The Sunday Mail
Lincoln Towindo
Government will prioritise amending Section 268 of the National Constitution before promulgating statutory laws outlining the establishment of provincial and metropolitan Councils, The Sunday Mail has established.
The Office of the President and Cabinet has since directed an inter-ministerial committee responsible for drafting the devolution and decentralisation law to immediately craft amendments to the Constitution before the statutory laws can be considered.
Already, the committee has completed a layman draft of the provincial and metropolitan Councils Bill, which has been submitted to the Attorney General’s office for fine tuning.
Justice, Parliamentary and Legal Affairs secretary Mrs Virginia Mabhiza told The Sunday Mail last week that Government was amending the Constitution, to lay the foundations for the establishment of Provincial and Metropolitan councils.
In its current form, Section 268 of the Constitution provides a slot for legislators in the councils, a position that is at variance with the Government’s thinking.
Authorities argue that the inclusion of legislators in the provincial and metropolitan councils creates conflict of interest since Parliament is supposed to hold oversight over the councils.
Mrs Mabhiza said the envisaged constitutional amendments will witness the provision on Parliamentarians sitting in provincial council being removed
“I believe the inter-ministerial committee responsible for drafting the Provincial and Metropolitan Councils bill has completed drafting the layman’s Bill which has now been taken to the Attorney Generals drafting department,” she said.
“We are first going to make an amendment to the chapter that deals with establishment of Provincial Councils in the Constitution.
“We have an instruction from the Office of the President and Cabinet directing us that the Constitutional amendment should go through first then the subsidiary law will have to be drawn from what the constitutions says.
“I am not privy to the latest developments since I am on leave but I understand that the Constitutional amendment has to go through first.”
The devolution framework will be similarly modelled to China’s provinces, which are economic centres that compute their own GDP data for competitiveness purposes.
Government intends to make Harare Metropolitan province the country’s ICT nerve centre, while Bulawayo Metropolitan will be the country’s industrial hub.
Manicaland province, on the other hand, will be turned into the diamond beneficiation centre, with Midlands the iron and steel value-chain beneficiation centre.
Government will also cede significant administrative, political, market and fiscal power to provinces, allowing provinces to craft provincial economic development master plans that feed into the national agenda.
Provincial and metropolitan councils will be required to draft and adopt Regional Investment and Development Master Plans, which derive from the National Investment and Development Master Plan.
Government has allocated US$310 million for the operationalisation of devolution in the 2019 national budget.
