Council ropes in ED on ERP

KUDAKWASHE CHIBVURI

The corruption-riddled Harare City Council has roped in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office to intervene in the acquisition of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and end the haggling by the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) and the Ministry of Local Government on the matter.

Harare has for years been losing billions due to leakages with sources accusing a cartel that include council employees, officials from the ministry of Local Government and some elements in PRAZ of deliberately delaying acquisition of the ERP system to facilitate looting and corruption.

ERP systems are software solutions that organizations use to manage and integrate their core business processes. These systems streamline operations across departments like finance, human resources, supply chain, and manufacturing, providing a unified view of data and fostering collaboration.

However, Harare has been operating without the system and billions of dollars have since been looted.

Finance Committee Chairperson, Councillor Costa Mande told Business Times this week that without a proper system in place, Harare will continue to witness massive losses and leakages.

“The implementation of the system has been delayed. We have been going back and forth for a year now. It has now been four years without an ERP system,” Mande said.

“We have (now) involved the President’s Office in an effort to address this issue as it has been a year since we started this process,” he added.

“PRAZ advised us to go through the Ministry of Local Government but as you can see, there has been no joy from them. Currently, we have a task force that includes the Office of the President, the Ministry of Local Government, and the PRAZ team but nothing has come of it for one reason or another,” Mande added.

He said in the absence of the ERP, there remain loopholes that are now being abused by cartels.

Parliament has, since 2022, been frowning over corruption at Town House facilitated by the lack of the accounting and billing systems.

It at the time emerged that Harare officials have been manipulating tenderers for kickbacks and are now failing to account for billions.

Sources said at least eight Harare City Council officials are under probe from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) over failure to account for over US$200m that disappeared under unclear circumstances due to a suspicious billing system.

Eight officials including the city’s head of Information Technology (IT) are now subjected to a probe by the anti-graft body for alleged criminal abuse of office amid fears billions of dollars could have been lost to the cartels within the department.

Mande added: “This is a cause for concern for us as councillors as we are side-lined and told that we should not be involved in the procurement of this system. The Procurement Management Unit and PRAZ have been dragging their feet for too long,” he added.

“If you go to PRAZ, they claim the council is delaying, and if you go to the council, they point fingers at PRAZ. There is a lot of back and forth on this issue.”

PRAZ spokesperson, Mqhele Tshuma, however, said the matter of the ERP was now a council and Local Government ministry affair.

“Council is now engaging us through the Ministry of Local Government and we are uncertain when we last had communication about the issue. The Ministry of Local Government and Public Works has been involved in this matter,” Tshuma said.