|
Challenges for our Parliament
2007-06-12 09:20:08
By Editor
The National Assembly`s annual Budget sessions get under way yet again in Dodoma beginning this morning – to last at least two months. So, yet again, the country`s designated capital is the centre of visual and aural impact.
That is as it should be because these particular sessions form the busiest and most important period in the calendar of the august House.
But this year`s Budget sessions will perhaps be unique in that their complexion will be conditioned by factors that had no direct bearing on most previous sessions.
One is that they come only weeks after a damning report by the Controller and Auditor General on the mess in government accounting and expenditure.
This runs alongside expert recommendations that the CAG’s Office become more autonomous, less dependent on the government and more accountable to parliament.
There is also the fact that the National Assembly resumes only days after President Jakaya Kikwete made a fervent appeal to the media, religious institutions, non-governmental organisations and the larger Tanzanian public to help the government fight a winning war against HIV/Aids, schoolgirl pregnancies, ignorance, poverty, crime and other vices making life difficult for wananchi.
But there is also the fact that the legislators, senior government officials, parliamentary officials and other public and private sector executives assembled in Dodoma specifically because the House is in session will still recall the outcry there lately has been following media ``revelations`` of plans to remunerate MPs more handsomely.
Irrespective of the way we look at any of these factors and the manner in which they impinge on our country’s development, there is no doubt that our lawmakers have the capacity to overcome whatever obstacles that may be on the way and make things work in favour of our people.
For one thing, Members of Parliament are much better placed than most ordinary citizens to discern and appreciate the gravity of the problems the CAG’s Office has been talking about whenever an opportunity to subject government expenditure to close scrutiny has presented itself.
That the problems should keep recurring despite the MPs’ condemnation is not a scenario to impress the legislators.
So are we going to hear and see them tell the government to give a definitive timeframe on the concrete remedial, deterrent, punitive or corrective measures it will now take to tame the tiger?
Most wananchi still believe Parliament is there for a reason and can deliver as per popular expectation. It should therefore build on that public trust by shedding the talking shop or white elephant status some cynics associate it with.
With regard to the President`s call to the nation to rally behind him and help the government in ensuring a better life for all Tanzanians, again MPs have a pivotal role to play. It`s not a deal that big, really, for all they need to do is to lead by example. This means being truly selfless public servants.
Should that come to pass, wananchi will be appeased and wish the lawmakers a rewarding time in Dodoma and thereafter.
|
