Hundreds of students denied CDF scholarship

HUNDRED of students at Peculiar Fashion Institute in Lusaka’s Kanyama constituency have been denied skills development scholarship under the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) despite being eligible.

The CDF guidelines states that when an institution is registered under the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TEVET) the students qualify to be sponsored under CDF.

Peculiar Fashion Director Mutinta Maliwa said despite the institution being registered with TEVET, the Ward Development Committee (WDC) and the Member of Parliament Monty Chinkuli paid a deaf ear to the vulnerable students.

Ms Maliwa said efforts have been made by the institution to engage the WDC committee and Mr Chinkuli to consider the applicants but nothing has been done.

She alleged that the WDC and Mr Chinkuli instead considered students from Boyd College based in the constituency which is not accredited with TEVET.

Ms Maliwa said it is shocking that the people entrusted to oversee the implementation of CDF are depriving eligible applicants.

“We have tried to engage the WDC and the MP and we were assured that the sponsorship will be given to the students and they even lied that none of the CDF applications have been approved yet and the application we submitted will be part of applications that will be considered.

But to our surprise after inquiring we found out that other applications have already been approved and ours was not even given the attention. What is shocking is that institutions that are not accredited with TEVET have been considered. Is this not grand corruption,” she said.

She said the President is doing everything to ensure that the people benefit from CDF but people surrounding him are doing the opposite.

Ms Maliwa has since appealed to other relevant institutions to come to the aid of the students who have been denied scholarships so that they can achieve their dream of accessing education.