ADMINISTRATOR of a faction of Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC), Jameson Timba has castigated the Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda for siding with another grouping of the opposition party that has endorsed Sengezo Tshabangu to a lofty Parliament post.
Last Thursday, Mudenda announced the appointment of Tshabangu as Senate leader of the opposition and overall leader of the alternative in the lower chamber.
Addressing the media in Harare last week, Timba said Mudenda, a member of the ruling Zanu PF party, has turned Parliament into a circus, a global laughing stock.
"The Speaker of Parliament failed in his constitutional obligations by accepting the list submitted by Sengezo Tshabangu. He has reduced our Parliament to a circus and the global laughing stock.
"I put it to the Speaker that he was acting for and behalf of the Zanu PF Politburo, and not the Parliament of Zimbabwe.
"I put it to the Speaker of Parliament that, that agenda was meant to remove the opposition in Parliament and replace it with a synthetic opposition of his party's choice, which would dance to the whims and caprices of the Zanu PF agenda including the so-called 2030 agenda, which intends to extend the term of office of this government outside what is expected, that is without the authority of the people of Zimbabwe," said Timba.
He said Mudenda played to Tshabangu's tune as he chose his preferred appointees, and not the one submitted by another CCC outfit.
"On Tuesday, the Speaker of Parliament, then set in motion, the final steps of the system's nefarious agenda, and maliciously delivered a judgement in Parliament, exuding the aura of a judge-- rob and all --albeit without the wig.
"He delivered a judgement without hearing anyone, based on falsehoods, he alleged that I had made appointments in Parliament irregularly when I did not do such a thing.
"What I had done in my capacity as the leader of our party was to notify him that we had given authority to our Parliament whip to fill vacancies by advising the Clerk of Parliament.
"We resubmitted our appointees to Parliament, the following day the Speaker made his announcement, that resubmission was done as in the previous case, under the hand and signature of our chief whip, supported by the signature or co-signed by our head of legal services, Hon Agency Gumbo.
"He also received two other submissions of a list of appointees, one from the muppet, Sengezo Tshabangu and another from another component of that grouping which is claiming the name of CCC.
"The Speaker of Parliament is a lawyer, and he knows that the moment he received, on the same day, more than one submission for the same vacancies, he could not act on them. He could not choose which of the two to consider.
"He now needed to refer this matter to some form of judicial tribunal by making a decision to say, I will consider Tshabangu's not the one submitted by our chief whip, that decision itself was unlawful.
"His unlawful decision led to the unlawful appointment of a new set of officials of Parliament, It is, therefore, a nullity," said Timba.
He declared that CCC will not accept its parliamentarians to be Tshabangu's subjects.
"The citizens' National Assembly met and it has made a resolution that it will not subject its deployees to the leadership and control of Sengezo Tshabangu in the Parliament of Zimbabwe.
"...in light of this resolution, l was tasked to convince our parliamentary caucus to communicate our party position and consult with our parliamentarians the practical implementations of this resolution and that caucus will be happening in the next few days," said Timba.