PVO Bill: Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, turning their graves, says Biti

Harare East legislator Tendai Biti has told the National Assembly that the late Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo must be turning in their graves because Zanu PF is trying to enact laws that will take the country backward.

Zimbabwe is in the process of formulating the PVO Bill which is at an advanced stage in the National Assembly.

Among, its effects the Bill, when passed into law, will force all CSOs in the country to register as PVOs or they will be blocked from operating.

The Bill is also giving the government power to interfere with the internal operations of CSO to the extent of suspending their executive and appointing temporary ones.

Below is part of Honourable Biti debate in the National Assembly.

HON. BITI:  Madam Speaker, we cannot surely sit as Parliament to legislate and curtail the rights of individuals and organisations.  Our Constitution gives rights to individuals, organisations and corporate bodies such as NGOs have got rights that are codified in Chapter Four (4) of the Constitution.

So, to allow the Executive to treat non-governmental organisations and private organisations that they can run, that they can control their affairs and that they can control their board at their whim is archaic.  This is 2022, not 1962 Southern Rhodesia. Four decades after independence, we cannot sit in this House to pass fascist laws

The provisions have the net effect of allowing the Government, and the authorities to literally take over the existence of an NGO.  They allow the Minister under certain circumstances, to change the board of an NGO.  They allow an NGO’s books of accounts literally to be frozen.  They allow the NGO itself to be suspended under certain circumstances.

We already have a judgment that came out in 1995; the judgment is called Sekai Holland vs Minister of Labour and Social Welfare.  The then Minister of Labour and Social Welfare was the late Nathan Shamuyarira and may his soul rest in peace.

Our Constitutional Court said a corporate organisation, whether it is a trust, or an NGO, it is a human being.  Our Constitution in Sections 45 and 46 says, ‘there is no difference in the protection of rights between natural persons and non-natural person’s juristic persons’.  So, what we are doing in this Bill is encroaching on the rights of individuals and NGOs. Can you imagine a law that says Government can come into your House and look at what you have eaten, how you have slept, and where you have slept?  It is not possible and where you are keeping your accounts; it is not possible.

We have an obligation to protect the Constitution.  Section 119 (2) of the Constitution says this Parliament must protect and uphold the Constitution, particularly the bill of rights codified in Chapter 4 of the Constitution but we are passing a Bill Madam Speaker, the Government of Zimbabwe receives a minimum of a billion US dollars in overseas development assistance.  We receive at least 300 million US dollars from the US to deal with HIV/AIDS.  In fact, ironically, the biggest contributor of overseas development assistance in Zimbabwe is actually the United States of America, followed by the European Union, followed by DFID.  The bulk of this aid has nothing to do with what the Government is afraid of – human rights, democracy, and so forth.  It is actually going to our people, going to irrigation projects in Nyanyadzi, going to the irrigation projects like Muchenje in Dotito, going to schools in the form of BEAM.  BEAM receives a substantial amount of money from overseas Development Assistance.

So what we are doing is that we are cutting our noses in order to spite our faces.  This is a terrible Bill, a modern democratic Zimbabwe, 43 years after independence, cannot be passing such a Bill.  Herbert Chitepo, and Ndabaningi Sithole, are turning in their graves, Edson Sithole, wherever they buried him, is turning in his grave, Joshua Mquabuko Nkomo who died on 1st July 1999, is turning in this grave, Robert Mugabe who died on the 6th September 2019, is turning in his grave. Madam Speaker, we should abandon this Bill, it is not in the best interest of the people of Zimbabwe.  It is not in the best interest of constitutionalism in Zimbabwe, and we cannot pass a Bill to serve the interests of a political party that is paranoid.  I appeal to the Hon. Minister to withdraw this Bill–