dyton mupawaenda
Leonard Ncube–Victoria Falls Reporter
PUBLIC and private sector entities have been urged to embrace electronic Government and procurement systems as a smart way of curbing corruption.
The call comes as corruption in the public sector has negatively affected public service and livelihoods of ordinary citizens who fail to get the required services.
Corruption is rife in the awarding of tenders, pricing, and job opportunities among other sections of the economy, and the Government through the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Praz) came up with the electronic procurement system where all transactions should be done online.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) also introduced the electronic case management system where cases that are taken to court are out on a dashboard and monitored to the end.
This digital approach not only enhances the ease of doing business but also helps reduce chances of corruption.
ZACC had said that it spends 60 percent of its resources on investigations and only 40 on prevention and the e-Government system will likely help reduce expenses.
The anti-corruption commission is working with various stakeholders in the drive against corruption which is reportedly costing the country about US$3 billion annually.
Last week, Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE) hosted the inaugural international anti-corruption conference in Victoria Falls in partnership with ZACC in an effort to foster a collective approach in the war against the scourge.
In an interview, ZACC deputy chairperson Commissioner Kuziwa Murapa said ZACC’s interest was to see all cases succeeding in court.
He said there was a need to standardise whistle-blowing laws and introduce compulsory anti-corruption training to all public sector workers.
Commissioner Murapa said ZACC works with the National Prosecution Authority, Judicial Service Commission, and the police in fighting corruption.
“ZACC is involved in creating strong institutions to reduce corruption.
“We have established integrity committees in the public sector as the first line of defence of corruption. We have done compliance checks and reviewed systems,” he said.
“As ZACC we believe in strong institutions. We now have an electronic case management system which we are hoping to work with. It is in sync with the Judicial Service Commission electronic system such that once a docket has been opened and uploaded it doesn’t go out until a judge decides.”
Commissioner Murapa said ZACC was impressed by the number of academic institutions that have heeded the call to fight corruption locally and in the region.
Another ZACC Commissioner Dr Mabel Hungwe said there are a number of measures being implemented to facilitate the fight against corruption.
“A lot is happening as we work with the private sector and we are having a module to ensure we are going to be more compliant and we will have public service training and also integrity committees. We are working on prevention because for now, we are spending 60 percent of resources on investigations and only 40 percent on prevention,” she said.
“Private sector players protect each other and ring-fence the sector such that it is hard to penetrate and detect corruption. We are so happy with BUSE because they supplied us with financial intelligence officers.”
Praz chief executive, Mr Clever Ruswa said the e-procurement system was open to any sector and borrows its provisions from regional best practices.
“We were discussing through the inaugural anti-corruption conference and sharing ideas on the pitfalls of corruption and experience where we see it happening.
“We were now sharing with delegates that as a Government we are going to mitigate against some of these ills through electronic Government procurement which was launched by President Mnangagwa on Monday,” he said.
“We are expecting entities now to embrace it so that we address this corruption. Yes, it may have its teething problems where people may try to manipulate its applications, but we will deal with the whole issue.”
Mr Ruswa said Praz had partnered with Zimpost to use its facilities for easy access to the online procurement space.
The e-procurement system has worked in other countries and Praz has managed to benchmark it with lessons from across the continent and world.
Some local and international service providers that ZACC is working on software development are renowned internationally.
“We are quite sure this will help solve the equation. Anyone can use it, we are looking at the procurement committees and also the bidding community to have capital equipment that is compatible with some of these,” said Mr Ruswa.
Online Reporter