via ZBC audit report out | The Herald 10 November 2014 by Felex Share
Auditors commissioned to carry out a forensic audit on the operations of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and come up with a turnaround strategy, last week presented a two-part report to the Government highlighting malfeasances at the national broadcaster.Officials in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services ordered the auditors to “tidy up” a few areas and the final report is expected tomorrow.
The Auditor General’s Office commissioned KPMG Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe in February this year to carry out an audit on ZBC and come up with a turnaround strategy after the public broadcaster went for months without paying its workers while senior managers took home huge salaries.
ZBC chief executive officer Mr Happison Muchechetere was subsequently suspended following allegations of corruption and awarding himself hefty packages.
Briefing journalists after meeting the auditors, who were led by Auditor-General Ms Mildred Chiri, Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Mr George Charamba said the report would be tabled in Cabinet for the way forward.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo and his deputy Supa Mandiwanzira were also in the meeting.
“What we got today was a comprehensive compendium with two components, that is the forensic audit and the restructuring and digitalisation part,” Mr Charamba said.
“If the consultant tidies up areas which we have pointed to her, then we hope to have the final report on Tuesday and cause the circulation of that report in anticipation of its presentation to Cabinet.”
Mr Charamba said the report highlighted the malfeasances that happened at ZBC up to December 2013.
“It itemises the financial value of that prejudice, but for now we do not have the actual figures because we have to sink our teeth into that report so that we get to know what it is they found out,” he said.
“It also touches on issues of corporate governance where systems failed. Once systems fail in that fashion, naturally there is going to be financial implications. It also talks about the manning levels at ZBC then and what those mean from the point of expenditure of ZBC. You can’t incur costs which go far beyond your revenue, there has to be some balance.”
Mr Charamba said the report went beyond the descriptive and situational analysis of the national broadcaster.
“It offers restructuring proposals in the context of digitalisation,” he said. “We have issues of our studios transmitters as to how do we digitalise them and when we have the signal, how do we distribute it from the studios to transmitters and, more importantly, how do we get that signal into your home, especially bearing in mind that most people are equipped with old television sets.
“The idea is not to discard all those sets, but for us to find the technical mechanism of making them still usable in a digital era.”
Mr Charamba said Prof Moyo and Cde Mandiwanzira would first have an opportunity to study the report and recommendations proffered before presentation in Cabinet.
“Because public funds were used, it means this same report has to be tabled in Parliament so that the legislature gets to know that this is the issues we are grappling with,” Mr Charamba said.
“The prime movers of this whole project are the ZBC board members. The key problem that triggered this investigation was the collapse of cooperate governance.
“A solution to that problem cannot arise in circumstances where that same corporate governance is still undermined. That is why we insist that ZBC’s own system must be the movers and shakers of these recommendations in the report.”
Responding to questions on the funding of the digitalisation exercise, which has to be met by June 2015 under the International Telecommunications Union, Mr Charamba said the resources being allocated for the exercise were inadequate.
“We are aware of it and Government has been exploring various funding scenarios,” he said. “We have been looking at raising resources through the budget and we discovered that by virtue of tight fiscal space it was not possible to fund the whole project from the budget.”
Mr Charamba said the country needed 48 transmission sites, but had 24, 10 of which were digitalised.
COMMENTS
Not only the ZBC is riddled with corporate governance non existence but the whole of zimbabwe
Why not sending a good message to all government departments by having independent audit being monitored by Auditor General so that there is independence. This will open gaps but will enable authority to plug them for the better of the country. However ZBC audit is good but it would have been better to have another engagement to focus on restructuring and business strategy as opposed to haveing one doing two, forensic, restructuring and strategy. If one impact on the other there will be compromise on the opinion considering the polirasation of the political system in Zimbabwe. The restructuring may be impacting on the current ministry structure how will KPMG put it across without loosing the contract of forensic audit as well.