Warioba: Keep off Katiba assemblies

Dar es Salaam. The chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), Judge (rtd) Joseph Warioba, has told politicians to stay away from meetings scheduled to start next week to discuss the draft Constitution.

Addressing a press conference in Dar es Salam yesterday, Judge Warioba warned against any form of interference, especially from political leaders, many of whom are said to have trailed their eyes on influencing views coming out of constitutional assemblies.

The assembly meetings countrywide kick off on Friday and run up to September 2, this year. Their recommendations will input into the second draft of the proposed Constitution to be presented to the National Constitutional Assembly.

Judge Warioba said the stage is an important step towards giving the country a deserving mother law. He directed that groups and political parties ought to submit their opinions on their own and leave the assemblies to work freely.

According to the chairman, his commission, which will be subdivided in 14 groups, starts a 54-day round of collecting views from all regions in the country. Councils of disabled people will convene in only two centres in Zanzibar and Dodoma.

“We ask members of constitutional assemblies to bring us every member’s opinion and not resolutions…we will then embark on the process of analysing them before including them in the second draft,” he said.

He added, “according to the law establishing this commission, institutions and other like-minded groups are allowed to deliberate on their own and present their opinions before or on August 31…they should not interfere with the members of the constitutional assemblies.”

His warning comes as some political parties, seen to be dissatisfied with some provisions in the draft Constitution, say they would channel their opinions through the assemblies. Last month, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, declared in public that it was not pleased with the suggested set-up which proposes a three-tier Union.

Yesterday, Judge Warioba insisted that the proposed Union set up was the best, if the country is to remain together and also remove dissatisfaction among some factions in the Union.

The draft Constitution proposes sweeping changes, including press freedom, right to access information, education for all, greater representation for women in politics and adoption of a federal system of government.

The draft, unveiled last month, also proposed to bring back the government of Tanganyika, which was abolished in 1964 when Zanzibar and Tanganyika united to form Tanzania. The proposed constitution also reduced the Union government’s areas of responsibility from 22 to seven, which are the Constitution, foreign affairs, defence and security, currency, immigration, customs, and registration of political parties.