The Sunday Mail
Cleophas Pedzisa
The conduct of some public officials at our parastatals and State enterprises is no different from that of the Townsend farmer who through greed connived with his wife to kill the hen that laid golden eggs.
In his inaugural speech and in many other subsequent deliveries, President Emmerson Mnangagwa refers to the voice of the people as the voice of God: vox populi, vox Dei.
If developments in State enterprises and local authorities are anything to go by, then they are drowning the voice of God.
The rot, malfeasance, nepotism and undoable conduct reported in the Auditor-General’s reports make for sad reading. The 2016 financial audits of public companies show that 38 out of 93 parastatals incurred a combined U$270 million loss, mainly due to weak corporate governance and poor resource control mechanisms.
Parliament, in a bid to forestall and firewall such losses or malpractices has evolved the committees system. This is meant to provide systemic oversight.
Committees, the world over, play the crucial role of tracking the work of government departments, ministries and agencies.
They conduct specific investigations into particularly salient aspects of their policy and administration.
This is why, we have “kugeda-geda kwemeno” (gnashing of teeth) in most of these entities as they are called to account in Parliament.
The methods of these oral evidence gathering meetings though, are not in purview of this piece.
Kudos to the Public Accounts Committee which has always upped its stake in carrying out its oversight on the goings on in our State entities.
The committee, which is post-hoc, monitors Government expenditure and is chaired by a member from a non-governing party to enhance its independence.
Broadly speaking, its monitoring compass is ensconced in the following questions:
l Has public money been spent on purposes for which it was assigned?
l Has it been spent efficiently, without waste?
l Has spending been kept within the budget allocation? and
l Is there evidence of fraud or misappropriation or other irregularities?
For some parastatals, if not all, the answers to the above will be, no, no, no and on the last part, yes.
The reports by Auditor-General Ms Mildred Chiri, which are public records, make sad reading as, in some cases, financial records are not even availed for inspection, (Arda’s Sanyati and Katiyo estates).
In certain instances, payments are done for non-existent works.
Corporate governance principles and practices are thrown out the window whilst falsification of figures takes centre stage.
It is heartening to note that the office of the Auditor-General is doing tracking the operations of at public institutions.
In her report to Parliament in 2017, Ms Chiri noted that, “Whilst there has been a general improvement in the area of corporate governance in the public sector, some extreme cases of weak corporate governance were noted. . .The weaknesses emanate from (poor) revenue collection methods and weak systems in the procurement processes.”
In this new governance era, tendencies which gravitate towards bleeding the economy should be nipped in the bud.
There is evidence of graft, bribery, embezzlement, and underhand deals that have no role to play if our economy is to grow the way we want it to grow.
The conduct of some public officials at our parastatals and State enterprises is no different from that of the Townsend farmer who through greed connived with his wife to kill the hen that laid golden eggs.
In their wisdom, or rather lack of it, they suppose the hen must contain a great lump of gold inside it and it would be good to get to it.
We, the people of God, are victims of the gluttonous behaviour of management of state enterprises.
This should not be allowed to continue.
All is not lost though. The restocking and retooling of National Railways of Zimbabwe is a welcome development.
The NRZ took delivery of a consignment of wagons early this month which is heartening. An efficient rail system can work miracles for our economy.
Even our students soon will have the comfort of travelling by rail on their way to and from school, and not in the sugar daddy-given ex-japs clogging our roads.
The Cold Storage Company is expected to be stunning, bleeding, de-hiding, cutting and de-boning animals in this first quarter of this year under a collaborative effort with NSSA.
Now that Europe is warming to us, we should soon be able to once again export our tasty beef to those markets.
Life should become much better for thousands of people through renewed operations at Ziscosteel, and Kamativi and Shabanie mines.
In all State enterprises, accountability and transparency should be the order of the day.
Those granted with the custodianship of State enterprises should be equal to measure and know that the “resources of the people are the resources of God”.
We need accountable, transparent and wise administration.
We cannot let people go scot free for choking the voice of God.
