HIGHER and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo has accused the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) of using stolen documents to conduct investigations into his ministry.
BY XOLISANI NCUBE
Moyo’s office was mysteriously broken into in August last year and investigations reportedly drew a blank.
Giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development yesterday, Moyo said Zacc’s investigations into allegations of corruption and abuse of office regarding the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) scandal involving over $4 million, were based on stolen documents – “a move that is not only wrong, but illegal”.
“This is an entire work of the ministry (the stolen documents), and you have people saying that they stumbled on these documents, which are now a source of investigations,” he alleged, adding the documents related to the period before he assumed office at the ministry, but “the impression given to the public is that Moyo is the one who is being investigated even on issues that happened when I was not yet there”.
“I now have officers, who don’t want to do their work because they don’t know how safe they are, as well as the ministry’s documents. It’s unworkable for me today and it would be unworkable for anyone, who would take over because we have a bureaucracy that has been intimidated illegally.”
Moyo had been summoned by the committee to speak on the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) initiative, which his ministry is spearheading.
The programme seeks to support more than10 000 students intending to pursue science subjects at Advanced Level.
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The Higher Education minister told the committee that through Zimdef, his ministry was helping 10 272 student at A Level and the funding would go through until 2026.
He said the thrust was to increase the number of students, who enrol for tertiary education with the focus on science and engineering from 2 500 to 5 000 by next year.
Moyo said his ministry was negotiating with universities for them to offer the students scholarships so that Zimbabwe would have more industrialised graduates.
