Out of 1000 meetings held so far countrywide, Matebeleland North and South provinces have only held 73 and 78 meetings, compared to the Midlands province which has held 158.
According to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais weekly newsletter, COPAC co-chairperson Edward Mkhosi told journalists they were worried by the low figures of participants attending the consultative meetings.
6205 participants attended the 78 meetings held in Mat North while 8379 attended the 78 meetings in Mat South. Mkhosi said COPAC has recommended that measures be taken to improve the participation in the exercise.
Manicaland province has so far recorded the highest number of participants, 28,273 at 148 meetings held since the exercise was launched six weeks ago.
The program is on a week long break to allow the opening of Parliament on Tuesday and the presentation of the mid-term budget statement on Wednesday. The program will resume today.
Despite Manicaland attracting many participants to its outreach programs, the province is still grappling with incidents of violence and intimidations.
Provincial spokesman for the MDC-T, Pishai Muchauraya, told us Zanu (PF) has not only re-established torture bases, but has also armed its militia members and war veterans.
Its not a sign of good things to come. Violence must be condemned at all costs but we are seeing more and more cases where the police are taking orders from Zanu (PF) to crackdown on MDC supporters.
In Rusape for instance, the District Administrator who is also a Zanu (PF) loyalist, is helping police to flush out MDC activists who on Wednesday demonstrated against moves by Chombo (local government minister) to impose a commission to take over council affairs at Rusape district council, Muchauraya said.
Despite supporters from both Zanu (PF) and the MDC-T clashing during the protest, only MDC-T supporters were arrested by the police.
We have 10 of our supporters in custody right now but none from Zanu (PF) have been picked up. This is all nonsense and the fact that police are moving around with Cosmas Chiringa, (the Rusape DA) door to door flushing out MDC activists who were at the protest yesterday (last Wednesday) is clear who is calling the shots, MP Muchauraya added.
Post published in: News