Senior Govt Officials Demanding Money, Sex For Transfers
Some corrupt senior government officials are reportedly demanding as much as US$300 in kickbacks from civil servants who wish to be transferred from their stations.
Female civil servants, mostly from the health and education sectors have fallen victim to the scam with education inspectors and medical officers demanding sexual favours as payment to speed up their transfers, NewsDay reported.
It is alleged that some requests for transfer took two years or more to be processed.
Some teachers have written an open letter to the government complaining that demands for bribes have become rampant. Read part of the letter seen by NewsDay:
When a teacher wants to transfer from one province to another, one has to pay US$250 to US$300.
The amount is paid to education officials in order to facilitate the process. This has been going on for the past five or so years. This is happening countrywide. It appears the teachers have gotten used to the demands and have normalised the scam. Most teachers in Zimbabwe can testify to this. We are earning peanuts and from that little that we have, the superiors want to take part of it.
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe secretary-general Raymond Majongwe told NewsDay that a complaint was recently lodged with the Primary and Secondary Education ministry.
Education ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro said lateral transfers in the civil service should be done for free, adding that demanding payment was illegal.
