PLUMTREE and Bulawayo residents have castigated their absentee legislators for denying them vital information and dumping their respective constituencies soon after winning the 2013 elections.
VENERANDA LANGA
The residents made the remarks on Sunday during public hearings organised by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
Committee chairperson Jessie Majome had expressed concern over the low turnout at the meetings which were meant to gather public views on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
Between 30 and 50 people attended the meetings in each of the constituencies visited by the committee.
Plumtree resident Jabulani Mahlangu said what should have happened before the public hearings was that all the MPs in Parliament should first have explained the proposed electoral amendments to their constituents using the local languages of the area.
“We are only a small crowd of about 30 to 40 people and we feel that MPs should have disseminated information about the Bill and the public hearings so that we have a representative sample of the people from Plumtree,” Mahlangu said.
Another Plumtree resident, Michael Tshuma, added: “MPs should be reminded to play their roles, and since 2013 after the elections I have never seen our local MP, and I do not even know who that person is.”
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In Bulawayo, only two legislators Dorcas Sibanda (MDC-T) and Nicola Watson Jane (MDC-T) attended the public hearings in solidarity with the committee.
Meanwhile, the residents said known political party activists should not be part of the secretariat of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) and urged the electoral body to resist being pushed into an election without adequate resources.
“Zec commissioners should be completely apolitical. We do not want people who were once affiliated to a political party as commissioners. There should be serious scrutiny of people before they are appointed Zec commissioners because it is the main cause of contested elections,” Trymore Mpofu, also from Plumtree, said.
Young voters said they should not be compelled to bring proof of residence when registering to vote as they did not own properties, adding only a national identity card was enough.
They also urged the decentralisation of registration centres to ward level to enable all potential voters to exercise their voting rights.
“Bills, as well as voting material, should be translated into the 16 indigenous languages. Voter education material should be well written in indigenous languages with words correctly spelt,” a Bulawayo resident who declined to be named said.
