Zimpapers Logo

Charles Kuwaza

Lloyd Gumbo Senior Reporter
State Procurement Board chairperson Charles Kuwaza took home about $147,000 in house repairs and maintenance allowances last year alone, with his total benefits gobbling nearly $210,000 excluding salary.
The house and repairs allowance is enough to buy a house in medium density suburbs such as Mabelreign and Avondale in Harare.
It is also understood that Kuwaza is embroiled in a wrangle with Zimra over alleged tax evasion.

The tax collector has this year upped measures to bring tax dodgers to book following the unravelling of the “salarygate” scandal where top executives gave themselves huge untaxed allowances.

Sources told our Harare Bureau that the tax collector is demanding that Kuwaza should pay tax for all the benefits that he accrued.
Since 2009 Kuwaza, by virtue of being executive chairperson of the SPB, was entitled to allowances for domestic workers, house repairs and maintenance, telephones, security, entertainment, electricity and water.

He was also entitled to fumigation, internet and fuel allowances as well as board fees.
Documents seen by our Harare Bureau indicate that hehas been receiving housing repairs and maintenance since 2009, when he was entitled to about $14,000 per year. The figure came down to about $6,000 in 2010, before going up to $21,000 in 2011.

The allowance came down to about  $17,000 in 2012, but shot to around $147,000 last year, as he got a monthly average of about $12,000 for that purpose.
Kuwaza’s total yearly allowances for 2009 were about $30,000, came down to about $25,000 in 2010, before rising to about $60,000 in 2011.
In 2012, he got about $67,000, before receiving up to $210 000 in allowances last year alone.

In 2013, Kuwaza got about  $11,000 in fuel allowances, $18,000 for security, about $6,500 for electricity and water, and $5,500 for entertainment.
He also got $5,200 for domestic workers, about $2,500 for internet, $2,500 for telephones and $1,500 for fumigation.

Kuwaza was also paid about $10,000 in board fees that year.
Since the inception of the multi-currency regime in 2009, Kuwaza took home nearly $400,000 in various allowances.

Contacted for comment, Kuwaza said: “As you should be aware, tax matters are confidential in terms of the Income Tax Act.”
Zimra has been visiting State enterprises and parastatals to assess levels of tax compliance following the explosion of “salarygate”.

The drive aims to establish whether or not salaries and other perks paid to top executives were being properly taxed.
Zimra Commissioner-General Gershem Pasi last month told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs that audits revealed that records were being doctored to hide information from the tax collector.

As a result, Zimra has been seizing documents and garnishing accounts where it has been established that taxes were not paid.
Some of the firms whose accounts have been garnished include Premier Services Medical Aid Society and the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe.