Kigoma Urban Member of Parliament Zitto Kabwe was on Thursday
adamant and unapologetic over remarks he made recently accusing
Parliament and Speaker Job Ndugai of being held captive by the
executive.
Mr Kabwe who appeared before the
Parliamentary Privileges, Ethics and Powers Committee in Dodoma for
questioning over the remarks reiterated his position that the government
was interfering in Parliament’s independence.
In a
written statement submitted to the committee and which he made available
to the media, Mr Kabwe protested that his arrest and summons was an
infringement of his rights and an attempt to muzzle free speech.
The
MP also submitted before the committee an addendum in which he claimed
that the recent deadly and daylight shooting of opposition MP Tundu
Lissu was the work of forces who wanted to silence vocal critics of
President John Magufuli and his administration.
Mr
Lissu is recuperating at Nairobi Hospital from near-fatal injuries he
sustained when unknown people ambushed and sprayed more than 30 bullets
on his car shortly after leaving Parliament.
Defence
Mr
Kabwe who is Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT)-Wazalendo Party
Leader offered his defence before the committee chaired by Newala MP
George Mkuchika.
He had been driven there at dusk Thursday following his arrest at the Julius Nyerere Airport on Wednesday night.
Speaker
Job Ndugai had ordered that the MP be questioned for his remarks,
including what he viewed as a personal attack on his style of leadership
of Parliament.
But Mr Kabwe said he was within his
constitutional right to express his views as a concerned Tanzanian and
leader. He went on to list several examples he said show that Mr Ndugai
had ceded the power of Parliament to the executive.
“My
right to speak and express my views must not be curtailed, it is
against the Constitution and the Arusha Declaration,” said Mr Kabwe.
Among
the issues he said pointed to the executive interfering in Parliament
was the withdrawal of live coverage of Parliament in favour of public
meetings of the President around the country.
He said
the government has denied Parliament funds to run its operations while
Mr Ndugai must seek permission from the government for MPs to travel
abroad.
“The Parliament’s decision to return Sh6
billion to the government over cost cutting initiatives without approval
of MPs was a decision taken to ingratiate to the executive, because
while the money is returned some committees failed to function over
inadequate funding,” he told the committee.
Mr Kabwe
said President Magufuli has on several occasions publicly issued orders
to the Speaker on how to discipline MPs he labelled problematic inside
the August House.
He said Mr Ndugai’s decision to hand
over gemstone investigation reports to President Magufuli before a
resolution of the whole House painted a House pandering to the
executive.
“The revelation by the President that Mr
Ndugai called him to suggest names of MPs to sit on the gemstone probe
committees is proof of direct interference,” said Kabwe, adding that the
House has also taken to the habit of deleting from opposition speeches
any mention of President Magufuli and other ills by the government.
Lissu’s assassination
Mr
Kabwe told the committee that Mr Lissu’s assassination attempt and
ongoing arrests of opposition MPs justified his statement that the
Parliament was no longer independent.
He said the
government had declined to table in Parliament a quarterly budget
statement as required while Mr Ndugai allegedly allowed an amendment to
spare the government of this accountability requirement.
On Lissu’s saga, Mr Kabwe claimed it was engineered to silence critics.
“Without
mincing words, I believe the attacker’s main goal is to silence people,
specifically critics of the government. Recently he (Mr Lissu) has been
one of the most critics of the President’s actions,” he told the
committee.
He dismissed theories that the attack could have been carried by people whose intentions is to taint the government’s image.
“The
best answer to these heartless attackers is simple: We must continue
the role Lissu played. We must not be silenced. We must continue to
speak our minds, air our views and question government policies,” he
said.
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