Why Respina Ziyanyanduko should be removed as NRZ GM

By Linda Tsungirirai Masarira

22 June 2022

The starting point is to evaluate Respina Zinyanduko. Who is she?

She was born on 19 June 1979, she joined NRZ board in August 2020, whilst she was employed by ZPC as a mere Legal Officer. She was not even in ZPC's Management Executive. 

Upon joining NRZ's board she served for less than 6 months before being appointed Acting General Manager in March 2021. In December 2021, she was appointed substantive General Manager after attending interviews which were conducted by her fellow Board Members. Respina lacks the necessary experience at Management Executive level as well as the Board level to really lead a strategic institution like NRZ.

To safeguard her incapacity she has embarked on a holocaust of eliminating all Senior and Experienced Managers who understand the railwayway system. She has been using Security Branch (Lithini Ndlovu) and Internal Audit Branch (Gilbert Sukwe)  to raise fictitious charges and unprocedurally hire the services of her Legal friend Haggis Moyo to come and fire her perceived enemies. This process has been going on for the past 6 months now. The Railway core business has been shelved aside thus affecting railway operations tremendously. The Railways is now like a kangaroo Magistrates Court.

Her Plan is to;

1. Eliminate the current Board Chairman Advocate Martin Dinha. Respina apparently sent a false Audit Report to the VPs office to tarnish the image of the Board Chairperson. There is a plan to control the board so that she and her accomplices can do as they want.

2. Eliminate Joel Lunga the Acting Chief Finance Officer who has since written to the board exposing the unethical and corrupt conduct by Respina Ziyanyanduko  and have control over Finances.

3. Eliminate Nyasha Maravanyika, PR Manager, because he stands up and refuses to accept nonsense. He had previously exposed her shenanigans in the media.

4. Eliminate Eng Phillip Chifamba. Railways must ideally be led by an Engineer. Eng Chifamba is the most experienced and Senior Engineer. He is currently on suspension over fabricated stories.

5. She eliminated Maxwell Matende. He was in charge of Operations. Very experienced and well versed with running of trains. He was dubiously seconded to RMS. 

6. She eliminated Kashangura who is qualified and was supposed to be the Chief Internal Auditor. She instead appointed Gilbert Sukwe who she uses to write false reports as a basis of attacking and implementing her evil ambitions.

She is also abusing the NRZ Security branch. Respina uses Runhare to gather and intimidate people. She has daily briefs with him whilst the Security Services Manager is just sitting in his office. The recent retrenchment of 20 people was driven by Runhare to eliminate Trade Unionists and people who were passing negative comments about her on WhatsApp groups. Ndlovu the Security Manager is just a useless stooge. Remember the issue of the refund where he was instructed not to recommend payment. He cannot act independently.

Respina Ziyanyanduko misrepresented to the Board on retrenchment without going through the HR Committee so that she could fire 3 Union Presidents 

1. Kamurai Moyo - ZARWU President

2. Sikhumbuzo B. Moyo - RAU Prseident

3.F. Dambudzo -RAU S.G.

and other staff members percieved as her enemies.

NRZ conducted Interviews for Accountants. Respina refused to sign the score sheets. She directed her relative Chikwariro be appointed as the Recenue Accountant.

The panel comprised of 

1. Ms T  Maseko, HR

2. Mr J. Lunga, A/CFO

3. Mrs Zhou, Corporate Secretary 

4. Mrs Nyathi, Recruitment 

The person who was supposed to be appointed was P. Nhevera instead she appointed her known relative Mr Chikwariro. 

Her levels of nepotism are very alarming, she also employed Shepherd Mukanga her cousin as her driver and dubiously changed his grade from B4 to C4 which is a supervisory grade. Mr Chananukwa, her husband's young brother has also been given employment at the NRZ and given an altered grade. Security services is now full of her relatives as she continues with neptusm and unethical conduct within the NRZ.

Respina fired over 400 Short term Contract Workers ok n the grounds that there is no work, surprisingly she recruited her relatives into the Security Services branch. The burning question is why she did not offer the contract workers permanent contracts before recruiting permanent staff from outside? Shortly after retrenching several staff members in different departments under the guise of a restructuring and downsizing agenda, she went on a frenzy to recruit friends and relatives into permanent positions within the NRZ.

She has continously breached Procurement Regulations by getting the Services of Mr H. Moyo from Scanlen. There are no comparative quotes. All she does is get a quote and pay them USD4 900, air tickets, hotel bills, etc. How can Moyo come up with a fair determination on labour issues under such circumstances. Moyo is said to be her friend as well. Why hire Moyo when NRZ has a legal department and a full time employed Legal officer to deal with internal legal matters??? Food for thought!

