Mugabe's presidential scholarship fund suspended

Zimbabwe's Presidential Scholarship Fund has been suspended for lack of money. It currently owes South African universities more than R11 million (US$1million) in fees for hundreds of students, many of whom have been suffering hardship.

Chris Mushowe, director of the scholarship programme, announced this month that failure to obtain money from the Treasury meant that the scheme could no long cater for the welfare of students attending South African universities.

He said further enrolment of students at the South African universities would only resume after the arrears were cleared.

Mushowe blamed funding problems for the programme on Zimbabwe's former finance minister, Tendai Biti, who is the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, a rival political party to President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF. The MDC was in government from 2009 until elections last year, as part of a power-sharing pact following 2008's disputed presidential poll.

"This is largely because since 2010, we did not receive enough funding from Treasury," the Daily News quoted Mushowe as saying - even though there has been ongoing controversy over the fact that Mugabe's scholarship scheme is publicly rather than privately funded.

In 2010 Biti allocated US$3 million to the scholarship scheme. In 2011 he allocated US$2 million and in 2012 it was US$1 million, which is far below the scheme's annual budgeted expenditure. He had been asked to allocate US$54 million to the fund in 2012, according to The Standard.

"How could I grant such a request when the cadetship programme required US$30 million? This scholarship was supposed to be for only a few students who the president could manage from his own pocket," he said. The cadetship scheme offers government grants to students in Zimbabwe, in return for a period of work for the state after graduation.

Mugabe's scheme was not entitled to government funding, Biti stressed. "It was a private scheme of the president for his own charity work, and so it defies logic that I should be blamed for not supporting it during my term of office," he told local press.

Mushowe said the scheme had stopped selecting students until currently enrolled students had completed their studies. He denied that the programme was collapsing, saying that if funds were made available, students would be recruited next year.

The presidential scheme

The Presidential Scholarship Fund, which recruits students from each of the Zimbabwe's 10 provinces, was founded in 1995 to give academically gifted students from poor families a chance to study in South African universities.

Mugabe is the patron of the fund, which has in the past been accused of also sponsoring children of the elite.

Zimbabwe has 450 students at the University of Johannesburg, 100 students at the University of the Witwatersrand and an undisclosed number of beneficiaries at other universities in South Africa.

In total, it is estimated that there are more 4,000 Zimbabwean students studying in South Africa, many funded by the presidential fund and others via other means.

South African institutions have always featured strongly in the scheme, with the University of Fort Hare - Mugabe's alma mater - being the first to participate. In recent years it has been expanded to cover 14 other institutions including Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the universities of Cape Town, Rhodes and the Witwatersrand.

Zimbabwean students welcome suspension

The Zimbabwe National Students Union, or ZINASU, the country's largest student association, welcomed the suspension of the Presidential Scholarship Fund, saying it should be used to support students in local universities.

"What is the scope of having scholarships for South African universities when we have universities here in Zimbabwe?" National Coordinator Samuel Gwenzi told the Daily News.

Gwenzi said the money used to support students in South Africa was enough to pay the tuition fees of all students in Zimbabwe.

The government should show greater confidence in its own universities. "As it is now, we believe that the government thinks there are better universities in South Africa than in Zimbabwe and this is not acceptable."