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Zvamaida Murwira, Harare Bureau
AT least 40 percent of returning Members of Parliament risk failing to access their share of the Constituency Development Fund after it emerged that they failed to account for the previous disbursement of $50 000.

At least 100 out of 210 managed to retain their constituencies in the July 30 harmonised elections.

Parliament has since warned the defaulting legislators that they would not be able to access another round of CDF if they did not account for the money.

Processing of the CDF for the 2019 annual year had since began and at least 40 MPs could lose out if they failed to come clean on how they utilised the previous disbursement.

This was said by Acting Speaker of the National Assembly Cde William Mutomba in the chamber last week while standing in for Speaker Advocate Jacob Mudenda.

“I wish to inform the House that in terms of Article 14 of the Constituency Development Fund Constitution as read together with Article 18 of the Accounting Officers’ manual, the Constituency Development Committees are required to submit their returns to Parliament on a quarterly basis. To date, only 62 out of 97 Members of Parliament who retained their seats have so far submitted or partially submitted their returns,” said Cde Mutomba.

“Consequently, all returning Members of Parliament who have not submitted their returns will not access funding for 2018 until they comply with provisions of the CDF Constitution and the Accounting Officers’ Manual. The CDF allocation for 2018 is now ready for disbursement.”

This followed tough conditions and guidelines crafted by Parliament aimed at safeguarding the utilisation of CDF after reports of rampant abuse of the funds had been unearthed by audit in previous years.

Some of the conditions included submission of minutes of an inaugural meeting of the CDF committee on how the money would be used.

MPs should also submit names of CDF committees in compliance with the constitution of the fund.

Application for the fund should be accompanied by curriculum vitaes of committee members of the CDF and an independent bank account with names of signatories.

The guidelines include the nature of development projects that could be funded and the involvement of administration of Parliament.

Parliament adopted tough guidelines on the use of CDF as part of measures to enhance accountability and curb abuse by the legislators.

Government introduced the CDF to enable legislators to spearhead community development projects in their constituencies.

Parliament set up a management committee to administer the fund constituted by Deputy Clerk of Parliament, principal finance director of Parliament, director of research and counsel to Parliament.

Their duty is to manage the transaction of the fund from the ministry to the account of the constituency.