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Farirai Machivenyika, Senior Reporter
Local authorities continue to be marred by weak corporate governance issues, with Acting Auditor General, Mrs Rhea Kujinga, noting an increase in such issues in her 2023 report tabled in Parliament last week.
In the report, Mrs Kujinga said some of the issues include weak internal control of inventory, poor cash management and absence of bank reconciliations, among others.
“There was an increase in governance issues from 139 reported in 2022 report to 190,” she said.
“In this report there are instances of weak internal control over inventory, cash management, absence of bank reconciliations, unsupported adjustments, incomplete records and late submission of financial statements.
“Late submission of financial statements creates gaps for accountability and this has resulted in most local authorities not able to avail supporting documents and reconciling variances noted during the audit. In addition, a majority of the local authorities were lagging behind in embracing technology as most of their business processes were still manual or partially automated.”
She said lack of full automation of accounting systems resulted in late submission of financial statements and due to lapse of time, document retention is compromised resulting in incomplete records.
“In light of the above, local authorities and those in charge of governance are therefore encouraged to embrace the Government’s thrust on implementation of information communication technology such as e-procurement and e-filing and bring their books to current,” she said.
In the report, the AG reported 81 findings in respect of revenue collection and debt recovery with the local authorities losing revenue due to the absence of complete or updated databases for their various revenue streams.
“I noted instances of non-billing of revenue and unresolved variances between the revenue records and the reported figures in the financial statements. Most councils were recognising revenue on cash basis because of not billing therefore their receivables were incomplete,” she said.
Mrs Kujinga said she had noted 21 issues in respect of procurement of goods and services with instances of unsupported expenditure on the procurement of non-current assets.
“Kadoma City Council procured the services of converting a pick-up truck into an ambulance at a cost of US$22 500 and paid US$13 500 without following procurement procedures. As a result, the service was not yet provided at the time of this report. In addition, Gweru City Council could not avail procurement supporting documents in respect of assets acquired during the year amounting to ZWL$9.8 million,” she said.
She added that the majority of local authorities did not maintain comprehensive asset registers, which would have enabled accountability of public assets.
In addition, she said assets were not revalued to reflect fair values at the reporting date as required by the reporting frameworks.
“Under the current environment, assets will be under-valued without constant revaluations. In addition, the useful lives were not reviewed to assess the asset and plan for the replacement of these assets, a practice that will enhance service delivery. Service delivery issues remained a challenge for the majority of the local authorities.
“A number of local authorities are experiencing growth, however facilities have not been upgraded to match with the growth. Water, sewerage infrastructure and waste management were not being upgraded to match the growth,” Mrs Kujinga said.
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