Parliament to be dissolved today

KIGALI - Parliament is set to be dissolved today after a five-year mandate. President Paul Kagame is expected to officiate at the ceremony. The Chamber of Deputies that will be dissolved today was instituted in October 2003 after a 9 year transitional period following the Genocide of Tutsis in 1994. The 80-man House will step aside to pave way for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Some of the current serving MPs have expressed interest in coming back in the second parliament. According to the Deputy Speaker in charge of political affairs Denis Polisi, Parliamentary performance has exceeded expectations. “The Parliament has performed higher than we expected compared to the estimations we had at the beginning of our mandate,” Polisi said in an interview. He estimated Parliamentary performance to be at about 120 percent in the last five years, and that it worked on about 290 bills. Polisi emphasized that no Parliament in the world has worked on such a large number of bills. Out of the 290 bills, 210 have been published in the official gazette as laws while about 15 laws, are expected to be published in the next official gazette that is yet to be released. According to Polisi, 44 per cent of the published articles are financial and property related laws, 21 percent are social welfare laws, 18 percent concerns good governance while 17 percent are justice related. Major laws in ParliamentThe five-year mandate of the Parliament sometimes made legislators spend sleepless nights working on important laws. Some of the laws include the land law that was passed after lengthy deliberations. The law came into being following several controversies related to land distribution and allocation. Since the publication of the land law, the majority of the controversies related to land have been resolved. The scrapping of the death penalty in the Rwandan constitution was also one of the big achievements made by Parliament. After prolonged debates, lawmakers endorsed the bill repealing the death penalty from Rwanda’s legal books. The move to abolish capital punishment was commended globally and welcomed by the international community. Other very important bills that Parliament passed include the domestic violence bill, the environment bill, the bill establishing Mutuelle de sante (health insurance scheme), leaders’ conduct and discipline bill, and female inheritance among other bills. Evaluating the government During their five-year mandate, legislators managed to make a follow up on embezzlement and mismanagement of government funds highlighted in the Auditor General’s report. According to Polisi, most of the cases mentioned in the AG’s reports have been followed up and those implicated have been prosecuted while others are still being investigated. During its mandate, the Parliament also summoned and quizzed 27 cabinet ministers on several issues for clarification. The Rwanda Parliament also shone internationally when it was selected to host the mega Africa Caribbean and Pacific and European Union Members of Parliament meeting in 2007. Ends

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Parliament to be dissolved today