adminThey are expected to hand over the draft to the management committee anytime this week.
The draft contains 18 chapters.
The three Copac co-chairpersons confirmed the development yesterday saying they will table the draft before a full Constitution Select Committee today.
Copac co-chairperson Cde Munyaradzi Mangwana (Zanu-PF) yesterday said they will today table a “corrected document” before handing it over to the Global Political Agreement signatories.
This comes amid reports that Copac last week made a raft of changes to the draft constitution after principal drafters inserted information not solicited from the people.
Principals to the GPA last week gave Copac a two-week ultimatum to complete the process.
“We completed the review of all the chapters yesterday (Monday) and we are left with discussing with other Copac members,” he said.
“We will pass it on to the management committee before it is published. That is when those who were making the wrong analysis would see what is in.”
Cde Mangwana said outstanding issues will be resolved by the management committee, which was expected to meet yesterday.
“We hope they will meet today (yesterday) to iron out differences as we move closer to the second all-stakeholders’ conference. The outcome of their meeting will be part of our draft,” he said.
Some of the outstanding issues include devolution of power, the death penalty and dual citizenship.
Co-chairperson Mr Douglas Mwonzora (MDC-T) said the draft will only be published after all the issues have been resolved.
“We have finished reviewing and there are only a few issues that need consultations,” he said.
“It is our hope that in a few days time everything would have been completed so that we move on to the next stage which is the conference.”
Co-chairperson Mr Edward Mkhosi (MDC) added: “Everything is going on well and we will soon call the drafters to come and write the final draft and we hope this will be done by next week.”
The writing of the new constitution has been stalled on several occasions because of disagreements between the political parties driving the process.
The drafters have also came under fire for failing to use information gathered from the outreach programme.
Some of the information in the draft, which analysts described as “organically flawed”, includes contentious clauses on presidential powers and term limits, dual citizenship and homosexuality.
The draft has since been corrected and some of the clauses that had been left were finally included.
Online Reporter