Bindura University Transformation Ambassadors - buta

09/12/2016

ambassador David Chikono and Ambassador Lawrence Mvukwe with Fse ambassadors at FSE

09/12/2016

09/12/2016

OPEN LETTER TO Mr Makado
The Dean of students
Bindura University of Science Education

Cc BUSE outgoing SRC
Cc BUSE SRC
Cc BUSE Students and stakeholders

RE: IRREGULARITIES OF THE BINDURA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 2016 OFFICIAL SRC ELLECTION

11 November 2016

Have decided to write this open letter in my capacity as a concerned student of Bindura University who also contested in the 2016 October SRC elections. It is very unfortunate that the university takes it very lightly how they conduct the electoral process of the highest board that has a role of representing the major stakeholder of the university, the student. We noticed a lot of irregularities associated with the elections and this article serves to identify the irregularities everyone else noticed.

We demand the university implement reforms in the 2017 and beyond SRC elections. For we have seen it fit and democratic do so as the ambassadors of transformation at BUSE for we believe transformation begins with you, me and all us, hence forth we want to transform how elections have been done at our beloved university. We are not only looking only at the elections but everything that affect the welfare of students. How the elections are conducted determine the kind of SRC board that will represent the welfare of students for a full year henceforth we decided to look into the system that elect the leadership.

Firstly we demand that the SRC should distance itself from the elections, an independent board must be given the contract to run the election. WHY: the reason is obvious the seating SRC belongs to other unions henceforth this will make the election unfair because they have the privilege to favour their unions making the election unfair and not credible.

We demand a print out and detailed budget of the 2016 elections, we demand a clear account of how the affiliation fee was used. The outgoing SRC claimed that the affiliation fees were used as a source of funding for the election but to our surprise everything within and surrounding the elections was of poor quality and compromised services. The ballots papers were printed without color on black and white. At least a detailed account of how the money was used will help unions to see the relevance of paying affiliation fee for any university election where all the students pay $3 for SRC but still demanding affiliation fee from students whilst our sister university, University of Zimbabwe every student pays one dollar for SRC and their election are successfully done with zero affiliation fee.

The elections were scheduled for Friday 21 October and were re scheduled to Monday 24 October for no apparent reason and no proper communication was done to inform the contesting unions as well as the electorates. WHY: we demand proper communication from the university and we demand at least those responsible for conducting the election to be more serious.

After failing to conduct the election on the 21th of October on the following Monday the Election Day a lot of mix ups was noticed on the ballot papers. At FSE polling station BUTA presidential candidate was carrying a logo belonging to NEBU. The BUTA logo was the smallest and it was not clear.

At TC polling station the so-called trained presiding officers were at one point giving voters more ballots papers exceeding the required number upon recognized these avoidable mistakes the election was stopped in the two mentioned polling station respectively there by nullifying the voices of the voters who had casted their votes before those errors were noticed.

The names of the presidential candidates were written in short in ballots papers at FSE polling stations:

TB – Roby

BUTA- Lawrence

The million dollar question WHY shortening the names of candidates what if the electorate was familiar with the surname or second names? I guess shortening the names was a way to limit the cost of printing at the expense of the same candidate who paid affiliation fee used to print the ballot paper. TC polling station: On the ballot of one the independent candidate the ballot paper was wrongly cut and his details could be hardly seen yet the same candidate paid affiliation fee for his ballot to be processed.

Why charging so much affiliation fees for a student to exercise his/her democratic right of being elected into an office? Universities like the UZ among other more democratic universities have nothing related to the affiliation fees and any student qualifies to participate democratically in any election after simply paying a dollar of student union fees inclusively charged on their very reasonable semester fees.

The university appointed BUSCES a club made of Christian students from different on campus churches to preside over the election. As l write this letter BUSCES has not being paid, these are ordinary students who sacrificed their study time to make sure the election was a success but however you have decided to deprive them from their allowances and to make matters worse no communication was done the last communication you did with BUSCES was when they were in their respective votes counting rooms. l guess you took advantage of BUSCES because it is a christian organisation and they cannot demand or question you because they uphold Christian values. We demand to know who is responsible who must pay BUSCES and why delaying?

In simple terms the responsible authority (outgoing SRC) tempered around with the ballot papers so how can we attain a free fair and credible election when the ballot itself is in total mess.

To worsen matters the contractor who did the ballots papers was the same contractor who was doing the Students Voice campaigning regalia already this arrangement is very suspicious???????????????????

The same contractor delayed the processing of NEBU campaigning posters. This is a situation which need clarification from the outgoing SRC we need a detailed explanation WHY messing around with the ballot paper and can we call it coincident that NEBU, SV, SRC were using the same contractor for regalia, posters and the ballot paper respectively?????????????

We demand a total transformation of the election regulation if a candidate is disqualified after the vetting process he/she must be refunded because he/she is no longer contesting meaning the budget is already reduced.

We are happy the 2016 election results were announced to the union agents and to the candidates early hours of Tuesday 25 October a day after the Election Day but however up to now there was no proper communication to the electorate about the election results WHY?

We demand that student affairs together with the current SRC to look very closely into all the raised arguments in preparation of the next elections at BUSE. WE also demand that the student affairs and t the outgoing SRC to respond to all the issues in this article.

