adminFor the programme to gain the support of the majority, the fruits of empowerment must be seen to be trickling down to the common man since the programme was never meant to benefit the elite.
Reports that some chiefs have started dipping their fingers into the community share scheme trust funds are quite worrying.
The Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Dr Ignatius Chombo, has directed chiefs in Zvishavane to return into the community share ownership trust account part of the $2 million that they have reportedly shared among themselves.
Indeed, this is a cause for concern and communities will be justified in expressing their worry over the abuse of funds since these share schemes were launched recently.
While we applaud the Government for getting companies operating in different parts of the country to cede part of their shareholding to locals and contribute towards the development of local communities through the share ownership schemes, it is our view that there is a need for clarity regarding regulations governing the handling of the funds.
That the chiefs have had direct access to funds that should be handled by technocrats shows a deficiency in administration that could have been avoided so that we do not unnecessarily arm our detractors who have had nothing positive to say about the indigenisation programme in general and the share ownership scheme in particular.
We learn that chiefs in Zvishavane have paid themselves sitting allowances of $5 000 each from the CSOT funds in addition to hundreds of thousands they are reported to have shared, prompting the minister to issue a warning.
“I have called this meeting to advise you as our treasured traditional leaders that you should return the money which each of you was allocated to administer the funding of projects in your area back into the trust account . . . If anything happens and some money becomes unaccounted while it has been disbursed by the chiefs, it means that you as chiefs are held accountable. This means you could be prosecuted and we don’t want a situation where our traditional leaders will be sent to jail,” said Minister Chombo.
It is our hope that share schemes in other areas have not been affected by such irregular disbursements and that the Government is putting in place structures and checks and balances to ensure that money in trust funds is well accounted for the benefit of the wider community.
It is our view that the Government has learnt its lessons from the Constituency Development Fund, which some members of Parliament are yet to account for possibly due to a lack of clear guidelines and controls.
While chiefs are entitled to know how much their areas will get for projects, the traditional leaders should not necessarily handle the cash but submit their project requirements in line with their budgets.
The community share schemes are going to handle a lot of money and the temptation to divert some of the funds will definitely overwhelm some of the leaders. However, to protect the integrity of the indigenisation programme while ensuring that it achieves its objective of broad-based economic empowerment, it is important to lay down some rules and craft mechanisms that ensure that there would be no room for abuse of public funds.
Online Reporter