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The Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (Copac) at the weekend released a notice with the timelines for the remainder of the constitution-making process activities.
Copac said the uploading of data would begin next Monday and should be finalised by the end of the month.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Copac co-chairperson Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana, however, said the referendum would depend on the availability of funds and the amount of time that would be taken in completing the remaining activities.

Cde Mangwana said uploading of data would start after completion of outreach meetings in Harare set for this weekend.
“We still have to look at the submissions from the teams. We will do Harare either this weekend or next week depending on whether the Government gives us funds or not. After that we can then start the uploading process,” said Cde Mangwana.

“We expect that the referendum could be done next year in June or August if all goes on well, that depends on availability of funds. We only got funds for the outreach process and now we would need more funds to complete the whole programme. This should have been done already but because of lack of funding and other factors the programme is behind schedule by a year. Once we get resources, we are sure to complete the whole exercise next year.”

Although Copac successfully concluded the consultative process in most parts of the country, all its activities are beyond schedule according to initial dates set last year when the select committee was established.
According to the notice, Copac would start receiving data from its outreach teams from respective provinces on Thursday with uploading set to begin on 31 October. Thematic groups on specific thematic areas will also start collation of data on the same day pending the start of discussions next month until end of December.

The drafting of the constitution is expected to be done for the whole month in January next year before the second all-stakeholders conference on 31 March.
Copac would then present a report to Parliament on 30 April, which would lead to the referendum in June.