via Cash woes dog ZHRC | The Herald May 16, 2015
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) has failed to decentralise its operations owing to financial challenges, the commission’s deputy chairperson, Ms Ellen Sithole, has said.Speaking at a ZHRC strategic planning meeting at a Bulawayo hotel on Tuesday, Ms Sithole said they only had two offices in Harare and Bulawayo due to resource con- straints.
She said people across the country who feel that their rights have been violated are free to contact the two offices.
Ms Sithole said they were hoping to get resources to monitor the June 10 by-elections as human rights violations are sometimes reported during election periods.
“We are going to be monitoring the by-election period so that the environment is conducive in terms of the human rights. The challenge we have had with the election period is that they are not programmed in advance so we need to have resources that are outside the usual budgetary support,” she said.
Ms Sithole said it was part of the ZHRC’s mandate to investigate all cases concerning the violation of human rights.
“Our organisation’s mandate is to ensure that human rights are upheld for Zimbabweans from all walks of life. We would like to believe that the Government would want to respect the human rights of the country as well,” she said.
Bulawayo lawyer Mr Lizwe Jamela of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said the commission’s failure to decentralise was limiting people from registering their grievances.
COMMENTS
I am not surprised by this. There is no way Mugabe would fund a human rights commission that will work against him.
So he will do everything he can to make sure that the commission is incapacitated and unable to perform its core duties and that way human rights abuses and violations will continue, cue Hurungwe West.
Mugabe has his own priorities which will always get funding and these are normally tools of oppression.