Online Reporter
We the undersigned hereby make this submission on behalf of the Zimbabwe Indigenous Interdenominational Council of Churches (ZIICC), the main Umbrella Body representing Zimbabwean Indigenous Christian Apostolic, Pentecostal, Evangelical and other Church Denominations with a combined membership in excess of 8.7 million Zimbabweans, making up over half of both the national and Christian population of Zimbabwe.
We submit this statement to the Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe in the matter of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026.
We make this submission as shepherds of the people, as men and women of God who have walked with Zimbabwe’s communities in times of struggle and in times of harvest, and who bear a sacred obligation to speak when the destiny of our land is being shaped. The Church has always been present at Zimbabwe’s defining moments: in the liberation struggle, in the making of the 2013 Constitution, and in the building of the Second Republic. We are present today.
We submit this statement in full acknowledgement of the supremacy of Almighty God, in whose hands our future lies, as proclaimed in the Preamble to the Constitution of Zimbabwe. We are guided by the conviction that governance is a divine stewardship, that authority is held in trust on behalf of the people, and that the institutions of this nation, foremost among them the Parliament of Zimbabwe, are instruments through which the sovereign will of the people is expressed and exercised.
Our churches are not confined to the cities. They are congregations in the rural districts of every province, communities that know this land and its people from the ground up. Our congregants are the farmers, the teachers, the mothers, the young men and women who built this country and who will inherit it. We speak on their behalf and in their name.
We submit this statement in support of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1 Bill, 2026, and we do so with conviction, with clarity, and with the full authority of our calling.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE OF PARLIAMENT: THE PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY SPOKEN
There is a teaching that runs through the apostolic tradition, through the prophetic movements, and through the oldest streams of African Christianity in this land: that authority given by God must be exercised by those to whom it was given, and that to usurp that authority, however, well-intentioned the usurper, is itself a violation of the divine order.
The people of Zimbabwe gave their legislative authority to Parliament. They did so in 2013 when they made their Constitution; and they did so in 2023, through a free election conducted under universal adult suffrage, in accordance with the founding values of section 3(2)(b) of the Constitution. They elected their Senators and their Members of the National Assembly. They entrusted to those men and women the power to make law, to protect the Constitution, and to exercise legislative oversight in the national interest. The people of Zimbabwe discharged their democratic mandate. Parliament now carries that mandate forward in the name of and for the people.
Section 117(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013 declares that the legislative authority of Zimbabwe is derived from the people and is vested in and exercised in accordance with the Constitution by the Legislature. Section 117(2)(a) confirms that this legislative authority includes the power to amend the Constitution in accordance with section 328. Section 119(1) affirms that Parliament must protect the Constitution and promote democratic governance in Zimbabwe. Section 119(2) confirms that Parliament has power to ensure that the provisions of the Constitution are upheld and that the State and all institutions and agencies of Government at every level act constitutionally and in the national interest.
These are not technicalities. They are the constitutional expression of a truth that our communities have always understood: those entrusted with legislative authority must exercise it. Parliament was entrusted. Parliament must act.
We therefore affirm, without equivocation, that the deliberation on and passage of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026 lies squarely and exclusively within the constitutional mandate of Parliament and Parliament alone. It is not the mandate of any church council, any church conference, any professional body, any civic coalition, or any external body. It is Parliament’s mandate. And Parliament’s exercise of that mandate is not and cannot be a threat to democracy, it is democracy itself.
We affirm that the public participation requirement of section 141 of the Constitution has been fulfilled. Parliament conducted public hearings across all administrative districts of Zimbabwe. The Clerk of Parliament opened the written submission process to every Zimbabwean and every organisation that wished to be heard. That is what section 141 requires, meaningful participation, not unanimous consent. The Constitution does not grant anybody or any organisation a veto over Parliament. It grants citizens a voice. That voice has been heard. Parliament must now deliberate and decide.
It must be said plainly: when any institution, however respected, however sincere in its convictions, tells Parliament to withdraw a Bill that has been constitutionally introduced and publicly consulted upon, that institution is not defending democracy. It is seeking to substitute its own judgment for the judgment of the people’s elected representatives. Submissions to Parliament are inputs. They are offerings of perspective. They are not instructions or demands; and they are not vetoes.
