Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) has warned that it may not be able to monitor the 2023 elections citing budgetary constraints.
The ZHRC said it was understaffed and faced a number of operational challenges, all because of underfunding, NewsDay reported citing the commission’s report presented in Parliament last week.
ZHRC said it failed to decentralise its services this year as planned because of poor funding. Said the commission:
The commission bid for 2023 is approximately $13,3 billion, but received a ceiling of approximately $3,3 billion.
Election monitoring exercise is a nationwide activity that requires adequate resources like capacitated staff and adequate vehicles that will be useful in the monitoring of the 2023 harmonised elections.
For ZHRC to fully exercise its mandate in 2023, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should adequately and timeously allocate funding to scale its national monitoring requirements for prisons, refugee camps, holding places, police cells, selected by-elections, emergencies and disasters.
For the year 2023, the commission is grateful to have received concurrence to recruit 79 more people in light of decentralisation, but the budget ceiling does not provide for such costs. The approved structure now stands at 247 from 83.
The commission was set up to receive and investigate complaints of violation of human rights and administrative justice from the public.
ZHRC’s report is issued when several reports of politically-motivated violence were made increasing fears that the 2023 elections will likely be violent.
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