Brenna Matendere

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday, 3 May 2022, said it was concerned that the police and numerous government institutions were failing to act on submissions made by the auditor general’s office.

The PAC chairperson and Gweru Urban member of parliament, Brian Dube—speaking at a meeting in Harare held to review the auditor general’s reports—said it was worrying that, despite revelations of corruption, there has not been meaningful prosecution of the offenders.

 “Some of the issues from the AG’s latest report have been raised in previous years but it is worrying that we do not see concrete action being taken by relevant authorities like the police and the National Prosecuting Authority,” said Dube.

The Finance, Budget and Development parliamentary committee chairperson, Matthew Nyashanu, director of parliament’s budget office, Pepukai Chivore, parliamentarians and other government officials attended the meeting.

The auditor general’s 2021 report noted that the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) failed to submit documents for accounting purposes to see how it used public funds in the period between 2012 to 2019.

It also highlighted cases where there could have been leakages of millions of dollars in government ministries and line departments.

“There is need for consequences to be faced by those who are accused of wrong doing and corruption,” said Dube.

Last year, the ZACC chairperson, Loice Mathanda Moyo, told Grazers News that her commission had assembled a team of experts to investigate corruption in the mining sector.

She also said the team had been trained to enhance investigative skills and expertise.

However, critics say ZACC is not doing enough to deal with high profile cases.

The late former president, Robert Mugabe, at one time said of the US$15 billion that had been generated in the diamond sector between 2009 and 2016, only US$2 billion had been accounted for.

“The country requires a situation whereby more resources are channelled towards increasing the capacity of institutions that deal with graft so that they hire specialists in investigations of high profile corruption cases.

“Some of the offenders have money to hire top lawyers to defend them, so investigations that build strong cases are needed,” said Dube.