Is if all this is not enough, Respina conducted Interviews for the Procurement Manager on a Saturday.

She excluded the Chief Financial Officer from the panel, despite recruitment policy which states that the GM must attend together with the CFO. It was employment corruption. Find attached a copy of the NRZ Recruitment policy.

For the avoidance of doubt. The recruitment of Mr. Gwaindepi as a Procurement Manager is null and void because the Procurement Board was not fully constituted. Read through NRZ's Selection Policy below.

She knew she was up to some mischief, she excluded the CFO who is a permanent member of the Board. She took Bowden and Mlambo her puppets to rubber stamp the recruitment of Gwaindepi, her brother.

The mind boggling question is;

How do you recruit a Procurement Manager without the Chief Finance Officer on the Recruitment Board. 

Procurement department has a huge impact on the Finances of an organisation. She recently allocated a vehicle to her Brother, Gwaindepi, a Toyota D4D ahead of other Senior Management members, Engineers who are in D5 and are working without vehicles. After the Acting CFO Lunga wrote to the Board alerting them of unethical conduct by the GM, she has since created malicious allegations against the A/CFO in a bid to get him fired ASAO to cover up her shenanigans. 

NRZ regulations state that when the GM flies, he/she flies in the economy class considering the financial quagmire the parastatal is facing. Respina flies herself in business class and has awarded herself many luxurious benefits which are outside her contract of employment as the General Manager.

Surely all the above clearly show that Respina Ziyanyanduko is not Executive Managerial material, lacks the necessary expertise to be a General Manager for a big institution like NRZ. My humble plea is for ZACC to investigate all the corrupt activities by Respina Ziyanyanduko, the NRZ Board to suspend her as NRZ GM until investigations are concluded and for the Ministry of transport to fully investigate the gross mismanagement of the parastatal.

CRISIS of PSMAS Card Members Failing to Access Healthcare in PSMI units and recommendations thereof

By Linda Tsungirirai Masarira 

Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) was formed in 1930 by the Government as non-monetary benefit to its employees to be utilised to access healthcare services.

Government has been contributing 80% whilst its employees contribute 20% towards this non-monetary benefit vehicle. The Society (PSMAS) has managed to grow over the years opening branches in every town and in 2006 managed to establish Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) a very important player in as far as provision of affordable health medical services is concerned. PSMI through PSMAS has grown to be the largest private healthcare service provider in the country catering for the majority of Government employees who are members of PSMAS through its hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and laboratories.

PSMAS and PSMI being a multimillion dollar business has not been spared from corruption which has to this very day threatened the existence of the two entities prompting the Government as the major contributor to the Society to intervene and arrest this anomaly as was witnessed during the Cuthbert Dube era and the recent public announcements by the Public Service Commission and the Honourable Vice President Cde CGND Chiwenga in his capacity as the Minister of Health.

These white collar crimes by PSMAS management of the entities and some of its board members has led to the formation of the Premier Service Holding Company (PSHC) through a 2015 Annual General Meeting (AGM) resolution which was fast tracked by the corrupt beneficiaries without the requisite terms of reference and guidance from the same AGM on operational funding and organisational structure.

PSMI and PSHC have been abused as vehicles of looting by this corrupt leadership which has renegaded from the core vision of the organisation of providing access to healthcare running their own peripheral vision engaging in gold buying and selling, microfinance and expansion beyond the country’s borders into Zambia. This has adversely affected the Government employee as funds have been abused and diverted away from healthcare with employees being charged a US dollar based shortfall to access service at PSMI units and chronic patients failing to access their medicines for various chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes and those on dialysis missing sessions due to stock outs.

The recent efforts of intervention by the Government which is the major contributor of funds to the society for its beneficiaries has been attacked directly in the public by the Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (ZCPSTU) an umbrella body of civil servant unions as a purported take-over of PSMAS by Government from its employees. It is noteworthy that the president of ZCPSTU, Cecilia Alexander and its vice president David Dzatsunga are current sitting board members of PSMI (vice board chair) and PSMAS (committee member) respectively thus conflicted in this very matter. It is even very disturbing to note that Cecilia Alexander a former member of the dissolved NSSA board has been getting benefits way beyond those stipulated in the Companies Act as a board member enjoying the luxury of a Mercedes Benz E300 registration number ADI-4658 fuelled and serviced at Zimoco by PSMI using public funds. Recently it was serviced at a cost of 1.5 million dollars yet pharmacies are empty and employees have gone for months without adequate salaries.

Amongst other beneficiaries of this rot in the board are Colonel Wellington Tutisa the PSMI board chair (defence representative) who has benefited a Toyota Fortuner AEN-0956 and Jeremiah Bvirindi the PSMAS board chair who has benefited a Nissan NP300 AEN-1787.

Currently PSMAS is failing to clear its arrears to third parties and PSMI is drowning in huge debt and its going concern status threatened by this opulent and reckless squandering and embezzlement of public funds yet efforts to revive and rescue PSMAS by Government are thwarted by soiled beneficiaries of the same flawed system in the name of trade unionism. Besides the tenure of the PSMAS board lapsed in May last year and these individuals despite having served two terms on the board continue to make executive decisions as they have become the defacto PSHC interim board and are hoping for renewal of their tenure by establishing a board of trustees in which they have ripped off Government adequate representation and voting powers. This rampant abuse of representative power by unionists with little business experience and exposure in a multi-million dollar business threatens the existence of the Society.

Statutory bodies are owed millions of dollars by PSMI debts which are not being serviced despite payment plans made with the concerned bodies hence majority of units are not regulatory compliant. Some have since garnished accounts to recover their dues. One dire example is Gweru City Council which is now contemplating legal action over a debt owed by Claybank Hospital (owned by PSMI) for millions of dollars of unpaid water bills covering a period of close to five years. The same story applies to other suppliers mainly for drugs, who are owed millions of dollars as well many of whom have since suspended supplies resulting in lack of stocks even the most basic drugs in all its pharmacies. List of creditors is endless.

What is worrisome is that the company is in this hopeless situation but its Directors and principal Board members are living in opulence. Their subterfuge is their purported main Debtor, PSMAS which they claim is not remitting funds to them. This is an incorrect position as there are many avenues through which PSMI may improve its revenues if management is willing but the real problem emanates from the management itself. A flawed management embedded on sordid avarice and misplaced priorities can never be expected to do better than plunder and destroy. Nepotism and abuse of office has seen board members children and relatives getting employment in key critical areas and even some running companies which directly supply the organisation with prepayments into their accounts with the PSMI board chair’s security company providing all security services in the organisation. 

The Zambian investments (Premier Service Medical Aid Society Zambia Limited and Health Shield Medical Services Limited) have never been clearly acknowledged in public with their financials and shareholding shredded in a mystery despite numerous year end audits confirming it to be running huge loses which cast material doubt on their going concern status. Moreover, twenty percent shareholding of these entities by former Group Chief Executive Officer Cuthbert Dube have been purported. Efforts for proper corporate governance through a forensic audit has been shot down since the Cuthbert Dube era in all PSMAS investment vehicles a quite worrisome development in a multi-million dollar business. 

Employees have expressed a vote of no confidence in the leadership and the entire board through their relevant structures but have been victimised and others fired for highlighting this stinking rot. A position clearly outlining employee incapacitation threatening service provision was submitted to the Public Service Commission efforts which management has attacked as being led by culture misfits and which they allege threatens the viability of their engagements on subscription review which they pinpoint as the only solution to the current quagmire. 

As a way forward in support of the sustenance of the non-monetary benefit of government employees, an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Society has been proposed for the 30th June 2022 amongst which is an array of proposed interventions meant to arrest this decay and correct this wayward anomaly in PSMAS and its investments. Every PSMAS card carrying member has the right to attend and participate and cast their vote in this very important and strategic AGM of the Society to be held at the Rainbow Towers Hotel on the 30th June at 1000hours. The main purpose is correction of the previous hoodwinking and callous interventions that have been made by the flawed beneficiaries and management through;

i. Dissolution of Premier Service Holding Company (PSHC) and its Trust which are embezzling public funds and running a peripheral vision outside the Society’s core mandate of ensuring healthcare access to its Card Carrying Members

ii. Deliberations on the core mandate of the Society and its investments especially card acceptance and access to healthcare

iii. Invoking SI 330 of 2000 Subsection 26 which allows for the suspension of the Society’s Management and Board and pave way for an interim management to allow execution of the forensic audit without hindrance and interference

iv. Extension of Forensic Audit to all PSMAS investments including PSHC to safeguard public funds and their utilisation

v. Centralisation of all payments and payrolls at PSMAS for all its investment entities and ensuring viable and competitive remuneration of the healthcare workforce being threatened by brain drain 

vi. Restructuring of the investment vehicle management and workforce to a lean sustainable structure

In conclusion government should seriously consider prioritizing the revival of PSMAS as soon as yesterday as civil servants right to healthcare as enshrined in section 76 of the constitution is continuously violated as they fail to access healthcare. In the spirit of leaving no one behind, access to healthcare should be prioritized for every Zimbabwean.