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Entrepreneurs going about their business at Siya So home industry yesterday. — Picture by John Manzongo

Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
The Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement could have lost more than $5 million in revenue last year following indications that it had poor billing systems for land rentals and survey fees.

It failed to produce a database showing beneficiaries of land, an audit has revealed.

In her December 31, 2015 report, Auditor-General Ms Mildred Chiri rapped the ministry for failing to produce a comprehensive database for land beneficiaries.

The ministry was also not collecting rentals from two mobile telecommunication providers for base stations.

“The ministry failed to produce the database for the beneficiaries of the land reform programme. Due to the absence of the database and a billing system, reliance could, therefore, not be placed on the outstanding revenue figure of $4 860 958 disclosed in the return submitted for audit.

“Furthermore, the ministry failed to disclose survey fees to be recovered from the beneficiaries of the land reform programme,” reads the report.

“I am concerned with the failure by the ministry to follow up and recover the outstanding balance which stood at $5 957 226 as at December 31, 2015. The outstanding revenue return did not include all people with outstanding land rentals for both A1 and A2, which were introduced during the period under review.”

In its response to audit enquiries, the ministry said the database of debtors for the different land categories was now available after finalising a “robust” database of the land reform programme as well as for billing.

“The available data is being fine-tuned to conform to the system requirements for upload. Specifically 87 051 A1 beneficiaries have been verified against the Registrar-General’s database and 60 146 are ready for upload. Furthermore, 8 983 A2 beneficiaries have also been verified and 7 222 are ready for upload into the computerised database system,” reads the response by the ministry.

Another observation was that only one mobile telecommunication operator, Econet, was paying lease rentals although three companies had erected base stations across the country.

“I was not availed with any lease agreements for these and I was concerned that the ministry had no database for all base stations on rural land across the country and hence, I was unable to determine whether all revenue for lease rentals were properly collected and accounted for,” reads Ms Chiri’s report.

In response, the ministry said only Econet had complied, while Telecel argued that it had entered into an agreement with rural district councils and in some cases beneficiaries of the land reform programme, while some discussions were still being pursued with NetOne.

“Policy and procedures were spelt out that in resettlement areas, leases are entered into with the ministry and no one else.

“In communal areas, rural district councils are authorised to enter into such lease agreements,” reads the report.