BULAWAYO The government, through the ministry of Labour and Social Services, is in the process of collecting information regarding the number of refugees in the country.The information when collated is expected to assist government effectively run various holding centres in the country.
We are in the process of gathering data on refugees and broadly immigration, as a way of enhancing service delivery at the holding centres. This is part of mechanisms to make sure that refugees remain at their respective centers, Labour and Social Services Minister Paurina Mpariwa said.
She said some of the information being sought by her ministry includes the refugees country of origin, educational background and determining the cause of refugee status.
According to Mpariwa, the government efforts were being complimented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Organisation for Migration (IMO) through the refurbishment of holding centres at Plumtree, Beitbridge and Chiredzi to increase the holding capacity of the centres.
Each centre will have the capacity of accommodating about 1 000 people. The most pressing challenge at the moment is budgetary constraints which is limiting government from improving service delivery at the centres, she said.
She said budgetary constraints had left most centres failing to properly contain the ballooning number of refugees
Minister Mpariwa said the data would also assist in smoothen processing of citizenship applications while facilitating repatriation in suitable cases.
The majority of refugees in the country have come from Rwanda, Somalia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where they have been forced to flea war.
Post published in: Politics