The Platform for Concerned Citizens in Zimbabwe (PCC) addressed journalists at the Media Centre today, 27 July 2016 in a bid to give a position and foster solutions to the current crisis in Zimbabwe.

Following the continual existence of political and economic decay in the country, various citizens have taken the matter as a major concern. This prompted the formation of a pressure group by the name Platform for Concerned Citizens (PPC) mainly concerned with articulating and aggregating the interests of the masses.

The PCC represented by Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Briggs Bomba and Tony Reller stated that the country is heading towards a serious problem as evidenced by the intra-political fights, policy inconsistences, and presence of inactive government, prevalence of increased political violence and social conflict and not forgetting the abductions of livelihoods. In addition to this, the PCC expressed grief as a result of the absence of a real vision for the future of this country.

The PCC went further to give possible solutions to end the Zimbabwean crisis that include the need for reforms with significant adherence to the constitution and institutionalization of the principles of constitutionalism. More so, reforms are needed in electoral processes so as to create conditions for genuinely free and fair election. Further to that, reforms should concentrate on stabilizing the economy and the establishment of an Economic Reform Agenda aimed at democratic economic governance.

Most importantly, the PPC noted that the country is in imperative need of a National Transitional Authority (NTA) institution that must be guided by a clear-cut vision and a set of guiding principles. The NTA should essentially be an independent body and thereby apolitical. The PCC noted that the institution shall be composed of not more than 18 members who will be selected according to agreed criteria and procedures, from amongst the candidates put forward to an independent body, selected from amongst churches and other civic body.

The PCC postulated that the NTA would have to operate within a certain legal framework and legally grounded with the requirement of a constitutional arrangement. In other words, NTA will serve as the interim government for a defined period, ending in a national election. This idea, according to PCC, comes against the background that Zimbabwean challenges are well solved by the application of Zimbabwean-oriented solutions. To substantiate this argument, the PCC noted that the SADC region has no requisite capacity to effectively and efficiently attend to the crisis that Zimbabwe is currently facing.

To sum up the above, the PPC is in contention for the formation of an interim government in form of a National Transition Authority that will be derived by the desire to come up with the most superb, practical and a viable solution to the crisis in the country. However, the success of this proposed solution is highly questionable because it is fundamentally based upon the political will of the incumbent government to take into account of such a solution.