UPDATED:Zanu-PF Says..If There’s No Pay, We Won’t Play
Updated: Friday 12th June – MDC lawmaker Douglas Mwonzora, joint chairperson of a 25-member parliamentary committee steering the constitutional reform process, told a news conference that all parties in the unity government had agreed to start public hearings in all the 10 provinces between June 24 and June 27.
That would lead to a national conference on constitutional reforms from July 9 to July 12, Mwonzora said.
“The days we have announced are by consensus. We all agreed that they are final,” he said.
The ZANU-PF chief whip, Joram Gumbo, said his party’s earlier concerns on the process had been misunderstood.
“To clear the air, all we said is that ZANU-PF MPs were requesting, if possible, for the co-chairpersons to postpone the hearings,” Gumbo said.
“We did not try to stall the process.”
End.
HARARE – All Zanu PF members of parliament, at their caucus meeting on Wednesday, reached a decision to stay away from the Constitutional exercise after they learnt that they would not be paid.
Meetings to gather views from the public were due to commence Saturday, in a process that would lead to a new constitution by September next year.
Currently the southern African country is under a 1979 constitution agreed at the Lancaster House talks in London and has been amended 19 times.
About US$36 million is needed to finance the process but government it is too broke to pursue the planned process.
A crisis meeting held late Thursday to resolve the issue failed to persuade the boycotting MPs to change their minds. The MDC has said that it is shocked by their decision.
According to them, this shows that Zanu PF is not committed to the Global Political Agreement that calls for the crafting of a new constitution.
The first major attempt to introduce a new constitution between 1999 and 2000 failed after the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) and other civil society groupings successfully campaigned against a government sponsored draft.
Additional Reporting: The Zimbabwe Mail
Posted by Dave Fish Eagle
on June 11, 2009. Filed under Politics.
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