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Herald Reporter
PARLIAMENT’S Public Accounts Committee has suspended the hearing it wanted to conduct with Ministry of Finance and Economic Development officials on the Financial Adjustments Bill, for four weeks because of Covid-19.

The Secretary for Finance and Economic Development Mr George Guvamatanga, was supposed to appear before the committee yesterday to give evidence on the Bill.

Briefing journalists yesterday, committee chairperson Mr Tendai Biti said he received communication from the ministry that they could not attend the hearings owing to the Covid-19 situation.

“Regrettably, we have received a letter dated July 17, 2020 from Mr Guvamatanga indicating that they were unable to attend because of a Covid-19 situation at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. We accept this explanation. We regard the pandemic as a serious one and because we do not want to expose anyone to the virus, we are going to hold our meetings and enquiries in abeyance for a period of four weeks.

“We will advise when we resume enquiries on the adjustments of the Finance Bill,” he said.

It is understood that some staffers in the Ministry tested positive for Covid-19 recently. Meanwhile, the committee has invited Zesa to appear before it next Monday for enquiries into the audit report of 2018. All the four Zesa companies are expected to appear before the committee.

“We are going to commence enquiries into the audit report on Zesa and all the four companies of Zesa pursuing to the audit report done by the Auditor-General Mrs Mildred Chiri using PricewaterhouseCoopers for 2018,” he said.

Mr Biti said the audit report was extensive and covered a number of issues including the Dema Diesel Plant and the Matabeleland North Power Project.