GWERU — Zimbabwe’s new constitution, if adopted in the March 16 referendum, will give people the right to take top government officials to the constitutional court for poor performance. Report by Blessed Mhlanga
Speaking at a Copac, media and civil society workshop on Monday, Copac co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana said the draft constitution would allow ordinary Zimbabweans to take underperforming government officials, including ministers, ministerial secretaries, and other top civil servants to the constitutional court for poor performance.
“People employed in public offices can now be taken to court by the public for failure to deliver services which are guaranteed in this constitution in Chapter 9,” said Mangwana.
The Copac draft would ensure that parastatals are not allowed to continue plundering national resources through corruption.
“Most corruption and erosion of most of our national resources takes place at parastatals and to safeguard these resources and values, we have ensured through the constitution that members of the public have a say and remedy by opening a way of seeking redress through the constitutional court,” said Mangwana.
Mangwana took the opportunity to defend the draft constitution, saying it was the best people-driven document to ever emerge in Zimbabwe – surpassing the Lancaster House constitution, the Kariba and NCA drafts.
“This is the best constitution to ever emerge in Zimbabwe which was written by the people of Zimbabwe. Those who oppose it like Dr Lovemore Madhuku talk of the utopian democracy which can never be found anywhere in the world even in heaven, even when God appointed Kings he did not consult the Israelites,” said Mangwana.
Madhuku has publicly opposed the Copac draft constitution saying it was a politically driven process which excluded the voices of the ordinary people.
