Students accuse lecturer, clerk of stealing scholarship funds

Students told The Zimbabwean that as a result of the theft, there had been erratic disbursement of funds, leaving them struggling to make ends meet at the university.
First year students who went to Fort Hare towards the end of February, only started getting their meal allowances in May amid what one student described as “enormous suffering”. Some students had been reduced to vending in order to raise money for printing assignments and photocopying modules.

Many other students have reportedly failed to go home because they needed to save money for their next semester meals, yet government had already disbursed money to cover meals. The students said the money from government was lining pockets of those entrusted with administering the funds. There are more than 700 Zimbabwean students at Fort Hare University, where President Mugabe obtained his Economics degree, one of his seven university degrees.

Fort Hare is one of the oldest universities in southern Africa, and was the first Western-style tertiary education institution in the whole continent to be open to non-white students during the 50s. Mugabe established the Presidential Scholarship Fund to provide for bright students from underprivileged families a Western-style, academically excellent education in a bid to create a black Zimbabwean elite.

At the centre of the alleged looting of the Presidential Sholarship Fund is Dr Abyssinia Mushunje, a Zimbabwean lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture Economics and Accounts Clerk Phumula Bokwe. Mushunje is said to be a cousin of Christopher Mushohwe, the Zanu (PF) Manicaland governor who is the director of the Presidential Scholarship Fund.

Mushunje strenously denied stealing from the Fund in a telephone interview on Friday saying the reports were emanating from one student who has a “psychological problem.” He also said he was not related to Mushohwe but was simply his homeboy and hailed from the same region of Manicaland as the governor.
But students have insisted Mushunje has led harassment of students who have dared question use of cash, sometimes deactivating the students’ accounts to preclude them from accessing their grants as punishment.

The Zimbabwean heard that students had since written to Fort Hare university officials taking issue with Mushunje’s bully-boy tactics. And on Friday students organised a demonstration on campus to protest against the appalling state of students welfare as a result of the theft.

Students alleged that Mushunje, who is neither a Zimbabwean government official nor formally employed by the government, had also imposed a pliant student leadership to represent Zimbabwean students at the university. The students executive, alleged to be working in cahoots with Mushunje, is comprised of Wellington Samkange, Marrian Tukuta and Aamon Taruvinga.