MDC: Bob must resign over civil service rot – NewZimbabwe 16/03/2016
THE Welshman Ncube-led MDC has demanded the “immediate” resignation of President Robert Mugabe for failing to detect that government was losing billions of dollars to “ghost workers” most of whom are his cabinet minister’s friends and relatives.
Public Service Commission chairman, Mariyawanda Nzuwa, this week told Parliament government was losing $4million annually to civil servants with a duplication of duties.
He said they recently noticed that some workers who had since left civil service for the Diaspora were still on the government pay roll.
“We are utterly shocked by revelations of massive looting, corruption and abuse of public funds by the civil service commission amounting to billions of dollars annually for several years and as a party we are convinced that this monstrous oversight is enough grounds for President Robert Mugabe to step down.
“Zimbabweans have just been subjected to a grand theft by their own government and it is time to put a stop to it,” the party’s national spokesperson, Kuraunone Chihwayi, told NewZimbabwe.com in Harare Wednesday.
Government employs 500,000 workers and Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, once recommended the culling of the civil service to cut the wage bill.
Testifying in parliament, Nzuwa said some ministers, upon appointment by the President, brought their own staff that included their friends and relatives, actions that go against good corporate governance.
“Firstly, the deterioration of corporate governance and accountability in the civil service has played a huge contributing factor to this country’s economic crisis, considering that the civil service wage bill was said to be gobbling over 80 percent of the national purse annually, while in actual fact half of this percentage was being stolen,” Chihwayi said.
“Secondly, it has become increasingly apparent that there are a number of political considerations motivating the corruption and rot in the public service, all at the expense of the ordinary and suffering Zimbabweans.”
The MDC said Mugabe was promoting corruption by turning a blind eye on his lieutenants who are being implicated in most of the cases.
“It is worrying that as Zimbabwe is confronted with an unprecedented level of corruption, rot and decay, the government continues to loot public funds to fund a Zanu PF patronage system which continues to threaten the stability and prosperity of our nation,” said Chihwayi.
“Of late, we have been waking up to stunning revelations of corruption involving billions of dollars and surprisingly there is no will to act on this vice by President Mugabe and his government. We still wait to see action being taken over the 15 billion diamond money that disappeared.”
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