2. THE NATION MUST FINISH
WHAT IT HAS STARTED
The Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026 states in its preamble: “AND WHEREAS national development programmes benefit from stability and continuity of policies and legislative frameworks within a predictable governance environment, thereby enabling such programmes to be implemented to completion.” This is not the language of political convenience. It is the language of a nation with a clear developmental vision and the determination to see it through. Vision 2030, adopted in October 2018, was Zimbabwe’s most ambitious, detailed and comprehensive long-term development framework since independence, charting a pathway to a prosperous and empowered upper-middle-income society by 2030. It was followed by the National Development Strategy 1, launched on 16 November 2020, as the first five-year implementation instrument of Vision 2030, built through extensive consultations across all sectors of Zimbabwean society. These are internationally recognised, fully costed, and carefully constructed development frameworks that represent the most serious national planning Zimbabwe has undertaken since independence.
Our congregants do not engage with these as policy abstractions. They know which infrastructure was promised to their districts. They know which irrigation schemes, road rehabilitation projects, and health facilities were allocated to their communities. They pinned their hopes on Vision 2030 and on NDS1 as specific commitments to specific people. The content of these frameworks has never been seriously disputed. The objection has never been to the content. It has always been to the Government advancing it.
Both were derailed. Vision 2030’s early implementation phase was disrupted by the political instability that rocked the country in January 2019, which cost the nation critical momentum at precisely the moment the Second Republic needed to establish its developmental foundation. That turbulence was not accidental. It was a deliberate attempt to destabilise a government that had committed itself to a developmental agenda whose benefits would reach the very communities that the architects of that turbulence claimed to represent. NDS1 then faced a double assault: the Covid-19 pandemic, which no Government anywhere in the world foresaw or escaped, and the deliberate political agitation of 31 July 2020, which sought to weaponise the pandemic’s disruption for political ends at the moment when Zimbabwe needed unity and focus the most. The same forces that disrupted the implementation of Vision 2030 and NDS1 then, are the same forces that oppose their protection now. The Covid-19 experience also exposed a post-colonial structural truth manifesting across Africa, which Zimbabwe felt with particular force: the five-year governance cycle is insufficient to absorb and recover from a major exogenous shock or to foster key infrastructural development.
When disruption, whether natural or manufactured, strikes mid-term, the government loses years of effective implementation time with no recovery space. Every setback becomes a governance catastrophe rather than a manageable interruption.
The extension of the presidential election cycle from five to seven years, effected by clause 4 of the Bill, which amends section 95(2)(b) of the Constitution, and the corresponding extension of the parliamentary term effected by clause 9 of the Bill, which amends section 143(1) of the Constitution, are the necessary constitutional response to this developmental reality. We see seven years not as an arbitrary number.
It is the governance space required to plan, absorb disruption, recover, and complete programmes of the scale and ambition that Vision 2030 and NDS2 represent. Vision 2030 is not a slogan to our congregants. It is a promise that must be kept. This Bill ensures that the keeping of that promise is not interrupted again.
We also speak as people of faith for whom the number seven carries a weight and a spiritual meaning that no secular argument can fully capture. The Bible teaches in Leviticus 25 and Exodus 23 that God commanded His people to work the land for six years and to rest it in the seventh, a Sabbath year of restoration, renewal, and completion. The principle is not merely agricultural. It is a divine architecture for the relationship between labour and rest, between the effort of building and the completion of what was built. Seven years of dedicated, uninterrupted work, followed by a moment of renewal. That is the Sabbath principle. That is what this Bill proposes for Zimbabwe. We note with deep respect, and with a measure of holy recognition, that this principle was not first introduced into Zimbabwe’s constitutional conversation by the drafters of this Bill. It was introduced by the church. On 7 October 2019, a coalition of Christian denominations, in a statement that drew on precisely these biblical themes of Sabbath and Jubilee, called upon the nation to observe a seven-year political sabbath, a season of non-competitive electoral politics, non-partisan dedication to national healing, economic recovery, and the rebuilding of trust.
