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and MPs who abused Constituency Development Funds are not off the hook.
He said his decision to halt arrests of MPs by the Anti-Corruption Commission did not mean they could get away with it.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Tomana said all MPs across the political divide would be arrested if they abused the funds.
He said he had decided to halt “in abeyance” investigations and arrests of the legislators because the Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs and ACC were coming to his office in a “clumsy” way.
He said his office did not tolerate “piecemeal” cases.
“They should do a complete job such that at the end of the day no one should say they were being targeted or isolated.
“These investigations are being born out of an audit and it speaks logic for us to say an audit should be completed first and we can then pick out all the culprits at one time.”
Out of the 210 constituencies countrywide, about 65 have been audited.
Mr Tomana said the ACC had received only reports from four constituencies.
“Because of the jumble, they were now targeting others, which were not audited meaning they were going ahead of the audit.
“According to the Constitution, the complainant (Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs) was supposed to hand over reports to my office for consideration but nothing has been done to date and this is why I am saying this is being done in a clumsy manner.”
Section 76 (4) of the Constitution empowers the AG to exercise his powers without the direction or control of any person or authority.
Effective prosecution, Mr Tomana said, would only be possible after all the constituencies were audited.
“If we rush to make conclusions, it means those fingered are already out of the game of politics because their constituencies know that they are facing charges,” he said.
“Three months down the line they may be acquitted but politically they would have been kicked out and logically they would say the system was used to boot them out.”
Mr Tomana said the move was aimed at depoliticising the process.
“If the ministry is doing a bona fide job, let them do and let that job feed into the next stage, that is handing it over to those that have a mandate to investigate or cause an investigation and prosecute.
“It is impossible to make an audit, investigate and prosecute at the same time because the same people involved in the audit are the same people who should testify in court.
“After a full audit an auditor will be able to support his audit as witness in a trial and that is when there would be effective prosecution,” he said.
Mr Tomana dismissed as “awkward” reports that by halting investigations, he wanted to protect Zanu-PF legislators.
“No one would be protected because we believe no one is immune to prosecution,” he said.
“I am not the one doing the audit. All I am getting here is a complete docket. How does that make me protect anyone? I will only know anything tangible when the docket is
brought before me.
“All we want is for the responsible authorities to give a chance to other processes that feed into their process properly.”
He said: “No one will have a chance to cover up because an audit is a paper trail and in this case it’s about money and bank transfers.
“Because of this, you cannot over-explain today the money you used months ago. You will face prosecution.”
The CDF is meant for constituency development projects and each MP got $50 000.
To date four legislators have been arrested for converting the funds to personal use while others also corruptly used their own companies and those of relatives and friends to procure supplies.
Recently the then Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, Mrs Virginia Mabhiza, said there was no legal provision to prosecute the legislators who abused the CDF.
She said the MPs would be charged under the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, which is a weaker statute.
Online Reporter