CHAIRPERSON of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development Charlton Hwende has lashed out at ministries and local authorities ignoring Auditor-General recommendations, saying their actions weaken transparency and service delivery.
The Kuwadzana East legislator said only 20% of recommendations from the Auditor-General’s report were fulfilled, with the rest having been ignored by government departments and local authorities.
Hwende said this during an interview with Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a conglomeration of more than 75 civic society organisations working on democratic change in the country.
“But the biggest problem that we have every year is that the Auditor-General releases about 350 recommendations. And you will see in the next report that only 20% of those recommendations have been fulfilled and ministries ignore them,” he said.
Hwende said ministries were also failing to initiate direct payments in public finances, resulting in a rise in indirect payments averaging at least US$500 million annually.
“The first problem is the issue of direct payments. In terms of the public finance mandate, the ministries themselves are the ones that are supposed to initiate direct payments.
“But you will see if you go through the Auditor-General (report), every year US$400 million, US$500 million indirect payments are filed by the Auditor-General.
“On the issue of direct payments, we have insisted that the Ministry of Finance should not initiate direct payments. But the respective ministry is the one that must initiate the direct payment and request the Ministry of Finance to pay,” Hwende said.
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He said indirect payments had crippled transparency within the government, as some top officials in government demanded bribes to process payments for suppliers.
“Sometimes suppliers are paid without the ministries knowing. And there are suppliers that have appeared before the Public Accounts Committee and claimed that there are people in the Ministry of Finance who demand bribes to process payments.
“A claim which, when the permanent secretary came (to Parliament), obviously we then discovered that it could not be sustained. The main reason the permanent secretary gave was that the government as a whole is operating under one foreign currency account. But when they do payments, they do not consult the entities,” Hwende said.
In a bid to ensure accountability and transparency, Hwende said Parliament would summon everyone who appeared in the Auditor-General’s report.
“What we did as the Public Accounts Committee this year was that we wanted to ensure that everyone who is in the Auditor-General’s report is allowed to account to Parliament.
“So it is impossible for us to call all the ministries, all the parliamentary statutes or all the local authorities because there are, I think, up to close to 400 different entities.
“. . . we wrote to everyone that appeared in the 2023 Auditor-General’s report asking them to give us feedback on the progress that they would have made in terms of implementing.”
He said Parliament also noticed gaps when government departments and local authorities responded to the inquiries.
“It is Parliament’s job to ensure that through a monitoring mechanism that we have at Parliament, we then follow up and ensure that the Auditor-General’s recommendations are fulfilled,” Hwende said.
