Chombo reads riot act

Tichaona Zindoga
Zanu-PF secretary for administration Cde Ignatius Chombo yesterday charged officials representing his department in different parts of the country to clean up the ruling party’s administrative systems following displays of poor management and general inefficiency. Provincial, women’s and youth league administration secretaries were told this at Zanu-PF’s headquarters in Harare.

Cde Chombo said, “In the recent past, the party has witnessed gross inadequacy and outright incompetence in the manner in which it was run. The party records of membership were fictitious and in shambles to render them useless for the purpose of research or projection of election results, strategy development and planning.

“So gross was the manipulation of numbers that in Bulawayo province, for example, the election result for the whole province totalled approximately five districts. It has become a culture that provinces inflate the number of party districts to have superiority over others with regards allocation of leadership and perceived party strength.”

Cde Chombo said administration “had deteriorated to alarming levels” in the run-up to the party’s 6th National People’s Congress in December 2014.

He said the administration department was critical to accelerating implementation of Zim-Asset.
“The party was characterised by haphazard manner of recruitment, selection and promotion of party personnel, favouritism in the use and allocation of party resources like vehicles; rampant abuse of office and corrupt actions done with impunity, lack of accountability of party assets and resources, coupled with gross negligence — to the extend of failing to mobilise critical resources for key party events like conferences.”