The National AIDS Council(NAC) has used thirty villagers from Bulilima District in Matabeleland South and dumped them without paying for their services.
In a statement to ZimEye.com, the thirty villagers were initially trained by the World Vision NGO as Behaviour Change Facilitators on behalf of NAC sometime in 2014 and World Vision had been taking care of them in their facilitation duties.
In March last year the National Aids Council engaged them on a Client Satisfaction research programme funded by a donor called Crown Agent.
The research survey involved the villagers walking long distances throughout the vast district following up on all NAC clients and programmes in the district.
According to the villagers, they were told that they were going to be paid $5 on each research questioneer completed. The payments were due to be paid on a quarterly basis.
Over and above the payments agreed on, the villagers were promised bicycles that were going to help them in their movements around the district.
Every questioneer completed was to be hand delivered in person to the NAC offices in Plumtree town.
At the end of the first quarter in June last year the villagers asked for their first payments but were told that instead the money was going to be issued to them at the end of November as a bulk amount for two quarter period to November 2015.
At the end of November the villagers allege that the National Aids Council sent them a message that their payments were in fact to be reduced to $1 per questioneer completed not the previous $5 that was agreed upon. No explanation to that effect was made.
When the villagers queried the arrangement, most of them were immediately removed from the research programme.
The villagers reveal that following the issues with the Aids Council they queried with the principal donor Crown Agent who advised them that they should follow up all the payments with NAC as the donor had released all funds on the programme to the NAC.
The villagers further reveal that after persisting on the matter, the National Aids Council paid them an average of $60 each just before Christmas last year out of an average of 150 questioneers which each of them had submitted to NAC.
Further to that, the bicycles promised were never delivered.
Contacted for a comment on the issue, the National Aids Council programme coordinator for the district Ronald Hanyane said that the villagers were making baseless complaints as they had been fairly paid for their services.
“I am not really sure what they are complaining about. As far as we know what we have paid them is what is due to them and they must at least appreciate that we have engaged them on this programme than rush to the media,” said Hanyane referring questions to his provincial office in Gwanda.
On a follow up the villagers expressed their anger at Hanyane saying that there is no way they could be paid 30 cents on each questioneer after they walked long distances some up to 40kms to reach the clients.
“This is total madness from this, gentlemen,” fumed one villager.
“I completed 165 questioneers, walked long distances and even used my own money to go to Plumtree to drop the forms and he says the $70 I got is all I should have got.”
Efforts to get a comment from the Provincial Aids Coordinator in Gwanda failed but an officer who would not give her name at the National Aids Council offices in Gwanda promised to refer the matter to her bosses and get the office to contact ZimEye.com on the matter.
Meanwhile, the villagers say that they are gathering resources to travel to the NAC offices in Gwanda to demand their payments. They even threaten to take their issue to Minister Abednico Ncube who is the last sitting Minister for Provincial Affairs for Matabeleland South.
“If they think they can just use us like (-CENSORED-) and then throw us away because we are not educated like them, then they are in for a surprise. We know our rights and we will present our case to the Minister who we know will get the issue sorted for us,” said one of the villagers.