herald

Donors have come up with a new set of conditions for releasing funding for the constitution-making process.

The latest brick wall relates to payment of allowances to outreach team personnel, which donors now say they will not fund and yet this arguably constitutes the largest chunk of the budget and is the most crucial phase of the constitution-making process.

Sources in the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee said the United Nations Development Programme, which has pledged to source US$21 million for the process, now wanted Government to foot at least 30 percent of the budget, something Treasury says it cannot afford.

The Constitution Management Committee and UNDP officials will meet on Wednesday to try and breach the new impasse.

On Friday, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga declined to comment.

"It’s too early for me to respond on that. It won’t be proper for me to comment. It will only be proper for me to give a comprehensive comment on Wednesday," he said.

Efforts to get a comment from UN resident co-ordinator Ms Elizabeth Lwanga were fruitless as her phone was not reachable.

A source said: "UNDP are now saying Government should foot 30 percent of the total budget. On the other hand, Treasury has indicated it doesn’t have that kind of money.

"They are now saying they don’t want to fund allowances for the outreach teams and Select Committee meetings. They are also refusing to settle expenses incurred prior to the signing of the project document though they had agreed to fund everything.

"They are trying to fund the process selectively, especially in areas to do with media publicity and the Management Committee has rejected this."

Another Select Committee source said UNDP wanted the Select Committee secretariat to be relieved of its duties because it did not meet their "standards".

Only four senior secretariat staff have been paid their March salaries due to the funding stand-off, it was also revealed.

A memorandum from the human resources and administration officer to staff on March 26, 2010 reads: "Please be advised that there will be a delay in the processing of March salaries, to date we don’t have indication of the actual date when the salaries will be paid.

"However, it is hoped that we will be in a position to advice of salaries processing date by end of Wednesday March 31, 2010."

In January, UNDP allegedly refused to settle a US$930 000 bill incurred during a two-week workshop for legislators.

UNDP had asked hotels to accommodate delegates to the workshop, but reportedly declined to settle the bill after allegedly failing to directly influence the talking points.

The constitution-making process is behind schedule and an ambitious target to have a referendum in October is unlikely to be met.