By Own Correspondent| The Zimbabwe Human Right Commission (ZHRC) has revealed that former President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace are human rights violators.

According to the 2017 ZHRC report, which was tabled before the National Assembly on Thursday, Zimbabweans were suffering due to corruption, political patronage and impunity.

ZHRC chairperson Elasto Mugwadi said in the 2017 report exposed gross violations of human rights that included the right to life, food and water, education, health, shelter and human dignity.

He said the countrywide Zanu PF youth interface rallies undertaken by Mugabe and Grace when they were still in power were used as a platform to attack and denigrate their perceived political opponents.

“Mugabe and his wife grossly undermined Zimbabwe’s founding constitutional values and principles, including the rule of law and recognition of the inherent worth and dignity of each human being.

Accountability to citizens in relation to fulfilment of many of their rights was eroded as government ministers, senior civil servants and other duty bearers spent most of their time attending political rallies and negating their constitutional and statutory obligations to deliver services to citizenry.”

The ZHRC report said corruption reported at public entities and in the private sector highlighted the endemic culture of personal enrichment, political patronage and impunity which crippled service delivery across key sectors of the economy. It said this further compromised the protection and fulfilment of human rights to ordinary Zimbabweans.

“In 2017, opposition parties appeared to struggle to offer any alternative to help alleviate the deteriorating human rights situation in the country as their calls to authorities to respect human rights went unheeded,” read the report.

“Perennial disagreements undermined the opposition parties’ widely publicised endeavours to form a grand coalition to contest the 2018 general elections as a united front against the ruling Zanu PF party.”-Standard