Recently the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust (SAPST), facilitated a dialogue with the Zimbabwe Parliamentary Journalist Forum. The key objective of the dialogue was to discuss the findings of the 2019 Auditor General’s (AG) Report with a view to asserting the watchdog role of the media to promote transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption in the management of public funds. The dialogue session sought to ensure extensive coverage of the findings of the 2019 Auditor General’s report by the media with the hope to spur government to take remedial action in implementing the Auditor General’s recommendations.
The dialogue generated extensive coverage of the 2019 Auditor General’s report by the journalists who attended the event. The main issues that were reported on include the following:
- Government departments are failing to implement some of the recommendations that have been proffered by the AG
- Failure by government to adhere to Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) provisions
- The AG should be empowered to publish names of people implicated in controversial contracts where there is sufficient evidence
- The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) should not wait until the AG’s report is tabled in Parliament to start investigating irregularities. The AG’s should submit its report directly to these institutions.
- Incurrence of unauthorised expenditure, diversion of resources by some ministries and non-delivery of goods that were paid for continue to appear in AG’s reports.
Links to some of the stories:
https://www.herald.co.zw/ministries-ignore-ag-recommendations/
https://openparly.com/index.php/2021/08/10/parliament-did-not-action-2018-auditor-general-report/
https://openparly.com/index.php/2021/08/10/chiri-must-be-empowered-to-submit-reports-to-zacc/
https://www.newzimbabwe.com/government-entities-ignore-auditor-generals-recommendations/
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2021/08/force-govt-entities-to-implement-ag-advice/
