Luanar probes students over fees
Lilongwe University o f Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) is currently investigating some students who are suspected to have forged bank deposit slips of their fees.
In an interview on Monday, University Registrar Phillip Kaonda said the issue was discovered on Friday when officials at the university were reconciling fees payments to the university.
“We have these allegations of some students who were forging bank deposit slips. They were, for instance, adding three zeros to the amount they were depositing at the bank. For example, they could make a deposit of K100 at the bank. They could then cleverly add three zeros to the amount so that it looks like they had paid K100, 000. At the moment, we have written National Bank of Malawi to verify the amounts that were paid,” Kaonda said.
According to Kaonda, currently, generic students pay K362,000 per academic year while mature students about K700,000.
Kaonda however said so far it is generic students who have been implicated.
“Initially, there were 20 students. Ten more have been added to the list. We involved fiscal police. The students were arrested and were later released on bail. The anomaly has been discovered in payments that have been made this year,” Kaonda said.
Kaonda said the students were told to pay at least half the amount of their fees, as first semester examinations are approaching.
The Registrar has since said the students will be suspended pending disciplinary hearing.
“This is a very serious offence. Once we establish the truth of the matter, the students will be suspended. We have already identified the masterminds. Disciplinary hearing will take place within 20 days from the day of the suspension,” he said.
Education rights activist, Benedicto Kondowe has said what has happened at Luanar is an indication that many students are not getting loans from The Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Board.
“We have been saying that the Loans Board does not have the capacity to give loans to all the needy students. These are the problems that we will be finding ourselves in. Learners have to develop survival strategies, which are not good. Much as there is a problem, the survival strategy is a sign of moral decay in our students,” Kondowe, who is Executive Director of Civil Society Education Coalition, said.
In recent months, there have been concerns by students from the University of Malawi over increment in tuition fees, leading to closure of some colleges. The most affected have been The Polytechnic and Chancellor College.
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