Online Reporter
Remember Deketeke
Municipal Correspondent
A TOTAL of 13 919 litres of fuel cannot be accounted for at Chitungwiza Town Council after the local authority failed to maintain adequate fuel management controls, the Auditor-General has revealed.
According to the 2025 Auditor-General’s Report for the financial year ended December 31, 2023, the municipality’s fuel management system was characterised by weak internal controls, including incomplete fuel issue records and the absence of reconciliation procedures to track fuel movements.
The report says the deficiencies exposed the council to the risk of fuel leakages, abuse and possible loss of public resources.
“The Council’s controls over fuel management were not adequate as the fuel issue out records had incomplete metering recordings to show fuel movements and there was no evidence of reconciliations performed. As a result, 13 919 litres of fuel could not be accounted for during the year under review,” reads the report.
The Auditor-General said the shortcomings breached Section 49(1)(a) of the Public Finance Management Act, which requires accounting officers to establish and maintain effective systems of internal control to safeguard public resources.
Chitungwiza Municipality management acknowledged the shortcomings.
“The municipality is in the process of procuring a complete fuel dispenser system which will address the issue of variances because currently we are relying on readings from the dip stick only,” said a management official.
Reliance on manual dip-stick readings, said the management, had contributed to inconsistencies in fuel accounting.
“After we noted that there were huge variances on fuel issued and readings from the dip stick at the end of the day, the municipality assigned the internal audit to investigate the causes of the variance.
“Employees who were involved in misappropriating fuel were dismissed.”
