Online Reporter
Veronica Gwaze
Herald Correspondent
THE Government has hailed the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund for rewriting its story to become one of the institutions that surpassed targets and met deadlines in the first quarter of the year.
This comes after spending years marred in controversies that dented the fund, resulting in several legal disputes that saw them in and out of courts.
However, all that seems to be a thing of the past.
Currently undergoing a transformational journey to overhaul its operational model, the fund collected a revenue of ZiG373,23 million in the quarter against a set target of ZiG350,89 million.
The performance translates to at least six percent above target.
ZIMDEF expenditure indicates that in the first quarter, they spent ZiG298,25 million, leaving the fund in a surplus of ZiG74,98 million.
Of the expenditure, 78 percent went towards the fulfilment of ZIMDEF’s mandate while 12 percent covered staff costs and 10 percent catered for administration.
The surplus is being ploughed into various projects which include tertiary education, grants, innovation programmes, apprentice expenses and ministry infrastructure.
Speaking during a familiarisation tour of ZIMDEF on Wednesday, Higher and Tertiary Education, Science, Innovation and Technology Development Minister Dr Frederick Shava, applauded the Fund for creating good corporate governance standards.
He said the development reinforces proper disbursement of collected funds, making a positive impact on education.
“After this tour, we have come to note that ZIMDEF has transformed into an efficient organisation,” said Dr Shava.
“The fund is conducting effective cooperation with industry and commerce, which enables them to follow up on what industry and commerce should contribute to the Government through ZIMDEF.
“They are doing well in that regard as depicted by how well they relate to both Government and the private sector.”
In the quarter under review, ZIMDEF also achieved key milestones towards the attainment of improved governance and administration.
It introduced the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), a software system that integrates core business processes — such as finance, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain and inventory, creating a unified platform that allows departments to share data and automate workflow.
A self-service portal has also been developed by ZIMDEF to allow for ease of doing business for those who remit the Manpower Training Levy.
Dr Shava was mostly impressed by ZIMDEF for being up to date on their 2024 audits, while last year’s financials are in the process of being audited, with the conclusion set for May.
However, the fund’s major highlight is the introduction of an audit portal, which will be used by internal auditors and beneficiaries to upload and download disbursement and acquittal documents.
This portal is meant to improve efficiency and reduce time spent on physical visits during beneficiaries’ audits.
