Treasury release funds for the Constitution Select Committee

Treasury has finally released US$5 million towards the constitution making process, an amount which is expected to give a temporary relief to the process which had stalled to due to lack of funds.

After almost a month of waiting for treasury to release funds and move on to the next stage of thematic committees, the Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) will this week receive US$5 million from treasury.

Constitutional Affairs Minister, Advocate Eric Matinenga told ZBC News that treasury has already set aside the funds which are expected to be released by the end of this week.

Advocate Matinenga said with the availed funds, COPAC will now move to the next stage of the constitution making process which requires about US$1,6 million and will enable COPAC to move to other phases which are already budgeted for.

After the completion of the uploading stage in January, COPAC was supposed to commence the thematic stage where the uploaded data is analysed on the 1st of February this year.

However, this could not take place as Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, had not yet released the funds.

The Finace Minister and the donor community have since the commencement of the constitution making process taken their time to release funds, thereby derailing COPAC from working within their plans.

ZANu PF supporters believe the MDC-T is afraid of elections and is trying by all means to delay the inevitable defeat to ZANU-PF come election time.