The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says more than 100 cases of procurement irregularities were recorded in schools last year, highlighting persistent concerns over corruption and weak oversight. Speaking at a public dialogue on Community Voices on Corruption in the Delivery of Education Services organised by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) in Bulawayo last Thursday, Director of Procurement at the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Sydney Mutodi, said weak enforcement of procurement rules and poor community oversight were fuelling abuse at school level. Mutodi said his office handled over 100 files referred by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) last year, most of them linked to irregular procurement processes in schools.
“In 2025 alone, I processed more than 100 files from ZACC dealing with misprocurement at school level,” Mutodi said. “The question then is, what was the Ministry’s position in addressing these issues? Were all of them corruption-related?” His remarks come in the wake of aCITE investigation that exposedhow Vordim Trading, a Bulawayo-based company, became a dominant supplier of school buses amid allegations of bribery, tender manipulation and price inflation running into hundreds of thousands of United States dollars.
According to the investigation, inflated prices were allegedly used to fund kickbacks to school officials, including School Development Committees (SDCs), while parents and guardians were left to shoulder the burden through levies and bank loan interest. Mutodi told the meeting that transparency and accountability were non-negotiable principles in public service, particularly in the education sector. “Issues of transparency and accountability are foundational principles, particularly at the national level, because they drive economic growth,” he said.
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“This is also where public trust is built. At the national level, trust is anchored in transparency and accountability.” While procurement is often blamed for corruption, Mutodi argued that the real problem lay in enforcement. “We often point to procurement as the problem, yet the same people involved in procurement understand transparency issues,” he said.
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