BILL WATCH 56/2020

[25th August 2020]

The National Assembly will Sit Briefly Today to Adjourn until 1st September

Senate is Due to Resume on Tuesday 15th September

The National Assembly will meet briefly this afternoon with the sole purpose of adjourning until next week. 

The object of the adjournment is that by the time they meet again on Tuesday 1st September all members of the National Assembly will have been tested for COVID-19. 

This will, it is hoped, clear the way for the National Assembly to resume work in earnest next week on urgent matters, including its backlog of legislative work . 

Bills Likely to Come Up Next Week in the National Assembly

Bills already in Parliament

There are a number of Bills already at various stages in their passage through the House.  They are listed in Bill Watch 54/2020 [link] and Bill Watch 55/2020 [link]. The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Hon Ziyambi Ziyambi – who is also the Leader of Government Business in Parliament – will want the House to finalise at least some of them and transmit them to the Senate to deal with before the end of the present Parliamentary session. 

Finance Bill

In addition to the above Bills, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development will want the National Assembly to deal with the Finance Bill foreshadowed in the Mid-Term Fiscal Policy Review Statement that he presented in the House on 16th July.  The Bill is necessary to deal with changes to tax laws mentioned by the Minister in that statement, such as the raising of the tax-free threshold to ZWL$ 5000 and the widening of the income tax bands.  It will be available on the Veritas website soon.

Committee Meetings

Parliament is working on the holding of virtual committee meetings, including virtual committee meetings that are open to public.  Veritas will provide relevant information in a bulletin in our Parliamentary Committees Series as soon as it is supplied by Parliament.

Last Week’s Government Gazettes

Statutory Instrument

SI 200/2020 – Public Health (COVID-19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment) (National Lockdown) (Consolidation and Amendment) Order, 2020 [link]

This SI, as its above title suggests,  both amends and consolidates the previous National Lockdown Order, published in SI 86/2020 and its many amendments.  It was gazetted on Thursday 20th August and came into force the same day.  As it repeals SI 86/2020 and all its amendments, it is the law on the subject as from that date.