This summary of constitution outreach news was mailed to our subscribers today. To review previous news items, or follow updates daily, please visit the Constitution Resource page on the Sokwanele website.

25 June 2010 – cont

Women Must Be Educated On Constitution Making

As Zimbabwe embarks on drafting a new constitution, not all women are upbeat about the process. Ordinary women remain in the dark about the proposed new constitution and what exactly they are supposed to contribute. Activists warn that this could lead to women being left out of the constitutional making process and therefore lose out on their constitutional rights. “It could compromise women’s rights advocacy and the drive to have more women in parliament and other decision-making positions,” warns Rejoice Timire of the Disabled Women Support Organisation. For women’s issues to come out as they want in the constitution, it needs women at the grassroots to be educated about what is a constitution. If they don’t know what is a constitution then we cannot say our issues will come out as we want them to as Zimbabwean women,” Timire told IPS [Via Catholic Information Service for Africa]

26 June 2010

Zanu PF’s ‘script-writing’ outreach strategy backfires

Before the commencement of the outreach programme last week, Zanu PF allegedly went around the country providing its supporters with “appropriate” answers for the constitution talking points. There are also allegations that the party selected people who would make contributions at these meetings while strongly warning everyone else to stay put. Out of about 100 people gathered for the Igava meeting, only a handful were raising their hands to speak. What was striking in all the contributions was the prefixing of an answer with the phrase “an executive president anenhorowondo yenyika ino”, which loosely translates to “an executive president with a traceable history”. This was the standard answer for almost all the 26 talking points to the extent that the outreach team members would laugh and say “iyi yenhorowondo tainzwa”, meaning “we have heard enough about this talk about a traceable history”. They would sometimes simply dismiss the speaker saying “hapana zvamataura”, meaning “you did not answer the question” [Via The Standard]. (more…)

The regulations giving force to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act have been amended to allow for different circumstances that might affect companies in different sectors and a few definitions have been tidied up. However, the basic unacceptability of a law that confers upon the State the power to dispossess targeted individuals or companies of productive assets is not addressed. The revised wording and more precise definitions do not make the legislation any less dam­­­­aging to the investment process, nor do they make the claimed “economic empowerment” objective any less dishonest.

The belief that indigenous people are entitled to success, for which they should not be expected to work, remains unaltered. The belief rests solely on the unchanged definition of an “indigenous Zimbabwean” being “any person who, before the 18^th April, 1980, was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person.

This definition does not embody proof that the people so defined were prohibited from forming companies and acquiring assets before April 1980, and claims that “this goes without saying” can be disproved by the citing the many successful indigenous business people who had emerged before that date.  (more…)

Amendment of Indigenisation Regulations

Amendments to the Indigenisation Regulations were made by SI 116/2010, gazetted in a Government Gazette Extraordinary on Friday 25th June, effective immediately. [Electronic version of [1] SI 116/2010 and [2] Indigenisation Regulations updated to include the amendments made by SI 116.]

No changes are made to:

• the US$ 500 000 figure for the prescribed asset threshold
• the 30th June deadline for submission of Form IDG 01 and indigenisation implementation plans
• the 51% control target stated in the regulations.

Changes Made by the Amendments

“Cede” replaced by “dispose of”: Section 3 of the regulations originally called for every business above the prescribed asset threshold [US$500 000] to “cede” at least a 51% interest to indigenous Zimbabweans by March 2015. The amendment replaces “cede” with “dispose of” and defines this term as meaning “sell, donate or otherwise dispose of”. [The Parliamentary Legal Committee [PLC] objected to the word “cede”, with its implication of compulsory acquisition without proper compensation. The term also attracted criticism from legal commentators and stakeholders.] (more…)

We’ve added a News Timeline to the Constitution Resource page on the Sokwanele website. This will track news reports focussing on the constitution outreach programme regularly up until the outreach ends. News sources, plus links to the full articles, are available on the timeline. To access the extracts and links to sources, click on the links on the timeline. The following news extracts have been mailed out to our subscribers today, with further updates to follow. Click here to subscribe to the Sokwanele mailing list.

Chaos and bickering mars constitution making process accreditation and induction

Chaos reigned supreme in some of the country’s provinces as the constitution making process commenced on Monday 21 June 2010. In Harare members of the constitutional outreach team were stranded after officials at Ambassador Hotel refused to accommodate them. As late as 23:00 hrs some members had not yet secured accommodation while few others secured accommodation with their relatives. COPAC coordinator Peter Kunjeku, who attempted to address the outreach team members unsuccessfully tried to convince the members to relocate to ZESA training centre, where he claimed to have secured accommodation for them. But the members could not accept the proposal and accused him of treating them like children. The COPAC members complained of hunger as they were not allocated allowances to purchase food since Monday morning. [ZZZICOMP Press Release - 22 June 2010] (more…)

Via MDC T Press Release: Three MDC activists were on Thursday abducted by State security agents in Chief Svosve area’s in Mashonaland East province and their whereabouts remains unknown.

