Luanda - The UNITA parliamentary group on Wednesday announced, in Luanda, that it will soon submit to the National Assembly (AN) a Bill for the Institutionalization of Local Governments in the country.
At a press conference, the leader of the party's parliamentary group, Liberty Chiyaka, said that the Bill had the contribution of civil society partners.
“We understand that a Bill on citizenship matters, as is the case of the municipal governments, should not only reflect the vision of the Members of the Parliament, in the political perspective, but also the contribution of civil society partners”, he stressed', when making the assessment of the 1st parliamentary year of the V Legislature, ended on the 15th of this month.
The politician did not rule out the possibility of the said project being merged with the draft law on the same subject, by the Executive's Legislative initiative, which is already in the National Assembly.
“If the project is submitted before the decision to resume the discussion of the proposal that is already in the National Assembly, we can merge it, but if the Executive decides to resume before our project enters, our contribution will be based on the discussion of the existing proposal”, he clarified.
According to the politician, the theme on the institutionalization of municipal elections should constitute one of the central priorities in the 2nd year of the V Legislature, which begins next October.
He regretted the fact that the Bill that institutionalizes Local Governments, the only piece of the municipal elections legislative Package still without approval in Parliament, was carried over to the following year due to alleged “lack of political will”.
The Law on the Institutionalization of Municipal Governments is the only one of the said legislative package that remains to be completed. The draft law has already been approved in general terms by the National Assembly, pending its discussion in the specialty committees.
The National Assembly has already approved, by consensus, 90 percent of the municipal legislative package. Discussion of the said package had been suspended to give priority to the revision of the Constitution, in 2021.
Legislative balance sheet
In another domain, the leader of the UNITA parliamentary bench said that the format of the debates in the first legislative year of the V Legislature “did not produce tangible results for the development of democratic culture”.
He made it known that the National Assembly received, during this period, about 142 complaints, grievances and complaints from citizens about the most diverse situations.
In this regard, he assured that his party's parliamentary group will take steps, in the context of parliamentary hearings, interpellations or parliamentary commissions of inquiry (CPI), to ascertain the veracity, depth and timeliness of the facts communicated to the National Assembly.
In the field of control and oversight, he believes that Parliament's performance could have been better and, on accountability, transfer and good governance, he accused the Executive of not having complied with the legal deadlines to send the General Account of the State.
Liberty Chiaka informed, on the other hand, that of the 24 requests for hearings by his party to the ministers of State, ministers, the governor of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), the governor of Luanda, the presidents of the Boards of Directors of TAAG, the Public Television of Angola (TPA), National Radio of Angola (RNA), TV-ZIMBO, among others, only a joint one (Minister of the Interior, General Commander and General Director of the Criminal Investigation Service) was materialized.
He added that during the last parliamentary year, the AN witnessed the “silent conclusion” of some projects carried out under the auspices of the Intervention Plan in Municipalities (PIIM), considering some of them to be of great reference.
Throughout the 2022-2023 parliamentary year of the V Legislature of the National Assembly, 10 laws and 39 resolutions were approved, of which 05 related to internal organization. DC/AL/DOJ
