ZIMBABWE WITHDRAWS ITS UNDP ELECTION CASH APPEAL!!

THE government has withdrawn a request to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for help to finance elections due later this year and will now source the money locally, a cabinet minister said Tuesday. Zimbabwe had appealed to the UN agency for help to raise about US$132 million needed for the key elections which will choose a successor to the fractious coalition administration. The appeal was however withdrawn after the government balked at the conditions demanded by the UNDP. Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa told reporters Wednesday that the decision was made in consultation with the principals to the Global Political Agreement. “Any team can only come in on mutually agreed terms of reference,” he said. “In this case, we have failed to realise mutually agreed terms and we have rejected what they want to impose on us. We are a member state and unacceptable terms cannot be forced onto us. They wanted to be involved in our domestic political affairs, but we know our needs and requirements.”

The UNDP was said to have demanded meetings with civil society organisations considered hostile by Zanu PF such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Nango and Women’s Coalition. Chinamasa said he, along with Finance Minister Tendai Biti, met the leader of the UN team that was due in the country to assess Zimbabwe's financial needs for the polls. The meeting discussed the terms of reference for the UN mission that was already encamped in South Africa en-route to Zimbabwe. The terms included the election budget, the category of stakeholders that they would meet and the extent to which they would be able to assist Zimbabwe.

"We met on Sunday with Biti; we had a very acrimonious meeting but we finally agreed on the terms of reference for the UN team," Chinamasa said.
"When we then summoned the UN team leader to notify him of what we had agreed, Biti and I were shocked that they were saying that they could only come to Zimbabwe on their earlier conditions. "We have since told our principals and the instruction we have is that the conditions remain unacceptable. The issue of getting poll funding from the UN is no longer an open book it is now a closed chapter. We have already started mobilising for resources locally.” Chinamasa slammed Biti for claiming that Zanu PF had blocked the UN team when in fact all the parties had agreed to the position taken. "Manoeuvres that infringe on our sovereignty will not be tolerated whatever Biti may want to say is his own prerogative. "It is very clear as Zimbabweans that we have to remain very alert to attempts to infiltrate our internal processes and I am happy that we have closed this chapter and will not open it again," he said. The government would now have to source the election cash locally. “The ball is back in our court and what we have to do is to look for local resources to conduct our elections and that we have already started doing," he said.