I THANK YOU

Comradely

Lawrence Mvukwe Bindura University Student

0778444985

[email protected]

09/12/2016

*Open letter to Prof. Mwenje*
The Vice Chancellor
Bindura University of Science Education
Bindura
Zimbabwe

cc. The Dean of Students
cc. The BUSE SRC
cc. BUSE students
cc. BUTA members and principals
cc. Lawrence Mvukwe- BUTA President

01 December 2016

Dear Sir

*RE: Academic semester wind down in pursuit for a Student focused BUSE Administration*

Because of the ever increasing inhuman nature of the BUSE administration supported by a series of inconsiderate and undemocratic policies, l, *Blessing Kambumbu*, in my capacity as the National Programs Coordinator of BUTA-Bindura University Transformation Ambassador, found it democratically relevant to draft this letter of students' concern pertaining to absence of a vibrant SRC at BUSE.

The issues of concern are genuine and clear so as our demands.

_*1. Part Finals deregistration*_

As much as we would like to understand your reasons for deregistering the part finals because of the part one courses pending, we want answers as to why your ruthless admin allowed them to register from the first place and allowed them to attend lectures, only to send them back home after you have ignorantly used our money.

This clearly shows that the system is only after the students' hardly earned money and have nothing to do with equipping and developing necessary skills for their careers but is rather being run as a commercial business to fund the luxurious lives of a few pot-bellied greedy individuals.

Do you even consider at any point in time, the need for consulting the students? What then will you do to someone whose semester has been wasted through the so called deregistration process considering our non performing economy where resources are so scarce.


_*2. Medical aid not functioning*_

It is in the public domain that the part 4s and the 1s do not have medical aid cards and we expect that you are much aware of the situation. Those with the cards still face a lot of hike ups getting medical aid assistance.

After paying our full fees or an agreed amount, it is the administration's duty to ensure that our health concerns are catered for. Do you want us to die first that you can provide us with the medical aid cards? To make matters worse, our medical department is inefficient and poorly equipped.

_*3. On campus rez and mean university workers*_

It is much saddening and so questionable how the accommodation process and allocation is being carried out on campus. Greedy and corrupt mafikizolos have undertaken the university into their own hands and are accelerating the downfall of the college with highly increasing cases of corruption.

As the students, we are not happy with the way some of the university subordinates treat us, the major stakeholders of the university. We are adults and we pay for the services and are getting more intolerant to the treatment we get from the workers. The same applies to the rest of the overzealous security personnel.

Warn your secret security personnel from abusing and forcing our dear sisters into relationships using our money and the tax payer's, money they are getting taking advantage of the economic hardships our sisters are exposed to on campus.

_*4. The 1500 seater library and transport*_

We would obviously want to appreciate the work of the admin so as your effort on speeding the completion of the library construction. However, a lot still needs to be done.

The library has to be furnished and we need more but relevant books as well as an improvement on the other facilities. There is need for a back-up power generator in case of power outages as well as improved security facilities. It is on record that one of our fellow college mates lost a laptop just after there was a power outage at the library and haven’t been able to recover it since then.

The new Yutong bus is smoothly functioning, that was very considerate of you. We can't fail to recognise the effort the admin is putting on trying to provide transport to and from different destinations especially from the library at night.

_*5. The SRC election process*_

The admin had since denied us our democratic right to freely vote for our student representatives so as contesting in those elections through inhuman and undemocratic regulations which need to be revised.

We demand the removal of the affiliation fees especially considering the quality of services and materials used on the election day. Why charging that kind of money on our already high fees considering that some democratic universities like the University of Zimbabwe can smoothly run the elections from a dollar the students contribute as the SRC membership affiliation deducted from their reasonable fees.

The electoral reforms have to be put in place and there is no need to send our nomination forms to outside bodies for vetting and we say no to the nomination fees or whatever you call them. Being a registered student with a valid student ID should be enough.

We paid a huge amount in the form of affiliation fees which the former SRC convinced us that it was for a smooth running of the electoral process. Where did our money go when we had black and white ballot papers with some of the candidates’ details not visible or cut-out. Our presidential candidate on the ballot paper had a NEBU logo with the rest of the ministerial candidates having unclear or very small logos and shortened names.

*Please furnish us with the report on how the money for the affiliation is used*

Otherwise we might continue to believe that it is only meant for the benefit of a few individuals and is not being used as intended to and is funding the unfairness of the electoral process forcing us to call the elections null and void.

There wasn’t any proper communication on the reason why the election was shifted from 21 October so as there wasn’t any proper communication on the rescheduled date which affected our candidates.

_*6. Puppet and passive SRC*_

Due to the fact that there wasn't any fair and democratic election at BUSE, we declare BUSE as being operating without any student representation. As BUTA doesn't recognise this illegitimate SRC which is only visible when organising irrelevant bashes with a closed mouth on real student issues probably because you have threatened them or they are your puppets or you don’t give them enough room to operate. Equally we can't overlook the fact that they are incompetent and very ignorant.

As students we are just asking for a reasonable justice and an administration that put our issues on their priority list backed up by value-for-our-money services. We demand proper consultation and involvement especially on issues that affect us.

For the student today is the nation today and tomorrow.
Nothing for the students without the students.






_more about BUTA_

Contact:
BUTA President *Lawrence Mvukwe* 0778444985 [email protected]
BUTA National Programs Coordinator *Blessing Kambumbu* 0777837916 [email protected]

Wishing you the best in your exams and endurance to the economic hardships this coming Christmas and a progressive with better administration new year.

Comradely yours

The concerned General

*Blessing Kambumbu*
BUTA National Programs Coordinator
0777837916
[email protected]

05/11/2016

05/11/2016

door to door campaign , meet the students campaign with ambassador Lawrence Mvukwe

20/10/2016

meet the student campaign still on pregress

20/10/2016

meet the student campaign