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Ministers a burden to parastatals- Gabuza

By Gerald Chateta
for ZimEye.org

Published: February 21, 2010

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Harare(Zimbabwe)-Poor service delivery by the country’s major parastatals was caused by massive corruption by government Ministers responsible for their operations, a cabinet minister has said.

Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals Joel Gabuza told journalists in Harare on Friday that an audit they have conducted has revealed a massive abuse of resources at most quasi-government organizations by ministers responsible for their operations.

“The most problematic area is the appointment  of management board members in most parastatals.There was a lot of corruption in this area. We have discovered in some pararastals that one person was occupying more than 15 boards of different companies as a chairperson and really it means this person has no time to do whant he is required because of continued commitments. It has also emerged from the exercise that a nurse was a board member in an airline company a thing that failed to make sense.Overall there is nepotism and corruption in most parastatals,”said Gabuza.

Board members would allocate themselves more resources than what the company needs for public service delivery.

He said his Ministry was creating a national data base of experienced personnel from which parastatals would get qualified candidates to be board members.

“To improve transparency in the management of these institutions we have strategised a method of clearly defining the roles of ministers so that they do not abuse them.

“We want every Zimbabwean to have an equal chance of becoming board members of any parastatal.We are going to have a national data base of qualified and experienced people from which parastatals would tap board members. Anyone who wishes to be a board member should apply for the job.”

The former ZANU-PF government used to treat parastatals as its political wings.

This resulted in the abuse of parastatals like the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) by the government ministers for political and private gains.

The ministers looted resources like fuel and vehicles from these parastatals leaving them bankrupt.

Minister of Economic Development, Elton Mangoma, said government ministers should not use parastatals as their back yard corruption grounds.

“We need parastatals to perform; if they fail to deliver their Chief executives should be fired. We do not want government ministers to interfere with their day to day operations,” said Mangoma.(ZimEye, Zimbabwe)


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