluntary Organisation or Non-Governmental Organisation that has been cited.  Instead, those are private companies that have been fingered.  So at the end of the day, the Anti-Money Laundering activities that they are ostensibly trying to prevent by bringing this Bill do not actually apply to the Non-Governmental Organisations or Private Voluntary Organisations whose activities or existence is threatened by the passing of this Bill.

Yes, I heard the Hon. Minister loudly and clearly saying that NGOs should not fear.  I have heard the contributions from my colleagues on your right but when you look closely at what they have been saying, and what has been said outside this august House, for instance by Mr. Chris Mutsvangwa relating to Private Voluntary Organisations, you can then discern, and clearly identify what the real intention is.  My submission Mr. Speaker Sir is that it is not necessary to bring in this Bill because among other things, we have adequate laws that can deal with issues of money laundering – we already have those in place, and there is no need to add any further laws.

Secondly, we do not have a serious problem at present, of organisations that are being funded from outside, that are carrying out any terrorist activities.  Even if we had Mr. Speaker, we have adequate laws – we have the Criminal Code, it can deal with those issues.  At the end of the day, it is my respectful submission that we do not need this piece of legislation.  I read the report of the Portfolio Committee.  It is very clear Mr. Speaker that we have a polarized society, but we must also ask ourselves, why are civil society organisations concerned about this particular Bill?

It is because of the excessive powers that are intended to be given to the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare in terms of registration and even affecting organisations that are not currently affected by the current PVO Act.  You are having virtually a retrospective application of the law because even those organisations that are already in existence are actually threatened if this Bill were to be passed into law. 

I want to implore Hon. Members across the political divide, to put the interest of the nation first and not partisan political interests.  I read the claim that a lot of our organisations are delving in political activity.  When you look at Clause 5, it is a very dangerous provision which can be abused.  When we are talking of political lobbying, when we are talking of opposing or supporting a political party – that clause is just too wide.  It can be interpreted in any manner that anyone wants to use it to suppress or deregister civil society organisations because when we say involvement in political activities, what does it mean?

Let us look at issues or problems that are bedeviling the country.  We have got serious problems in terms of human rights, and that is why we enshrined in our Constitution provisions enabling institutions to be set up and in particular, I want to refer to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission.  The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has tabled reports in this august House that speak to matters, incidents where there have been no observance of human rights and this is an independent body.  I am not going to quote other sources of information.  I want to confine ourselves to our own institution, and because we have such problems, you will find that there are civil society organisations that are involved in governance issues. 

It is not a crime, I have already pointed out that in terms of our own Constitution, we are required as representatives of the people to ensure that all the laws that we pass speak to the provisions of Section 117, which specifically relate and refer to issues of good governance.  Section 119 empowers us as Parliament, to ensure that we hold the Executive accountable and that is the reason why I am saying that as Members of Parliament, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that we do not violate those constitutional provisions by being party to the passage of laws that actually inhibit the enjoyment of human rights by the people of Zimbabwe.

I want to go further Mr. Speaker Sir, and say that when the Public Hearings were held, it was very clear that we are a divided society.  The civil society organisations are very worried and I believe that they have got good reason to be concerned because of the provisions that I have already alluded to.  I know that we may say that we will sanitise them by trying to make amendments and so on, but let us look at the basic principle.  Do we really need that Bill?  I want to urge the Hon. Minister and his colleagues to go back to what we did in 2004.  If you realise that what we must address are the root causes of the problem, why do our people want to demonstrate?  It is because some of them are hungry; some of them do not have enough to eat and so on.  When people are expressing their rights, we should not suppress them by bringing in obnoxious pieces of legislation and furthermore, we have organisations which will assist on issues and matters relating to good governance.  We will talk about civic education, the right to vote.  If you look at Section 67 of our Constitution, it is very clear; it actually gives every citizen of Zimbabwe the right to be elected into office and the right to vote. I have already made reference to the other provision which is very clear in bestowing the rights to the people of Zimbabwe. I want to say that we must not have a scenario where we have got this attitude of ‘us and them.’ 

What we must be looking at Mr. Speaker, is that we have got a governing party today; it does not mean that it will always be a governing party.  At some stage in time, it will find itself as an opposition. By the same token we have got an opposition party, at some future stage, it will find itself as a ruling party. If you go back to what happened at independence when the Law and Order and Maintenance Act was passed by the Smith Regime, when we got our independence, that law was still in place and it was then used by the then liberation movement which was not the governing party.

I want to say to my colleagues, let us not pass dirty pieces of legislation; you do not know here you will be tomorrow…

THE HON. SPEAKER: You are left with 5 minutes Hon. Member.

HON. GONESE: I will try to wind up Mr. Speaker Sir.  My plea to my colleagues is to say this: we have got other measures which we can put in place.  Let us address why it is that we are having so many organisations in the country. If you look at our health issues, Mr. Speaker, we have got a serious problem, we have got our hospitals, there are not adequately equipped. You look at the major referral hospitals, Sally Mugabe Hospital, it does not have something as basic as a cancer machine, and people are dying of cancer. 

You look at other hospitals and even X-ray machines are in short supply. You look at issues of medication, this is where various non-governmental organisations have been coming in here and there.  I want to appreciate that the target of the Bill may not be those organisations, but the long and short of it is that if the Minister is given excessive powers, he or she can abuse the powers which will be given in the Act if it were to be passed by Parliament.  Instead, we must try to find each other as Zimbabwe.  Try to find each other as a nation so that we can jointly address the root cause of the problems, why we are in this economic quagmire.  We have the issue of corruption – this is what we must be looking at collectively so that we tackle that because you find that if we were to resolve the issues of corruption, you will find that everyone in Zimbabwe would have enough to eat. 

This afternoon, Hon. T. Mliswa was talking about issues of the welfare of Members of Parliament.  If you look at the civil service in our country, you look at the down trend, you will find that the majority of our people are not even working and at the end of the day, you need to have a situation where you can find solutions for them.  When you have got various non-governmental organisations, they are also providing employment. I know that there is an intention to target some of these non-governmental organisations and in the same way that in the past we actually did not proceed with the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill, I really exhort my colleagues to say that at this point in time, let us look at the interest of Zimbabwe.  Future generations will frown and spit at our graves if we do not have that collective responsibility.  Lastly, I will say that we must put our heads together.  We must come together to build a new great Zimbabwe nation, I thank you.

PVO Bill: Is this law going to add to the good governance of Zimbabwe?