THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) has been allocated $1,6 million in the 2016 National Budget to combat corruption, while other constitutional bodies such as the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) received as little as $100 000.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
This comes at a time when Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa last week announced that pursuing an anti-corruption thrust will be very essential in harnessing resources for the 2016 National Budget.
Transparency International Zimbabwe board chairman, Loughty Dube said Zacc needed a “bigger” allocation in order to work effectively to combat graft and make savings for the country’s budget.
“Zacc should be well resourced to ensure that a lot of money that is lost through corrupt activities by ministries, State enterprises and parastatals is saved,” he said.
“The money saved through combating corruption can also be used to finance other commissions that are under-capitalised.”
Dube said the government should also refrain from interfering in the work of commissions if they were to be effective.
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He called on President Robert Mugabe to establish Zacc without delay, saying failure to do so showed the government’s lack of political will in combating graft.
Allocations to other commissions in the budget were $8,4 million for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, $1,2 million to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, $150 000 to the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, $351 000 to the Zimbabwe Media Commission and $100 000 to the NPRC.
Legal think-tank Veritas said it was unconstitutional to have allocations to the different commissions channelled through their parent ministries.
“There is too much scope for ministers and ministry officials to influence, or exercise control over the commissions. The allocations for the ZHRC, NPRC and Zacc, considering their absolutely vital role, are significantly inadequate,” Veritas said.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) programmes manager, Dzimbabwe Chimbga said the paltry allocations to commissions showed that the government was only committed on paper and yet they had no seriousness in ensuring the commissions served their purpose.
“As ZLHR, we think it is useless to have commissions that do not serve any purpose because they are not well resourced. The amounts that were allocated to commissions are paltry.”
