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The recommendation by the Public Accounts Committee to Parliament that local authorities who do not submit their financial accounts for audit, or are even late in their submissions, should face criminal charges seems a necessary move considering the growing problems in this area.

The increasingly frustrated sub-committee on local authorities within the Public Accounts Committee now wants some effective action to simply make local authorities obey the law. 

Subcommittee chairperson Dexter Nduna spelt out the growing magnitude of the mess in recent debate in Parliament.

In 2019, 59 local authorities did not submit their financials for audit. In 2020, the number rose to 69 and in 2021 there were 78. Some of these were repeat offenders, some were new, but what it means is that a significant majority of Zimbabweans have no idea whether their council is correctly receipting and spending their rates and charges, or even if their council and its administration are following the basic accounting rules and are behaving honestly.

We all live under a local authority, so we are all involved in local government, just as we all live under the national Government and are involved in what it does, and the taxes it makes us pay. 

This is one reason why there is a single Auditor-General who needs to check that every ministry and every local authority is working with accurate accounts and that the way money is raised and spent is totally legal.

There is nothing particularly startling about this. Public quoted companies are required to submit audited accounts to shareholders within three months of the close of the financial year, on the quite understandable premise that those who own the company, by owning the shares, are entitled to know in some detail just what the directors and management have been doing, and at the very least the accounts in the annual report are accurate and are not intended to mislead.

Even private companies have to keep respectable accounts, if only to make sure that Zimra is satisfied that the right taxes in the rights currencies and for the right amounts have been paid. 

So in the private sector clean and accurate accounts, and these being checked by someone external to any concern, are a simple fact of life.

In theory it is the same in the public sector, except as many elements are not profit making the tax authorities are not involved. 

But the owners of the Government and all local councils, the citizens and the ratepayers, are involved since it is their money that is being spent and their taxes and rates that fund what the Government and councils do. 

So we are entitled to know that these figures have been checked, that the financial systems used are the correct ones and that a fair amount of digging has been done to ensure that no one in authority has slipped some of the cash, our cash, into their pocket. 

This should not be a problem.

Auditor-General Mrs Mildred Chiri has a number of channels to use to raise any issues of bad accounting or refusal to follow the laid down procedures. 

Her ultimate, and routine, approach is to the Parliament, and especially the Public Accounts Committee, a very powerful body of MPs with all parties represented and frequently chaired by an MP outside the Government. 

The all-party nature of the committee is a practical measures to ensure that there are no brooms to sweep unpleasantness under the carpet and that every issue will be investigated and reported on. It is largely a self-correcting process. But the Auditor-General does not have the executive power to order criminal charges; she has to tell Parliament which then can take the matter a stage further.

We need to remember that it is exceptionally rare for anyone to survive a full-scale audit totally. There are often small things that need to be corrected, and auditors are keen on offering accounting advice to ensure that new accounting rules are brought into play and that accounts every year become better and more accurate.

Most people understand this and most public accounting officers are prepared to deal with routine criticism, at least to the extent of having the following year’s audit noting they fixed a concern, even if the auditor has now found a new concern.

But all this process means nothing if the auditor does not even see the accounts, or sees them way after a standard deadline. 

As Cde Nduna noted, a lot of dubious or dishonest decisions can be hidden if the accounts are not audited, and we do not even have to assume dishonesty since incompetence can also be hidden. If Mrs Chiri does not see the accounts she cannot tell if something is wrong.

It appears from that escalation in non-submission that whatever means are employed these days to get local authorities to send in their accounts are simply not working, so the committee recommendation to increase the pressure with criminal charges.

Generally when an entity, such as a company, faces criminal charges the company and the chairman or chief executive or both are jointly charged, in their private capacity as well as their official capacity as the company representative. 

This needs to be carried over to any criminal charges against local authorities.

The authority, as a legal person, needs to be charged, but the mayor or chairman and the town clerk or council secretary, and the titles differ, needs to be standing there in court as the real person. 

And if this ends with the real people being fined, out of their own pocket rather than council funds, this might concentrate minds. 

It seems a bit unfair to have ratepayers being denied audited accounts and having to pay the fine for the lack of audit; better those who missed the audit pay out.

This also allows the ultimate sanction and persuasion, a couple of jail cells for the top rank in council and administration, two cells being needed since female and male prisoners have to serve their sentences separately. 

That would result in a serious concentration of minds to ensure that everyone else follows the law. 

But Cde Nduna is correct. We cannot just keep sitting by and complaining that our council will not send the accounts in for audit. We need action that makes them do this.