Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
THE government is ready to run the two reception and support centres for deportees in Beitbridge and Plumtree that were recently handed over to it to ensure that repatriated citizens continue to receive assistance.

Speaking last week at the official handover of the Plumtree reception and support centre by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to the government, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Ngoni Masoka said deported citizens will continue to get assistance.

The Beitbridge and Plumtree centres offer health, food, transport service and safe migration education to deported Zimbabweans. The centres were previously run by the IOM, but the humanitarian organisation announced that it was pulling out its services to allow the government to take over.

Masoka said his ministry had been allocated $300,000 in this year’s budget to run the two support centres in Beitbridge and Plumtree.

He said several workshops had been held to ensure that civil servants were capacitated for the job.

“The government has all along been working together with IOM in receiving deported citizens and now IOM is handing over to us the reception and support centres. A total of 40 capacity building workshops have been held for all stakeholders that come in contact with deportees,” said Masoka. “I’m, therefore, confident that the officers will be able to receive our returning citizens and assist them with dignity.”

He said the ministry was working on creating 18 additional posts for qualified personnel that would be equally divided between the Beitbridge and Plumtree support centres. Masoka said in the meantime, some staff members would be deployed to the centres as a temporary measure to ensure that operations continue.

He said the bulk of the money which had been allocated to the two centres would be directed towards Beitbridge as it handled more deportees.

Masoka said by December last year, 213,742 deportees had received assistance at the Plumtree support centre since its inception in 2008 while 2,500 unaccompanied minors had received protection and reunification assistance through its child centre. “More deportees are yet to pass through the Plumtree and Beitbridge centres and we’ll be working with relevant stakeholders to continue with the noble work which has been rendered by IOM,” he said.

“The Ministry will ensure that the centres are adequately staffed and we’ll continue to engage treasury and cooperating partners to ensure resources to run and maintain the centres are available.”

He said the government would continue to engage the IOM for further assistance in training officers who would be working with returnees. Masoka said the infrastructure and assets that include buildings and vehicles that the government had inherited from IOM for the two centres will be well kept and maintained.

Speaking at the same event, IOM chief of mission Martin Ocaga said cross border migration remained a regional concern.

In a speech read on his behalf by IOM’s monitoring and evaluating officer, Rangarirayi Tigere, Ocaga said authorities should implement more long term and sustainable solutions on migration. “This handover by IOM is happening within the context of the organisation’s strategic transition from humanitarian to development programming,” said Ocaga.

 

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