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Question Time with Theresa Makone - Part 2
Lance Guma, SW Radio Africa
November 17, 2010

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This is Part 2 of the Question Time interview with co-Home Affairs Minister Theresa Makone. SW Radio Africa journalist Lance Guma asks her questions posed by the many Zimbabweans who contacted the show, using new media formats. This week the interview covers the abuse of under-age girls, chaos at the passport office, police banning MDC-T meetings, the shambolic voters roll and what hope for a free and fair election.

Lance Guma: In Part 2 we start with Betty Makoni who runs the Girl Child Network, she says she has a list of youth militia who raped women during the 2008 violent elections and the evidence is overwhelming. She says -given rape is a Class A crime, when are the police going to open dockets for all the cases like this?

Theresa Makone: That question really I think I've just answered it with my very last contribution (from last week) which is these crimes were politically motivated so one can even say that they were state sponsored in the sense that the state didn't actually take any action against the rapists who are known and who are still roaming the streets. Some of whom who are actually promising to do even more next time around.

Each week, indicates to me that the ordinary rapist who does not rape for political crime is being arrested and I've seen quite a few of late, they are being arrested, they are being tried, they are being sentenced but those politically motivated rapes are still waiting for justice and yet rape is a crime as basically just, I don't know what she called it - a Class A crime?

Guma: Class A crime, yes.

Makone: A Class A crime it is, never mind whether it is politically motivated or not. Politically motivated rape and murders have been treated differently from ordinary murders and rapes and this is why it is so important to have this security sector realignment done as quickly as possible so that if these crimes are going to be resolved and the people arrested then the public will be more confident to know that whatever election (inaudible) is a free and fair election, where it is not a war, where it is not walking into the pool of blood, where it is not sacrificing your body and until that happens I'm still concerned as minister of Home Affairs that the police are unable to bring these culprits to book.

Guma: Now still sticking with Betty Makoni she says there are over 8000 underage girls in Zimbabwe who are forced to marry and have relationships with older men in churches like Johanne Marange. The police say it is the norm but the Girl Child Network says it is rape and her question is as a female leader yourself she wants to know if you are aware of these issues and what if anything can you do to help these vulnerable girls?

Makone: I am very aware of that. In fact it was brought up at one of our security meetings and I remember specifically requesting the secretariat to get hold of Musasa Project and listen to their problems and see how they can be helped and bring us the report and in the meantime I also contacted Musasa Project and asked them to get hold of the unit in the police force that deals with these situations and organise a meeting and discuss how they can, together with the police work at eradicating or at least taking the necessary measures to see that something is done.

I have not heard from either party so I take it that something is happening because it is very difficult for me to follow up on each and everyone of these things because there are so much that ends up on my desk but I can assure you that as a woman leader and as a leader of women in my own political party this subject is very, very close to my heart. It's a very emotional subject which given time I would like to ensure that it's dealt with properly before I leave this ministry.

Guma: Maria from Highfields wants to know if police commissioner Augustine Chihuri is your boss or it should be the other way round? She's citing the incident at CJ Hall in Highfields when the MDC struggled to get police clearance despite having a minister in the Home Affairs ministry. What's your comment on that incident?

Makone: I don't know if she has got the right end of the stick here because it was not police commissioner Chihuri who actually dealt with our application. Generally this is done at much, much lower levels and the person who did it, did it on the seventh day after our notification to the police and the reasons they gave were really quite curious as far as I'm concerned.

One of the reasons was that it was going to be late and anything could happen and my objection to that was that there is no curfew in Zimbabwe, neither is there a state of emergency and the law of POSA itself doesn't specify any hours so that one was totally immaterial and the other thing was that maybe other parties might be offended and they will come to attack and my response to that was that is their problem, that's the police who should make sure that our gathering is not interfered with.

