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Statement on the 2011 national budget
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU)
November 27, 2010

On Thursday the 25th of November Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti delivered his US$ 2, 7 billion 2011 national budget statement. In the statement Minister Biti allocated US$400 million for the country's education sector. Of the total amount fifteen million shall be reserved for the resuscitation of tertiary education infrastructure and US$15 million more shall be used for the provision of students' loans.

ZINASU acknowledges this development not just as a piecemeal election gimmick designed to console the wounds of thousands of students who dropped out of tertiary education because they could not afford the exorbitant tuition fees but also as a positive step in reviving the country's education sector. Minister Biti's statement is positive development, which we approach as an admission by those at the helm of governance that their faith in the moribund cadetship scheme was misplaced and misdirected.

Thousands of Zimbabwean students dropped out of tertiary education because in teacher's and polytechnic colleges they were denied their 2009 HEXCO examination results and in universities thousands more were barred from sitting for their end of semester examinations simply because they could not afford to meet the vile dictates of the education denying tuition fees. At the height of this bottle neck system the government remained in denial and sought to conceal such a crime in the cadetship scheme despite its undisputable rejection by the mass students' voice of Zimbabwe.

Most of the country's education facilities at all levels are fast dilapidated and demands even more investment than the allocated amount. Taking into consideration that a number of institutions are running without the fundamentals of social services such as properly functioning ablution facilities, and the situation is even tragic at the University of Zimbabwe whose halls of residence have been closed for almost three years now. Students at the institution had to seek accommodation in the nearby garages where they stay in groups of at least fifteen.

ZINASU therefore believes that amount allocated for the loaning system will fall short of the country's mass students' community and ZINASU shall not tolerate a system which discriminates on who can be a beneficiary. Government loans shall be accessible free to all. ZINASU can never see it wrong for the Minister to frontier allocations to the prime minister's office or the president's office so that more resources are invested towards education.

It is also our belief that Minister Biti should have raised the tax-free income threshold to at least US$500 to allow as well enhance workers' purchasing power for this would broaden our parents ability to aid our financial needs not catered for by the not enough loans and substitute the current measly US$150 which is not enough to cater for our typical extended African family. We also take notice of the drive towards improving road infrastructure in rural areas and sourcing exterior funding to boost the country's industrial sector.

Even as we acknowledge the need for external funding ZINASU believes that there is great improvement in the management of the locally available resources such the country's mineral resources. Zimbabwe has been endowed with vast mineral resources which are critical in the improvement of the economy, it is however sad that such resources are found trapped with in the armpits of a few selfish and gluttonous political elites.

ZINASU approves minister Biti's efforts towards investing in improving service delivery rather than investing in partisan state machinery.

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