Bill Watch /2019 2019 water situation [from the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement] and on the state of Zimbabwean soccer vis-à-vis FIFA [from the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation. Position of MDC-A MPs as a Result of MDC-A Attitude Towards President Mnangagwa There were three new episodes in the drama unfolding on the Parliamentary stage as ZANU PF reacts to MDC-A MPs’ attitude towards the President’s visits to Parliament: Suspension of 23rd October Ban on MDC-A MPs Questioning Ministers On 13th November, before Question Time, the Speaker handed down a new ruling suspending indefinitely – but not reversing – his ruling of 23rd October banning MDC-A MPs participating in Question Time. The suspension, he said, was “to avoid a paralysis of Parliamentary processes” in view of the importance of Private Members’ Business in Parliament. The text of the ruling is available on the Veritas website [link]. Committee of Privileges to Inquire into MDC-A Acts of Disrespect to President On 14th November MDC-A MPs absented themselves from the National Assembly during the 2020 National Budget presentation. In the brief proceedings that followed the Budget presentation, still without MDC-A MPs present, Hon Togarepi, ZANU PF chief whip, raised a matter of privilege. At some length he detailed five separate occasions on which, since the opening of this Parliament, MDC-A MPs had conducted themselves in a manner disrespectful of President Mnangagwa. He concluded by submitting that their “untoward Parliamentary conduct” should be visited with a charge of contempt of Parliament. His full speech is available on the Veritas website [link]. The Speaker then ruled that Hon Togarepi had made out a prima facie case of contempt of Parliament, and Hon Togarepi formally moved a motion for the appointment of a Committee of Privileges by the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders [CSRO], which the House immediately approved. The Speaker ended the proceedings by there and then convening a meeting of the CSRO the following morning for this purpose. Note: On 15th November Hon Gonese, MDC Secretary for Justice and Legal Affairs and an MDC-A MP, issued a statement saying that their MPs had genuine reasons for their absence, namely, attending to the funeral of party members who had died in a motor accident and that the Leader of the Opposition had, as a courtesy, given prior written notice to the Speaker that they would be absent on Budget day; the statement also reminded the public that MPs are not legally obliged to attend any particular Parliamentary sitting and recorded that fact that MDC-A members of CSRO had reported for the special CSRO meeting at the time stipulated by the Speaker but that the