Patriots for Economic Progress president Sean Tembo has asked the Ministry of General Education to refund K520.20 to all those who applied to be teachers in the just ended recruitment exercise.

In a letter dated December 4, 2017 and addressed to General Education Minister Dennis Wanchinga, Tembo said if the ministry failed to comply to his demands within seven days, he would seek legal recourse.

“It has come to our attention that your ministry through its agents, illegally charged an amount of K520.20 to citizens who were recently applying for jobs as teachers. It is our position as Patriots for Economic Progress that such a charge to unemployed citizens was illegal, fraudulent, immoral and shameful as you knew fully well that more than 95 per cent of applicants from which you obtained this fee would not be employed by your ministry. We therefore demand as we hereby do, that your ministry immediately refunds all the applicants the said K520.20 that you illegally obtained from them with interest and an apology,” read Tembo’s letter.

“You are hereby put on notice that should you fail or neglect to effect these refunds of money that you fraudulently obtained from the poor, desperate and innocent citizens of this Republic within 7 working days, we shall proceed to take legal action against your ministry and against yourself and your senior officers in senior officers in your individual capacities.”