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Mugabe, PM fail Sadc

Politics
THE coalition government partners have failed to implement several key Sadc resolutions on Zimbabwe made at the Maputo summit in August.

THE coalition government partners – including President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai – have failed to implement several key Sadc resolutions on Zimbabwe made at the Maputo summit in August, it has emerged.

Report by Veneranda Langa, Senior Parliamentary Reporter

  The recommendation by Sadc was that the political parties in the Global Political Agreement (GPA) should “establish a mechanism in Cabinet that will ensure co-ordination and the implementation by ministries/ departments of those parts of the agreements that talk to their line functions to ensure smooth implementation and that Sadc, through the facilitators, must be kept informed of the implementation mechanism”.

  Apparently, this recommendation has not been implemented at all and officials from the coalition parties and senior government officials yesterday confirmed this. Some of them agreed this shortcoming could cripple progress towards the holding of elections that the parties appear to have agreed to have next year. Up to date there is no committee or mechanism that has been set up to liaise with Cabinet to facilitate the Sadc recommendations.

  Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jameson Timba confirmed Cabinet had not been approached by the parties with regard to the way forward towards the implementation of the agreed GPA resolutions.

  Timba said: “I can confirm that aspect of the resolution – that it is yet to be implemented by Cabinet.  However, it is the GPA negotiators who can explain to you why up to now that aspect of the Sadc recommendations has not been implemented.”

  The GPA negotiator representing MDC (Ncube), Moses Mzila-Ndlovu, also confirmed Timba’s observation, but attributed the failure to the composition of the GPA principals where Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara was still a member at the expense of Welshman Ncube.

  Mzila-Ndlovu said this created a situation where the principals were unable to come up with meaningful decisions on how to implement Sadc resolutions. He said as negotiators, they were guided on what course of action to take by their principals and, as such, with Ncube out of the equation, it had not been possible for his party to push for such GPA implementation mechanisms.

  “Up to date we have not been informed as GPA negotiators if any committee has been set up by Cabinet, or if any implementation mechanisms have been put in place to ensure the GPA is fully implemented.  The principals are the ones responsible for implementing the Maputo resolutions as leaders of Cabinet,” he said.

  “However, that has hit a brick wall because they have not done that as they (principals) are illegally constituted.  President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai are the worst violators of the GPA because they are still hosting DPM Mutambara and that is why Sadc resolutions have not been implemented,” Mzila-Ndlovu said.

  The other Sadc resolution that Zimbabwe has failed to implement to date is the co-option of three Sadc representatives – Ambassador David Katye from Tanzania, Zambian diplomat Colly Muunyu and a South African representative from the facilitation team – into the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic) to help monitor the implementation of the GPA.

  The attachment of the three Sadc representatives to Jomic had been pending since 2011 following recommendations by the Sadc Troika at the Extraordinary Sadc Summit in Sandton.

  Elton Mangoma, the MDC-T negotiator, yesterday said the Sadc representatives were supposed to be introduced last week, on September 28, but that failed to take place because there was no quorum.

  As a result, the Sadc representative who had travelled from Tanzania had a wasted trip.

  “We were supposed to have a meeting with them and Jomic last week, but we failed to constitute a quorum,” said Mangoma.

  Jomic operations sub-committee member Oppah Muchinguri (Zanu PF), however, said the three Sadc representatives were due to be co-opted into Jomic next week. She said the process had taken long because their countries failed to second them on time.

  “Change of governments in their countries, for example, Zambia also slowed down progress of their secondment.  The co-chairs will meet next week and the Sadc representatives will be introduced to Jomic,” said Muchinguri.