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Marvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
THE financially troubled Gwanda Municipality is making efforts to recover some of its ‘‘stolen’’ funds from employees amid reports that they owe the local authority huge sums of money.The council, which last had a general audit in 2010, has since formed a stand-alone audit committee to review the council’s financial and non-financial activities.

Speaking at a full council meeting on Wednesday, the chairperson of the audit committee, Councillor Jastone Mazhale, said a recent audit for the period January 2012 to January 2013 has revealed that employees owed the local authority thousands of dollars.

It could not be immediately established how much the council was owed by the employees in trips, fuel allowances as  well as rentals.

He said some employees claimed money for trips but failed to bring proof or receipts to the municipality to show if the money was used properly.

Some individuals including some former council employees reportedly each owe as much as $1,000 hence the initiative by the council to make a follow up on the ‘stolen’ funds. “As the audit team, we realised that there are no receipts coming forward. Council workers are not reconciling their travel subsistence allowance receipts and that has been worrying the committee raising suspicions that there could be some fraudulent practices.

“The committee has recommended that the only way to recover the monies is that the treasury department should deduct monies from the employees’ salaries if they do not reconcile or are reluctant to do so. There should be a recovery method to ensure that council monies are brought back because these monies are long overdue,” said Clr Mazhale.

He said the audit was just a tiny picture of what could be happening at the municipality.

“This was just a sample which means that a lot could be happening. Therefore, those owing the council should ensure they bring it back before harsh measures are taken,” added Clr Mazhale.

The meeting heard that some council employees accommodated at the council houses had not paid rentals since the July 31, 2013 write off.

Clr Mazhale said while council acknowledged that it still owed some workers’ salaries, it was worrying that the workers owed the local authority more. “For example, the council might owe a worker a three months’ salary but surprisingly that same worker owes the council rentals for nine months,” he said.

“We are not going into a war with employees. The committee is not there to frustrate anyone,” added Clr Mazhale.

Clr Wilson Dube, who is also part of the audit committee, said the recovery of the funds would help council have capacity to pay its employees.

The town clerk, Gilbert Mlilo, said it was a duty of the treasury department to see that employees reconciled rather than wait for the audit team.

The meeting resolved that every department should carry an internal audit to ensure that council property is well maintained.

The council will in the next years have no borrowing powers as government requires latest audit reports to borrow.