The National Assembly sat on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week and it completed all items of Budget business, including approving the Estimates of Expenditure and passing both Budget Bills and transmitting them to the Senate which is due to attend to both Bills next week.
The House then adjourned until 15th February next year. How this was achieved is outlined in the paragraphs that follow.
Fast-tracking of Budget Business approved
At the start of the sitting on Tuesday 7th December the House approved the customary fast-tracking resolution moved by the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development.
This suspended the operation of Standing Orders Nos. 53, 66(2), 144 and 147 in respect of: the remaining portion of the Budget debate; Committee of Supply [approval of the Estimates of Expenditure]; the Finance Bill and the Appropriation (2022) Bill. In the event, as will be seen below, fast-tracking was only applied in earnest on Thursday 9th December, when the House sat until 9.45 pm
Tuesday’s sitting was taken up by Tapiwa Mashakada’s speech setting out the Opposition’s reaction to the Budget and by the presentation of first batch of committee reports on the post-Budget consultations conducted by Portfolio Committees from 30th November to Thursday 2nd December. The House sat until 5.25 pm.
Wednesday’s longer sitting began with an initial discussion, initiated by Temba Mliswa, on the wisdom of MPs’ being physically present at the sitting when it was known that a large number of Parliamentary staff members had tested positive for Covid-19; in addition, it appeared that the Speaker was in self-isolation after contact with a person who had subsequently tested positive.
Mliswa, having eventually been overruled, then left the National Assembly chamber. The remainder of the sitting was taken up by the presentation of further committee reports.
Thursday afternoon’s marathon sitting was completely virtual, it having been announced that morning that all physical meetings at Parliament were suspended. MPs were connected to the proceedings in the National Assembly chamber, via their “gadgets”, from their hotel rooms, homes or elsewhere.
As the verbatim record of these virtual proceedings [Hansard] had not been released at the time of writing this bulletin, we are unable to go into detail.
The Votes and Proceedings of the proceedings in the House [available in soft copy], however, shows that the following steps in the Budget process were completed:
1. The Budget debate was completed by the National Assembly’s approval of the motion by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development that leave be granted to bring in the Finance Bill.
The Minister then presented the Bill, which was given its First Reading and referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee [PLC].
2. The whole House then went into Committee of Supply to consider the Estimates of Expenditure, which were reported without amendment.
3. The House then adopted the Committee of Supply’s report, and ordered that the Bill to give effect to the approved Estimates of Expenditure be brought in by the Minister.
4. The Minister presented the Appropriation (2022) Bill, which was given its First Reading and referred to the PLC.
5. The PLC returned a non-adverse report on the Finance Bill and the Bill was taken through all its remaining stages without amendment.
6. The PLC then returned a non-adverse report on the Appropriation (2022) Bill and this, too, was taken through all its remaining stages without amendment.
7. Both Bills were finally transmitted to the Senate.
Note on the last-minute gazetting of the two Budget Bills
The Finance Bill and the Appropriation (2022) were only gazetted on the morning of Thursday 9th December.
That left MPs very little time to examine the final legal drafts of the Bills in detail before they were called on to approve them later the same day.
The National Assembly then adjourned for slightly over two months, until Tuesday 15th February 2022 at 2.15 pm.
