Zinatha moves to shut out bogus healers

17 Apr, 2016 - 00:04 0 Views

The Sunday News

Lackson Munkombwe

Sunday News Reporter

THE Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha) has embarked on a nationwide registration exercise for traditional healers as a way of coming up with a list which people can cross-check when seeking services of healers following the increase in cases of people being duped by fake healers.

Zinatha president Mr George Kandiero said there has been an increase in the number of individuals claiming to be traditional healers with the aim of swindling people of their money. He said the registration exercise kicked off last week and was targeting to register new practioners and also update information on those already registered.

“We want to ensure that the public seeking the services of traditional healers are safe,” said Mr Kandiero. “There has been a number of reported cases of people who have been conned of their money after consulting bogus healers.”

He said apart from being duped of their monies, people were also risking their lives by taking concoctions that are being prescribed by the bogus healers.

“Bogus healers come with all sorts of herbs claiming that they can heal anything. However, these are the people who have no knowledge about traditional healing but have the courage to give out concoctions to people to eat, drink, bath and perform various rituals they believe can be of help, when it is of no help at all.”

He said that the increase in the number of people claiming to be traditional healers have resulted in the need to come with the list of genuine traditional healers.

“We need to bring sanity by rolling out the identity documents with security features for the members as some individuals were forging them and operating illegally.

“We urge the public to request for operation documentation from Zinatha whenever they are seeking services from traditional healers.

“If you go around towns you will realise that there are many people selling herbal mixtures. These cases are also reported in rural areas where there are individuals who are fleecing villagers of their cattle and their money,” said Mr Kandiero.

Recently, a former Bubi Rural District Council chairman, Mr Cecil Mathambo, was duped of over $1 000 by a traditional healer after claiming to have performed a ritual that would make him $250 000 richer. It was revealed that Mr Mathambo had responded to an advert of the self-proclaimed sangoma in the local paper who claimed that he could solve financial problems by making one rich.

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