Each meeting officially commenced with a prayer, and at times the prayers would take political connotations. This was expected given the polarisation that existed during the time. The Team Leaders were to later advise participants to pray and wish the country and its people well rather than denigrating others through a prayer. People began to tolerate each other as the programme progressed. During each meeting, the Team Leaders would introduce the members to the people gathered in a manner that clearly showed a unit of purpose. The Team Leaders would reprimand anyone who tried to bring in political party mannerisms that would not be beneficial to the questions raised. On each question, the team members would request the people not to say what had already been pointed out by another person. Whilst some teams resorted to voting on an issue at the beginning of the exercise, it created problems which resulted in the co-chairs of the Select Committee giving general directions that there was to be no voting during meetings. This was however to haunt the Select Committee in the later stages of the process as determination of what issue carried the day became difficult. 2.5. Appointment of District and Provincial Liaison Officers The first meetings of the outreach programmes saw very few people attending, particularly in Matabeleland South province. In order to address this issue, the Select Committee resolved to use District and Provincial Liaison Officers for the mobilisation of the people to attend meetings. These tripartite Liaison Officers had previously been used to deal with cases of political violence amongst supporters. In each district, it was resolved that three District Liaison Officers, one from each of the three political parties in the GNU, would be engaged by the Select Committee. These Officers were responsible for moving around the ward informing the people that there was to be a meeting on the constitution making process at a particular venue. These District Liaison Officers were supervised by the three Provincial Liaison Officers within each province. Following the introduction of these Liaison Officers, attendances started to increase at each meeting. Even the youths, who had hitherto not attended meetings in large numbers, started coming to the meetings. All in all, there were two hundred and thirteen District Liaison Officers and thirty Provincial Liaison Officers who assisted in the outreach process. 2.6. General logistical arrangements Accommodation and meals were provided at the various Lodges and Hotels throughout the country, with payment coming from both the donor community and the Government of Zimbabwe. Delegates endured a lot of hardships during the outreach process as a number of them went without food, particularly breakfast on a daily basis as payments to hotels were usually delayed due to logistical problems in the payment system. Late provision of fuel was another huddle the members had to go through as the starting of meetings was almost always delayed, much to the embarrassment of the team members. Allowances were also at times processed late. For these and other anomalies, the Select Committee wishes to apologise unreservedly to the outreach team members. 32 The Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) Report to Parliament, February 2013