Published by the government of Zimbabwe
21 October 2009
Harare — MDC-T ministers are expected to answer questions to be posed by Members of Parliament today despite the claim that they disengaged from Cabinet.
All the ministers, except Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Tendai Biti attended Parliament business yesterday.
Also present were Deputy Prime Ministers Arthur Mutambara and Thokozani Khupe.
The early stage of Parliament sitting on Wednesdays are reserved for question and answer sessions, where backbenchers would be asking questions to Government ministers regarding issues that fall within their portfolios.
Members of Parliament can ask questions without notice if it relates to policy and general issues. However, they should submit their questions in advance should they relate to specific subjects to allow the ministers responsible time to investigate.
In an interview soon after Parliament's session yesterday, MDC-T Chief Whip Mr Innocent Gonese, said ministers from his party would answer questions should legislators pose them during the session.
"We have disengaged from Zanu-PF and not from the inclusive Government and the forums that we have disengaged are Cabinet and Council of Ministers.
"This means our ministers will continue to attend Parliament as Government ministers and will answer questions tomorrow (today)," said Mr Gonese.
Asked if that would make any difference, since there would be Zanu-PF legislators in Parliament, Mr Gonese said the situation was different.
MDC-T leader Mr Tsvangirai announced his party's decision to disengage from the inclusive Govern-ment, arguing that they would no longer attend Cabinet and Council of Ministers meetings.
This was after their national treasurer and Agriculture Deputy Minister-designate Mr Roy Bennett was indicted last week to stand trial in the High Court.
The party also claimed Zanu-PF was not committed to fulfilling some of the outstanding GPA issues.
There was tension yesterday in Parliament as some legislators heckled and jeered at each other when the House of Assembly resumed sitting.
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