20091222
allafrica

Harare — Most Members of Parliament do not live in Harare; they represent constituencies across the country but have to come into the capital city when Parliament meets.

Having nowhere else to stay, the 240 affected MPs and senators are put into hotels, and those bills total US$17 000 a day. A 100 sitting days would come to a staggering US$1,7 million a year and all the necessary attendance at meetings of committees and the like and we are looking at some very serious bills.

Zimbabwe needs a cheaper solution.

Some countries allow legislators to buy or rent a house or flat in their capital city. But the recent expenses scandal in Britain, where out-of-London MPs are allowed to have a second residence, shows the dangers and the huge costs of that solution.

The South Africans have a better solution, a "village" for MPs who do not live in Pretoria, which is just about everyone since the capital city is quite small.

Zimbabwe could tailor this solution to its own needs and purse.

The minimum requirements are a lot less than 240 houses.

We have two categories of people who we need to house: those who need to actually live in Harare, such as ministers and the Speaker, and those who only need to be in the city when Parliament sits, the bulk of the out-of-town members.

A block of town houses for the ministers, with a couple of large blocks of one-bedroomed flats for the backbenchers, would seem to answer the requirements and still keep the costs within reason.

We could even look at "studio" flats, with the bedroom being an alcove, for the backbenchers. These would be better than the hotel rooms they have to use now.

The flat blocks could have communal sitting rooms and even a pub, giving the backbenchers access to the same sort of facilities they now enjoy in a hotel.

A communal dining-room or canteen would fulfil the same function as the hotels.

It should be possible to build the basic blocks of flats with the sort of money we spend in just one year on hotel bills, giving a pretty good payback time.

It might even be possible to get a good architect to design the first blocks with quite small flats that could be converted later into better accommodation by combining a pair of smaller studio flats into one good one-bedroomed flat.

Those responsible for drawing up the new constitution could also look at just how many legislators we need.

Most countries force their legislators to represent far more constituents than Zimbabwe does, although the Zimbabwean Parliament has grown in numbers through a series of political deals, none of which were primarily intended to increase numbers but had that secondary effect.

As we are trying to write a constitution that we will get right the first time, and which will not need many amendments, one item on the agenda should be just how many people we need to represent the people but still allow all to participate in debate and have costs within reason.

We can then freeze the number of legislators, hopefully for all time, and just redistribute seats with each census or delimitation.

Setting that total can be tricky, since all communities should be represented effectively, but too large a Parliament will be both unwieldy and expensive.

But even while that figure is being settled, we can start on our Parliamentary Village.

We are unlikely to be able to build all the flats we need in just one or two years, so setting aside the land and building the first one or two blocks will be a good year's work and will start reducing bills.

Building costs are quite low now, so we think Parliament should look at making a start this year with a suitable amendment to the present Bills to put the budget into effect; so long as the flats are not too fancy most people will regard this start as a cost-saving measure rather than as some sort of scandal of MPs climbing onto the "gravy train".