The statement noted that Zimbabwe would reach its Jubilee year in 2029 and called for seven years of national dedication to that goal. We say to those who made that call in 2019: your prayer was heard. The drafters of this Bill listened to the Church. They took the seven-year principle that your pastoral wisdom identified as the right season for Zimbabwe’s renewal and gave it lasting constitutional expression. Those who had the vision in 2019 should be the first to congratulate Parliament for honouring the Church’s own wisdom. We call upon them, with all the grace and generosity that the Sabbath spirit demands, to recognise in this Bill the fulfilment of their own prophetic declaration, and to add their voices to ours in support of the passage of the Bill.
We note that the drafters of the Bill have engaged directly, transparently, and explicitly with the provisions of section 328 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013. Clause 4 of the Bill inserts new subsection (2a) into section 95 of the Constitution, stating that notwithstanding section 328(7) of the Constitution, subsection (2)(b) of section 95 of the Constitution shall apply to the continuation in office of the President. Clause 9 of the Bill inserts new subsection (2a) into section 143 of the Constitution, stating that notwithstanding section 328(7) of the Constitution, subsection (1) of section 143 of the Constitution shall apply to the continuation in office of the Senate and National Assembly. We have understood that the “notwithstanding” phrase is not meant to amend, modify or override section 328(7) but to make clear that sections 95(2) and 143(1) being amended by Clauses 4 and 9 of the Bill are NOT term limit provisions. The same approach and use of the “notwithstanding” phrase was used when section 186 was amended under Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No.2) Act 2021 The drafters of the Bill have been transparent and they have respected the law and followed binding precedent. They have not attempted to circumvent section 328 of the Constitution by stealth or omission. If there are legal questions to be resolved, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, not religious or other institutions, is the only institution mandated by the Constitution to resolve them.
We further observe that the argument for a national referendum, which has been advanced in this debate, rests on a misreading of section 328 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013. Section 328(7) of the Constitution provides that an amendment to a term-limit provision shall not apply to the benefit of any person who held that office at the time of the amendment. However, section 328(7) is only engaged if and only if the provision being amended is first established to be a “term-limit provision” within the meaning of section 328(1) of the Constitution. Section 328(1) of the Constitution defines a “term-limit provision” as a provision of the Constitution which limits the length of time that a person may hold or occupy a public office. Section 95(2)(b) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013, which governs the presidential term of office, does not fix a personal cap on how long any individual may hold the presidency. It makes the presidential term or cycle coterminous with Parliament’s lifespan, measuring the term by reference to Parliament’s duration rather than imposing a fixed period attached to the person who holds office as President. It is, therefore, not a “term-limit provision” within the technical meaning of section 328(1) of the Constitution. If the premise that section 95(2)(b) is a term-limit provision is not satisfied, then section 328(7) is never triggered and its consequence, the incumbent-protection rule requiring a referendum, does not activate.
The argument for a referendum, therefore, fails at its first step. This reading has been the subject of serious legal scholarship and is currently before the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, which is the only appropriate institution to make the final constitutional determination. Parliament is entitled, constitutionally and democratically, to proceed with its deliberations in the meantime.
3. ON THE REFORM OF OUR ELECTORAL AND GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS
We affirm our support for the institutional reforms proposed in the Bill. Taken together, these reforms reflect a commitment to strengthening the architecture of governance, clarifying institutional mandates, and building structures that serve Zimbabwe’s long-term development needs. We address each substantive reform in turn.
Clause 2 of the Bill inserts a new section 43A into the Constitution of Zimbabwe, transferring responsibility for voter registration, the compilation of voters’ rolls and registers, and their maintenance to the Registrar-General. The Registrar-General is the custodian of the national civil registry, the record of births, deaths, marriages, and the national identity of every Zimbabwean citizen under the Births and Deaths Registration Act and the National Registration Act. It is administratively coherent and practically sound that the same office which holds the identity records of every citizen should also hold responsibility for registering that citizen to vote. This integration of civil and electoral registration builds on Zimbabwe’s existing national registration infrastructure and places the voters’ roll in the hands of the institution best placed technically to maintain it accurately and comprehensively.
