CONSTITUTION-making is back on track after the Copac Select Committee yesterday agreed that the drafters resume their work next week.

Copac co-chairpersons Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana (Zanu-PF) and Mr Douglas Mwonzora (MDC-T) said the drafters have been given up to January 19 to complete their work.

"We agreed that they will have to proceed with the drafting from next Tuesday, but we would have given them complete instructions on what they should do," Cde Mangwana said.

He said the committee will review the contentious work on four chapters that they have been drafted.

"We made it clear that the drafters are a sub-committee of the Select Committee, thus they will have to take instructions from the Select Committee."

Cde Mangwana said they agreed that the drafters will use the national report as the main document because it contains information from the outreach.

Mr Mwonzora said yesterday's Select Committee meeting was fruitful as everyone was in agreement on the need to go forward.

He said the committee agreed that the drafters could use other constitutions as references, including the Kariba Draft, among other drafts.

"We are very happy that we are now moving forward and we would want to assure Zimbabweans that we are writing the views as expressed by the people.

"All the documents that are being used are based on the national report, but they will be written in legal language as agreed by the Select Committee."

He urged Zimbabweans to be patient.

"We will definitely make the final document available for scrutiny by the people of Zimbabwe, but people must stop treating work in progress as the final draft," he said.

 Mr Mwonzora said the committee did not want the drafters to interpret what was gathered from the outreach programme.

He said the drafters will get what to write or not to write from the Select Committee.

Mr Mwonzora said they also agreed that the Select Committee and the technical committee should go for a retreat in Mutare today to complete drafting instructions.

The teams will be in Mutare for 10 days.

Mr Mwonzora said after the draft has been completed, they will require three more months to complete the whole process.

He said there were other "statutory time limits that we can't change as contained in Article V1 of the Global Political Agreement."