New twist in asylum support letters scandal

By Brilliant Pongo

The ‘pay and we will support your claim’ scandal allegedly involving some of the Zimbabwean organisations in the UK, such as ROHR, ZimVigil and the MDC UK has now taken a new twist, with claims that the £120 charged by ROHR for a support letter is just the tip of the iceberg.

For many years it has been an open secret that no one in the Zimbabwean community dared speak about, some of the political leaders and human rights activists have not only been charging the desperate asylum seekers for support letters but have also demanded sexual favours from those unable to pay for the letters in cash. A number of females were victims of this sick scam.

Some of the organisations that have allegedly taken part in this are registered as charities and some as political parties. The activists and political leaders involved in this scandal have abused their positions of power and benefited financially.  They have not only abused those seeking asylum but also the organisations they represent and diminished the respect and whatever good work these organisations were doing.

Nehanda Radio has it on good authority that some top MDC UK members charged as much as £70 for a support letter, it is still unclear whether the letters come with a grantee that using it to support a claim would lead to one getting granted asylum. Nehanda Radio spoke to some people who claimed that after paying for these support letters they still got their claims rejected and they were told there were no refunds.

The most annoyed were those that had to perform sexual favours for these letters only to find that it was all in vain. Investigations also found that those with the money and contacts quickly got these support letters one could for example get to a ROHR meeting pay a year’s subscription and could get a letter of support from ROHR never mind that he only attended that one meeting. It is the money that seems to be doing the talking.

Nehanda Radio also has it on good authority that the tension between MDC UK and ROHR has now got so bad it is alleged that the human rights group is encouraging those who still had outstanding asylum claims to ditch the MDC because it is no longer relevant to their claims (asylum cases) and to join ROHR as human rights activists and align themselves to ZAPU-UK to maximise their chances of getting asylum.

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