HARARE – Zimbabwe’s troubled constitutional reforms ground to a halt on Wednesday after running out of cash, a senior official confirmed last night.

Douglass Mwonzora, a joint chairman of the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) in charge of the reforms, told ZimOnline that an exercise to gather citizens’ views on the new charter cannot continue because there is no money for fuel for teams to travel to meetings with members of the public.

Citizens’ contributions should form the basis of the proposed new constitution according to a political agreement signed by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai two years ago that gave birth to their coalition government last year and paved the way for governance reforms.

“We have been getting fuel on credit but suppliers say they now want cash because they have not been paid for long,” said Mwonzora, who is a senior member of Tsvangirai’s MDC party.

He added: “COPAC is engaging treasury so that we can start the outreach soon. But as it stands we are hamstrung by the fact that COPAC doesn’t handle cash. We rely on government and donors to pay directly to suppliers. We are still hopeful that the government will react swiftly to this crisis.”

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has helped mobilise from international donors most of the cash that has funded constitutional reforms to date, has reportedly asked the government to foot the fuel bill.

ZimOnline was last night unable to reach UNDP resident representative in Harare Alain Noudehouis to confirm whether the organisation has asked the government to pay for fuel for the key outreach exercise.

Both Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Constitutional Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga were also not available to shed light as to when the cash-strapped government might be able to raise funds for the outreach exercise to resume.

While Mwonzora was hopeful that the outreach exercise would resume soon, sources at COPAC said head of the commission’s secretariat, Peter Kunjeku, has written to outreach team members to stop the information gathering exercise until money for fuel is found.

According to sources at COPAC, Kunjeku’s memo ordered the close to 700 staff working on the outreach programmne to vacate their hotels by midday Thursday to avoid running high accommodation bills at a time when they would be idle.

“Outreach teams, except those in Mashonaland West are stranded and are not working because of the problem,” said a senior COPAC staffer, who declined to be named because she was not authorised to speak on behalf of the commission.

The staffer added: “Treasury indicated to us a month ago that money for fuel had been approved. But officials there have been telling us the whole week that the actual money was unavailable because government is broke. And we are forced to suspend the outreach exercise until funds are available.”

Cash shortages are only part of myriad problems that have hobbled the constitutional outreach exercise that began in June and is scheduled to run until November.

The outreach exercise has suffered serious administrative glitches, while resurgent political violence and intimidation largely blamed on militants from Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and security forces has left many doubting the credibility of the process.

ZANU PF and the armed forces want the new charter based on a controversial draft constitution known as the Kariba draft prepared by Mugabe’s party and the then opposition MDC parties of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Deputy Arthur Mutambara. 

The 2007 Kariba draft -- that the MDC parties now oppose -- retains a strong presidency and allows Mugabe to stand for another two terms in office.

The proposed new constitution is part of reforms meant to entrench democracy in Zimbabwe. 

The coalition government is expected to call fresh elections once a new constitution is in place although there is no legal requirement for it to immediately do so.

Zimbabweans hope a new constitution will guarantee human rights, strengthen the role of Parliament, as well as guaranteeing civil, political and media freedoms.

By Zimonline