Clause 3 of the Bill repeals and replaces section 92 of the Constitution, introducing a parliamentary method for the election of the President. Under the amended section 92(1) as proposed in the Bill, the President must be elected by the members of Parliament in a joint sitting of the Senate and the National Assembly. Section 92(3), as proposed, would require that a candidate receive more than half of the valid votes cast by members of Parliament to be elected President, with a run-off provision under the proposed section 92(4) where no candidate achieves an absolute majority in the first ballot. Section 92(5) would provide that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission presides over the election.
Section 88(1) of the Constitution declares that executive authority derives from the people of Zimbabwe and must be exercised in accordance with the Constitution. A President elected by Parliament, the House of the people’s chosen representatives, is a President whose mandate flows directly through the institution the people themselves have constituted and entrusted with their legislative and representative authority under section 117(1) of the Constitution. This model is practised in respected democracies across the African continent, such as in Botswana and the wider world, and it does not sever the connection between the President and the people. It channels that connection through the most accountable democratic institution in the Republic.
Our communities have paid the price of electoral toxicity with their peace, their livelihoods, and their social cohesion. Every presidential election cycle since 1990 has brought with it a season of heightened tension, of communities divided, of families separated along political lines, of ordinary citizens caught between competing political forces in ways that leave lasting wounds. In our considered view, the removal of the direct presidential election, effected by Clause 3 of the Bill, is not a democratic regression. It is a recognition that the high-stakes, winner-takes-all presidential contest has been an unnecessary recurring source of political tension and social division in Zimbabwe’s post-independence life. A parliamentary election of the President reduces the intensity of every polling day for the ordinary Zimbabwean who wants nothing more than to participate in their democracy and return home in peace. As churches that have ministered in communities affected by the cycles of perennial electoral tension, we affirm this reform not merely as a constitutional preference but as a pastoral necessity.
Clause 11 of the Bill inserts new section 159A into the Constitution, establishing the Zimbabwe Electoral Delimitation Commission as a dedicated body responsible for the delimitation of electoral boundaries. Section 159A(1)(a) would provide for a chairperson who must be a Supreme Court judge, a former Supreme Court judge, or a person qualified for appointment as a Supreme Court judge, appointed after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission. Section 159A(1)(b) would provide for four additional members bringing expertise in law, administration and governance, demography or cartography, and electoral administration respectively. The creation of a specialised delimitation body with judicial leadership and multi-disciplinary expertise is a proactive governance improvement that gives electoral boundary determination the dedicated institutional focus and technical specialisation that the function requires. Clause 12 of the Bill amends section 160 of the Constitution and Clause 13 amends section 161 to give effect to this much needed separation of functions throughout the relevant constitutional provisions. This will ensure that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is not both the referee and player in the conduct of elections.
Clause 14 of the Bill amends section 167 of the Constitution by inserting new subsection (6), which provides that the Constitutional Court may decide any other matter if the Constitutional Court grants leave to appeal on the grounds that the matter raises an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the Court. This is a meaningful and progressive expansion of access to justice for all Zimbabweans. Under section 167 of the Constitution as it currently stands, the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction is confined to constitutional matters. The proposed amendment broadens the Court’s reach to cover important questions of law that affect the rights and interests of citizens at the highest level. More Zimbabweans, across a broader range of legal disputes, will be able to bring their cases before the highest Court in the land. We affirm this as a reform that serves the judicial interests of the people of Zimbabwe.
Clause 15 of the Bill amends section 180 of the Constitution by inserting “and all other judges” after “High Court” in section 180(2), and by repealing subsections (3), (4), (4a) and (5) of section 180 of the Constitution. The amended section 180 provides for the appointment of judges after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission. An independent judiciary is a pillar of constitutional governance and the rule of law. The retention of Judicial Service Commission consultation in the appointment of all judges under the amended section 180(2) of the Constitution preserves the institutional safeguards that judicial independence requires. We are satisfied that this provision maintains the checks that protect the integrity of Zimbabwe’s courts.
4. THE DIGNITY, FREEDOM, AND SOVEREIGNTY OF TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP
Clause 21 of the Bill amends section 281 of the Constitution by repealing subsection (2), which imposed a code of conduct on traditional leaders restricting their political expression and participation. We affirm this amendment with full conviction, and we do so not as a political preference but as a matter of principle that goes to the heart of African identity, African dignity, and the meaning of the liberation struggle itself.
