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Daniel Nemukuyu
Investigations Editor
THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has embarked on a nationwide programme to strengthen local authorities’ anti-graft systems and promote good governance after establishing that the systems at most councils were in shambles and open for abuse.
Most local authorities, according to a recent report by ZACC’s Compliance, Systems and Processes’ Review department, do not have defined due diligence committees on procurement, neither do they have integrity committees that help in detecting and preventing corrupt practices.
The councils do not even have anti-corruption focal persons, calling for an urgent intervention by ZACC.
The discoveries were made after ZACC recently sent out standard questionnaires to 92 rural and urban councils throughout the country seeking to know how prepared were they for the anti-graft fight.
Of the 92 councils, 47 have so far responded.
ZACC analysed the responses and concluded that the systems at most of the councils in question were in shambles and corruption could go undetected.
To that end, ZACC has launched a programme dubbed “Corruption Prevention Compliance and Systems Technical Support for Local Authorities”, which seeks to educate them on how to plug corruption and fraud loopholes.
Head of ZACC’s Compliance and Systems Review department, Commissioner Thandiwe Mhlobane, said the programme would help fight corruption and improve service delivery.
“The main objective of the programme is to assist local authorities in strengthening their systems of operation and promoting good corporate governance, which would result in improved service delivery,” she said.
“Therefore, the department has managed to send 92 questionnaires to 32 municipalities and local boards and 60 to rural district councils.”
Comm Mhlobane said most local authorities need urgent assistance.
“An analysis of the responses from the 47 local authorities who have so far responded, shows that most of them do not have integrity committees and anti-corruption contact persons,” she said.
“For those who said they have integrity committees; they have the function being carried out by internal audit. They do not have policy documents for mainstreaming integrity and anti-corruption.
“We established that they do not have due diligence policies for procurement or employment of workers, putting them at risk of dealing with convicted criminals.”
The questionnaire sought to understand if the local authorities were interested in participating in ZACC’s anti-graft programme.
ZACC wanted to know if there were confidential reporting mechanisms on corruption issues and how whistle-blowers were protected.
Another question was meant to establish if the councils had a recruitment and procurement policy that detected and prevented corruption. An analysis of the 2018 Auditor General’s Report revealed that ratepayers’ funds at local authorities such as Harare, Gweru and Bulawayo were abused in corrupt activities.
The report confirmed that public delivery services in cities often suffered due to misappropriation of funds. Local authorities were borrowing for recurrent expenditures, yet that had a negative bearing on public service delivery.
Online Reporter