By Bennie Mundando
LAURA Miti, the Executive Director for the Alliance for Community Action (ACA) has questioned why management at the University of Zambia (UNZA) and the Copperbelt University (CBU) allow students to charge their fellow students for squatting in their rooms.
Ms. Miti says if a single room can take as much as four students, then there is no need for the one allocated the room to charge them but that management should instead officially accommodate the four without having any student charging his fellow students.
She alleges that this criminality has been allowed because there are people within the institutions who are cashing in from offering accommodation to students who in turn recoup their expenditure by charging squatters exorbitantly.
“I would really love to know why the University of Zambia and CBU administrations allow students to charge other students for rooms that belong to the University. How is it that the universities have been unable to end this criminality? If the rooms can take 4 students, why not officially accommodate that number?
“How is it impossible for universities to audit who is sleeping in which room and paying who? This is my conclusion – the madness is allowed because university administrators are making hundreds of thousands per year from students who pay them to be allocated rooms, so they can then overcharge their mates. If no one in authority was benefitting from this criminality, it would have ended a long time ago,” Ms. Miti said.-ZR