The Gwanda Rural District Council (GRDC) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ) are locked in a battle over the ownership of some schools in the Gwanda district.
The ELCZ reportedly built the schools before handing them over to the local authority. The schools in question are Buvuma, Ntepe, Nhwali, and Jahunda primary schools.
The Church has been making strides to regain ownership of its primary and secondary schools across the country.
During a recent full council meeting, the local authority revealed that it had received a request from ELCZ to change the ownership of the schools from the council to the church.
“Council received letters from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe requesting a change of responsible authority of Buvuma, Ntepe, and Nhwali primary schools from the council to ELCZ. The recommendation is that Nhwali, Buvuma, and Ntephe remain under the RDC as their responsible authority,” the council noted.
Debating the matter, a councillor remarked that the church has persistently sent similar requests.
“From my knowledge, in the previous term, this issue came up. They keep writing the same letter over and over. If new councillors come in, they write a letter. So we want to understand exactly what is the problem,” he said.
Gwanda RDC Council Chairperson, Mpathiswa Ncube, confirmed that the Social Services Committee also rejected the request.
“In the Social Service Committee meeting, this request was denied, and they said it has been rejected over and over. What is it that they want? As it is, the recommendation is that Nhwali, Ntephe, and Kuvuma schools remain under the Rural District Council.
“I saw this request again in Manama when they were presenting it to the Honourable Minister. Please, DDC, tell the Bishops that we are the politicians and they should not try it. They should let politicians do their thing and not divide us when they come to our wards,” said Ncube.
He also mentioned that the church had posted their request on social media.
“But we don’t work through social media. It’s been years, and there is also a component of fraud. They signed papers purporting to be Chief Marupi without his knowledge. I even told the DSI to deal with the headmasters. They shouldn’t challenge us,” said Clr Ncube.
Ward 20 councillor, Joram Ndlovu, noted that the church claimed to have handed the schools over to the government.
“We spoke with these people last time, and there were four schools including Gungwe. They said they were their schools and handed them over to the government. Now they want them back. We told them to go back to the government as we can’t surrender them without knowing what the government said. But we keep getting this request. We request that they tell us what the government says as the schools indeed belong to them. I know this, but their problem is that they surrendered them,” said Clr Ndlovu.
When contacted, Bishop Michael Dube, leader of the Western Region Diocese, confirmed that they want to repossess the schools.
“Those are our former schools. It’s not that we want to take; we want to repossess a few schools. The challenge is that they are delaying giving us back our schools. We don’t know what their problem is because it’s known that these are our schools, and it’s lawful to request them, but they are just delaying. I don’t know what their problem is,” he said.
Bishop Dube clarified that the church only wants five schools, including Jahunda Primary School, which is under Gwanda Local Municipality.
“The challenge is that they keep on dragging, coming up with new versions. They say go and do this. Last time they said we should go with their council staff to do physical meetings. Now that we are done, they are requesting the Chief’s stamp, but they had agreed. I don’t know why they are doing all those things. They are just coming out with new delaying tactics, which we are not aware of the reason. We forwarded our papers through the normal procedures,” he said.
