Chronicle Editor
THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) on Monday confirmed losing US$74 500 to car dealer, Duly’s Motors, after paying for vehicles that were not delivered.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts on Monday, Zinara chief executive officer, Mr Nkosinathi Ncube, said Duly’s Motors did not deliver vehicles because it claimed the funds paid to them were inadequate, even though the roads authority had transferred the full United States dollar amount.
“The reason is that a bank transfer was made to Duly’s through CBZ Bank, then CBZ on their transfer to Duly’s, there was loss of value,” he said.
“According to Duly’s, the value that was transferred to them was different from the value of the motor vehicles hence they did not deliver because the funds they were given were inadequate. But the money that was debited to Duly’s, we paid in USD, but the bank debited RTGS.”
Mr Ncube said the transaction happened during the period when the country transitioned from USD to the then local ZWL currency.
“The transfer from our bank to the Duly’s bank is where it came as an RTGS transaction. That has been the bone of contention between the two banks,” he said.
Zinara also lost money after paying for a transformer, which was also not delivered.
“The supplier for the transformer cannot be located,” said Ncube.
The committee tasked the Zinara board to deal with corporate governance and irregularities flagged in a forensic report by accounting firm Grant Thornton, such as procurement violations, tender irregularities and financial mismanagement.
Committee chair and Kuwadzana legislator, Mr Charlton Hwende, said it was unfortunate that public institutions continue losing money to contractors who fail to deliver goods and services.
“The problem that we have with suppliers like these is that they are supplying various Government departments doing the same thing. We have a lot of people doing this and we want to get to the bottom of this,” he said. — New Ziana
Online Reporter