COPAC blasts media

Mangwana of Zanu (PF), flanked by Copac head of Communication and Publicity, Jesse Majome of MDC-T and Douglas Mwonzora of MDC-T, lambasted journalists for negative reporting on the outreach programme.

“You hate your own country, you hate progress, you behave like uneducated people and you are not patriotic,”said a fuming Mangwana. There have been less than 20 good stories written on the successes of the outreach meetings, “he said.

Mangwana heaped praises on outreach teams saying they had shown national sacrifice by travelling 600km everyday to serve the people of Zimbabwe without adequate resources.

Copac officials are receiving US$25 while rapporteurs earn US$100 every day while living in luxurious hotels across the country. Each of the 1 000 officials is believed to be gobbling US$300 a day in accommodation, fuel and allowances.

Mwonzora reiterated that although Copac had posted some successes, negative media reporting from independent and state media has become a major challenge for them.

“Local media is obsessed with bad news. It has become an incurable problem,” Mwonzora has said, adding “media is only interested in how much workers have been paid, it look like media is now acting as workers committee for the outreach teams”.

Journalists fired back saying their reporting was objective, and Copac should create a conducive environment for journalists to work in.

Some complained that they were harassed or barred from meetings by COPAC officials. They also said intimidation and violence on the countryside was a fact which COPAC should not try to down play. Marcus Tawona

Youths, children

Meanwhile a separate outreach targeting youths and children is to be launched soon.

Mwonzora said the idea was mooted after it was realised that less than 20% of youths had so far participated in the ongoing constitution making process.

We are planning to run a separate programme targeting youths and children in the country because we believe they did not participate adequately,” he said without revealing the source of funding for the crash programme.

He added that COPAC would soon establish draft committees, comprising lawyers and political scientists, to compile peoples comments into a draft.

Public opinion was very divided over issues such as dual citizenship, the death penalty, land tenure system and executive authority. COPAC was therefore contemplating a questionnaire on key issues.

Too much politics

“People will have to mark yes or no on a certain subject rather than just accepting or rejecting the whole draft. The problem we are facing is too much politicisation of issues. There is a serious possibility of people rejecting certain positions based on political persuasions. If one talks of President they think its Mugabe and if one talks of Prime Minister others think of Tsvangirai. We expect people to think beyond political persuasions,” said Mwonzora.

He also said that the issue of intimidation and harassment of innocent citizens remained an area of grave concern. It undesirable and it does not add any political value, he said.