The Sunday News
Misconduct” means some form of wrongdoing. Labour experts say misconduct might involve deliberate wrongdoing, and there may be circumstances where the act of wrong doing is grave such that it amounts to serious misconduct, which might lead to one being fired from the organisation or demoted from a position of authority.
When a serious misconduct red flag has been raised, the misconduct would be serious that it undermines the trust and confidence that the employer has in the employee. When an employee has been charged with misconduct, disciplinary action is taken as per the dictates of the labour law. The purpose of any disciplinary action is to prevent reoccurrence of the inappropriate behaviour or misconduct, and emphasis should be on the corrective action required to change the employee’s conduct and giving the employee a reasonable opportunity to do so and not only to punish the employee.
In light of allegations of misconduct by school headmasters, bursars and members of School Development Committees in a lot of schools countrywide, we note that there has been little effort over the years to take corrective measures on the part of the Ministry. However, we are glad Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora has since last year been busy making sure that corrective measures are taken to restore order in schools and ensure financial discipline on the part of headmasters, bursars and SDCs. His ministry has come up with a cocktail of measures to ensure that money paid by parents in form of fees and SDC levy is not abused, and one of the drastic measures was to stop SDCs from controlling school bank accounts.
There is a lot of money that goes through the hands of SDCs and headmasters, with the Ministry saying more than US$1,2 billion in development levies is circulating in Government and mission schools and a chunk of it is being abused. An audit recently revealed that some school authorities have been duplicating receipt books as cover to lay their hands on development funds. A school in Chitungwiza, for instance, claimed to have drilled a borehole for US$19 000 — an amount sufficient to drill five boreholes. Another inflated the cost of refurbishing one of its buses to US$27 000.
A learning institution in Harare allegedly falsified its yearly wage bill, pegging it at US$261 709 and officials pocketed the difference, and gave its annual administrative and tea budgets as US$67 000 and US$5 000 respectively. The SDC “purchased” a bus for US$180 000 when the actual cost was not more than US$100 000. This was also despite a standing Government directive for all schools to buy buses from State Procurement Board-approved dealers. Most culprits have been flouting tender regulations, inflating invoices and quotations, and under receipting and banking.
In another case, a teacher in Kwekwe has been arrested for allegedly burning the school administration offices in order to cover up for theft.
In Bulawayo, the Ministry recently reported that Milton High School head Mr William Ncube and his deputy Mrs Nosizi Muleya are set to be demoted and transferred after a disciplinary hearing instituted by the Ministry recommended that the two leave the school. The two were suspended in October last year after an audit exposed alleged financial rot at the school. They allegedly swindled the institution of more than $10 000 and routinely flouted sound governance procedures.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango confirmed that the recommendation was that the two be demoted and transferred from the school. She said they were working with the Civil Service Commission to implement the recommendations since the commission was the employer.
We hope that action taken by the Ministry will restore parents’ confidence on how schools are run. It is not a secret that money is hard to come by and parents sacrifice a lot to raise money for fees, which unfortunately has been at the mercy of unscrupulous school authorities. We note that not all school heads, bursars and even SDCs are corrupt, but events on the ground should serve as a clear warning to would be like minded corrupt officials that the long arm of the law will eventually catch up with them. We also applaud the Ministry for taking disciplinary action on officials found on the wrong side of the law.
