Chronicle Editor
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
PROLONGED labour disputes between the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) and some of its workers are adversely affecting the deployment of personnel and crippling service delivery to most ports, a senior official has said.
Zimra Commissioner responsible for customs and excise, Mr Batsirai Chadzingwa, says among other stations, Beitbridge Border Post was the worst affected.
He made the remarks recently during an anti-corruption breakfast meeting.
Among other factors, he said inadequate staffing was one of the major challenges affecting service efficiencies, which creates room for incidents of corruption.
This comes amid growing allegations that some people resort to bribing customs and other officials at the border in order to speed up services as there few officials to serve them.
Mr Chadzingwa said Zimra was descending hard on those employees involved in corrupt activities and revealed that some have already been suspended while others have been fired.
“Your concerns on staff inadequacies are genuine and are well noted. But then as much as we would want to fill some posts, it then becomes difficult for us to do so when we have pending labour disputes,” he said.
“For instance, when we find a person violating the code of conduct, we either suspend them or dismiss, and when that person takes us to the Labour Court, the dispute drags on.
“We then find it hard to fill their post when the matter is pending finalisation,” said Mr Chadzingwa.
He said efforts were being made to ensure that all labour cases are expeditiously resolved.
The official said the tax collector was also pressing ahead with plans to automate most services to minimise the human interface between customs officials and the clients.
Estimates indicate that Zimra needs close to 450 workers at the Beitbridge Border Post alone but has been working on a low strength staff due to attrition and the continued suspension of those caught up in corrupt activities.
Speaking during the same meeting, Zimra’s chairperson of the integrity committee, Mr Samuel Sithole, said they had come up with four policy steps to curb corruption.
“Since the formation of our committee in 2019, we have been consistently carrying out the lifestyle audits, anti-fraud, recruitment and disciplinary hearing to eradicate issues of corruption, which is adversely affecting revenue collection,” he said.
“In addition, we continue to carry out integrity awareness campaigns to influence behaviour change among Zimbabweans.” — @tupeyo
Online Reporter