COPAC

COPAC, 28 June 2010

The Constitution making process has begun in earnest with outreach teams having been deployed to all the country’s ten provinces. This was revealed at a media briefing held by the co-chairpersons of the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee, COPAC, Honourable Paul Mangwana, Honourable and Douglas Mwonzora while deputy Co-Chairperson ,Senator Believe Gaule represented Co-Chairperson, Edward  Mkhosi. The media briefing was held at the COPAC offices on Wednesday last week in Harare.

Honourable Mangwana spoke on behalf of the three main political parties represented in the Global Political Agreement. “Logistical challenges, especially getting equipment and personnel to the provinces were a major setback, but these have since been solved. The actual outreach consultation exercise which was intended to commence on 23 June, 2010, was delayed by one day because the recording equipment that was supposed to be used during meetings was still being transported to various provinces. This therefore meant that consultations only started on Thursday, 24 June, 2010.”

Mangwana said although challenges were experienced at the beginning of the outreach programme, progress had been made. “The outreach programme started with the deployment of outreach personnel to the country’s 10 provinces on Monday, 21 June 2010. This was followed by the induction of outreach team members on Tuesday, 22 June 2010. The induction exercise was facilitated by Select Committee members who are supervising the outreach process in various provinces,” said Honourable Mangwana.

The Co-Chairpersons provided a breakdown of the outreach teams. “Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands provinces have 10 teams each with 10 people, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central have nine teams each with 10 people in every team, Matabeleland North and Mashonaland West have seven teams with 10 people in each team while Matabeleland South has six teams.” He continued: “All in all, a total of 729 people are currently out in the field driving the constitution outreach consultation process. The consultations in Harare and Bulawayo have been put on hold.”

A lot of factors, including the ongoing FIFA Soccer World Cup being staged in South Africa and the need to consult Harare and Bulawayo residents over the weekend were considered when taking the decision to put the consultations on hold in the two metropolitan provinces. Despite earlier logistical challenges, the consultations on the Constitution had started around the country.

“Although there were challenges when the process started, there has been some remarkable progress in areas where meetings have been held. The general atmosphere has been conducive and teams have gone about their work in peaceful conditions. One of our major challenges continues to be that of funding. We still have limited resources and this is what is hampering our process. We have brought this to the attention of both the Government and the donors. We are currently working on a supplementary budget,” Honourable Mangwana said.

He added that contrary to some reports, Zimbabweans were participating in the Constitutional consultation in a peaceful manner. “No incidences of violence have been recorded. We are seeing national healing taking place during the outreach meetings as different members from different political parties are sitting together and speaking their minds freely.” Honourable Douglas Mwonzora said organisations that wanted to observe the consultations were free to do saw as long as their presence was known to COPAC. “I would like to make it known that we do not have Outreach Monitors and nobody has been accredited to act as outreach monitors. Any organisation wishing to observe the outreach process should approach the COPAC offices so that we have a very transparent process.”

His views were echoed by Senator Believe Gaule who said: “We are very surprised that there are people who are going around the country calling themselves outreach monitors. It has to be made clear that we are not aware of such teams. The people that we are aware of are the outreach teams. In any case why should we be monitored when the process is transparent?” asked Senator Gaule.