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Fidelis Munyoro Harare Bureau
THE executive is failing to act on national audit reports that expose gross abuse of public funds in State Enterprises and government departments to the detriment of efforts to turnaround the economy in line with Zim-Asset, it has been learnt.

Every year, the Auditor-General’s office publishes and presents audit reports highlighting gross mismanagement of public funds and poor corporate governance tenets.

In an interview yesterday, Auditor-General Mildred Chiri, said government ministries should act on the findings of audit reports to arrest the scourge of corruption and mismanagement in various state institutions that have seen the economy bleeding.

“The ministries should initiate action against those who break the law,” said Chiri. “We tell them of our findings and the ministries’ permanent secretaries have a responsibility to take action against their subordinates. Of course there are agencies that look at our reports and legally where there are findings pointing to reasons for prosecution to also act.”

Chiri also explained that the new Constitution provided for the Auditor-General to “order the taking of measures to rectify any defects in the management and safeguarding of the public funds and public property. . .”

This, she said, was done through their audit reports highlighting defective areas in which the affected state institutions could take action.

“We’re giving them enough information for them to go and rectify on defects through the recommendations we give after each finding,” she said.

Chiri said the audit reports were also sent to the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts for deliberations and to come out with its recommendations.

Clerk of Parliament Kennedy Chokuda, said it was up to the executive to take the initiative in dealing with the findings of Parliamentary Committees.

“Parliamentary committees make recommendations and it’s up to the executive to implement them,” said Chokuda.

Attorney General Advocate Prince Machaya, said he was unable to comment on the audit reports that he had not seen.

“My duty is to advise government,” said Adv Machaya adding, “I haven’t been around. I flew in the country on Saturday evening from Angola, where I was attending a Kimberly Process’ diamond conference.”

Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana, who now speaks through his personal assistant a Ms Mwedzi, said his duty was to enforce the law, not to give a legal opinion on matters that may end up in his office for prosecution.

There are calls for government to ensure expeditious prosecution of all public officials exposed by the audit reports with legislators being urged to play a leading role as people’s representatives to ensure the implementation of the Auditor-General’s recommendations.

This comes against the background of recent revelations by the Auditor-General’s Office that government could have been prejudiced of hundreds of millions of dollars by mostly State enterprises among them the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration, Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and Environmental Management Agency due to mismanagement and poor governance.

The ugly state of affairs in the State enterprises comes at time when government is working to turn around the economy as they are integral to the mega-deals signed between the government and China recently.

Publishing audit reports will remain a pointless struggle for the majestic office of the Auditor-General if it is not empowered to raise charges against those who violate the law.