Statement from students at the University.

FRAUD AND SCAMS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE: THE CASE BEHIND
THE WITHHOLDING OF HGL 408 ADVANCED STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY
NOVEMBER 2017 EXAMINATION FINAL MARKS:

Rampant cases of fraud and scams have affected the quality of education at the University of Zimbabwe.

Students are now made to fail examinations by the heads of departments and the institution so that they come back for what is being termed Winter School by the UZ. Students would then have to pay for these courses and residence twice in an academic year and the money is going towards funding other interests.

UZ is using this route to siphon money out of unsuspecting parents and guardians. This has caused alarm among the students and staff and some members have been fired from the university for raising the alarm. The legal battles that result are only benefiting the the top brass at UZ and its lawyers.

Here is a case of one of the many departments and examination papers that are being used for this malicious end.

The HGL 408 Advanced Structural Geology examination was written in November 2017 at the Department of Geology, University of Zimbabwe. In December 2017, there were rumours that circulated that this examination could have leaked.

The Chairperson of the Department, Dr Maideyi Meck started accusing the students that they knew how the examination had leaked and these rumours were spread to the Faculty and the
University authorities and an investigation was initiated.

The investigations were later focused on other issues and in the end it was found that the examination leak was a falsehood that was targeted at other personal issues among the staff at the
department but the results of this examination were not released and students had an N on their
results profiles.

However, despite the findings of the investigations, the University of Zimbabwe is still reluctant to release the results of the said HGL 408 and has resorted to fraudulent means to resolve the matter.

The students have been forced to rewrite the examination but are still contesting this judgment within the legal system, arguing that they want their results because they did not leak any any paper and that even the investigations found that the students were right.

The 10th of August 2018 has been set for yet another contested rewrite.

The University itself is in possession of letters and evidence that exonerates the affected final year students and this evidence, which has also been made available to the said department, faculty and the relevant students body, are in the form of the results of the said examination which are at the Department of Geology, the Faculty of Science and the Vice Chancellor’s Office; also there are letters by the Dean of Faculty, the investigating officers, the lecturer of the course
and the students who had been implicated in the matter that show that the examination in question did not leak at all.

Efforts have been made by the students’ body to seek dialogue with the University of Zimbabwe authorities to resolve the matter on level terms but the UZ insists on a rewrite which has been rejected since March 2018 up to now.

Various petitions have made to the University of Zimbabwe, human rights groups and legal entities, civic organizations and the geological
fraternities through the student rights movements and lawyers but all the efforts have been suppressed by the University in order to make students pay for this course and examination again.

There are other courses that the students in this department will have to pay for and redo again, some in which issues related to race from one lecturer Dr Anthony Martin have been raised. Dr
Martin has since fled the department to the UK.

The University had agreed to an out of court settlement after the students body had filed an urgent application at the High Court in April 2018 to have the results released. However, the
University’s influential top executive seem to have bribed the lawyers and the case was said to have been dismissed and a document with no official Court of Arms and High Court registrar’s
stamp was produced by Mr Gift Mtisi, a so-called human rights lawyer, for the dismissal.

The UZ then demanded that the students sit for another examination. The students have refused to accept such an admission of guilty when the evidence points to the contrary and have been
threatened with failure to graduate this year or anytime soon since they are in their final year. There are voice recordings from one of the management staff on this issue.

The course in question is not a course any student would want to write twice, among other courses. The UZ has advertised courses for the so called winter school in the Sunday Mail of 8
July 2018, and 20 courses on that list are from the Department of Geology alone. There are 32 students for one course, each paying USD140 for a course and $200 for residence, that is almost
quarter of USD 1 Million in just 7 weeks for this winter school from one department alone.

This department is also said to have been left in a quandary by the dismissal and departure of most of the teaching staff due to scams and acts of maladministration, most of which has been blamed on the its chairperson Dr Meck, the Vice Chancellor Professor Nyagura and their unscrupulous
cabal. It has also been established that the VC fired the UZ Bursar sometime last month for reasons best known to the VC . Suspicions are that the bursar had queried some of the decisions
by Nyagura.

The UZ lawyers Chihambakwe, Mtizwa & Partners and the fraudulent Nyagura are
benefitting from the legal battles ensue from these acts of malevolance. It should be emphasized that such acts of fraud, unprofessional conduct and injustice should not be allowed to prevail simply because the students have to graduate.

The fraudulent conduct by
the University’s Vice Chancellor Professor Nyagura and the its Executive, the Minister of Higher Education Professor Murwira, Dr Meck, the Registrar at UZ Dr Mutongoreni and his vice Dr Makunike, the lawyers Messrs Gift Mtisi (ZLHR), Mtizwa and G Mhlanga (UZ lawyers, Chihambakwe, Mtizwa & Partners), the biased Chronicle and Newsday, and some of the UZ top management staff should not be allowed to tarnish the name and quality of education at the UZ.

This victimization and, intimidation of students and staff is just getting out of proportions at this university. All this is a direct and intended infringement of the laws of the country as laid out in the Constitution.

The students, after many requests to have their deserved results from the UZ through legal means, have resorted to publicizing all this in search of justice. Evidence in form of the affected students, the HGL 408 examination and all the other marks, the course material, the notices by the UZ for the rewrite, the bogus documents from the mentioned lawyers and all of the injustices and cruelties stated above is available for everyone to see.