{"id":218996,"date":"2010-01-21T00:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T05:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-9191993342053166987"},"modified":"2010-01-21T00:45:10","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T05:45:10","slug":"outreach-suspended-indefinitely-in-zimbabwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218996","title":{"rendered":"Outreach Suspended Indefinitely in Zimbabwe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
President Robert Mugabe and First Lady Amai Grace in Zimbabwe which held a peaceful run-off election amid continuing threats from the US, UK and other imperialist countries and their allies in the region.<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Outreach Suspended<\/p>\n

By Lloyd Gumbo<\/p>\n

THE constitution-making outreach programme has been suspended indefinitely following disagreements on the composition of the team that should collect views from the grassroots.<\/p>\n

The process has also been stymied by a funding crunch and at the time of writing it was not clear when normal business would resume.<\/p>\n

Reliable sources in the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee on Tuesday said they had failed to agree on the number of rapporteurs to accompany the outreach teams.<\/p>\n

It is also understood that there is feuding over who should be a rapporteur with some members of the management committee saying all of them should be bound by oaths of secrecy.<\/p>\n

The management committee is made up of negotiators to the Global Political Agreement, Cde Patrick Chinamasa (Zanu-PF), Mr Tendai Biti (MDC-T) and Professor Welshman Ncube (MDC), and members of the Select Committee.<\/p>\n

The sources said some members had suggested 210 rapporteurs with each party contributing 70, while others wanted 70 only.<\/p>\n

Seventy outreach teams are supposed to go round the country collating people\u2019s views but disagreement over who will actually write these views down has become the latest sticking point.<\/p>\n

Select Committee co-chairpersons Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana (Zanu-PF) and Mr Edward Mkhosi (MDC) confirmed the outreach was now on the back burner and were not certain when the programme would start.<\/p>\n

They said all constitution-making programmes were suspended by the management committee until next week when it meets to discuss the financial situation and other administrative issues.<\/p>\n

The management committee, they said, had indicated that it was better to delay the process than rush to produce a “half-baked” product.<\/p>\n

“All constitutional programmes have been suspended by the management committee. They felt there were other issues which needed attention before the outreach programme begins.<\/p>\n

“There are still disagreements on the composition of rapporteurs, but there are other more pressing issues, which have to be addressed like financial constraints.<\/p>\n

“Recording equipment is yet to be bought, cars haven\u2019t been mobilised and rapporteurs are yet to be trained.<\/p>\n

“Therefore, we cannot give a timetable of when the actual outreach will start because some of the issues are beyond our control as the Select Committee,” Cde Mangwana said.<\/p>\n

He said the committee was going to engage the United Nations Development Fund and other financiers who pledged to bankroll the programme.<\/p>\n

Cde Mangwana said pledges fulfilled so far were enough to train outreach teams and parliamentarians but insufficient to kick-start the actual outreach.<\/p>\n

He said there was a possibility of the programme being moved to February depending on the availability of funds.<\/p>\n

Mr Mkhosi added that finances were a major stumbling block in getting the process off the ground.<\/p>\n

He said the management committee had asked the Select Committee to present an evaluation report on the latest developments.<\/p>\n

“The report which has been requested by the management committee will help<\/p>\n

determine when the outreach programme will start.<\/p>\n

“The evaluation will include financial and administrative issues. The way forward will be determined after the management committee meeting next week,” Mr Mkhosi said.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Biti allocated US$43 million for the process in the 2010 National Budget, with funding coming largely from donors.<\/p>\n

The Select Committee has so far received about US$4 million, while a US$18 million pledge from the UNDP will be disbursed in phases.<\/p>\n

The constitutional programme appeared to have gathered momentum with the identification and training of thematic committee chairpersons, their deputies and outreach teams early this month.<\/p>\n

However, the process remains behind schedule.<\/p>\n

The GPA calls for a new constitution ahead of fresh elections with the process scheduled for completion in 18 months.<\/p>\n

This means a constitutional referendum should ideally be held around June this year but this is now highly unlikely to happen.
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Robert Mugabe and First Lady Amai Grace in Zimbabwe which held a peaceful run-off election amid continuing threats from the US, UK and other imperialist countries and their allies in the region.Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Outreach Suspended By Lloyd Gumbo THE constitution-making outreach programme has been suspended indefinitely following disagreements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}