ZHRC won’t decentralise any time soon: Officer

THE Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) will not establish offices in Manicaland and seven other provinces anytime soon, an official has said.

ZHRC chief human rights officer, Ms Karukai Ratsauka, said her organisation had no plans to establish more offices across the country since they had no funds.

Speaking at a stakeholders engagement meeting held in Mutare last week, Ms Ratsauka said Government had over the years not allocated funds to them to decentralise offices.

“We have been faced with so many problems since ZHRC was established in 2009,” she said.

“It was only in 2010 when an Act, which allows the council to put in place structures, that is, to have employees and other systems, was enacted.

“Without the Act, we could not employ and we had no budget. It came in 2014 and that is when people were employed. That is when we came in and started work as we went into the year 2015, going into 2016.

“Government made it clear that it had no money. Even up to now, we do not have the money to build offices here.”

Ms Ratsauka said they had offices in Bulawayo and Harare only.

She encouraged people across the country to embrace technology to lodge complaints with her organisation.

“Let us embrace technology since we have WhatsApp and other platforms, which people can use to forward their complaints.

“People can also do that on our website,” she said.

Ms Ratsauka said they would be carrying out educational campaigns in Manicaland, where her organisation would also rope in other civil organisations.

She said they were expecting to kick-start the programme in Zimunya and Marange before expanding to other parts of the province.

Ms Ratsauka said her organisation was on the ground in some parts of Manicaland, where they were investigating human rights abuses in charity organisations.

“As we speak, we have a team on the ground, which is investigating human rights abuses in children and old people’s homes,” she said.

“I think some are in Nyanga. We will continue conducting such investigations.”