Chronicle EditorPatrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is conducting interviews to fill positions of prosecutors which have arisen at Magistrates’ Courts across the country.
Nationally, NPA is looking to recruit about 291 prosecutors who will assist in the effective and expeditious prosecution of corruption cases.
In February, Treasury unfroze recruitment and allowed NPA to recruit up to 291 prosecutors.
The NPA advertised the vacancies, inviting qualified lawyers to submit their applications.
This comes at a time prosecutors seconded to the NPA by the uniformed forces were returning to their work stations in fulfilment of last year’s Constitutional Court ruling.
According to the ruling, seconding uniformed forces to the prosecution department is unconstitutional.
Prosecutor-General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi was given up to 24 months to disengage all serving members of the security forces.
As a result, the NPA went to decentralise the recruitment of public prosecutors to expedite the process.
The development has seen the interviews being held at provincial level.
In the Midlands province, there are about 15 vacancies to be filled and 24 aspiring candidates have been interviewed.
The province has Magistrates courts in all the eight administrative districts which are Mberengwa, Zvishavane, Shurugwi, Gweru, Chirumhanzu, Kwekwe, Gokwe North and Gokwe South.
The interviews were held over two days at Gweru Magistrates Court to cover the Midlands province.
The first group of 12 was interviewed on Wednesday with the rest getting their turn yesterday.
The groups were made up of mostly practising lawyers and or people with law degrees.
A panel from NPA Harare and other provinces conducted the interviews.
In an interview yesterday, Midlands Provincial Public Prosecutor Mr Samuel Pedzisayi said previously, interviews by NPA were done at the head office in Harare before successful candidates were posted to provinces to take up their duties.
As such, he said someone from Mutare could be posted to Mberengwa, a development that resulted in a high turnover of prosecutors.
“Decentralising the recruitment process means that we are circumventing the high turnover by having applicants from the Midlands province, who have the knowledge about this province being interviewed.
“They come for interviews well knowing that there are eight districts and can be posted anywhere and there won’t be any element of surprise for them when they are finally deployed,” said Mr Pedzisayi.
He said NPA head office has the final say on successful candidates and their deployment in the provinces the candidate would have been interviewed in.
“The good thing is that our candidates know they can be deployed anywhere in the Midlands province and that will in a way circumvent high turnover of prosecutors in NPA,” said Mr Pedzisayi.
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