A corruption watchdog has expressed its disappointment with law enforcement agencies, including the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc), for failing to act on alleged widespread graft involving management at Gokwe town council.
The Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa (ACT-SA) in January compiled a dossier titled: “Advancing personal self-interest at the expense of service delivery: The Case of Gokwe Town Council” exposing unbridled corruption at the council.
The dossier was submitted to the police and Zacc, the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe and the Local Government ministry.
"True to their word, no action was taken against the senior management and councilors at the local authority, which vindicates their earlier bragging that no action would be taken against them because of their connections to the political elite in the country,” said ACT-SA national director Munyaradzi Bidi.
Bidi urged relevant authorities to take action to demonstrate the will to fight graft.
“My organisation is not going to stop calling for investigations and sanctions against all those implicated in corruption,” Bidi said.
“ACT-SA is a Zimbabwean organisation that is fully aware of the deleterious effects of corruption and gets disturbed when organisations that have the legal mandate to fight corruption fold their arms.”
ACT-SA regional director Obert Chinhamo said the failure to take any action was disturbing.
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“I also don’t understand why it is difficult to ask the local authority why it paid the acting town secretary US$45 000 for his car's mileage when there was no such arrangement with the former town secretary of the local authority,” Chinhamo said.
“Another case is about the former town secretary who assumed duty in January 2015, yet she was paid a salary backdated from December 2014.”
Midlands police spokesperson, Inspector Emmanuel Mahoko promised to make a followup when contacted for a comment.
Zacc spokesperson Thandiwe Mlobane declined to comment.
In the report, ACT-SA flagged the passing of questionable resolutions which it claimed was being used as a vehicle for corruption.
It noted as an example, Resolution 1279/2.
“ACT-SA gave examples of local authority staff, who had gained notoriety for using the local authority as a cash cow by fraudulently claiming money for travelling and subsistence allowance (T&S),” reads the report.
ACT-SA also accused council officials of land grabs.
"It was also noted that at the time of the allocation, the commercial stands for the area were not yet available for allocation,” it added.
