Jomic Co-Chairman Professor Welshman Ncube obsessed with the trivia and delussional over the GPA outstanding issues.Jomic co-chairman from the MDC-M Professor Welshman Ncube would like us to believe that there are no longer any outstanding issues concerned with the GPA.
“Everything in the GPA has been talked about at different levels and at different platforms. It therefore does not make sense for people to say there are outstanding issues in the agreement.
People need to understand the terminology. The fact that there are disagreements or that the other part maybe slow in the implementation does not make an issue outstanding.
What remains of the GPA is the full implementation and Jomic is there to deal with all the problematic areas of the agreement which is exactly what we are doing,” he reportedly told one pro Zanu PF website recently.
Prof Ncube may not now it but he has a very bad reputation as an arrogant and holier than thou political tribalist with very limited constituent support let alone national support.
That is why he was resoundingly defeated by MDC-T vice President now Deputy Premier Thokozani Khupe in the March 2008 elections.
He is reported to have specifically demanded to contest Khupe specifically to show MDC-T President and current Premier Morgan Tsvangirai that he had remained with the chuff of the Matabeleland following the 12 October 2005 split of the Party that he masterminded.
He was humiliated and has never forgiven MDC-T for that.
That is why he is going at a tangent by alleging there are no GPA outstanding issues but rather disagreements emanating from the GPA that remain to be sorted out.
The GPA was signed and sealed on 15 September 2008 and thus became the benchmark upon which the formation of the inclusive government and its achievements or failures will be measured and evaluated.
When reference is made to outstanding GPA issues it is in respect of the clauses in the agreement that have still to be implemented.
Professor Ncube must surely understand that there is no difference between what he calls “disagreements or that the other part maybe slow in the implementation” and what the entire nation regards as outstanding issues from the GPA.
It is sad when a person occupying such a senior position in Jomic as does Prof Ncube resorts to lecturing the nation on trivia of semantics instead of dealing with the real issues that Jomic was established to monitor.
The GPA is a signed political agreement between Zanu PF, MDC-T and MDC political Parties wherein they agreed to form a coalition government in place of the one that could not be formed following the March 2008 elections due to interventions that have been dealt with sufficiently enough to make them common cause and thus not form the basis of this piece.
In agreeing to form the coalition government the GPA subscribers made certain specific undertakings to the nation on what the coalition government was to do in order to restore the supremacy of the electorate in determining who should or should not be in government.
It is no exaggeration to say that the GPA was breached on the very date it was signed when President Mugabe deliberately failed and or refused swear in the Premier and his deputies there and then to formalise the start of the formation of the coalition government.
Because of that refusal or failure, action to form the coalition government was stalled until 11 February 2009 and this only because SADC had decreed a timeline for the subscribers to follow if they expected its support.
Outstanding issue the unilateral appointment of Dr GonoEven then the formation process was not completed and remains incomplete to date with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture nominee still to be sworn into office and the Provincial governors and positions of Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General still to be filled by the coalition government as agreed in the GPA and at the subsequent SADC summit on 26-27 January 2009.
Professor Welshman Ncube says there are disputes over these issues in the formation of the coalition government that Jomic is dealing with but that does not make them outstanding GPA issues which does not make sense.
For the ordinary Zimbabwean whose vote counted for nothing in the formation of the current government the question is was there agreement between MDC-T, MDC and Zanu PF to form a coalition government in which each party would nominate a certain number of Ministers and Deputies for appointment as such by the President and if so was that done to the letter of the agreement or as alternatively renegotiated and agreed upon by the GPA subscribers?
Obviously if the answer is yes then the issue has been resolved but if the answer is to the contrary then the issue remains outstanding. It is that simple really but Prof Ncube wants us to believe that if any of the issues has not been implemented because of a later day dispute among the GPA subscribers then that issue is not outstanding but as he puts it issues of “disagreements or that the other part maybe slow in the implementation,” whatever that means.
Going by Professor Ncube’s warped reasoning an issue becomes outstanding in the GPA if it has not been included in the agreement but not if it has been included but never implemented which is outrageous.
