Dar es Salaam: Though regarded as the most active, failure to resolve mega scandals that hit the country has left a tainted mark on the performance of the ninth Parliament concluding its activities next month.Some of the unfinished business has been listed as issues surrounding the involvement of the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) in dubious deals such as Tangold, Meremeta and Richmond companies. The Tanzania Media Women Association (Tamwa) executive director, Ms Ananilea Nkya, told The Citizen that failure to resolve those sensitive issues shows that the Parliament has been safeguarding interests of the ruling party and not those of the public.

"I expected, with the promise from the Speaker that the Parliament would be run according to standards and speed, issues on Richmond, Tangold, Meremeta and BoT would have been concluded years ago," she said.

But there are other people who said the ninth parliament was not a disappointment at all to Tanzanians. However, some of them noted that it was individual MPs that made the Parliament look active.

Those who hailed the performance of the august House based their arguments on the kind of issues it debated and resolved, notably the Richmond scandal. Others were the dubious contracts like those of the Tanzania International Container Terminal Services (Ticts) and the Tanzania Railways Limited (TRL).

Those who looked into the performance of individual MPs cited the result of a research published by a Kiswahili tabloid, whose literal English translation is: Do they work for us? - which indicates that opposition MPs were more active than their counterparts from the ruling Cha Cha Mapinduzi (CCM).

The report showed opposition Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) MPs ranking first with an average of 19 basic questions per MP. They also rank first in supplementary questions with 36 supplementary questions per MP.

The UDP ranks highest in terms of making contributions. The ruling party, CCM, ranks last in all three categories with an average of 12 basic questions, 17 supplementary questions and 26 contributions per MP.

"MPs from the Zanzibar House of Representatives and those nominated by the President participated least in the main sessions of Parliament," says the report.

It mentioned Messrs Mgana Msindai and George Lubeleje as well as Dr Willibrod Slaa as the most active MPs.

Speaking to The Citizen in separate interviews yesterday, ordinary wananchi recommended the Parliament for providing freedom of debating serious corruption scandals.

"I congratulate the Parliament for triggering the discussion on the Richmond scandal which saw some top leaders resigning," said Mr Mashaka Nicodemus, a resident of Arusha Region who spoke over the phone.

He said compared to the previous parliaments, this one had fulfilled its duty of debating serious and important matters which were under the carpet.

His opinion was backed by Mr Samwel Mshungu, a Dar es Salaam resident, who said that allowing the discussion of big issues enabled many people become aware of serious issues of national interest.

In an interview with The Citizen yesterday, Dr Damian Gabagambi, a senior researcher with the Research on Poverty Alleviation (Repoa), said it was the best Parliament in the history of the country.

"Speaker Samuel Sitta has made the job of the next Speaker tough as the benchmarks he has set are too high to achieve," Dr Gabagambi said.

However, he said regulations on attendance by MPs seem to be a bit loose, making some MPs earn money they did not work for because of failure to attend most of the sessions.

Speaking to The Citizen in Dodoma, MPs said the ninth Parliament has proved to be a great success by inculcating democracy, fairness and good governance. Therefore it was important to maintain the tempo for the betterment of the nation, they said.

The Kwela MP, Dr Chrisant Mzindakaya, told this paper in an exclusive interview that there were many crucial changes that the parliament has championed.

However, the retiring MP had the opinion that the present Parliament had been turned into a hiding place for people who failed in other professions.

He said nowadays people join politics to make money instead of serving the people, and warned on the possibility of having a weak political state in future.

He also admitted that the CCM MPs were not a challenge enough to the government.

"We all know that the opposition MPs are challenging the government, but CCM MPs just support the government, and even when we see mistakes we take them as errors instead of calling them mistakes," said Dr Mzindakaya.

Wete MP Mwadin Abbas Jecha (CUF) said the ending parliament has performed well and fairly towards opposition parties.

Mr Jecha described Speaker Samwel Sitta as a strong, determined and focused leader of parliamentary sessions and the Tanzania parliament the best in East Africa.

Special seats MP Lucy Owenya (Chadema) told this paper that the ninth Parliament had observed truth and transparency.

She said Speaker Sitta had successfully managed to achieve his goals of leading the Parliament with speed and required standards in fairness and democracy as the basic pillars towards such achievements.

* Read the report at: http://twaweza.esealtd.com/fileadmin/uploads/documents/Do_they_work_for_us.pdf