adminNqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) has said it is seriously understaffed to carry out its constitutional mandate.
In an interview, ZHRC acting executive secretary, Mr Vengesai Mukutiri said the commission has a staff complement of 55 officers but needs 300.
“We are a Public Protector, ombudsman and also a national human rights institution. So we have a dual mandate. The Public Protector was closed and its mandate was given to the commission but the staff members who were working for the Public Protector were sent home; that’s our problem,” said Mr Mr Mukutiri.
“I wish they had just merged so now we have a staff deficit because in most countries the Public Protector is separate from a human rights institution. But in Zimbabwe it’s combined. We don’t have problems with being combined but what we want is the resources. Ideally, we would like to have around 300 staff members. We are now negotiating to say if we get around 110 to 120 staffers we could still operate. We are not asking for the ideal situation but we can make do with the minimum compromise.”
He said at the moment the ZHRC has offices in Bulawayo and Harare only while its duties entail reaching to communities at provincial and district levels across the country
Mr Mukutiri said the ZHRC is negotiating with Treasury to enable it to recruit at least four staff members per province. He said even if they get funds from donors, they are not allowed to pay the recruited officers as these are public officials who should be on Government payroll.
“Our main challenge is the ability to recruit; that is where we have an uphill task because there is a job freeze. Even when we get additional money in terms of our budget as long as we are not allowed by Treasury to recruit more staff this does not improve our service delivery if we do not have local presence,” Mr Mutukiri.
“Our appeal to Government is to allow the commission to be capacitated in terms of the number of staff members. You can imagine 55 staff members including the administration, finance, human resources and Information Technologies. That is a very small team to cover all the 10 provinces and that is where there is the main concern.”
The ZHRC is in the process of conducting national public hearings on the reasons contributing to members of the public failing to access national documents such as birth certificates, national identity cards and passports. In Matabeleland North, Gukurahundi disturbances have been identified as one of the reasons why members of the public are failing to access documentation. — @nqotshili
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