Parastatals in default

via Parastatals in default – The Zimbabwean 15 April 2015

Parastatals continue to fail to submit annual accounts and reports on time, says parliamentary portfolio committee chair for public accounts, Paurina Mpariwa.

Zimbabwe has more than 70 parastatals covering health, environment, agriculture, mining, commerce, information, water, tourism, science and technology, energy, telecommunications and sports and culture.

All of them are lagging behind, with the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) being the only one that has managed to submit its accounts and reports for 2013.

“They are all trailing behind and this is a worrying trend. Outside NSSA whose latest submissions were in 2013, all the parastatals have backlogs dating back to 2010.

“In order to get to the bottom of the matter, we have been calling parastatal executives and board representatives to give oral evidence before our committee,” said Mpariwa.

Most of the parastatal representatives have blamed poor resources for failure to complete their reports in time, but Mpariwa blamed them for remaining silent instead of informing her committee and explaining the failure.

“These reports are critical for effective corporate governance so, at least the line ministries and us must be informed well in time about the problems the parastatals would be facing. In some cases, the excuses we have received are not tolerable,” added Mpariwa.

She said the quasi-government units generally had full boards in place. Her committee has recommended that the boards must comprise people with expert knowledge and must not sit in more than two organisations to guarantee effectiveness.

She singled out NSSA as one board that still did not have a board, saying respective line ministers must ensure that all the parastatals falling under them had operational boards.

Almost all the parastatals are operating at a loss, forcing the cash squeezed government to bail them out.