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Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter
Anyone found guilty of abusing funds or assets of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation over the past four years will face the full wrath of the law and measures will be taken to recover any proven losses to the national broadcaster.At the same time, ZBC salaries will revert to the approved 2010 levels with immediate effect and will be reviewed in six months in line with a new structure for parastatals being crafted by the Office of the President and Cabinet.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo said Government would institute a forensic audit to determine what the national broadcaster had been prejudiced of in February.
Even before the audit, Prof Moyo said there was sufficient evidence showing that some senior managers abused ZBC funds and assets in a manner that displayed gross negligence and outright criminal conduct.
“Subject to due processes, any abuse of funds or assets of the Corporation by anyone at ZBC over the period in question shall with immediate effect be dealt with in terms of the law in order to hold them account and recover from them any proven loss of ZBC funds of assets,” he said.
Prof Moyo said ZBC was insolvent and could not meet its obligations, including salaries. He said the situation at ZBC was so bad was that about 85 permanent employees were also being paid as part-time workers, thereby prejudicing the corporation through double-dipping; while there were salary claims for 99 students said to be on internship.
Prof Moyo said former ZBC board chairman Mr Cuthbert Dube negotiated and approved contracts of executives and general managers without the full board’s knowledge.
He said the hefty salaries paid to ZBC senior managers since 2012 were illegal because they were adopted and implemented without board approval.
“In view of these anomalies, particularly the fact that the current salaries at ZBC were not approved by the board, it is necessary for ZBC to now revert with immediate effect to the salaries that were approved by the board for all staff levels in 2010.
“These salaries are well within the current cost of living. It is notable that the current problem of corrupt salaries at ZBC started in 2011 when the executive mangers, with the unprocedural acquiescence of the former chairperson – Cuthbert Dube – sought to justify their obscene salaries by illegally awarding all staff levels nearly 100 percent increments without the approval of the board.”
The malpractices manifesting at ZBC appear out of sync with Chapter 9 Section 194 of the Constitution which focuses on “Basic values and principles governing public administration”.
Subsections 1(a) and (b) expect: “a high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained; efficient and economical use of resources must be promoted.”
Section 195(1) demands that, “Companies and other commercial entities owned or wholly controlled by the State must, in addition to complying with principles set out in Section 194(1), conduct their operations so as to maintain commercial viability and abide by generally accepted standards of good corporate governance.”
ZBC failed to pay most of its staff for seven months last year resulting in Government taking over the debt and suspending chief executive officer, Mr Happison Muchechetere, who was taking home some US$40 000 monthly.
Government also fired the Dube-led board.
Online Reporter