So when I eventually got through to the commissioner who obviously from the way that he reacted was never aware of this. He agreed with me that for a start there were seven days within which to make their decision and they should have communicated in time and ironed things out instead of embarrassing the leadership on the day when the prime minister is coming and he did the right thing and said - Minister quite honestly if I was you I would just go right ahead and have my meeting because there was no reason for them to sit on that decision and wait until the last minute.

So we must not look at every poor decision that is made by juniors and land it in the highest office. I can assure you people would like to hear me say yes it was the commissioner but it was not. In this case it was not, he was not even aware of it.

Guma: Now the issue at the passport office . . .

Makone: . . . And she also says who is the boss - I don't even know if that question is worth answering because it's like asking between the principal of the school and the head boy who is the boss. I mean between me and the commissioner general there is the secretary of Home Affairs who's also the boss to the commissioner general so really I don't know what that question is wanting me to say.

Guma: I suppose they are trying to get to the attitude displayed by ZANU PF and the police that generally they don't seem to respect people in the MDC, even the prime minister sometimes has had to struggle to have his way because they generally have that attitude of not respecting the MDC.

Makone: Right you might not respect someone but that does not make you their boss. Let us assume that he didn't respect me, he still wouldn't be my boss, I'm still the boss. He might be someone who does not recognise authority but that does not make him boss that at all.

Guma: Let's move on to the issue at the passport offices . . .

Makone: . . . I was just saying if you have got a delinquent child in your house, that child does not become your father, they still stay your child.

Guma: We move onto the issue at the passport office. We received a lot of emails about the passport office and a lot of messages - people would want to know - Mai Matthew in Warren Park wants to know when the situation at the passport offices will ever be resolved and what seems to be the problem?

Makone: The situation in the passport office like I said the day we actually launched the 50 dollar passport - that situation will be properly resolved when passports are being made in the Ministry of Home Affairs, when we have got our own equipment which has got capacity to produce the number of passport books, more passport books than the request that we get today. So until such time as that happens, Zimbabwe will be suffering from this shortage of passport books and therefore long periods of waiting for passports.

Having said that, those passports that are processed should be processed at the right price, the price that was agreed to by cabinet. Cabinet set a price of 50 dollars as the price of the passport and that is the legal price. Anything else will have to be set by cabinet again as a revision to that price which they set. So the capacity is the problem and we are looking as a ministry at different suppliers world-wide to see who can supply us with equipment that can produce a passport at a rate which is reasonable to meet the demand that Zimbabwe is experiencing right now but also something which is within our limitations in terms of payments and something that we can afford.

So that is all being done and I want to assure the public out there that that subject is really topmost at the ministry of Home Affairs and the necessary trips are being undertaken to talk to suppliers of both paper and equipment so while that is happening, unfortunately there will be big inconveniences.

Guma: What about out-sourcing the making of passports to private companies who have the capacity to do so?

Makone: We have thought about that but then as you know a passport is a very high security document. You really don't want to put this in the hands of private printers - it's not like a Longman's textbook. This booklet is specific to the holder, it carries security features that are specific to the holder. If you have different people printing for you there's nothing to stop them duplicating passport numbers and security features and really creating havoc in the country.

You really can't do that with a passport, it's not like any other document. It has to be protected where it is printed and you find that in most countries, the ministry actually does it itself but they have to have the capacity. This is not something that you want to out-source. We have looked at that and we have thought about it but when the dangers have been explained to us it really was not worth doing. If you think also that this is an age of terrorism, anything can be done with that particular document.

Guma: Now Hope Mandiopera who is living in South Africa wants to know if the voters' roll is up to date and what your ministry is doing to make voter registration an easier process?

Makone: Voter registration is not up to date. Most youth and women are not registered, that is a fact but more than that, I know that at the moment this particular responsibility is still with the registrar general but when you look at the responsibilities of ZEC, this is one of the things that should be carried out by ZEC.

We have had problems with the voters' roll in the past, we have had massive problems and I can tell you from my own personal experiences in Harare North that we actually know the country need brand new voters' registration done by ZEC as an independent body and I know that the chairman of ZEC has mentioned this before but then some other people are saying yes we can use the same voters' roll.

