Wadyajena pounces on Basera
Stephen T Chifamba
HARARE, Zimbabwe. (News of the South)- PERMANENT Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr John Basera finally appeared before the Justice Mayor Wadyajena-chaired Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement having played catch-me-if-you-can since February 2020.
But if he had expected to walk into a timid house, his calculations were wrong as the Committee tore into his excuses, with Wadyajena reading the riot act to him.
Basera was summoned to appear before the Committee as early as February – his evasiveness prompted Parliament to mull setting the police on him when he failed, again, to appear before it on 11 June – to appraise the house on the financial preparedness of his ministry for the 2020 winter cropping season.
When Parliament finally got its man on 30 June, the portfolio committee chairman had no kind words for the Ministry of agriculture CEO.
“What winter are we now talking about in July…we have been overtaken by events,” Wadyajena queried rhetorically.
The Gokwe-Nembudziya legislator then pulled from the archives Basera’s evasive tactics to avoid Parliament, expressing his displeasure at the permanent secretary’s apparent intimidation where he would invoke the name of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.
Wadyajena even quoted from the Constitution to remind his guest that Parliament takes precedence except if one is with the President.
The committee was not particularly impressed that Basera, at one point, had written to them explaining that he could not appear before them since he was accompanying the VP Chiwenga on provincial tours in line with the Agricultural Recovery Plan.
“You wrote a letter to this Committee stating that you had decided not to come…’the ministry is rolling out the Agricultural Recovery Plan, and carrying out provincial tours and we are accompanying VP Chiwenga’…come on, this has nothing to do with us, we never called you to talk about Chiwenga,” Wadyajena fumed.
“We viewed this as an intimidation, there is no point to mention Vice President Chiwenga’s name.
“We don’t work like that, we invited you and you should just excuse yourself,” the unamused legislator added.
Wadyajena took the permanent secretary on a constitutional lecture, pointing that his obligations as the Committee chairperson included compiling Committee reports, table those reports and speak to them before Parliament.
Basera’s conduct, Wadyajena complained, was making his work difficult.
“I can’t prepare reports when you don’t appear…we have invited you six times or something like that (without success),” the Committee chairperson complained.
Basera, a fresh face at the ministry, then offered his apologies, thanking the Committee chair on appraising him on the constitutional provisions; Wadyajena was not amused, and expressly reminded him that he was duty-bound to familiarise himself with the Constitution.
On the frequency and manner of his excuses, Wadyajena told the permanent secretary that he had a terrible habit of serving last minute excuses, and reminded him that his “appointing authority” (President Mnangagwa) would not be impressed, him being a former Speaker of the House of Assembly.
“And you have a terrible habit for a perm sec of writing letters on the eve of your appearance as if you didn’t know of your programmes.
“Even your appointing authority won’t be impressed, the President is a former Speaker of Parliament, he knows and respects parliamentary procedures…that you can’t fault,” the unassuming legislator said.
“We don’t want to end up informing him that you don’t want to respect Parliament,” he added, before cautioning:
“We don’t want to end up thinking that you want to intimidate us by bringing names of our seniors, it is not right…stay in your lane Sir, it will help you.”
Humiliated, Basera apologized profusely, promising to avail himself in future as per request.
After the ‘lecture’, Wadyajena ejected the senior civil servant out of the committee citing his lack of preparedness for the meeting.
Comments
About Author
