By Bustop TV
The repressive PVO Amendment Bill if enacted into law will expose people with disabilities to further vulnerability, Disability Amalgamation Community Trust (DACT) has said.
People with disabilities in Zimbabwe receive food aid, health services, financial support among other services from non-governmental organisations operating in the country. These services will be denied to the vulnerable groups once the private voluntary organisations (PVOs) activities are restricted.
In an interview with Bustop TV, DACT director, Henry Chivhanga said the PVO amendment bill gazetted on November 5 will drag the country backwards as NGOs will cease to exist and citizens rights will be violated.
“The PVO amendment bill will pull our country backwards especially for vulnerable people being assisted through the various NGOs and community based organisations, the whole civic society. Issues around food, services, health, psycho support systems, projects, training on human rights will be forgotten about and government doesn’t want to be checked.
“Government doesn’t want civil society to fill in the gap they leave when they are rendering their services because it exposes them to the fact that they are not effective as a government. They treat services provided by civil society as a campaign strategy by the opposition and that is not the case, civil society simply operate within the existing laws and are never sponsors of regime change as they are apolitical.”
Chivhanga added that the PVO amendment bill will eventually be used to manipulate vulnerable groups into voting for the ruling party once conditional support is offered.
“This bill as an attack on NGOs, even churches and Trusts, government has introduced punitive measures that would see directors or executive committees within NGOs being incarcerated up to a maximum of 10 years for simply providing a service to a community that is desperately in need.
“It is discouraging people from being initiative and filling in gaps through PVOs so they can mitigate the vulnerability of those affected by those gaps.
“The bill should never see the light of the day, taking that drastic measure is uncalled for. As DACT we are saying in particular for people with disabilities, suffering will continue because our government is insensitive, so that we will run to government for help which is conditional and will be linked to giving them a vote.
“The amendment bill is draconian, in the 21st century to have such a law that infringes on peoples rights is really sad. I call upon every reasonable person to be reject this law.”
This article was produced with financial support of the Content Creators Network ZW.
