Activists cry foul over PVO Bill hearing chaos

Human rights activists in Bulawayo have raised concerns about poor time management, centralised venues and inadequate information dissemination at the recently held public consultations on the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill.

The hearings were conducted by the Joint Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and the thematic Committee on Gender Development.

The Joint Portfolio Committees only held three public consultation meetings on the PVO Amendment Bill in Bulawayo, Nkayi and Gwanda to cater for the whole of Matabeleland.

The activists said the parliamentary committee failed to allocate enough time for the consultations, particularly in Bulawayo where the meeting began late and ended earlier.

In an interview with CITE, Thubelihle Ncube, Regional Coordinator of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO), said time management, lack of information dissemination regarding the bill awareness and a failure to decentralise the process to districts impeded the exercise.

“The turnout in Bulawayo was quite remarkable. A lot of people attended but the number one concern was time management. The meeting started at 2.23 pm but exactly at 3.55 pm, it was shut down and people were stopped from contributing,” she said.

“That means about 20 minutes of people’s time was not adhered to by the committee conducting the consultation.”

Ncube said another issue that needed further attention was bill awareness.

“There seem to be gaps about the PVO Amendment BiIl so most of the contributions that people made were rather irrelevant,” she said.

“So if those are the contributions that will be taken for consideration, I think we might have a problem as to what the people want and what the parliamentarians are going to incorporate moving forward.”

Ncube said this pointed to the need to educate people about laws and proposed bills before people are required to input their submissions.

“I don’t know who we are going to blame when it comes to who missed that gap of actually making people aware of what the PVO Bill is about because people may get a law that they do not know or what it entails,” Ncube said.

Another issue Ncube raised was since the public consultations were only held in a few places, a lot of people from Matabeleland were unable to participate.

“A lot of people don’t have information on where to submit their written submissions, so there is still a gap,” she said. 

“If we are to have these processes can we decentralise as much as possible so that the communities on the outskirts of Bulawayo can also be reached.”

Themba Chiveya, a human rights activist, also raised concerns about time management.

“First the committee came late, and secondly, knocked off before time again. A lot of people did not express their views concerning the bill because there was limited time,” he said, adding that the venue was a “problem.”

“We ended up having some people who could not get inside and ended up standing outside yet these were people who had come to express their views.”

Chiveya was also displeased that the selection of people chosen to speak was not “very well balanced.”

“There were other people who had raised their hands for a long time but were not selected. The process did not capture the views of the people to a great extent,” he said. 

Another human rights activist in Bulawayo, Wellington Nkawu, observed that although people came in their numbers the chosen venue was small.

“That made people uncomfortable…  The committee also came late, it came after 2 pm,” he said.

“In terms of participation, people did but I think the committee should have first educated people about the PVO Amendment Bill because they were asking people what they do not know.”

Nkawu said some participants were “actually” putting in views that were inappropriate to the bill requirements. 

“Overall the people didn’t want the bill and they rejected it and the proposed new registration procedures that some NGOs may be deregistered doesn’t sit well with the people,” he said.

Mbuso Fuzwayo, secretary general of Ibhetshu LikaZulu concurred that people did not have much opportunity to speak.

“A lot of people came, which is good but did not get the opportunity to speak,” he said, adding that he found it “strange that this Bill has been brought to the people for the third time and always when it comes, people are always clear that they don’t want it.”

Fuzwayo said it should be understood that Civic Society Organisations (CSOs) must, one monitor the government and two complement it.

“You can’t expect the government to be monitored by the people it will deregister. That gives the government an unfair advantage, especially our government that usually violates people’s rights, and is always abusing the power that it has been temporarily given to govern,” he said.

“Whenever CSOs raise issues around abuse of state power, obviously they will deregister those organisations that can speak truth to power.”

However, Fuzwayo said it was encouraging to see “a lot of people” attend but lamented that to allocate one sitting for a city like Bulawayo meant “a lot of views were not taken into consideration.”

Rosemary Zhira from the Association of the Deaf added that Parliament must strive to educate people about the PVO Amendment Bill because it was confusing its intended purpose.

She said the Disability Board which caters for people with disabilities, had not come to them as members to speak about the Bill yet they were now hearing “that it would be dissolved and the minister would be put in charge.”

“We don’t understand what the Bill is about, we must be educated about it so that we can as Zimbabwean citizens be empowered to discuss it,” Zhira said.

The PVO Amendment Bill (H. B. 2, 2024) was gazetted in March this year to amend the Private Voluntary Organisations Act (Chapter 17:05).