Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. By Leopold Munhende –
UNITED Kingdom-based law lecturer Alex Magaisa has described Harare Provincial Development Co-ordinator Tafadzwa Muguti – who recently ordered Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Society Organisations to register with his office or risk being banned – as a problematic individual working to erode the constitutional culture from Zimbabwe.
Magaisa was speaking at the launch of We Lead’s We Know the Constitution Campaign, Monday on Twitter.
Muguti made headlines when he banned NGOs, including First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa’s Angel of Hope Foundation, after they had failed to provide their yearly plans and register with his office.
Forty NGOs complied with Muguti’s order, which has since been dismissed as unconstitutional by the High Court following granting of an interim order sought by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, representing 82 other NGOs.
“My problem though is not so much with people like Muguti, who are overzealous in the roles that they have been assigned to,” Magaisa said.
“It is with organisations and individuals who submit to this unlawfulness, because a few weeks later we saw a letter which was identifying a number of organisations that apparently had responded to Muguti, suggesting that they had acquiesced to what was patently an unlawful request. That is the problem,” he said.
“People are so happy in their state of oppression that even when they are told to do unlawful things by someone who does not have full authority, instead of challenging it like their colleagues do, they go on and submit and say we raise our heads. There is no way you can build a constitutional culture when you have people submitting to rules that are completely against the values, rules and the principles of the constitution.”
On July 7 this year, nine NGOs which had defied his order, wrote to Muguti educating him of the role he had in government and the authority he did not have.
The letter was in response to the “ban” he had announced after they refused to send their workplans by 30 June 2021.9.28
“In the event that you believe you have the same function as would be held by the Provincial Administrators in terms of the Provincial Councils and Administration Act, a reading of Section 10 of this Act clearly points towards the fact that your powers are confined to coordination of the various ministries and organs of government. Your office therefore has no mandate to regulate the operations and clearances of NGO activities,” the NGOs wrote.
Much like late president Robert Mugabe’s government, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new dispensation has not warmed up to NGOs and continues to view them as agents of regime change.
