Declare assets before assuming duty, parastatal boards urged

Source: Declare assets before assuming duty, parastatal boards urged – NewsDay Zimbabwe May 24, 2016

TREASURY has been urged to come up with regulations specifying various acts of financial misconduct after ministries, State enterprises and parastatals (SEPs) were found to be continuously misusing public funds, despite the passage of the Public Finance Management Act in 2009.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

The recommendation was made last Thursday in the National Assembly by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts, which also recommended that all board members of SEPs must now be required to declare their assets before assuming office.

Public Accounts Committee chairperson, Paurina Mpariwa brought up the issues while presenting a second report of the committee on the analysis of the 2013 accounts of SEPs by the Auditor-General.

The report indicated that despite the Auditor-General exposing gross maladministration at SEPs, they continued not to pay heed to the issues raised such as poor corporate governance, fraudulent activities, poor procurement procedures and management of assets, among others.

“Treasury should, by the end of June 2016, come up with regulations providing specifically for various acts of financial misconduct, and the Executive must urgently, where applicable, constitute boards and appoint senior management with the requisite skills to run the affairs of SEPs as provided by the corporate governance framework,” read the committee report.

“All board members must declare assets before assuming office and disclosure of interest must be made whenever necessary.”

Among other demands by the committee were that all allowances paid to executives and senior management should be reflected on the payroll and failure to do so shall be deemed an act of fraud punishable at law.

The report by the committee said fraud remained prevalent in a number of entities that were audited, with embezzlement of funds happening at ministries such as Mines, Health and Child Care and Justice.

“The Auditor-General reported that unsupported payments were made and losses resulting from suspected fraudulent activities were incurred involving amounts ranging from $3 000 to $3,5 million. In some of the fraud cases, there was manipulation of the source documents. Some of the cases were dealt with and the remainder of the cases are still under investigation,” the committee report said.