Our traditional leaders are not colonial constructs. They are not administrative functionaries appointed by a distant government to manage rural populations. They are the living custodians of the sovereignty of their people, the inheritors of chieftainships that existed before the first colonial flag was planted on this soil, that survived the wars of dispossession, that endured the indignities of the Native Affairs system, and that emerged from the liberation struggle with their legitimacy intact and their authority renewed by the communities they serve.
Section 281(2) of the Constitution as it currently stands places a constitutional restriction on the political expression of traditional leaders that sits uneasily alongside the broader rights framework of the same Constitution. The 2013 Constitution, in its Preamble, celebrates the vibrancy of Zimbabwe’s traditions and cultures, and section 67(2)(d) guarantees every Zimbabwean citizen the right to participate in peaceful activities to influence, challenge or support the policies of the Government or any political or whatever cause. A traditional leader is a Zimbabwean citizen. Clause 21 of the Bill resolves this tension by restoring to our traditional leaders the full dignity of Zimbabwean citizenship while preserving the sacred dignity of their traditional office. It is a correction that brings the Constitution’s treatment of traditional leaders into alignment with its own foundational values.
Our indigenous church communities understand, perhaps better than any other constituency in Zimbabwe, what traditional leadership means in the lived reality of rural communities. The chief is the primary point of governance for millions of Zimbabweans who live beyond the reach of formal state structures. He or she resolves land disputes before they become court cases. He or she mediates between families before conflicts become violence. He or she holds the social fabric of his or her community together through drought, displacement, and political pressure. In our Apostolic communities in particular, the relationship between church leadership and traditional authority is not a relationship of competition but of complementarity, two forms of community leadership that have co-existed and reinforced each other across generations. Chiefs and church elders sit together at community gatherings. They bury the same dead. They counsel the same families. They carry the same people. To remove the political freedom of one is to diminish the standing of both.
The practical consequences of section 281(2) of the Constitution as it currently stands are worth stating plainly. A traditional leader who cannot publicly express a political view cannot fully advocate for his or her community’s interests in the political processes that determine how resources are allocated, how infrastructure is planned, and how policy is made. He or she cannot publicly support a development programme without risking a constitutional challenge to his or her conduct. Clause 21 of the Bill removes that constraint and allows traditional leaders to engage fully and freely in the governance of their communities and their nation.
The placement of the traditional leaders’ code of conduct in an Act of Parliament rather than the Constitution, as stated in the memorandum to the Bill in relation to clause 21, is a more democratic and more appropriate form of accountability. An Act of Parliament can be reviewed, refined, and improved through democratic deliberation as Zimbabwe grows and as circumstances evolve. A constitutional provision is rigid and difficult to amend.
The nuanced realities of traditional governance across different regions, cultures, and chieftainships are better governed by legislation that Parliament can adapt than by a constitutional provision frozen in another era. This keeps the regulation of traditional leadership within the reach of the people’s representatives rather than beyond it.
5. ON RECONCILIATION, HEALING, AND THE CHURCH’S COVENANT WITH ZIMBABWE
Clause 22 of the Bill repeals Part 6 of Chapter 12 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013, which established the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. We address this provision with the pastoral seriousness it deserves, and we do so with full conviction.
Section 251 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe 2013 is explicit: the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission was given a constitutional lifespan of ten years from the date of commencement of the Constitution, which came into force on 22 August 2013. That ten-year constitutional mandate expired on 22 August 2023. The Commission has, since that date, been operating beyond the constitutional term for which it was originally established by the people of Zimbabwe. Clause 22 of the Bill gives that constitutional closure legal effect. The argument that this clause destroys reconciliation therefore rests on a foundation that section 251 of the Constitution does not support.
This is not an abandonment of reconciliation. It is a recognition that reconciliation is too important, too sacred, and too deeply rooted in the life of this nation to be confined to a single Government commission with a ten-year constitutional mandate. The Bill invites Zimbabwe to embed reconciliation more broadly, in the life of its communities, its institutions, and its churches, and we accept that invitation as a partnership between the church and the state in service of national healing.
