its work; producing regular reports on its investigations and sharing them with relevant authorities as and when the NPRC deems fit in furtherance of its mandate. vi) Funding of the Commission It is critical that for any Commission to function there has to be enough funds for the Secretariat to establish its functions at an administrative and programmatic level. The text of the Bill seems to suggest that the NPRC will receive adequate funding from the Treasury and Parliament yet in the current 2016 budget, the Ministry responsible for reconciliation only received $200 000. Moreover, judging from the operations of past Commissions it is clear that it might not be possible for the NPRC to operate efficiently with funding from Treasury only. The fact that the Bill takes note of this and makes room for donations and grants from any other government bodies is welcome. However, the claw-back clause which gives the responsible Minister power to approve the acceptance and use of the external funds is problematic. HZT believes that it cannot be left to the Minister’s whims to regulate what is clean, safe and good money. This function should be left to the Commission so that they are able to raise adequate funds from other external sources taking due notice of national regulations on money laundering, seeking funds from banned organisations, criminal institutions etc. vii) Interactions with victims – Receiving complaints The Bill does not indicate or acknowledge the mode of communication and type of languages that will be used as the Commission proceed with investigations. The NPRC Bill needs to acknowledge in its text the diversity of Zimbabwe’s languages and note that victims will be allowed to give evidence in a language of their choice and interpreters will be made available. Language barriers should not be underestimated as the issue will arise at some point. In addition, the Bill also notes that any affected individuals may write the Commission to file complaints. The Bill does not however give any other alternatives. It is not clear whether there will be room for transcribers and complaints being recorded by the staff of the NPRC. There can be no presumptuous conceptions that overestimate the literacy of the complainants and thus all measures have to be built into the structure of the NPRC Bill before it becomes law. viii) Protection of victims/witnesses The Bill in section 8(13) provides for protection of any persons associated with the investigation. However, there is a real possibility that the provisions of the Bill as they stand may fail to protect the victims. For example the provision for advertising the intention to investigate might put already victimised people into more trouble especially vulnerable groups such as women and children. Heal Zimbabwe; therefore, recommend the inclusion of mechanisms that protect victims and witnesses from accused perpetrators be they private individual or state security personnel. Removing a provision that allow advertisements before conducting an investigation is one such a solution. 7