Govt spruces up ARLAC

Blessings Chidakwa
Herald Reporter
Government has, with support from Kenya and Nigeria, given a major facelift to the African Regional Labour Administration Centre (ARLAC) offices along the Harare-Bulawayo Road where there have been major renovations and upgrading of furniture.

The centre, which was initially established in Kenya, but moved to Harare in 1982, is tasked with training high calibre labour administrators for member countries of ARLAC.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Permanent Secretary Mr Simon Masanga said Zimbabwe was privileged to host ARLAC.

“We were really concerned by the welfare of the occupants and we started with the soft issues like the refurbishment of the bedrooms,” he said. “This was number one priority where we replaced all the beds and we bought new linen and television sets.”

Mr Masanga said they had also redone the kitchen, dining and bath rooms, while the cold room was also restored to full capacity.

He said everything in the kitchen, including the utensils, was replaced.

“We bought new furniture for the dining hall which has a capacity to accommodate 40 people,” said Mr Masanga. “We also attended to the recreation room because it has been neglected for quite some time. We know that after a busy schedule, our participants need to sit down, relax and share experiences.

“We then moved to lecture rooms and we installed state-of-the-art learning equipment, installed smart boards because gone are the days of clipboards. We also have power point installations in the room to improve the quality of deliberations.”

Mr Masanga said the information centre was also spruced up as they moved to the administrative block which was developing cracks.

He said the general outlook of the centre was also upgraded.

Mr Masanga said the sprucing up was done after they engaged the International Labour Organisation to carry out an assessment of what went wrong at the centre and to recommend the way forward.

“The Zimbabwean Government has been supporting the centre with resources including funding for the maintenance of the centre,” he said.

“Over the years we saw the decline of the centre because of budgetary constraints. It is a combination of factors which contributed to dilapidation of infrastructure and participants were now shying away from attending courses at ARLAC. We also made use of the contributions availed by Kenya and Nigeria of US$20 000. I want to appeal to all member countries to honour their subscriptions. Quite a number of countries are lagging behind.”