The ministry of reconciliation is not a Government programme alone. It is a divine mandate that the Church has always shared with the institutions of the state. We are guided by the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, that God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them, and that he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. That ministry was given to the church before any constitution was written, and the church has carried it alongside the state and will continue to do so.
Zimbabwe carries the aspiration for national unity and healing that the Constitution itself expresses in its Preamble, the aspiration of a people united in their diversity by a common desire for freedom, justice and equality. Our churches are committed to that aspiration. We have always worked alongside Government, traditional leaders, and community structures to build the peace and unity that Zimbabwe deserves. We reaffirm that commitment now.
We, therefore, make a solemn commitment before Parliament and before God: the churches represented in this submission will intensify our reconciliation and healing work across Zimbabwe’s communities in partnership with Government and traditional institutions. We will support the establishment of whatever statutory framework Parliament puts in place to carry this work forward, and we will bring the resources, the reach, and the moral authority of our congregations to bear in support of national healing.
We call upon Parliament to ensure, through the legislative processes that follow the passage of this Bill, that any statutory framework established to carry forward reconciliation work protects the rights of those with pending matters, ensures continuity of ongoing processes, and affirms Zimbabwe’s unwavering commitment to healing and national unity.
6. OUR CALL TO PARLIAMENT
We do not come before Parliament as lobbyists or as partisans. We come as pastors, as prophets, and as elders of the faith, men and women who have stood at graves and at altars, who have blessed harvests and mourned droughts, who have preached in this land and prayed for its future. We come bearing the voices of millions of Zimbabweans who worship in our churches, who till the soil of this land, who send their children to its schools, and who pray for Zimbabwe every day that God grants them breath.
We have read the Constitution of Zimbabwe (2013). We have read the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment No. 3) H.B.1. Bill, 2026. We have prayed over both. And we are satisfied, constitutionally, morally, and spiritually, that what Parliament is being asked to do is lawful, necessary, just and within its sovereign remit.
We call upon the Honourable Members of the National Assembly and the Senate to fearlessly deliberate on this Bill with wisdom, with courage, and with the legislative confidence that belongs to an institution that carries the people’s mandate. We call upon Parliament to exercise the legislative authority that the people have vested in it under section 117(1) of the Constitution. We call upon Parliament to protect the Constitution and to promote democratic governance as required by section 119(1) of the Constitution. We call upon Parliament to pass this Bill in the national interest.
We call upon our fellow church leaders, across all denominations and traditions, to trust and support the institutions of this Republic. The Parliament of Zimbabwe is the House of the people. It must be allowed to stand, to deliberate, and to decide without being intimidated or weakened. Constitutional bodies are strengthened by letting them to do their constitutional job. Usurping their role is never a solution.
We further commit, as churches with reach into every community in every province and district of Zimbabwe, to be active champions of the development programmes that this Bill protects. Our leaders will speak about Vision 2030 and NDS2 in their communities not as political programmes but as national covenants that belong to every Zimbabwean.
Our community structures will support the implementation of these programmes in their localities. Our congregations will hold their communities accountable to the vision of a prosperous Zimbabwe that this Bill makes possible. The church will not merely or only support this Bill in Parliament; but also in the communities of Zimbabwe.
This nation has survived what would have broken others. It has endured colonialism, sanctions, economic pressure, and the long seasons of uncertainty that followed. It is still here. Its people are still here. They are in our churches every day and week, praying, working, building, hoping. They are not asking for perfect institutions. They are asking for institutions that function, for governance that continues, for a Government that is allowed to finish what it started. That is what this Bill makes possible. That is what this Parliament has the authority and the obligation to deliver.
We submit this statement not as the final word on a complex national question, but as the testimony of churches that have stood with Zimbabwe through every season of its history and that stand with it now. We have prayed over this Bill.
We have listened to our congregations. And we are satisfied that what Parliament is being asked to do serves the best interests of the nation, honours its Constitution, and answers the prayers of the millions of Zimbabweans who fill our pews, our shrines, our prayer mountains, and our open-air gatherings every week.
Pass this Bill. Zimbabwe is waiting.
On behalf of the churches as represented by the Zimbabwe Indigenous Interdenominational Council of Churches (ZIICC), therefore, we the undersigned submit this statement to the Parliament of Zimbabwe on this sixteenth day of May 2026.
