adminThe Chronicle, 6
December 2016
CHARTERED accountants who carried out a forensic audit on the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority accounts, have raised a red flag on salaries that appeared in suspended executives’ bank accounts, but did not appear on the revenue collector’s payroll.
The Auditor-General’s Office appointed HLB Zimbabwe Chartered Accountants earlier this year to conduct a forensic audit on Zimra.
This was after it emerged that management were illegally importing vehicles into the country.
According to the auditors, the executives received various amounts of money between 2014 and 2016.
Bank statements obtained by the auditors indicated that suspended Commissioner-General Mr Gershem Pasi received about $122 000 between January 2014 and June 2016.
Other members of the executive received between $3 000 and $11 000.
“We scrutinised the bank statements and the payrolls for the executives covering 29 months, ended 31 May 2016,” said the auditors.
“We noted significant anomalies with regards to salaries processed through the respective accounts for directors but not appearing on Zimra payrolls.
“We could not determine whether the suspicious and unusual deposits into their bank accounts were proceeds of crime arising from corrupt activities or acts of money laundering or anything else.
“We inquired with the human resources regarding the source of the above amounts and they confirmed that these transfers did not originate from their department.”
The auditors raised concern with the internal audit function regarding management payroll where it emerged that the payroll for management was not subjected to internal audits.
“We interviewed the Chief Internal Auditor of Zimra on the 9th of September 2016, to understand the role that the internal audit function has played in monitoring and overseeing the internal controls and risk management systems around the management payroll of the authority.
“We established that the payroll for management was confidential and never audited by the internal audit function of Zimra. This implies that any anomalies in the payroll function are not detected and corrected timeously. We recommend that internal audit be given unrestricted access to all departments within Zimra. The director in charge of audit function should be disciplined for failing to discharge his mandate,” reads the audit report.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
Jesus’ remark in Mark 12:17 regarding taxation, has for centuries been used as the yardstick on why taxation is the standard for nation states to collect revenue: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Under the Revenue Authority Act of 2002, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority’s responsibility is to collect taxes and other revenues for Government. The taxes and revenue streams include, income tax, pay as you earn (PAYE), value added tax (VAT), excise duty, capital gains and customs duty, among others.
High levels of integrity and good corporate governance at all levels are expected of organisations such as Zimra. Apart from internal and external auditing, there should be other oversight organisations, including Parliamentary portfolio committees to ensure that there are no leakages that discredit the State.
Over the years, Zimra has been in the public eye for the wrong reasons: rampant corruption that continues to bleed the State of billions of dollars.
Online Reporter