adminCORRUPTION is a vice that is fast crippling efficient and effective service delivery in the country.
Instead of diligently serving the people, public office bearers are busy lining up their pockets.
Sadly, this cancerous vice has crept into our schools where School Development Committees are colluding with heads and other senior personnel to steal in broad daylight.
All this is happening at the expense of the provision of quality education to pupils.
Elsewhere in this issue we carry a disturbing story which is exposing rampant corruption and theft of funds that is happening in schools in Manicaland.
This follows an ongoing nationwide audit by the parent ministry that has managed to expose stinking corruption at schools visited.
Interestingly, the audit also unearthed that some schools are still paying teachers incentives in stark contrast to a Government directive that scrapped such payments.
Schools have reportedly lost millions of dollars in the ensuing scandals that should see heads rolling.
We take sides with Manicaland Provincial Education Director, Mr Edmore Shumba when he said disciplinary action must be taken against those found wanting.
Parents and guardians want to hear that action has been done and not empty promises in which well-known offenders are left to walk scot free.
Of late, authorities at most schools have turned a blind eye to Government’s directives, doing things contrary to well laid guidelines.
The corruption that is being exposed today because of the ongoing audit is a culmination of a series of events in which school authorities deliberately ignored instructions from the parent ministry.
This has resulted in the deep-rooted corruption that has finally taken its toll.
Each time when schools open, pupils are sent back home over unpaid fees in clear violation of a directive by the parent ministry to the contrary. That is wilful disregard of authority and a punishable offence in terms of the employment act. We hear of unfulfilled promises by those in power that heads will roll, but up to this date its business as usual.
We urge those calling shots in the education sector to flex their muscle and bring order because that sector is a useful component of the country’s economy.
It cannot be turned into a free-for-all.
Our wish is that those who abused funds must be chucked off the system and taken to the courts to pay back what they looted.
We want results because the audit has exposed everything.
The audit exercise has not touched every school, thereby implying that had the auditors moved from one school to the other, the vice might be greater than what was currently exposed.
It is in this light that we strongly urge parents to be active whistle-blowers because they are the ones who are forking out large sums of money to send their children to school.
In the same vein, district education officers must respond well to such calls and act swiftly.
We must not wait for a nationwide audit to fish out rot because there are auditors at district level who can swiftly do their work when they get information that funds are missing at a school in their area of jurisdiction.
They should lead the way and clean-up schools.
When parents report such ills and get unfavourable responses what quickly come into their minds is the possibility of collusion between the alleged culprits and the people they are reporting to. It is therefore not surprising to hear that some of the corruption that has been finally exposed by this audit was being swept under the carpet by those who want to protect their accomplices.
We want transparency in our schools.
Online Reporter