Why Respina Ziyanyanduko Should Be Removed As NRZ GM
22 June 2022
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By Linda Tsungirirai Masarira

22 June 2022

The starting point is to evaluate Respina Zinyanduko. Who is she? She was born on 19 June 1979, she joined NRZ board in August 2020, whilst she was employed by ZPC as a mere Legal Officer. She was not even in ZPC’s Management Executive.

Upon joining NRZ’s board she served for less than 6 months before being appointed Acting General Manager in March 2021. In December 2021, she was appointed substantive General Manager after attending interviews which were conducted by her fellow Board Members.

Respina lacks the necessary experience at Management Executive level as well as the Board level to really lead a strategic institution like NRZ. To safeguard her incapacity she has embarked on a holocaust of eliminating all Senior and Experienced Managers who understand the railwayway system.

She has been using Security Branch (Lithini Ndlovu) and Internal Audit Branch (Gilbert Sukwe) to raise fictitious charges and unprocedurally hire the services of her Legal friend Haggis Moyo to come and fire her perceived enemies. This process has been going on for the past 6 months now.

The Railway core business has been shelved aside thus affecting railway operations tremendously. The Railways is now like a kangaroo Magistrates Court. Her Plan is to; 1. Eliminate the current Board Chairman Advocate Martin Dinha. Respina apparently sent a false Audit Report to the VPs office to tarnish the image of the Board Chairperson.

There is a plan to control the board so that she and her accomplices can do as they want. 2. Eliminate Joel Lunga the Acting Chief Finance Officer who has since written to the board exposing the unethical and corrupt conduct by Respina Ziyanyanduko and have control over Finances. 3. Eliminate Nyasha Maravanyika, PR Manager, because he stands up and refuses to accept nonsense.

He had previously exposed her shenanigans in the media. 4. Eliminate Eng Phillip Chifamba. Railways must ideally be led by an Engineer. Eng Chifamba is the most experienced and Senior Engineer. He is currently on suspension over fabricated stories. 5. She eliminated Maxwell Matende. He was in charge of Operations.

Very experienced and well versed with running of trains. He was dubiously seconded to RMS. 6. She eliminated Kashangura who is qualified and was supposed to be the Chief Internal Auditor. She instead appointed Gilbert Sukwe who she uses to write false reports as a basis of attacking and implementing her evil ambitions. She is also abusing the NRZ Security branch. Respina uses Runhare to gather and intimidate people.

She has daily briefs with him whilst the Security Services Manager is just sitting in his office. The recent retrenchment of 20 people was driven by Runhare to eliminate Trade Unionists and people who were passing negative comments about her on WhatsApp groups. Ndlovu the Security Manager is just a useless stooge.

Remember the issue of the refund where he was instructed not to recommend payment. He cannot act independently. Respina Ziyanyanduko misrepresented to the Board on retrenchment without going through the HR Committee so that she could fire 3 Union Presidents 1. Kamurai Moyo – ZARWU President 2. Sikhumbuzo B. Moyo – RAU Prseident 3.F. Dambudzo -RAU S.G. and other staff members perceived as her enemies.

NRZ conducted Interviews for Accountants. Respina refused to sign the score sheets. She directed her relative Chikwariro be appointed as the Recenue Accountant.

The panel comprised of 1. Ms T Maseko, HR 2. Mr J. Lunga, A/CFO 3. Mrs Zhou, Corporate Secretary 4. Mrs Nyathi, Recruitment The person who was supposed to be appointed was P. Nhevera instead she appointed her known relative Mr Chikwariro.

Her levels of nepotism are very alarming, she also employed Shepherd Mukanga her cousin as her driver and dubiously changed his grade from B4 to C4 which is a supervisory grade. Mr Chananukwa, her husband’s young brother has also been given employment at the NRZ and given an altered grade.

Security services is now full of her relatives as she continues with neptusm and unethical conduct within the NRZ. Respina fired over 400 Short term Contract Workers ok n the grounds that there is no work, surprisingly she recruited her relatives into the Security Services branch.

The burning question is why she did not offer the contract workers permanent contracts before recruiting permanent staff from outside? Shortly after retrenching several staff members in different departments under the guise of a restructuring and downsizing agenda, she went on a frenzy to recruit friends and relatives into permanent positions within the NRZ.

She has continously breached Procurement Regulations by getting the Services of Mr H. Moyo from Scanlen. There are no comparative quotes. All she does is get a quote and pay them USD4 900, air tickets, hotel bills, etc. How can Moyo come up with a fair determination on labour issues under such circumstances.

Moyo is said to be her friend as well. Why hire Moyo when NRZ has a legal department and a full time employed Legal officer to deal with internal legal matters??? Food for thought! Is if all this is not enough, Respina conducted Interviews for the Procurement Manager on a Saturday.

She excluded the Chief Financial Officer from the panel, despite recruitment policy which states that the GM must attend together with the CFO. It was employment corruption. Find attached a copy of the NRZ Recruitment policy.

For the avoidance of doubt. The recruitment of Mr. Gwaindepi as a Procurement Manager is null and void because the Procurement Board was not fully constituted. Read through NRZ’s Selection Policy below. She knew she was up to some mischief, she excluded the CFO who is a permanent member of the Board.

She took Bowden and Mlambo her puppets to rubber stamp the recruitment of Gwaindepi, her brother. The mind boggling question is; How do you recruit a Procurement Manager without the Chief Finance Officer on the Recruitment Board. Procurement department has a huge impact on the Finances of an organisation.

She recently allocated a vehicle to her Brother, Gwaindepi, a Toyota D4D ahead of other Senior Management members, Engineers who are in D5 and are working without vehicles. After the Acting CFO Lunga wrote to the Board alerting them of unethical conduct by the GM, she has since created malicious allegations against the A/CFO in a bid to get him fired ASAO to cover up her shenanigans.

NRZ regulations state that when the GM flies, he/she flies in the economy class considering the financial quagmire the parastatal is facing. Respina flies herself in business class and has awarded herself many luxurious benefits which are outside her contract of employment as the General Manager.

Surely all the above clearly show that Respina Ziyanyanduko is not Executive Managerial material, lacks the necessary expertise to be a General Manager for a big institution like NRZ.

My humble plea is for ZACC to investigate all the corrupt activities by Respina Ziyanyanduko, the NRZ Board to suspend her as NRZ GM until investigations are concluded and for the Ministry of transport to fully investigate the gross mismanagement of the parastatal.