Jomic gives in to Mugabe directive

The Joint Implementation and Monitoring Committee (JOMIC) has ended its spat with officials in President Robert Mugabe's Office after agreeing to surrender vehicles that were issued to them during the tenure of the coalition government.

JOMIC had vowed to resist an order issued by Mugabe's Office to hand over its fleet of vehicles to the Central Mechanical Engineering Department (CMED) and the deadline given for the return of the assets had since elapsed ten days ago.

Mugabe's Office had ordered JOMIC to return the vehicles because the agency's role of monitoring the implementation measures to foster peaceful co-existence among political parties during the tenure of the coalition government of President Mugabe and former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had ceased following the holding of harmonised elections in July and the swearing in of the new Zanu PF government.

But the JOMIC secretariat, whose principals had initially resisted the directive, at the weekend called some of the agency's employees who were allocated vehicles advising them to surrender them in batches starting Monday at the organisation's head office in Harare's Avondale suburb.

JOMIC was set up in January 2009 as a Zimbabwean multi-partisan panel with representatives from Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC party with a mandate to monitor the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

Some of its functions included receiving reports and complaints in respect of any issue related to the implementation, enforcement and execution of the GPA and serving as a catalyst in creating and promoting an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding between the parties.