I felt the Vice-Chancellor Professor Levi Nyagura was being hypocritical and held the whole nation in contempt when he reduced all UZs problems to plumbing matters. These water shortcomings had been part of UZ ever since I enrolled in 2006. What was special about 2009?
He did not tell the nation that UZ closed after a massive demonstration on February 3 against a fees structure introduced a day earlier. He did not tell the nation that the halls of residence had been closed on July 9, 2007 following a demonstration two days earlier against Z$1m top-up fees. Students were police-marched out of campus residences with a mere 30 minutes notice.
He even went on to ignore, in contempt of court (and was not arrested), a High Court order of July 13 by Justice Ben Hlatswayo to reinstate students into halls of residence.
Why did he conveniently leave this out? Would it have exposed the governments bankruptcy and his lack of the respect for rule of law?
The more one looks at it, the more it starts to dawn that this has been the methodology of our government. These folks make a lie and believe it.
Jonathan Moyo was the climax of this propaganda. It means they choose to identify the wrong problem and go on a policy illusion.
The government of national unity should not fall into that pitfall. The result is always the same: its catastrophic and shameful. A problem persists until it brings everything down. The prioritisation is all twisted.
UZ closed because the government and UZ were bankrupt. Students and parents failed in and resisted covering for the mishaps of government mostly because the demands were outrageous.
The vice-chancellor did not tell the nation that lecturers and other university staff had been on an intermittent strike for about a year. The Association of University Teachers (AUT) had repeatedly walked out of tripartite labour negotiating instruments demanding better salaries.
Zimbabwe was not told that the university did not have stationery to run examinations or its administration.
The authorities ran to the corporate world on that false ticket and got boreholes from UNICEF.
It was noble until the fallacy started to be exposed.
Students are failing to pay the fees of between US$404 to US$678; the lecturers are constantly on the edge of an industrial action; everything is delicate; it threatens to spill over.
Its actually alarming: government has no money and students have no money.
If all persist in the current position, a clash looms.
A third factor, with money, is needed. These authorities must tell the world their real problems. This pyrrhic hide and seek is unacceptable and retrogressive.
MAYIBUYE, University of Zimbabwe