Audit exposes govt
MOSES MATENGA
The government is failing to finish off projects taken over from local authorities and is also losing billions of dollars in potential revenue due to mismanagement and leakages, an audit has revealed.
Latest reports by the acting Auditor General Rheah Kujinga also revealed gross misappropriation of funds by ministries and negligence that also has seen payment for undelivered vehicles in a suspicious corruption scheme.
Some of the purchased cars have not been delivered since 2021.
Treasury, the report also noted, has not been able to release funds for projects that up to now remain idle. Reasons given were that the government did not have enough revenue flow to finance the said projects.
“The budget allocated for Voter funds in terms of the Appropriation (2022) Act, 2021 and Appropriation Supplementary for the 29 Ministries and Commissions included in this report was ZWL$1 455 657 681 432. The budget for the six Constitutional and Statutory Appropriations in this report was ZWL$145 486 659 150. Budget utilization was ZWL$1 263 167 309 927 and $139 720 373 703 respectively. The underutilization of the budget was mainly as a result of the non-release of funds by Treasury due to low revenue inflows,” the report reads in part.
“Consequently, this affected the achievements of some programme targets and service delivery by the affected ministries and commissions.”
On motor vehicles, Kujinga said due to negligence, contracts signed between service providers and government ministries have seen leakages of resources with no consequences.
“The ministries and commissions procured a number of motor vehicles from various service providers during the year, of which 74 motor vehicles had not been delivered at the date of finalizing my audits,” he said.
“The number includes 16 motor vehicles that were purchased in 2021. There is need for ministries and commissions to have tighter clauses in contracts and motor contract performance as some suppliers lack capacity to deliver the motor vehicles as per the contract awarded. Public service delivery is compromised if assets procured are not delivered on time.”
It also emerged in the audit that six ministries and funds incurred expenditure amounting to ZWL$580 185 853 was not supported by source documents.
“Without adequate supporting documents, it was difficult to determine the nature of payments and whether they were being done in accordance with rules and regulations and in line with their mandate.”
The government has also failed to complete construction projects taken over from local authorities due to lack of funding.
“Construction and maintenance projects in Mashonaland East, Matabeleland South and Mashonaland Central provinces took over from local authorities’ projects consisting of construction and maintenance of infrastructure.” Kujinga said.
“Some of the projects failed to take off due to financial and human resource constraints. Mashonaland East had 16 projects that were taken over and 10 failed to take off. Matabeleland South province had seven projects that were taken over from Beitbridge and Gwanda municipalities and all the projects had not been completed at the time of concluding the audit.”
Seven road construction projects were yet to start in Mashonaland Central province.
