Auditor-General (AG) Mildred Chiri has issued a qualified opinion on the Zimstats 2012 census expenditure disclosing that $45 million given to officials was not adequately supported.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
This came out in the 2016 audit report for State enterprises and parastatals tabled this week before Parliament.
“I could not satisfy myself of the accuracy, completeness and validity of the population census expenditure amounting to $45 480 731 and related accounts payable amounting to $24 080 205,” Chiri said in her report.
“Expenditure amounting to $29 739 909 for the population census participants was not adequately supported, and the agency failed to avail adequate evidence such as attendance registers for the 40 438 individuals who had participated in the census.”
Chiri’s reports said there was no database or schedules with detailed and requisite information of the participants.
“Vehicle hire and rental expenditure amounting to $15 740 822 was not adequately supported. Details of the hired vehicles, including their makes, registration numbers, mileages and accumulated hiring cost per vehicle, were also not availed for my verification,” the report read.
Chiri said field allowances, food, accommodation and training expenses amounting to $29 739 909 were based on the number of census participants, but Zimstats failed to provide adequate evidence such as attendance registers for the 40 438 individuals who participated.
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“I was not availed with a list of the vehicles that had been hired to enable me to verify the mileage and accumulated costs of the vehicles hired during the population census. The implication is financial loss as a result of overstated population census expenditure,” the AG said
When asked to respond to the audit report, Zimstats said in future they would come up with a Census Implementation Plan that will contain modalities on registers, maintenance and standardisation.
They said all participants were civil servants, but they promised that in future they would put systems to capture details of participants.
