By Beverly Bizeki
Power has always been at the centre of schools development with different factions vying for control of its resources and influence but at Duma Primary School in Bikita the battle for power has not been resolved, more than a month after the first attempt to elect a new SDC was disrupted.
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) had to be stopped and deferred to a yet-to-be-announced date after chaos with the old SDC accused of busing parents to support their stay at the school helm as they were becoming less popular with parents.
Commenting on the chaotic AGM meeting, Bikita District Schools Inspector James Mahofa said allegations of externals intruding at AGMs at urban and boarding schools were becoming worrying.
“We received the report of the postponement of the election of a new committee at Duma and what worries us is that there were allegations of people who have nothing to do with the school being bused to attend the meeting and causing chaos. This is becoming a challenge as it is fast becoming a trend at big schools in urban areas and boarding schools.
“To address this challenge we have informed the authorities at Duma Primary to come up with a new date for the elections whereby strict modalities will be used to conduct the meeting and our office will be present too to monitor the elections although there are no serious challenges noted so far by the delay in selecting a new committee,” said Mahofa.
Ward 23 councilor Mark Mutengani said he suspected that politics was at play and said they were still consulting relevant stakeholders on modalities that can be employed to avoid repeating the same mistake.
“Most people who attended the meeting had no children at the school and had no clue about the institution, some did not even know the amount of fees that was being paid at the school hence we had to postpone the election.
“This is the only urban primary school in Bikita hence it receives so much attention with factions from politics and personal interests coming into play. For now, we are working with a shadow committee while working towards selecting a new date for the meeting whereby thorough means will be employed in conducting the meeting,” said Mutengani.
School head Thomas Chabata said Bikita Rural District Council had assured them that the meeting would be conducted as soon as schools open for the second term.
He went on to say there was an incident of vandalism at the school that they suspect could be linked to the SDC election and that was quite disturbing.
“What worries us most about the vandalism case is that there were other things that could be stolen by the perpetrator but he only chose to destroy property on the new staffroom block building at the school.
“Three basins, four urinary chambers, and two toilet seats were destroyed at our state-of-the-art infant toilets recently constructed. The matter has been reported to the police and investigations are still going on,” he said.
Another source who spoke to this publication on condition of anonymity said he suspected that the current committee had hired outsiders to support them back into office.
“The existing committee did not have support at the AGM after people had interrogated the budget and discovered that there were many irregularities. Some parents at the meeting raised great concerns about expenditure. It seems the committee and admin focused on infrastructure development foregoing academic issues.
“This can only be because there are no kickbacks on academic issues unlike on infrastructure development where tenders can be awarded to people linked to some members of the committee. As always, parents tend to support critiques and this is when it all started when one of the critiques was nominated to the committee.
“This did not sit well with some of the members who argued that the selected member had refused to join the BEAM committee but now wanted to be in the SDC, so the meeting had to be adjourned. We are suspecting that there are irregularities which the current committee fears will be picked up when a new committee comes in,” said the concerned parent.
