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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
MEMBERS of Parliament have called for legal reforms that impose stiff penalties on public officials found by the Auditor-General to have mismanaged or abused public resources. Most adverse reports raised by the Auditor-General Ms Mildred Chiri pointing to gross anomalies in the running of Government ministries and State entities are never acted upon.

The MPs expressed concern at the flagrant flouting of rules and regulations in the management of cash, public assets and human resources and lack of accountability in State enterprises and Government ministries. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee called for reforms to ensure the AG and Parliament have power to deal with errant ministries and State enterprises that do not implement recommendations made by AG.

In an interview, committee chairperson and Mufakose MP Ms Paurina Mpariwa (MDC-T) said while it was commendable that Government had enacted the Public Finance Management Act to ensure more accountability in the public purse, more needed to be done to ensure adherence to good corporate governance.

“The Auditor-General has made several corrective recommendations that we have also in turn tabled before Parliament.

“The challenge is that most of the recommendations have not been taken aboard. The Act is there but it is not being fully complied with and we have raised these issues as a committee in Parliament during plenary. For the past three years, our committee has been tabling recommendations by the Auditor-General but nothing has been taken on board,” said Ms Mpariwa.

“It is our view that more needs to be done to strengthen our oversight role to ensure that recommendations from the Auditor-General are implemented by the Executive. “At the moment that is no happening. There is need to strengthen the law to ensure accountability by the Executive.”

Ms Mpariwa said some of the issues raised by the AG’s report included parastatals going for several months without boards of directors, and failure by ministries to make quarterly submissions of financial performance to Parliament as required by the Public Finance and Management Act.

She said implementation of performance-based management should be accorded high priority if Government was to address irregularities highlighted in the Auditor-General’s report. She said the Public Accounts Committee was an important arm of Parliament, whose mandate was to ensure accountability in the way public funds are managed in Government departments and State-owned enterprises.

She said most ministers did not respond to reports tabled by portfolio committees, particularly the Public Accounts Committee. Ms Mpariwa said the law should be strengthened to deal with Government ministries and State enterprises heads accused of financial mismanagement.