The GPA was not signed to be archived but to guide the implementation process of the coalition government formation and its resolution of issues that failed the formation of a government following the March 2008 elections.
In that respect therefore there are several issues that remain for the subscribers to the GPA to attend to and ensure they have been implemented as agreed by the parties.
In the GPA it was agreed that parties would form a coalition government that would work towards achieving economic stabilization and turnaround, national healing and reconciliation, the democratization of the country’s political processes and facilitation of humanitarian aid and access thereof.
To achieve these broad objectives the coalition government agreed to take certain specific actions which actions have been in some instances varied and or neglected altogether making them outstanding from the GPA.
We have in mind the swearing in of Ministers and their deputies that was agreed to be completed by 13 February 2009 but is yet to be completed.
The review of appointments of Provincial Governors, the Reserve Bank Governor, the Attorney General and other Senior Government officers such as Ambassadors by the coalition government which is yet to be realised.
Chief Persecutor Johaness Tomana Zanu PF AGThe cessation of politically motivated hostilities, land invasions, selective application of laws, retraining of law enforcement agencies and restoration of political freedoms including the freeing of airwaves, appointment of the Parliamentary Standing Rules and orders Committee, the Electoral, the Anticorruption, the Media Commission and the Human Rights commissions.
Surely Professor Ncube would be in the know of what has happened to these agreements and why some have yet to be realised.
In addition to that we ask Prof Ncube what has happened to the National healing and reconciliation process and who has been healed or reconciled by it?
Why is the State media still preaching hate against the MDC-T and why are only MDC-T activists and MP’s being arrested, prosecuted and acquitted of the charges if the charges are substantive?
Why is the Constitution making process behind the agreed schedule and what is Jomic doing to ensure this extremely important issue does not lapse into the category of outstanding issues?
Brigadier Mujaji leading later day farm invasions and evictions despite the signing of the GPAWhy are farmers being evicted from their farms and sentenced to prison terms for refusing to vacate their premises?
Why is the MDC-T being asked to cause the lifting of targeted sanctions when it was a tripartite agreement to work towards the upliftment of those measures and to what extent has the other parties complied with the reasons that caused the imposition of the sanctions other than mere grandstanding and verbal condemnation of the measures?
We must also ask Professor Ncube why the so called pirate radio stations are the responsibility of the MDC-T alone to shut down when Zanu PF and MDC-M are using the same stations in equal measure by granting them interviews to spread their messages while the MDC-T is not allowed space in National broadcasting media to air its views at the same level as Zanu PF is if at all.
We do not expect Prof Ncube to compel respect for the Premier but he must be honest when it comes to the disrespect he has been accorded by the Zanu PF MPs, the Military Commanders and the President. What is Jomic’s position with regard to the behaviour of the military chiefs in refusing to salute and even meet with the Premier in the National Security Council?
And more what has the Jomic co-chairman to say about the statements from Didymus Mutasa, Bright Matonga, and Ephraim Masawi and Webster Shamu alleging that the Premier and his party a harlots in the Zanu PF government that is mistakenly referred to as the government of national unity?
As co-chairman of the body tasked to monitor compliance with the spirit and letter of the GPA during implementation what is Prof Ncube’s take on these inconsistencies. Are they disputed issues or outstanding compliance issues?
There must be some rational explanation for all these inconsistencies with what was agreed that Prof Ncube as the Jomic co-chair must give to the nation other than that they are simply in dispute among the subscribers.
Why should they be in dispute at implementation when they were not in dispute at the negotiation table and were agreed upon and signed for by all subscribers?
Now we hear that the MDC-T is being accused of setting up parallel government structures in the Premier’s office with workers therein being paid more than any other Civil Servant yet their salaries must be coming from the Salary Service Bureau that pays all Civil Servants.
Who is authorizing the higher pay rates for these Civil Servants in the Premier’s Office and by what authority is he doing that?
Professor Ncube must know that Jomic is there to deal with deviations from the GPA and the fact that there is disagreement with what the parties agreed is an indicator of what is outstanding or not.
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