BUSINESS REPORTER
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reversed Statutory Instrument (SI) 635 of 2023 gazetted this week purporting to shield procurement of several goods by government.
Mnangagwa said the gazetted document had no standing at law, in policy and in terms of set government procedures.
According to the SI, details of the procurement processes of vehicles including ambulances, construction equipment and materials, biomedical and medical equipment, medicines and drugs, laboratory equipment, chemicals and accessories, hospital protective equipment and repairs and maintenance services of hospital machinery, were to be kept from the public domain.
Government procurement processes falling under the category listed in the SI would not be publicly disclosed.
But, critics said the new SI undermined good corporate governance as well as the government’s own anti-corruption strategies.
This, they said, could lead to theft of public funds and lack of accountability.
They said it was citizens’ rights to know what national taxes were being used for.
In a statement yesterday, Chief secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda said it should be disregarded as it was published without authorisation.
“His Excellency the President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been made aware of some document gazette as General Notice 635 of 2023, purporting to place the procurement of certain goods outside public scrutiny, on grounds of “national interest”.
“Upon further investigations, it has come to light that the so-called Government Gazette Notice is a nullity, having been published without authorisation and without the signature of the chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, as is the norm. While further investigations are underway, the Government wishes to advise the public that, on the instruction of His Excellency, the President, the document in question has been rescinded as it has no standing at law, in policy and in terms of set Government procedures. It thus should be disregarded. Government remains committed as ever to managing a transparent public procurement policy and process, as required by the laws of the country,” Misheck Sibanda said.
Legal watchdog, Veritas said the SI was wrong from a strictly legal perspective and, much more importantly, wrong from a broad policy perspective.
“…The notice is ultra vires section 3(6) of the Act.
“A further point is that the notice declares the listed items to be “of national interest” rather than saying, as it should, that it would be contrary to the national interests of Zimbabwe for information about their procurement to be publicly disclosed. The fact that an item is of national interest does not bring it within the ambit of section 3(6).
“From a policy point of view the notice is undesirable and contrary to the spirit of the Act.
“Transparency in public procurement is extremely important. Without knowledge of what the Government has procured, how much it has paid and who the supplier was, neither Parliament nor the general public will be able to tell if the Government has spent its money wisely – fairly, honestly and in a cost-effective and competitive manner, to use the words of section 4(1) of the Act. Without transparency, corruption flourishes,” Veritas said.
