4.0 How does the NPRC work? When the NPRC commences its work, it will come up with a plan of how it is going to achieve its constitutional mandate and any other duties to be specied in any other law. This will include setting priorities, developing an implementation plan, identifying the strategic priorities, identifying its needs and shaping its message. 4.1 Hearings The NPRC has a mandate to receive and consider complaints from the public and to take such action in regard to the complaints, as it considers appropriate. This is an indication that the NPRC may hold public hearings where witnesses and victims come to give their testimonies. 4.2 Investigations The NPRC can also make investigations of human rights violations or any issues that may lead to conict. This is derived from its broad mandate to develop programs, mechanisms or any incidental matters to carry out its explicitly stated mandate. 4.3 Mediation The NPRC is mandated to perform some alternative dispute resolution; conict resolution, to conciliate and mediate disputes among communities, organisations, groups and individuals. The NPRC is different from other commissions. The NPRC has a mandate to resolve both past and ongoing conicts. For example, in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), did not have authority to conciliation and mediation for ongoing conicts and disputes. The TRC, only had authority to make recommendations to the Ministry of Justice to establish conict resolution and mediation structures at community level. 19