TellZim Reporter
The dust seems to have finally settled following the election of a new School Development Association (SDA) on July 30 following a battle for the control of the school that spilled into the courts.
Barely a day after High Court Justice Sunsley Zisengwe struck an application bid to stop the holding of elections by the outgoing executive off the court roll, parents elected a seven member committee though a minority turned up for the process.
Presiding over the elections on behalf of Masvingo District Schools Inspector (DSI) Ishmael Chigaba, Schools Inspector Otillia Maramwidze said the Saturday election was to correct the anomaly that took place sometime in April when a new executive was chosen but later nullified after an appeal at the courts by the outgoing executive.
“Before we start the election process, let me take this opportunity to officially dissolve the current executive to pave way for elections. Today’s election is meant to correct the anomaly that took place in April where a new executive was voted into power but later on challenged at the courts.
“Today we have to conduct our elections using Statutory Instrument (SI) of 1998 paragraph 11 which is the correct one to conduct these elections under,” said Maramwidze.
She went on to challenge the new committee to work with parents for the betterment of the school.
“Now going forward, I challenge you as parents to work together with the new committee, teachers and school administrators (head and deputy) to ensure that teaching, learning and sport development are realized.
“I can see there is good Science laboratory, thus learning of science subjects should also be revitalized. School resources should be channeled towards developing the school,” she said.
One of the new committee members Dr Robson Pahuhwa said the SDA will focus on re-establishing the ‘golden’ tag on Ndarama that has seized to be a thing of the past over the last two decades while at the same time he pointed out the need for an audit of the school accounts.
“The previous court battles, let me hasten to say let bygones be bygones and thus we need to move forward and come with new strategies as well as ways of developing the school. Before assuming full responsibility, we would need to ask the Auditor General on issues relating to auditing of school accounts.
“Issues of audit are like even at work before one starts a new job, there is need for an end-time evaluations that is where negative impacts of the previous management can be seen or identified. Undertaking an audit is not an issue of finger-pointing towards someone but it is an issue of settling down debts or expenditure.
“We have approached several stakeholders like Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) and informed District Schools Inspector (DSI) on the matter but as you know the system can take longer to intervene because of protocols,” said Dr Pahuhwa.
Commenting on probability of another legal battle by the former committee, he said they can expect everything because human beings are unpredictable.
“The legal battle can be still on because we don’t know what is in their minds. Human beings are born tabularaser, their rationale entity and they can go to appeal again. The previous battle was all about those who were fighting because we as parents are not fighting. We just need the new committee work hard for the development of the school,” he added.
The new committee comprises of Chairperson Enesia Chekacheka, deputized by Annacoleta Mweneziko, Secretary Grace Danda, and treasurer Pethezake Zinduku while committee committee members are Farai Manyudza, Dr Robson Pahuhwa and Priscilla Makonese.
The ousted executive led by Ray Muzenda has frequented the courts with the latest being his High Court application that was thrown out by judge Justice Sunsley Zisengwe on July 29 in a bid to stop the election with the matter being struck of the urgent matters roll.
The executive has been there for the past 18 years. On April 9, a new executive was elected but challenged by the Muzenda-led executive leading to its nullification.
