Msekwa defends CCM-NEC treatment of Speaker Sitta
THIS DAY
It was "perfectly normal" for the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) national executive
committee (NEC) to reprimand the Speaker of the National Assembly, Samwel Sitta, for the manner in which he has been running parliamentary proceedings, CCM top politburo member Pius Msekwa reiterated yesterday.
"Normal procedure was followed in questioning Sitta's conduct. When I was Speaker of the National Assembly, I was also summoned to a CCM-NEC meeting and subjected to a grilling. But I wasn't fired from my job. The goal (of these NEC meetings) is to put things right," Msekwa, the ruling party's vice-chairman for Tanzania mainland and Sitta's immediate predecessor as the head of parliamentary business, told a news conference in Dar es Salaam.
Msekwa is now part of a three-man committee entrusted with the task of overseeing efforts to restore CCM internal unity and fix the ruling party's current image problems. The committee, dubbed 'The Three Wise Men', is led by ex-president Ali Hassan Mwinyi and also includes former Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly, Abdulrahman Kinana.
Flanked by Mwinyi himself, Msekwa told reporters at the ex-president's residence in the city that there has historically been rifts amongst senior CCM stalwarts since the party's birth in 1977, and even within its predecessor TANU since independence in 1961.
He said it was "normal procedure" for CCM to summon members associated with such rifts that occur within the party from time to time, as part of the healing process.
The CCM secretariat, under secretary-general Yusuf Makamba, has come under heavy public criticism for allowing Speaker Sitta to be literally �crucified� in the last CCM-NEC meeting held in Dodoma a couple of months ago.
It is understood that the vitriolic attacks against Sitta by various NEC members at the meeting were part of a plot hatched by a network of corrupt CCM leaders to get him removed from the Speaker's seat because of his firm stance against major corruption scandals such as the Richmond power generation deal.
On the task facing the Mwinyi-Msekwa-Kinana committee, the CCM vice-chair said they would begin by meeting with members of the Zanzibar House of Representatives representing the ruling party next week.
Since the House of Reps began its latest session in Zanzibar on Thursday of last week, several CCM reps have already made fiery remarks about aspects of the Union between mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar and the future of sharing of potential oil reserves in the Isles.
From Zanzibar, the 'three wise men' will move to Dodoma for a similar meeting with members of the CCM parliamentary caucus, Msekwa said.
He explained that the ultimate goal is to restore harmony between various ruling party backbenchers in the august House and government ministers, in the wake of reports of animosity between elements of both camps.
According to Msekwa, the committee has been tasked by CCM-NEC to address those differences and restore unity within the party ahead of the 2010 general elections.
He said the committee will address all CCM legislators in the parliamentary caucus and conduct frank and open discussions with them about the way forward.
Msekwa echoed the recent observation by President Jakaya Kikwete the CCM chairman that deep mistrust does currently exist among certain CCM members of parliament, to the extent (as observed by the president) that some MPs fear they could even end up being poisoned by their colleagues.