News / Regional
Statement from Gwanda Residents Association on the Gwanda State University Bill consultations
30 Nov 2015 at 17:44hrs | Views
The residents of Gwanda condemn to the worst possible scenario the shoddy and unprofessional consultations done by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology's public consultation on the Gwanda State University and Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences Bills held in Gwanda on Tuesday 24 November 2015.
The committee completely failed to carry out the consultations on this very important bill to the people of Gwanda who are the immediate key stakeholders to the proposed university.
The committee came to Gwanda late afternoon and in a hurry to finish off the exercise as just a mere formality and not of essence to us the residents who are meant to be immediate beneficiaries to the university.
Parliamentary Bills are proposed pieces of legislation which if passed by the legislative house become law and binding to all within the country as if agreed by all of us the citizens of the country.
As such members of the public must be afforded all the time to debate on the bills so that when the bill is passed the feelings of the greater part of the nation are incorporated into the law.
What happened in Gwanda is that the people were rushed through the Bill with very little inputs allowed from members of the public.
The committee as alluded to above came to Gwanda very late and with very little notice of their coming to the town. Very few people resultantly attended the meeting.
The few members of the public who attended were not given access to the proposed bill as only two copies of the bill were made available at the consultations.
This meant that the few who were accorded an opportunity to contribute to the bill did so in complete darkness and most were even completely lost on what was taking place evidenced by people contributing on service delivery issues not the the bill.
A lot of stakeholders especially pupils and teachers from surrounding schools were left out owing to the poor publicity of the consultation meeting.
Further to that, the language used in the documents presented was too technical that the ordinary resident would not understand the content of the bill.
A summarised or simplified version of the bill was not made available neither were copies of the bill in any of our local languages brought to the consultations.
We the residents of Gwanda and indeed Matabeleland South therefore request that the Clerk of Parliament redeploys this committee to Gwanda to come and reengage the residents as key stakeholders to the Gwanda State University to expected satisfaction.
If this is not done the whole exercise would have been a waste of government resources and time altogether.
The committee completely failed to carry out the consultations on this very important bill to the people of Gwanda who are the immediate key stakeholders to the proposed university.
The committee came to Gwanda late afternoon and in a hurry to finish off the exercise as just a mere formality and not of essence to us the residents who are meant to be immediate beneficiaries to the university.
Parliamentary Bills are proposed pieces of legislation which if passed by the legislative house become law and binding to all within the country as if agreed by all of us the citizens of the country.
As such members of the public must be afforded all the time to debate on the bills so that when the bill is passed the feelings of the greater part of the nation are incorporated into the law.
What happened in Gwanda is that the people were rushed through the Bill with very little inputs allowed from members of the public.
The committee as alluded to above came to Gwanda very late and with very little notice of their coming to the town. Very few people resultantly attended the meeting.
The few members of the public who attended were not given access to the proposed bill as only two copies of the bill were made available at the consultations.
This meant that the few who were accorded an opportunity to contribute to the bill did so in complete darkness and most were even completely lost on what was taking place evidenced by people contributing on service delivery issues not the the bill.
A lot of stakeholders especially pupils and teachers from surrounding schools were left out owing to the poor publicity of the consultation meeting.
Further to that, the language used in the documents presented was too technical that the ordinary resident would not understand the content of the bill.
A summarised or simplified version of the bill was not made available neither were copies of the bill in any of our local languages brought to the consultations.
We the residents of Gwanda and indeed Matabeleland South therefore request that the Clerk of Parliament redeploys this committee to Gwanda to come and reengage the residents as key stakeholders to the Gwanda State University to expected satisfaction.
If this is not done the whole exercise would have been a waste of government resources and time altogether.
Source - Aifheli Mudau Gwanda Residents Association, Secretary for Information and Publicity.
