Bill Watch /2019 2019 meeting had not proceeded because ZANU PF members had not turned up, meaning that there was no quorum. Comment: Mr Gonese was correct in his statement that an MP is free to absent himself from a Parliamentary sitting without leave. The attendance register for the Budget sitting shows that that only 148 other MPs were recorded as present. ZANU PF MPs walk out on PAC meeting chaired by Hon Biti On 15th November a specially arranged Friday morning meeting of the Public Accounts Committee chaired by Hon Biti of MDC-A had to be abandoned because ZANU PF committee members would not participate. Hon Nduna – the ZANU PF MP who had enthusiastically seconded Hon Biti’s presentation of the PAC report on the Reserve Bank only three days before – was reported as explaining that he and his party colleagues had decided not to recognise Hon Biti as PAC chairperson until MDC-A started accepting President Mnangagwa as President. Under time-honoured Parliamentary tradition the PAC chairperson must be an Opposition MP. Hon Biti was appointed chairperson at the inception of the present Parliament. Note on Mr Nduna’s legitimacy as an MP: Ironically there is serious, as yet unresolved, uncertainty over the legitimacy of Hon Nduna’s title to the Chegutu West seat in the National Assembly. After Mr Nduna had been declared the winner in last year’s election by a slender margin, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] admitted that it had wrongly attributed to him 120 votes actually cast for the MDC-A candidate, and Mr Konjana MDC-A should have been the winner. But it was too late for ZEC to correct its error and that could only be done by the Electoral Court. The case is still bogged down in the Supreme Court to which Mr Konjana has appealed from the Electoral Court’s rejection of his election petition on procedural grounds. Meanwhile, Mr Nduna has sat in the National Assembly for over a year, despite having really lost the election to Mr Konjana. Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. If you want to contact Veritas, have any questions or wish to subscribe or unsubscribe please email veritas@mango.zw If you are looking for legislation please look for it on www.veritaszim.net Follow us on (+263 71 893 3633) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.