Source: The Herald – Breaking news.
Zvamaida Murwira, Senior Reporter
The National Prosecuting Authority will issue the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) with prosecutorial certificates should they want to prosecute cases.
For the certificates to be issued, ZACC must be prepared to adhere to prosecutorial guidelines which include a separate prosecution team from the investigators doing the court work.
In an interview, Prosecutor General Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo said she believed in team work and had no problem with issuing prosecuting certificates to ZACC or any other competent authority.
Over the years, ZACC has been saying it wanted prosecutorial powers as part of efforts to effectively deal with the corruption scourge in the country.
The investigating arm said the prosecution of cases was sometimes stalled at the NPA, an arm which is also seized with other crimes that might not be related to corruption.
In an interview this week, Justice Matanda-Moyo said she had no problem issuing prosecuting certificates to ZACC.
“If they want to prosecute matters, they can approach me, I have got powers to issue prosecution certificates, as long as they have a set department which is different from investigations so that we do not have an outcry from the public to say the same person who is investigating is the same person prosecuting,” said Justice Matanda-Moyo.
“So I do not see any problem. Because as NPA, we do not hoard the right to prosecute.
“I believe in teamwork, so the more people we have on board, the better.
“As long as they report to the Prosecutor General and are bound by our prosecutorial guidelines, follow the guidelines on how we prosecute matters and how we reach decisions on whether a matter can be prosecuted or a matter cannot be prosecuted.
“It is simply a question of that distinction so that there will be no outcry. Personally I do not hold views against getting lawyers from ZACC to prosecute matters here at NPA.”
She said as NPA, they sometimes prioritise crimes that might be prevalent at a given time such as armed robberies and murder and might focus on such crimes ahead of other crimes in their effort to make society safe.
If another arm, which might be competent in prosecuting crime comes forth, she said, there was nothing wrong with that.
“There might be times when cases of armed robbery are prevalent like now or murder cases might be rife, so we might take a deliberate position to concentrate on such cases,” said Justice Matanda-Moyo.
ZACC has in the past said it was keen to have prosecutorial powers conferred on it to speed up corruption cases.
They have also argued that they sometimes did not agree with decisions not to prosecute cases that would have been submitted to the NPA.
ZACC has said it was surprised to see prosecutions declined when in their view, they would have attended to all possible areas of the law.
It was on that basis that ZACC felt that it required prosecuting powers to help expedite cases and push them before courts of law.
Lately, the NPA and ZACC have been at loggerheads, after the former withdrew charges against Harare City Council Town Clerk Hosiah Chisango and four others over a $9 million street lights tender.
ZACC felt that Chisango and the five others have a case to answer and is now preparing new charges against them.
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