ZHRC ready to start work

Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission chairperson Mr Elasto Mugwadi says all is in place for the body to start investigating reports of abuses.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Mugwadi said the commission had a budget of slightly over US$2 million, which he said was insufficient but would allow them to start their core business.

“We have received a separate budget slightly in excess of US$2 million, even though we required up to US$6,4 million for the operations.
“With the little funds that we got, we hope to operate effectively and start investigating human rights abuse cases that are brought to us,” he said. The commission had been dormant for years due to a lack of funding and the absence of an Act of Parliament to govern its operations.
Mr Mugwadi said the commission was recruiting staff.

“So far we have recruited the human resources, finance and administration managers and a personal assistant. We hope by next week we would have recruited the chief executive officer.” He added that there was need to align the Human Rights Commission Act with the new Constitution.