According to eyewitnesses, Rodreck Shamu and Temba Masimara of Marondera East were abducted by a group of armed men who were driving a white double-cab CAM truck.

Shamu was the first to be abducted at Twoboy business centre while the same people followed Masimara and kidnapped him at Village 17 in ward 21 of Marondera East.

Another MDC activist, only identified as Makunyadze, was later abducted by the same people outside Marondera Hotel.

The three had been instrumental in mobilising MDC supporters in the area to participate in the on-going Constitution-making process. The whereabouts of the three remains unknown and the MDC fears for their safety.

Statement by Morgan Tsvangirai, via MDC Press Release:

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here today to announce a ministerial reshuffle. This reshuffle is about the MDC delivering to the people of Zimbabwe what they are looking for – real change.

Over the past 16 months, we have recorded definite success in certain areas.

• We have brought sanity and stability to the economy.
• We have revived the health sector, which had all but collapsed.
• We have got the schools back up and running, and textbooks distributed.
• We now have independent daily newspapers registered to operate.
• Basic services such as sewerage reticulation, refuse collection and water provision have been restored in many areas.

However, we still have many challenges; and these frankly overshadow our successes to-date.

• The pace of reform has been painfully slow
• Abuses of power are still all too common
• Many people are still struggling to make a living wage, and provide for their families.
• Infrastructure rehabilitation and energy supply continue to inhibit development.

I am acutely aware that these and other challenges have led to a loss of confidence in the new administration amongst the electorate. In response to this, as Prime Minister and President of the MDC, I have just completed a comprehensive review of the performance of the Government, and in particular of my Office and those Ministers who represent the MDC.

As a result, I have decided on a number of changes needed to strengthen the performance of the MDC in government and outside government, in order to deliver real change to the people of Zimbabwe. These changes, are being made with immediate effect, and the new ministers will be sworn in tomorrow, Thursday 24th June. (more…)

We have collated information from several Veritas mailings sent on the 20th May, 20th June and 21st June respectively. This is specifically regarding the constitution outreach venues and dates  for the public consultation process, plus the names and roles of the members of the teams deployed to each province.

You have the right to attend these meetings and to publically voice your opinion on what you think Zimbabwe’s new constitution should look like. Do not let anyone intimidate or harrass you.

We would like to remind you that you can use our comprehensive constitution resource to explore different sections and topics in the exisiting constitution, plus the two other draft constitution documents (the Kariba Draft and the NCA Draft). You can also download copies of these documents from our website (in PDF format) by clicking on the ‘Constitution Documents’ tab. Your opinions do not need be the same as any of the documents already in circulation or on our resource page and you do not need to decide to support one or another draft document. You are entitled to your own views and opinion, and you have the right to express those views publically. Please consider our resource as a background guide into the discussion that may arise at the meetings and use the information there to formulate your own views and arguments.

Veritas today circulated this comment:

It is unfortunate that so many administrative details have been left to the last minute. At a COPAC meeting in Parliament on Friday 17th there were still substantive disagreements and many of those attending the meeting walked out, so the scheduled press conference was cancelled. It means that keeping the public informed about what is happening has taken a back seat. The Chairpersons of the Select Committee of Parliament are to be congratulated in their determination to press on despite all difficulties. It would however have been more helpful to the public and engendered greater transparency and accountability if the COPAC Secretariat had been willing to supply more information.

Veritas spent many hours trying to get updated information so we could inform the public. We kept being told that even the information published by the press was not necessarily correct or up-to-date. We took the decision to send out the outreach itineraries and lists of team members but with the caveat that there might be changes. The lack and lateness of communications has been very frustrating for those in civil society who offered to made themselves available for several months to assist in the process and have been kept hanging for almost a year. It also means that many professional people knowledgeable on constitutional matters will not be taking part.

Please help roll out this information by circulating the information available on the link below widely, and encourage everyone you know to take part in this critically important public process.

Visit our constitution resource for full details of dates, venues and teams for all provinces.

The passage of another month has brought no change in the political stalemate facing the twenty-month old Zimbabwean Global Political Agreement (GPA).

To gain some insight as to why that stalemate still exists, eighty-two news articles from the internet media were captured and catalogued during the month of May. Each article is a unique record of a breach of the terms of the GPA. By categorising articles according to the nature of breach, basic statistics can be drawn from them.

The results speak for themselves. Harassment through the courts of MDC supporters and politicians increased very significantly this month to top the list with fifteen articles (18.3% of the total). Cases of deliberate non-cooperation with GPA partners came in second at fourteen articles (17.1% of the total), while cases of violence, intimidation, hate speech and abductions were third with thirteen articles (15.9% of the total) – of which Zanu-PF were accountable for 92.3%. Cases of corruption came in fourth (12.2% of the total). Summarising just these four most significant categories, Zanu-PF were accountable for 92.3% of breaches of the GPA that were recorded for those four categories. Overall, Zanu-PF were either responsible for, or involved in, 89.0% of all breaches recorded for the GPA for the month of May. (more…)