The Standard
By Kholwani Nyathi
28 March 2010
ZIMBABWE School Examinations (Zimsec) directors have allegedly launched a witch-hunt targeting employees after information was leaked that the exams body is bleeding because of mismanagement, corruption and nepotism. This comes amid indications Education, Sport and Culture Minister David Coltart has brought in an independent expert to clean up the rot.
A joint audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General and Ernst & Young leaked to The Standard a fortnight ago titled Zimsec Capacity Assessment: November 2009 said the institution’s management systems were weak and its credibility severely diminished.
The report said Zimsec director Happy Ndanga could be making “errant decisions” because the institution has been running without a board for a long time.
“A day after the story was published the directorate immediately stopped salary negotiations with managers accusing them of taking sensitive information to the press,” said a source.
“But the rot is just getting worse, just last week a former temporary worker was arrested for selling fake exam slips.
“Zimsec has also bought 13 BT 50 trucks for regional managers and the directors would be taking delivery of the vehicles yet it is said there is no money for the smooth running of examinations.”
The audit raised concerns about the lack of security and the employment of under-qualified clerks on a temporary basis, which it said impacted on the credibility of the examination system.
Coltart yesterday said although he had not seen the report he had secured the services of an independent chartered accountant, an expert who is not attached to Zimsec to address management weaknesses that were already known before the audit.
He said GTZ, a German organisation, had provided “generous” funding to help the independent expert who will soon visit the Cambridge University Overseas Examination Board, which administered the examinations before they were fully localised in 2002, to investigate how the localisation of the “O” and “A” examinations can be improved.
“I want to stress the fact that I am not neglecting the problems at Zimsec,” Coltart said. “We are doing everything possible to rectify the problems that have been outlined in the report.”
Zimsec employees had raised concern that Coltart appeared to be siding with the directors who have reportedly dismissed the audit report as biased.
Current and former workers at the exams body said the findings by the audit team were only a tip of the iceberg.
Tobias Moyo, a former human resources officer who retired on medical grounds in 2008 and has been battling to get his pension, made stunning revelations about record keeping at Zimsec.
“The human resources office does not keep records of people who are leaving and those who are being hired,” Moyo said.
Moyo said he was told that the processing of his pension was not a priority and that thousands of other former employees were also in the same boat.