By Rutendo Bamu and Tapiwa Chirume

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Zimbabwe have to meet the full cost for Members of Parliament to participate in civic engagement activities organised by civil society, a situation that CSOs say is straining them financially, and urgently needs to be addressed by Parliament, which must bear the full cost of legislators’ participation in civic engagement activities.

Zimbabwean CSOs, which play a critical role in facilitating engagement between citizens and their elected representatives are finding it increasingly difficult to play this role owing to bureaucratic hurdles and heavy financial costs involved. Civil society organisations who spoke to the Sentinel said they face an insurmountable bureaucratic red tape whenever they try to invite Parliamentarians to citizen engagement activities through official channels.

Harare Residents Trust Director Precious,  Shumba said it takes more than a month to receive response from the Parliament when they invite parliamentarians to participate in citizen engagement platforms through official channels. Owing to the difficulties attendant to engaging Members of Parliament through official bureaucratic channels, Shumba said CSOs have resorted to approaching parliamentarians and councillors on an individual basis. As Shumba said, this alternative approach comes at a huge financial cost as parliamentarians ask for transport and attendance allowances that are beyond what most CSOs can sustain.

In order for them to participate in civic engagement platforms held within Harare, Members of Parliament ask  for transport allowances ranging from10  to 20 United States dollars or 10 to 15 litres of fuel per individual” The HRT director said the parliamentary scales of allowances demanded when CSOs invite parliamentary portfolio committee members to citizen engagement  were very high for residents associations  and other community-based organisations.

“When you invite a parliamentary portfolio committee, they use their parliamentary scales of allowances and they are high for most community-based organisations, thus at the end of the day organisations would prefer just invite one or two to minimise costs,” Shumba said, adding: “this is akin to commercialisation of public service considering the numerous citizen engagement activities that we have to conduct within a given period”. As a result of the costs involved, Shumba  said his association has had to limit the number of engagement platforms interfacing rights holders and duty bearers.

He said participation in civic engagement activities by parliamentarians and councillors must not come at such a huge cost considering that these activities are for the benefit of citizens who sustain the lifestyles of parliamentarians and councillors through payment of rates and taxes.

Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) Chairperson, Tabani Moyo said the accessibility of parliamentarians becomes impossible in some instances as civic  organisations are not always resourced enough to cater for significant hard currency amounts   that parliamentarians ask for to participate in civic engagement activities. .

“We encounter difficulties time we engage Members of  Parliament  as we have to take care of their allowances. This is an unbearable cost that has become a barrier to parliamentary accessibility as we are not always adequately resourced to cater for what the MPs ask for,’’ Moyo said.

Election Resource Centre (ERC) Director, Tawanda Chimhini said they provide travel and subsistence allowances to MPs who participate in their advocacy initiatives as a way of boosting the legislators’ capacity to engage with citizens. He, however, said bearing the cost of MPs to engage with citizens is not sustainable in the long-term.    ,

“We understand people, including MPs are in a very bad space economically. By supporting the MPs, our interest is to connect them with citizens for conversations that exert accountability, democracy and development”, Chimhini said. Chimhini said this sort of capacity building for legislators is necessary considering how local politicians generally lack the culture of proactively and openly engaging citizens on key policy decisions. “The capacity building cannot however be on a sustainable basis considering that we have limited resources and a huge spectrum of stakeholders that need capacity building”, Chimhini added. He said government should  direct adequate resources  towards ensuring vibrant policy debates between legislators and citizens, arguing that such vibrant policy debates are key to the attainment of development.

However, the Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda said that it was entirely up to the civil society organizations to cater for the parliamentarians’ allowances when they invite them to civic engagement platforms. He said Parliament could not stop MPs from getting allowances from CSOs.

This position is not in sync with civic leaders who feel that participation in citizen engagement initiatives organised by civil society in their constituencies is part of the legislators’ role of representing the public and Parliament should bear the costs attendant to this. As Shumba said;

“HRT believes that local MPs should not expect to be paid for participation in engagement events held within their constituencies, because such participation is part of their parliamentary representative work and parliament should pay them allowances since they will be engaging in parliamentary work.”

Moyo concurred with Shumba saying: “Government must meet all the costs that have to do with the work of MPs as law makers and people’s representatives. Leaving  this responsibility to non state actors exposes Parliament to the danger of capture”.