Rights group goes bankrupt

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation (ZimRights), once the leading human rights watchdog in the country, is bankrupt. The human rights watchdog went broke following the withdrawal of funding by its major donors who are unhappy with the organisation’s in-house squabbles and the alleged infiltration of the group by agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the ‘Daily News’ reported. Munyaradzi Bidi, ZimRights’ national director, said: “We have serious financial problems. We have failed to pay our workers their salaries for May. I have not been paid either. Some donors have pulled out. We simply do not have institutional funding to meet our administrative functions. We are now poorer than we were four years ago.” Twelve organisations were ZimRights’ major donors. They included Norwegian People’s Aid, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Hivos, Danida, USAid, the European Union, Oxfam GB and the Norwegian and Swedish embassies. ZimRights sources said all donors had since stopped funding the organisation.