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Govt aligns 154 Acts to new Constitution

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THE Department of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs in the Justice ministry has aligned 154 Acts with the national Constitution, NewsDay has learnt. Acting chief law officer, Netsai Zvakasikwa made the disclosure while addressing a war veterans workshop in Kariba yesterday.

THE Department of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs in the Justice ministry has aligned 154 Acts with the national Constitution, NewsDay has learnt. Acting chief law officer, Netsai Zvakasikwa made the disclosure while addressing a war veterans workshop in Kariba yesterday.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

“Two hundred and six Acts out of 396 Acts require alignment to the Constitution, and this brings us to 154 Acts, which have been aligned,” she said. “Of the 116 Acts, 67 are confined to making appropriate provisions for the representation of women in statutory bodies.”

Zvakasikwa said 49 Acts out of the remaining 116 required substantial amendments.

“Looking at these figures, a substantial amount of alignment work has been completed, as we are now left with the final lap,” she said.

members-of-parliament

Zvakasikwa said, unlike other countries like Kenya, which has a constitution implementation committee, Zimbabwe had tasked an inter-ministerial task force on legislative alignment comprising of legal advisers from various ministries to take charge of the process.

She said some ministries had not yet submitted their requests on alignment needs to the task force.

“Others are even ignorant of the legislation that falls under their ambit, and whether there is need for alignment with the new Constitution or not. Under such situations, it makes our work as the task force technical committee quite difficult, as we work with submissions from line ministries,” she said.

Zvakasikwa said some ministries had inadequate legal personnel to do law reviews and development, which stalled the alignment process.

Speaking at the same event, War Veterans ministry secretary, Walter Tapfumaneyi said school fees were a right for the former freedom fighters.

“It is a right and when we demand that school fees for war veterans must be paid, they must provide, and if they cannot do so, they must apologise profusely because these are fundamental rights,” he said. Tapfumaneyi said his ministry required at least $6,4 million per school term to support 33 541 war veterans’ school-going children.