Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa today blamed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for stalling the voter registration exercise. He said Tsvangirai had pledged to ensure treasury released $21 million needed for voter registration. “We had two meetings with one of the principals, who is Prime Minister and ZEC. We agreed that we had to conduct a blitz, beginning January 3, to mop up anybody who might not have been registered,” Chinamasa said. “The PM assured us that he would engage Finance Minister Tendai Biti to make the funds available to ZEC, but up to now there is no single cent availed to the electoral body even for publicity purposes.” Tsvangirai’s spokesperson William Bango said it was not the Prime Minister’s duty to look for money for national processes. “The Prime Minister, as a member of the executive, does not conduct voter registration. What he was only doing in those meetings was to buttress a process where an independent electoral body could have the capacity to carry out its mandate.” Finance Minister Tendai Biti swept to the rescue and said he would give ZEC $1 million to kick start the voter registration programme. “We are sending them US$1 million very soon so that they can start. They should know that we were battling with bonuses for the end of last year and now that everyone has been paid bonuses we will give them US$1 million next week so that they can start.”
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