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Harare Bureau
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Cde George Charamba has blamed the government for failing to enforce business principles in governing State enterprises resulting in some executives awarding themselves astronomical salaries at the expense of the economy.

He was speaking in an interview on the Hub, a political programme on StarFM on Thursday evening on the salary scandal where some executives were earning as much as $260,000 per month.

“We haven’t been following corporate principles in respect of how we have governed our own enterprise. We thank God we have got to a stage where the politics of the day is economic. This is why you find there is a new appreciation and how that translates to the responsibility. It’s no longer adequate for the State to be a political creature. The State has to start grappling with the issues of business,” Cde Charamba said.

He said there were no rules to govern State enterprises and Zimbabwe was still using outdated manuals adopted before independence.
“So there are no rules as a matter of fact. We have outdated manuals. This is not how State enterprises are supposed to work. We have some ad-hocracy by way of defining conditions, with each organisation conditions change. There was no criteria how rewards are given to chief executives,” said Cde Charamba.

He said there must be a relationship between boards of parastatals and ministries to ensure that salaries of the top ‘‘dogs’’ are approved by them not by individuals.

“Ministers and permanent secretaries were supposed to call for order. It has not been happening. It’s a dereliction of duty. Ministries slept on the job. This is the bottom line,” Cde Charamba said, adding that government through its structures, must be able to enforce business principles.

Cde Charamba said government should reform structures of the State and re-engineer the public sector, which contributes at least 40 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

He said State enterprises in other countries were entrepreneurial creatures, but in Zimbabwe these are political structures hence some of the challenges the country is facing.

Cde Charamba attributed the salary distortions in State enterprises to dollarisation.
“This is in the majority of cases consequences of dollarisation. We begin to see a trend of some stratospheric salaries from about 2010 going upwards, 2010, 2011 there is quite an escalation in 2012 and of cause 2013 things hit a peak,’ he said.

Cde Charamba also said the reason why the distortions were not exposed was because of the inclusive government where it was a matter of politics ‘‘your party right or wrong, your cadre right or wrong’’.

“As a result you see the issue of professionalism was side stepped,” he said.
He gave an example of ZBC which he said had become a subject of political contestation between parties in inclusive government and the disposition of the then Ministry of Information, Media and Publicity was to defend management of ZBC against any encroachment by political players.

“What that meant is that the emphasis was on defence of ZBC rather than scrutiny of how well or how unwell the management of ZBC was performing. So, in a way, you could say that the sheer politics of inclusivity were such that the issue of professional conduct of person put in charge was side stepped,” Cde Charamba said.

He also said government was aware of the problems at the national broadcaster, but was waiting for the referendum and elections, two important national processes to be conducted before it could move in to sweep the rot.

Cde Charamba said government has started implementing its intervention dealing with shortcomings in parastatals and would result in some executives being retired or removed completely while others deemed to have committed an offence after completion of audits will be prosecuted.