Principals receive briefings

Government and received briefings from three Cabinet ministers over progress on discussions on the election roadmap, civil servants’ salaries and the media.
Sources confirmed President Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara met and received briefings from Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu.

Minister Chinamasa, the sources said, gave a report on the progress negotiators are making on GPA issues.
Minister Chinamasa’s briefing was meant to prevent the smuggling of issues negotiators would have dealt with or concluded in their discussions to the principals.

“There has been an attempt to smuggle in issues before the principals dealt with or concluded them by the negotiators with an objective to force the principals to make a decision contrary to the decision of the negotiators,” a source said.

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A good example was the Diaspora vote, which the negotiators rejected but found its way to the principals.
“The Diaspora vote was thrown out by the negotiators, but surfaced before the principals.”

The sources said Minister Biti sought audience with the principals and was duly invited to make his presenta- tion.
They said the presentation titled “Implications of the Civil Service Remuneration Review” showed the Finance Minister was still not only convinced that civil servants salaries should not be increased, but maintains there is no money to effect the review announced last week.

However, according to the sources, Minister Biti’s paper made no mention about US$165 million Zimbabwe got under the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights in August 2009.
As a member of the IMF, Zimbabwe got SDR338,57 million, which is equivalent to about US$526,9 million, but according to the fund’s records as at December 31 last year, the country had only used US$270,2 million.

Minister Shamu briefed the principals about the status of parastatals and bodies under his ministry.
Secretary for Media, Information and Publicity Mr George Charamba confirmed Minister Shamu made the presentation on the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust and ZBC.
He said Minister Shamu told the principals that BAZ was in compliance with the Act governing its operations contrary to misconceptions that it was not complying.

The BAZ board was properly constituted as it was made up of nominees from Parliament’s Standing Orders and Rules Committee, chiefs and women’s groups and also had an accountant and a lawyer as outlined in the Act. Mr Charamba said the minister justified that he was entitled to appoint the ZBC board, which unlike that of BAZ was not made up of nominees from political parties.

On the Mass Media Trust, Minister Shamu advised the principals that it made sense to appoint a new board once Government had made an undertaking to fund the trust.
“He indicated to the principals that he was very cautious not to create another democratic institution above institutions already struggling because New Ziana and Kingstons would end up overloading Zimpapers, which is the only viable entity under the Mass Media Trust,” said Mr Charamba.

“So he then pleaded with the principals that the creation of the Mass Media Trust board be accompanied by funding from Government to avoid what happened with the Zimbabwe Media Commission, which ended up being a burden on the ministry.”

The principals then agreed that the appointment of the Mass Media Trust board must happen with a firm commitment of Government funding.

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