(TALKZIMBABWE) Copac data on land issue goes missing

Copac data on land issue goes missing
By: TH-TZG
Posted: Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:14 pm

CONTRIBUTIONS made by ZImbabweans on land, natural resources and the environment during the constitution-making outreach phase have disappeared from Copac’s main computer server at a Harare hotel in as yet unclear circumstances.

The Parliamentary Constitutional Committee on the new Constitution (Copac) co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana on Wednesday briefed the Zanu-PF Politburo on the issue. Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said the party was disturbed by the development.

"Cde Paul Mangwana briefed us (the Politburo) on what has happened. The uploading and analysis is going well, but they (Copac) have gone into a technical hitch where some information that was supposed to be on the server, particularly on the land issue, was not there.

"There were just questions (posed to citizens) and no answers. A computer expert could have tampered with the computer," he said.

Gumbo added: "They will overcome the problem, but it was a hitch which as a party we are concerned about ... why was the issue of land not there? We think there was a game."

He was, however, optimistic that the constitution-making process would be completed before June.

Mangwana said uploading of data gathered during the outreach had gone ve-ry well until they discovered that "the ser-ver had omitted all information on the land, natural resources and the environment".

"It could have been just a technical error in the wrong place.

"The server is designed in such a manner that when you put in some data, you cannot edit it.

"I suspect that a person with mischief may not have been happy with responses on the land issue.

"Someone wanted to tamper with the information banking on the probability that we were not going to cross-check," Mangwana said.

The server is kept under 24-hour guard at the hotel, but Mangwana said technology nowadays was so advanced that one could manipulate systems without necessarily being physically near the computer.

He said the lost information would be retrieved from the original documents.

"The United Nations Development Programme has secured an expert from the suppliers of the technology (Hewlett-Packard) and he is expected in the country between now and Tuesday next week," he said.

The UNDP has played a central role in funding the constitution-making process.

During the outreach, there were reports of MDC-T personnel trying to sidestep citizens’ contributions on land.

Zanu-PF and MDC-T have often clashed on the land reforms, with the latter accused of trying to protect the white minority’s interests at the black majority’s expense.

The Fast-Track Land Reform Programme, which started in 2000, has seen nearly 300,000 black families benefiting from a resource once held by just 6,000 white commercial farmers.