Govt completes translation of constitution into 16 languages

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has revealed that the government has completed the translation of the constitution into all 16 languages recognised by the supreme law and will commence printing soon.

Ziyambi also highlighted that a committee of experts made up of all stakeholders had finalised the translation and printing will commence once funds have been secured.

The Minister confirmed the development whilst responding to questions from senators last week.

Said Ziyambi:

"Indeed, the process to translate our Constitution into all our languages started some time ago. We constituted a Committee that included linguistic experts and some legal experts in the form of retired judges to ensure that we capture the essence of the Constitution when we translate it to the vernacular languages."

"We started with, like she rightly said, Shona and Ndebele. We also had Chewa and Tonga, but we have since finished the exercise of translating the Constitution into all the 16 languages. Funds permitting, we will be producing the Constitution in all the languages.