19 August 2006
SOUTHERN Province Permanent Secretary Darius Hakayobe has said despite the enumerated achievements that parliamentary reforms have made, a lot still remains to be done.
Mr Hakayobe said countries still had a long way to go before the attainment of fully reformed parliaments.
Mr Hakayobe was speaking at the official opening of a senior parliamentary staff seminar held at Livingstone's Wasawange Lodge yesterday.
"The challenge of the current reform effort is to substantially improve the role, processes and accountability of Parliament to the extent that it is not only deliberating, but anticipating and leading," he said.
Zambia and Zimbabwe senior parliamentary staff attended the seminar that was financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Programme (PEMFA) and other cooperating partners through Pact Zambia.
The theme of the workshop was 'Improved Service Delivery In Light of Parliamentary Reforms.'
Mr Hakayobe said that as representative institutions, national parliaments should not only want to command public confidence in their motives and actions but rather should genuinely deserve that confidence.
Speaking at the same function, Pact Zambia Acting country representative Brenda Liswaniso said Zambia's cooperating partners were proud that Zambia was seeking to steer further the quest to improve service delivery.
The partners were happy that Zambia had revised standing orders 2006 and the parliamentary handbook.
"We view this as a fundamental reform instrument as it sets out new rules and procedures in line with the reform process," Mrs Liswaniso said.
The partners were also happy with the capacity support to the expanded committee on estimates as well as the public advertisements of the dates for committee sittings at parliament and the establishment of offices for parliamentarians.
She cited the failure by Parliament to enact a budget bill to give the institution more power to formulate and control its own budget as some of the challenges the partners had faced in a bid to implement parliamentary reforms.
The partners were, however frustrated with the red tape and bureaucracy at Parliament but were hopeful that service delivery would be enhanced for the betterment of the Zambian people.
Earlier, Clerk of the National Assembly Doris Mwinga said she was hopeful the five-day seminar would go a long way in improving service delivery in parliaments of the region.
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