Activists
have called on the new constitution to have a provision that would
empower the electorate to remove any Members of Parliament and
ward-councilors who underperformed during their five-year tenure of
office as representatives.
They
said Members of Parliament and ward councilors were people's
representatives and the mouth piece of their electorates, and therefore,
they are obliged to effectively are efficiently represent
their people and fulfill the promises they made during campaigns, to
bring desired development in their respective constituencies.
Speaking
at a training of activists of the legal and human rights center (LHRC)
on human rights monitoring, held in Tanga recently, they said that since
they were elected, some MPs and ward Councilors have done little and
others have completely failed their electorate, but continued enjoying
public resources and tax payers’ money because there was no any
provision that requires them to leave office for other competent people.
Legal
Officer for Human rights Monitoring unit of the centre, Laetitia Petro,
said that it was a burden to wait until five years while the MP could
not effectively and efficiently represent his people and discharge his
or her duties properly.
“In
this new constitution, people should be active and make sure that there
is a provision that empowers the electorates to remove the MPs who have failed to fulfill their responsibilities”, she said.
For
his part, Abrahamani Zayumba from Tanga said that because Members of
Parliament served the public, they should also be fired in case one
fails to deliver in his first few years in office.
“If
in other organizations, people are fired for misbehaving or failing to
perform why should the MP be spared ,while we know that some of them
have never fulfilled their promises”, he wondered.
Ibrahim
Tuli from Kisarawe said that many constituencies have developed very
little, because some Members of Parliament were active only when the
elections approach in order to win their voters.
Citing
an example, Tuli who is albino, explained that the members of
parliament and ward councilors were talking about albino killings during
elections campaigns ,but after the elections, very few continued to
find solutions to the albino killings.
“Albinos
are being killed on a daily basis, but members of parliaments and the
ward councilors do not seem to take it seriously to end the menace,
though they would be very active on the matter during the elections” he
said.
In
recent years, some electorates have complained about their Members of
Parliament and ward counselors for not doing enough to fulfil their
promises and bring development, but they failed to remove them because
there is no law or clause that provides for revoking their
representation.
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