AT least 25 Zimbabwean students on government scholarship in Cuba are reportedly struggling to make ends meet due to delays in the release of their out of pocket stipends.
Dumisani Sibanda
In an e-mail to NewsDay recently, one of the affected students accused government of reducing them to “street kids” due to late disbursement of allowances.
“I am one of the students studying in Cuba and I need to draw attention to the situation Zimbabwean students are facing here in order for the government to do something about it. Only students from Zimbabwe in Cuba are living in misery,” the student said, adding they only received $650 out of about $3 000 this year.
The student said their counterparts from other countries in the Sadc region who had larger contingents of more than 3 000 students like the South African group were paid their allowances on time by their governments.
“Students from other African countries are paid on time, even those from the smallest, poorest countries. Why does the Zimbabwean government fail to pay us our stipends? It is now a year living here without money, we don’t even have clothes, shoes, nothing.”
The Zimbabwean students said they now rank as “the poorest and the most ignored students in the world universities” and appealed to newly-appointed Higher and Tertiary Education minister Olivia Muchena to resolve the problem.
However, Muchena two weeks ago said she “was not aware of the problem”.
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“I am undergoing a process of being briefed on the various issues in the ministry and we haven’t gotten to that area,” she said. Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Cuba John Mvundura, also said he was not aware of the students’ predicament and referred questions to officials in the Higher and Tertiary Education ministry.
“I don’t know of Zimbabwean students in Cuba who have been reduced to destitutes, living like street kids because of delays in paying their stipends. But talk to the ministry to get the proper position.” An official in the department responsible for disbursement of the scholarships programme accused the students of being insincere and unappreciative.
“Ask those students if they did not receive $650 each as stipends on June 17 this year. They are supposed to get $3000 per student per year, but they don’t get it at once,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“This is for their out of pocket expenses as they get food at their colleges. By the way they are not the only students on scholarship abroad, we have others in Algeria, Tunisia, Russia and other places and some are living for Algeria today (last week). They should appreciate the situation back home and be grateful that government is paying for their education.”
This is not the first time Zimbabwean students on scholarships outside the country have been left stranded. In 2008, Zimbabwean students on Presidential Scholarship at Fort Hare University, South Africa, reportedly resorted to doing menial jobs such as car-washing, security guarding and street vending to earn a living after the government failed to send them money to return home.
