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Ivan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
OVER 1 500 senior officials have signed integrity pledges since the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) launched the strategy in 2022.
ZACC chairperson Mr Michael Reza told the Corruption Dialogue Symposium organised by the Tripartite Negotiating Forum in Harare last Friday that the campaign was taken to 10 provinces where senior Government officials, politicians and heads of departments signed integrity pledges.
Other officials who signed the pledges include Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for Masvingo and Midlands, officers from the Zimbabwe Republic Police and Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services.
“To date, 1 500 pledges have been signed. From January to date, 70 pledges have been signed,” Mr Reza said.
“The commission carried on with institutionalisation of corruption prevention by establishing integrity committees. Since its inception, 26 institutions were identified in the pilot programme.
“Twenty-seven integrity committees were set in 2022 and were trained by ZACC. In 2023 more than 80 committees were set in institutions such as NatPharm, National Railways of Zimbabwe, Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe Open University and Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.”
Mr Reza said to date, a total of 134 integrity committees have been established and 104 have been trained.
The purpose of integrity committees was to create a “mini ZACC” in institutions so that corruption is curbed at institutional level.
ZRP deputy commissioner-general Lorraine Chipato said corruption has manifested itself over the years in many forms. It was observed that corruption in the procurement of goods and services had been on the rise.
“Procurement has become a major topic because it involves large sums of public funds and is impacted by highly devolved decision-making, limited oversight and inadequate staff training,” she said.
“Abuse of office by public officials has been observed when they request for payments
for the so-called high-end groups, or in exchange for giving preferential treatment to the other parties. So, it leads to soliciting for extortion
by low-level public officials.”
Dep Comm-Gen Chipato also noted employment scams where job seekers were asked to pay an illegal fee in order to be employed.
Ms Bianca Makwande, director policy and legal affairs in the Judicial Service Commission, said anti-corruption courts were created as a division of the High Court to deal with corruption cases.
“You may know that there are some corruption cases that may commence in the High Courts because of their seriousness, and also there are corruption cases and reviews that are made in the High Courts,” she said.
“We have also established in all the 10 provinces in Zimbabwe, at magistrate court level, anti-corruption courts, and we also have 60 magistrate court stations in Zimbabwe where their magistrates would deal with corruption cases. We have managed to decentralise our anti-corruption courts to ensure efficient and effective adjudication of these cases.
“In addition to this, we have courts that are available in remote areas which also deal with anti-corruption cases. We believe that this framework is effective in dealing with anti-corruption cases.”
Secretary for the National Prosecuting Authority, Mr Tafadzwanashe Mupariwa, said some of the challenges the authority faced included delays in completing cases brought before courts because of people’s rights as enshrined in the Constitution.
“Every person is entitled to those rights and sometimes we become aware of those rights when we are being accused of a crime,” he said.
Online Reporter