MEMBERS of the Mthwakazi Youth Leaders Joint Resolution (MYLJR) pressure group were last Thursday summoned by Plumtree Police over allegations of harassing a local headmistress. Report by Pamela Mhlanga
The youths allegedly harassed former Makuzeze Primary School headmistress Victoria Pasipanodya in January this year.
Last term, over 90 parents in Mangwe District led by their headman Peter Mpofu and supported by members of the pressure group as well as the Makuzeze Primary School Development Committee (SDC) chairperson Simanga Sibanda in January stormed the institution demanding the transfer of the then acting headmistress Pasipanodya. The parents accused Pasipanodya of maladministration.
The parents said they were not happy with the way the school was being run, in particular the transfer of three teachers for allegedly “undermining the authority” of the then acting headmistress.
The demonstrators picketed the school on the opening day demanding keys to the school’s administration block and immediate transfer of Pasipanodya, her husband Munyaradzi, who is a teacher at the school, and deputy headmaster Robson Gotosa.
In an interview with NewsDay yesterday, MYLJR spokesperson Mqondisi Moyo said 14 members of the group who were present during the incident in January were summoned to Plumtree Police’s CID Law and Order section.
“The police in Plumtree called us and told us that we were guilty of harassing the former head of Makuzeze School in January and forcibly taking the school’s office and cottage keys away from her,” he said.
Moyo claimed the group had been falsely accused of forcibly grabbing the keys from the school head because Pasipanodya had surrendered the keys to the SDC and not to members of MYLJR.
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“We do not understand how they can accuse us of being guilty of something we did not do,” he said.
“What is also angering us is that the police seem to have diverted from the real issue of arresting Pasipanodya, but they deliberately keep on bothering themselves over something petty as this.”
He said CID officers who identified themselves as Tshuma and Sibanda had been calling them almost daily and demanding they approach them in Plumtree.
Contacted for comment, Matabeleland South Provincial Acting Police Spokesperson Sergeant Loveness Mangena told NewsDay that she was yet to get feedback from the Law and Order Section.
