News / Regional
Gwanda Zintec fails corruption test
28 May 2014 at 12:23hrs | Views
Despite all the focus and preventive measures to guard against students recruitment corruption, Gwanda Zintec College has shockingly failed to pass the test.
Information gathered from very reliable sources within the Ministry of Higher Education institute is that a senior official in the college somehow managed to interfere with the highly monitored recruitment process and corruptly squeezed in at least ten students into the college outside the prescribed procedure. The officer, who happens to be the second most senior official at the college is reported to have accepted bribes of varied amounts from the at least ten known students. The official is said to have used his office and influence to corruptly bring the students into the college classes without approval from the responsible authorities. The ten students evidently did not apply to college in the prescribed manner neither did they go through the interview process but found their way into the classes.
Gwanda Zintec College has for years been accused of massive corruption in recruiting students with prospective students claiming to have previously paid bribes of up to US$1000 to be enrolled at the college. This massive corruption meant that most of the prospective students had to be enrolled from the richer areas outside Gwanda Town and Matabeleland South which is the college's priority catchment area. Reacting to the out cries on the recruitment process, Minister of Presidential Affairs for Matabeleland South Mr Abednico Ncube gave a directive that with immediate effect the college set up a recruitment committee which would interview all prospective students and give priority to applicants from Matabeleland South.
The college adhered to the Minister's directive and indeed set up a recruitment committee with a specific procedure which did not allow for a single person to be responsible for the recruitment. All applicants who went through the process were interviewed after sending their applications through the college normal mail and indeed priority was given to applicants from the region. The recruitment committee tabled its report to the responsible authorities at the end of the exercise and for once everyone appeared satisfied that for the first time the college had carried out a transparent and fair recruitment process.
A sudden shock hit the college when the new students started lessons at the college when alert members of the recruitment committee realised the presence of students from Mashonaland Provinces who had not go through the recruitment procedures suddenly enrolled at the college. An investigation into how the students got to be at the college was done by the committee through the Principal which allegedly fingered the senior official. It emerged the senior official had allegedly received bribes from the students and smuggled the students into the list of enrolled students. On the discovery, the students were immediately sent away from the college resulting in them dramatically demanding refunds of the monies they had paid to the official who quickly reimbursed them before they left.
Asked for a comment an officer within the college who was also part of the recruitment committee preferring to speak on condition of anonymity could neither confirm nor deny the accusation but only expressed disappointments at the accusations after what he called a noble effort they had put into the exercise.
"Its disappointing that after all the hard work and noble effort we put into this exercise at the end of it all we still have some people being implicated in interfering with what we did transparently and honestly against all odds," said the officer.
"You want to write news and you want to write it as accurately as possible, if you want to get the correct facts on that matter I suggest you come to my office and we sit down and talk about the issue. I can not discuss the issue over the phone as I am not really sure who I am talking to and might end up giving information to the wrong people," she said.
The shocked implicated senior official failed to clearly articulate his side of the case instead choosing to vent his anger at the Bulawayo24 reporter demanding the reporter bring to him the people accusing him of the corruption and misuse of office.
"I don't know of any bribery, what are you talking about? I don't take bribes and don't recruit any students its the duty of the recruiting committee to do that not me," he fumed. "Bring those people to me let them talk to me I don't know anything about that. I thought you spoke to the Principal already what did she say?" continued the official before hanging up on the reporter.
A resident of Gwanda Mr Patson Tshili who early in the year had tipped Bulawayo24 on the corruption at the college expressed his anger at the official demanding that the he be suspended, investigated and fired.
"This is very shocking, some people have no respect for authority at all. After all the noise about the corruption at the college and corrective measures put in place someone still has the guts to go out and disrespect all that and even disrespect the President and Resident Minister. We shall follow the issue with the Minister and demand that he be suspended, investigated and fired," said mr Tshili angrily.
Efforts by Bulawayo 24 to get a comment from the ten "dismissed" students have been difficult at the moment. Anyone with their contacts is invited to send a whatsapp messege to the Bulawayo24 hotline +44 7706 128821.
Source - Byo24News
