The Sunday Mail
Extra Reporter
The Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association has accused officials in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education of lack of transparency in handling about $65,5 million that was provided in tranches by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) from 2009.
The three funding tranches include $21 million in 2009, $3 million in 2013 and $40 million in 2014 via Camfed and $1,5 million recently through Unicef.
In a letter addressed to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, the ZBPA accuses ministry officials of lacking transparency and going against an earlier promise of suspending the awarding of a tender to “a proxy” publisher at the expense of local industry players. Their major argument being that local players are being squeezed systematically out of business.
What has irked the publishers’ association, which groups together four local publishing houses, is that a recent order of $1,5 million being administered by Unicef ended up being given to CPS, which is not a publishing house, but a proxy of Longman’s.
In 2013, in a bid to avoid the country’s indigenisation programme, Longman announced that they were withdrawing from the country, instead appointing an agency, CPS. Early this month, DFID made available $37 million, funds which will allow the progress that has been made under the Education Development Fund (EDF) to continue. This includes the School Improvement Grants programme, which will focus on providing quality schooling for children in disadvantaged schools in rural areas.
The money, the donor agency announced, would be delivered through the UK’s trusted partner Unicef and activities will be closely aligned to the priorities of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.
Longman, a member of the Pearson publishing family, which also incorporates Heinemann Publishing, has long-standing links with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which is DFID’s preferred partner in promoting education. Hence the furore over the recent award of the Mutare order for the supply of ECD books to CPS, a proxy of Longman’s, which did not meet procurement guidelines neither did it go to tender .
Professor Paul Mavhima, the Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, acknowledged that his ministry is aware of the complaint raised by the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association. “We are aware of that complaint and we are investigating. I cannot comment any further than that,” the Deputy Minister said on Wednesday.
A book publisher, who asked not to be named for professional reasons, suspects that there could be more to DFID’s recent announcement of the $37 million grant which is not going to be disbursed through Government channels.
“Whilst we welcome donations towards education, what has raised our eyebrows is the manner in which one particular company always ends up getting these orders under unclear circumstances, without going to tender. It gives an impression that there is more to the aid than just the advancement of education.”
It is not the first time that CPS has been given similar orders, albeit on equally contentious grounds. In 2009 under David Coltart’s reign as Minister, Longman was given an order to supply all primary school textbooks through a tender which was never adjudicated.
“What surprised us,” said the publisher, “is that and no explanation was given at all yet other local players had the same material, if not better, as Longman’s. Some sub-standard textbooks were dumped onto the school system and some of them never got used because of irrelevance to the school syllabus and still lie unused so many years down the line.”
In 2013, soon after assuming agency for Longman’s, CPS won an unclear $3 million tender again for the supply of textbooks to schools. The mission statement of DFID, as stated on their website, is seen as rather curious. The statement reads: “DFID Zimbabwe’s key programming priorities for 2015/16 are, among others, helping to strengthen democracy and improve the way the economy and public finances are managed by the Government of Zimbabwe to support both economic development and poverty reduction.”
This, the publisher said, could be the reason why there is so much jostling in the political arena, as there is a lot of money waiting to be “harvested”.
And for this money to enter into the country formally and without raising eyebrows, it is being channelled ostensibly for education purposes, through such non-publishing proxies.
