Tinashe Mugabe Challenges Closure Of TV Paternity Show, The Closure DNA
The principal consultant at Global Parentage Services, trading as Global DNA Zimbabwe, Tinashe Mugabe, has approached the High Court to challenge the decision by the Health Professions Authority Zimbabwe (HPAZ) to shut down his company.
The Closure DNA is a DNA paternity show where fathers unsure about the paternity of their children get a public reveal of the DNA test results.
The regulatory authority, HPAZ, ordered the closure of The Closure DNA in September after declaring that Mugabe and his company had violated conditions it had set.
One of the conditions was a requirement that the company should employ a professional laboratory scientist at all times.
HPAZ said Mugabe was neither qualified nor competent to issue DNA test results.
Mugabe is now suing the HPAZ and the Medical Laboratory and Clinical Scientists Council Zimbabwe (MCAZ) challenging the suspension of his operations and closure of his offices.
He is denying that his company is a medical one requiring regulation by HPAZ, insisting that he only registered with them for compliance in order to operate freely.
Mugabe said after he started his operations in the business of DNA testing he was approached by HPAZ which advised him to register with them.
As part of the conditions, Global DNA was informed to employ a laboratory scientist and was also registered under MCAZ as a collection site.
He said he complied with the directives of registration until his scientist resigned from her job.
Mugabe said their centre is only a collection site and samples are sent out of Zimbabwe for testing before results are returned to Zimbabwe.
He insists that his company does not in any way “diagnose, treat, mitigate or prevent illness, injury or disability, abnormal, physical or mental state or the symptoms in human beings as defined by the Health Professions Act.”
He said his business does not in any way fall within the definition of a health institution as defined by the Act.
Mugabe said employing a laboratory scientist does not mean Global DNA was now a medical facility and maintains it is not necessary or mandated.
In this regard, he is seeking a declaratory that the HPAZ cannot at law order the closure of his offices because Global DNA is not a health institution. Through his lawyers Maunga Maanda and Associates, Mugabe said:
Global DNA Zimbabwe had a legitimate expectation of being heard before an adverse decision was made against it.
It thus has an interest in the matter before this honourable court in that its business has been suspended unlawfully, with great loss to its income and the benefit it has brought to users of its services.
The matter is pending.