But I can tell you that within my own party that won't go down well because we have had very serious problems with that and we will be more comfortable with a new registration of voters done by ZEC and we are aware that that process, if it was put into motion, it will take four months and it will cost 25 million dollars and as far as I'm concerned that is 25 million dollars worth spending and putting that responsibility under ZEC would actually increase confidence.

But whether or not that is what will finally happen depends very much on what the principals of government agree but Zimbabweans as a whole would have like to see that responsibility carried out by ZEC because that is the only way to assure neutrality.

Guma: One listener from Bindura wants to know what security measures have been put in place to ensure the next elections are free of violence. Is there anything in your ministry that you could do seeing that you oversee the operations of the police?
Makone: At this moment in time there is nothing concretely different from the previous election that I am aware of that has been done. Remember we are still all just talking from the top of our heads about elections, we have not yet agreed on when these will be done so I think once an agreement has been reached on when these will be done then the necessary steps will be taken by both the Ministry of Home Affairs and the principals to ensure that a free and fair vote takes place and that will involve quite a lot of activity but as far as I know right now there is nothing that has been done or is being done to prepare for those elections because there is really no timetable to the next plebiscite.

Guma: And the final question and this is a question a lot of people were asking to close the programme - do you see as the Home Affairs minister or co-Home Affairs minister, Zimbabwe having free and fair elections next year?

Makone: Free and fair elections are possible provided that we implement those things in the GPA that we agreed to which would lead to a peaceful environment and a tolerant environment. If we have not done those things that we agreed to in Amendment Number 19 I do not foresee just another repeat of 2008 but I see a worse scenario because the perpetrators have gained experience from what they did in 2008 so I see a bloodbath not an election.

So I would like to see those things that we agreed to in terms of political tolerance, in terms of security sector reform, in terms of the new ZEC and the human rights commission, and the new media commission doing what it's supposed to do. All those things will add to a conducive environment being put into place then we will be ready for another election but if one is forced before all those things are done it means that we are just being shepherded into a bloodbath.

Guma: And as the GPA draws to a close do you think it was a mistake for the MDC to go into the coalition? What are your thoughts on that?

Makone: It was not a mistake at all because when you read the Amendment Number 19 and all its provisions it has taken into account all the things that were of concern to the people of Zimbabwe and it was assumed that once that was constitutional, Zimbabwe being said to be a constitutional state and we abide by the constitution, then the level playing field which people were asking for would be achieved by the time we get to the next election and some of us envisaged a situation where it would be possible to talk freely, mix freely, associate freely and demonstrate freely in Zimbabwe.

If the GPA is implemented in full that should be possible but because we have not implemented any of those things that we put into our own constitution then in retrospect one would wonder if we had known what is happening now whether we would have gone into it but we trusted and I still want to think that it's not yet the end of this inclusive government, that there is still time to implement those things that we agreed to which will lead to a fair plebiscite which allows people to win and lose without feeling like they will punish anybody who has lost or will need to go into hiding because they have lost or to fire anybody because we are now the new party that is ruling, I would like to see a normal free and fair election like what happens in all the other SADC countries.

I really do not see why we should be different from Namibia, from South Africa, from Mozambique, from Zambia - we don't want any better conditions than what is happening with our neighbours - we just want exactly what happens with our neighbours. I don't know why Zimbabweans have to be anxious every time there is an election, why it should be agonising moments for families because there is an election. It should just be one of those things that is done from time to time and should not be a cause for anxiety for anybody. That is what I would like to see as minister of Home Affairs.

Guma: Well that concludes the second part of the first ever edition of Question Time on SW Radio Africa and we were joined by the co-Home Affairs minister Theresa Makone who agreed to be the first guest on this inaugural programme. Thank you so much for your time Mai Makone.

Makone: Thank you very much for having me. I hope that whatever answers I've given will have helped your listeners.

Read Part 1

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