Residents of Warren Park D in Harare yesterday held a demonstration over failure by the Education, Sports, Art and Culture ministry's failure to open a secondary school built by the China-Zimbabwe Friendship Association three years ago.

The placard-waving residents said that there was no secondary school in the area yet CZF completed the now idle project.

Chairman of the Warren Park Residents' Association Mr Andrew Dizara said that secondary school children have to go to Kuwadzana 4, which is seven kilometres away.

"It is an inconvenience to go all the way to Kuwadzana to attend school, yet this state-of-the-art school is lying idle and has become a white elephant," he said.

"Some children are now forced to attend a private school situated at Nyagumbo Clinic."

Mr Dizara said they had tried lobbying the Education ministry and the local legislator Mr Elias Mudzuri to no avail.

He said they resisted earlier suggestions for the school to be converted into a clinic.

A security guard at the school who refused to be identified said that he received his salary from the ministry.

He said that before he was engaged, some residents had broken the lock to one of the classrooms and used it as a love nest.

Efforts to get a comment from the Minister of Education Senator David Coltart were fruitless.