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Ms Chiri

Innocent Ruwende Municipal Reporter
The Ruwa Local Board has been flouting tender procedures and recently acquired vehicles worth more than $200 000 without going to tender, amid fears that the local authority might have been swindled of thousands of dollars in various tender scams.

According to Auditor-General (AG) Ms Mildred Chiri’s report on local authorities for 2015, which exposed corruption in most councils, the board also entered into a contract to procure fuel from Power Fuels without following tender procedures. The board bought a Nissan Navara for $36 000, two Junbei minibuses for $129 900 and a Hover truck for $38 000.

Ms Chiri said as a result, there was a risk of financial loss due to procuring at more than competitive prices hence the board was urged to adhere to tender procedures to ensure transparency and realise value for money in the awarding of tenders.

“The council made a payment of $1 198 for protective clothing based on a quotation, contrary to councils’ procurement procedures which require payments to be based on invoice. The goods were never received by council. The payment was made without proper authorisation. The board has been licensing shops on credit and shop operators have been defaulting in honouring their obligations. The board failed to employ effective ways of collecting shop licence fees. There was, therefore, a sharp decrease of shop licence fees collections from $335 118 in 2011 to $190 794 in 2012,” reads the report.

The audit also showed that benefits and allowances awarded to the councils’ management were not subjected to Pay As You Earn in contravention of the Income Tax Act (Chapter 23;06) Section 8(1) and council was not deducting tax on motoring, housing, school fees, grocery, educational loans and free mileage fuel allocation.

The AG also found out that the local authority had incomplete accounting records, cash books and ledgers were incomplete as well as bank reconciliations dating back to 2009 were not prepared.

“There was an unexplained variance of $11 232 014 between the system trial balance of $16 144 995 and the manual trial balance of $27 377 009.

“The two sets of records were not reconciled, as a result I could not verify the accuracy, completeness and validity of the transactions recorded in financial statements.

“The council was operating with an incomplete asset register for all non-current assets.

“All additions made in years 2011 and 2012 were not recorded in this register.

“The value of assets in the asset register was $7 413 831, whereas the assets disclosed in the financial statements are $13 505 646,” read the findings.