Legal services firm launches diaspora support

Tapiwa Chirume

LEADING local legal and im­migration service provider, Tulia Zimbabwe, has launched a 12-month support programme to assist diaspora citizens with com­plex cross-border challenges.

Tulia Zimbabwe and Tulia Group CIC chief executive of­ficer Rumbidzai Bvunzawabaya yesterday said the lives of millions of Zimbabweans had become increasingly international, but professional support had failed to keep pace with their changing circumstances.

“For millions of Zimbabweans living abroad, home is no longer a single place. It is a life divided between countries — a house be­ing built in Harare while a career develops in London, children growing up in Britain while grandparents remain in Zimbabwe, money being sent home every month to support family, build a home or buy property,” Bvun­zawabaya wrote.

“But there is a problem we do not talk about enough: our lives have become international, while much of the support available to us has not. At Tulia Zimbabwe, we have encountered variations of this story repeatedly. Property disputes, questionable powers of attorney, estate problems, im­migration refusals and documents that were perfectly acceptable in one country but unusable in another are increasingly part of diaspora life.”

Bvunzawabaya said distance, unfamiliarity with different legal systems and fragmented profes­sional services were leaving some diaspora Zimbabweans exposed.

She cited cases involving property bought from abroad, with owners sometimes discovering problems only after returning to Zimbabwe.

A Zimbabwean nurse in the United Kingdom, for example, could spend years sending money home to purchase a stand before appointing a relative to handle the paperwork, only to return and dis­cover that the property had been transferred into another person’s name.

Bvunzawabaya said similar complications could arise when diaspora families dealt with im­migration applications, estates, property transactions and the au­thentication of documents between Zimbabwe and the UK.

“These are not theoretical questions. They are the realities of modern Zimbabwean families,” she said.