via Zimbabwe Fails to Pay Fees for 750,000 Desperate Children by Gibbs Dube 14.01.2014 VOAZimbabwe
Schools opened Tuesday amid revelations that government is unable to pay fees for more than 750,000 school children in need of assistance under the country’s Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) designed for kids from poor families
Acting principal director in the Ministry of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare, Sydney Mhishi on Tuesday told parliament’s Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare portfolio committee that the ministry requested $73 million for BEAM this year but was allocated only $15 million.
This amount, Mhishi said, can only assist 83,000 against a targeted 250,000 secondary school children and 750,000 primary school pupils in need of assistance.
He said while government has been paying only for secondary school students and donors taking care of fees for the vulnerable children in primary schools, no donor has come forward to assist this year.
Mhishi said while the new constitution dictates that basic education must be compulsory and free, it is impossible under the 2014 budget to provide free basic education.
He could not say why donors pulled out given that their evaluation of BEAM had concluded that it was extremely necessary and was benefitting the right people.
He was, however, optimistic that donors would come on board and finance primary school children in need of assistance.
Meanwhile, Mhishi also told the committee that government is this year not able to provide assistance to over 75 percent of the more than two million people in need of food aid due to budgetary constraints.
He said his ministry had requested $11.9 million under its food deficit mitigation program but was only allocated $1.6 million, representing only 13.4 percent of the total required budget.
Mhishi said the amount allocated by the Treasury in the 2014 for food relief is not even enough to buy one month’s supply of the required maize.
Meanwhile, the World Food Program Zimbabwe (WFP) country office said in a statement it will do everything possible to meet the needs of the vulnerable people in Zimbabwe but hinted it might not be able to help all of them.
It said despite contributions from donors like the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, it is failing scale up its relief operations due to shortages of funds.
The UN agency requires $60 million to fully implement its relief and recovery operations in the next six months.
COMMENTS
Shame shame shame on you devils in zanupf. Your spoilt brats will soon pay for your criminal sins. For sure
It is far much easier to find $13million to pay Nikuv than it is to provide essential services in Zimbabwe. What kind of a people are we that wants to win a battle but lose the war?
Bob spent hundreds and thousands of dollars from ‘the people of Zimbabwe’ to educate his children and now?you see what happens with ZanuPf, YOU LOSE UNLESS YOU ARE RELATED…
The curse of ZPF. I suppose they will blame ex Minister Coltart who must be weeping in his heart. There is always money for state of the art motor vehicles and other fripperies which have mentioned above. God is watching!
most of the children who fail to go to school are those whose parents were blindfolding teachers before elections.these parents claimed that teachers were not literate and could not vote on their own.because those parents are literate they should not complain but simply teach their children at home.chinotimba is their minister of ejukesheni.
some of these poor people assissted zanu pf in rigging elections because they were willing tools.they were promised peanuts and now they are facing the music.i feel pity because they learnt nothing for the past three decades even if their parents claimed to be more literate than teachers during polling.
Who are these so-called donors? Possibly those who ‘imposed sanctions” i suppose. Lets hear from all those who have benefited from being on the gravy train for the past 34 years! Oh yes how about using all that diamond money for the less fortunate they are ‘always acting on behalf’ of. So glad the chickens are coming home to roost for Zpf or should that be ‘roast’??
GET THE MONEY FROM CHINESE. They are the ones getting the contracts and doing all sorts of business on Zimbabwe!
Maiwe, you can’t tell me that you have been bribed so much that they are paying you to let the country die? Get the Chinese to fund you because tall dark men have bowed to short skinny Asians. Shame on this dead party
Shame on us Zimbabweans! What kind of nation and government depends on foreign donors to fund the education of its children? And who are these donors – the Chinese or Russians or Israelis?
the truth is nobody in government cares what happens to the poor. Chipfambi choga, that’s what they dream about.