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The parents have signed a petition addressed to the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture calling for the immediate removal of the headmaster, Mr Smart Hlabalingene for the alleged corruption and misuse of school funds.
Mr Hlabalingene allegedly forged the signature of the Bulawayo provincial education director (PED), Mr Dan Moyo giving approval for parents to pay a $10 levy per child every term.
Parents said the headmaster forged the letter to legitimise the levy so as to hoodwink the parents. However, some parents protested against the move to the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture who denied issuing such an approval.
The Ministry indicated that Government had only approved a $3 levy per child every year.
According to the forged approval letter, dated 1 January 2012, the Government was giving the school a go-ahead to charge the levy.
“Each pupil is to pay an amount of $10. This authority is with effect from 01-01-2012 and this approval form should be accessible to all interested stakeholders,” reads part of the letter alleged to have been signed by Mr Moyo.
Mr Moyo, however, said he was not in a position to comment, as he was not aware of the matter.
“I am not aware of that incident but my office will immediately investigate because naturally we wouldn’t support corruption at our schools,” said Mr Moyo.
Mr Hlabalingene confirmed the incident but said he was not in a position to give further details.
“I know this happened but the PED, Mr Moyo is the one who can comment,” he said.
In separate interviews some of the parents blasted the headmaster, saying there was a need for the Government to take immediate action and punish him.
“From every payment we made he was deducting $3 Government levy from $10 and putting $7 in his pocket.
“The headmaster is a smooth talker who tricked us into believing that what he did was correct, actually to show our seriousness we are circulating this petition to get rid of him because if we continue like this, more cases of abuse of funds are certainly going to crop up,” said one of the parents, Mr Paul Mkandla.
Mrs Cindy Nxumalo, another parent, said the stamp on the approval letter might have been forged by an insider at the Ministry of Education offices.
“The education office denied knowledge of the letter of approval but amazingly it had the education’s office stamp. So someone within the officers approved and stamped it without the Ministry’s consent,” said Mrs Nxumalo.
A petition has been signed by more than 400 parents demanding the immediate removal of the headmaster from the school.
“As Lotshe Primary School parents on the above allegations we sign this petition for the removal with immediate effect of the headmaster because it is hard to work with the headmaster who lied in the name of the Government trying to get money from us without transparency and accountability,” read part of the petition.
Another parent who identified himself as Mr Ndlovu said it was unfair to the parents as there was a danger that fraud had been going on unnoticed for some time and there was a need for a thorough audit to be carried out at the school.
Online Reporter