By Dorrothy Moyo| The events of the last few months culminating into yesterday morning have stripped one of Zimbabwe’s deeply intriguing and disturbing ministerial appointments in the name of Lazarus Dokora.

Dokora is guilty of diverting over 1.2 billion dollars in school fees to a dodgy bank account accessed by his office, while at the same time officially instructing headmasters to dip their fingers into their  schools’ bank accounts to take out the last remaining cash so to fund trips to holiday resorts like Kariba and Victoria Falls. Many schools were left struggling particularly those in rural areas and the situation was worsened when the minister then instructed parents to pay school fees using goats. Dokora’s instruction was fully official and he even announced it in the state media saying his aim was to access the whole total $1.2 billion paid by parents in all schools across the country. He would also force headmasters to for the first time wear uniforms.

“They (parents) contribute US$1,2 billion every year. That is the money that goes directly into the hands of SDCs (School Development Committees),” said Dokora in February.

He continued saying, “Teachers are paid the tune of US$900 million, that brings the money in the education sector to US$2,1 billion. I then top up with what I get from education partners. With these kinds of figures we can do anything so nothing should stop us from implementing our programmes.”

This chaos described by all teachers as “nonsense” also came at a time when Dokora had introduced a chaotically implemented new curriculum which requires computers and this electricity and also new textbooks. Complaints to former President Robert Mugabe fell on deaf ears as teachers and parents were ignored. One of these schools in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s home town of Zvishavane was profiled by ZimEye.com and the local senator Lilian Timveos gave the below account.

https://youtu.be/Bx1lH1BEHP8