One of the colleges that has been listed for forging Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority – TEVETA registration certificates to access Constituency Development Fund – CDF has protested the report, and instead accused TEVETA of not having its correspondence and records properly kept.
Heavy Duty Operators College of Zambia has disclosed that it did not and has not receive any formal notification from TEVETA but only saw the name of institution circulating on social media along with nine (9) other institutions that
General Manager for Heavy Duty Operators College, Gift Mwandila said the statement by TEVETA was unjustified and illegal. He said the TEVETA registration certificate for his institution expired on March 31st 2022 and there was an appeal for re- registration or renewal of the certificate. What surprised us is that before the issue was concluded, our college was then listed among those colleges which are operating illegally.
In an interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Mwandila said the institution which has three (3) campuses in Lusaka, Kitwe and Solwezi has valid TEVETA registration certificate for the Lusaka campus. TEVETA then went for inspection as part of the procedure to acquiring registration certificate and it went against the institutions favor, which we later appealed and we were not given audience to be heard.
And when asked if the institution was enrolling students as early as January even in other two of its campuses that do not have valid TEVETA registration certificate, he said that the institution was receiving applications from all three campuses because they knew that the registration for the other two campuses was going to come through for it was already in the process. Mwandila added that TEVETA did not specify as of which campus was shut down since campuses are certified separately.
Mwandila said TEVETA should not have listed the institution as illegal because it is them that did not respond to the appeal by Heavy Duty Operators College. “It means we were denied justice because even when the shutdown was announced, no one came to our offices to tell us that you have been shut down”, he stated.
Heavy Duty Operators college of Zambia is among the ten (10) colleges that have been alleged to be involved in the illegal act of forging TEVETA registration certificates to access CDF funds for students. TEVETA is yet to confirm if the names of the colleges have been reported to relevant investigative and law enforcement offices. See article on https://zambianbusinesstimes.com/10-institutions-caught-forging-teveta-certificates-to-access-cdf/
