MPs again absent from Parliament

SOME Members of Parliament do not appear to take their duties in the National Assembly very seriously, as the session had to be called off for the third time in two weeks yesterday because too few MPs turned up.

It was particularly embarrassing because a delegation of visiting Nigerian parliamentarians were present and all that Speaker Theo-Ben Gurirab could do was to welcome them and immediately adjourn the House.The National Assembly resumed its sessions on September 15 after a two-month winter break, but already on September 17 there was no quorum.A quorum is when 37 of the 72 voting MPs are present in the House and if fewer are present, the session cannot go ahead. Last week, the same happened and MPs were sent home.In June this year MPs went AWOL twice within in two weeks and sessions had to be cancelled. Yesterday the Speaker told those MPs present to consult their party whips and decide on the way forward. ‘I call on you to then come back to me and tell me which way to go,’ Gurirab said, making it clear he did not like ‘this trend’, as he called it.It was ironic that due to a lack of quorum, Veterans’ Affairs Minister Ngarikutuke Tjiriange could not table his motion to change the standing rules of the National Assembly to apply the quorum rule only for voting purposes and to allow debates to continue if fewer than 37 voting MPs are present.For this purpose the Namibian Constitution must also be changed because it stipulates that 37 voting MPs form a quorum.