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CORRUPTION is the evil that can derail any enterprise, and when that entity is the biggest in the country, in this case the Government, the damage can be immense. 

In fact, corruption is exceptionally damaging right down the line and the same goes for the private sector as well. So it has to be hunted down and those responsible brought to book, preferably in a criminal court, although there are a lot of problems with obtaining proof beyond reasonable doubt. 

Gathering evidence to secure a conviction in a criminal trial for graft is tricky since other explanations are possible, such as incompetence, and in any case many of the corrupt deals are done secretly without witnesses and a lot of effort put in place to hide any trace of any links.

But that does not mean we have to do nothing. Even if we cannot always get someone into jail we can stamp out corruption.

One major path is preventing it in the first place. If there is no corruption then there is no corruption, and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has embraced this as a second strand in its constitutionally-mandated task of ending corruption.

The private sector does use this as the main tool to fight corruption within companies and businesses and a complex set of rules and practices have evolved to ensure that whatever people may be tempted to do, it is extraordinarily difficult to follow a criminal inclination and the risk of discovery is high, itself a deterrent.

So the systematic way that ZACC is tackling the process in the public sector is changing attitudes. The new integrity committees play a major role in ensuring that correct procedures are in place and that they are followed.

Already payments for services not rendered are no longer just drifting through, US$18 million worth having been stopped after getting though what looks like very slack management before the word got through to ZACC and these were stopped.

Obviously they should never have got that far, but at least they were stopped. It is a bit like in the Bible where Lot is bargaining for the survival of Sodom and Gomorrah. It needs a surprisingly small number of honest and respectable people to save an entire city, such as one person in the process.

So now the integrity committees are not just being set up, but are being monitored to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. This is not just some window dressing that needs not be taken seriously, but a serious attempt to have done what needs to be done.

The Auditor-General has noted significant improvements as well in both keeping high standard accounts up to date and in implementing the upgrades and changes she wants to see in processes. 

We are not yet at private sector standards in a swathe of State enterprises, but we are no longer moving around in an accounting swamp where no one can even notice if money or assets are missing. 

It is this evidence of the change of attitudes that is so important. Many operational professionals can sigh deeply over the rules and committees in place in any properly-run entity as extra work that can lead to delays, but also need to recognise that everything needs to be tracked, so everyone is accountable, and the rules also protect them by helping to minimise legitimate error, since the decision process is checked.

The other advantage of having rules and laid-down procedures in place is that effective action can be taken even if there is not a shred of evidence that something was done corruptly. Even incompetence does not have to be proved, and that is just a civil matter requiring a probability. 

If someone is under orders to do something in a particular way and does it in a different way, then we have a straight forward disciplinary matter. Even if a resignation follows to avoid the disciplinary hearing, at least the problem is no longer there.

ZACC has been doing a lot of investigating and in these investigations must have often wished there were certain records available. This no doubt is guiding ZACC when it speaks to State entities and can be very precise on what it wants the new committees to do. 

The private sector uses these tools, sometimes under different names, to make as clear as possible who has done what and why. Shining a light on every decision process makes it very hard to perform the corrupt dealings that require darkness. This does not eliminate corruption, since human ingenuity is something special, but it does make it harder and each breach means that professional accounting institutes think up a better way to shine the lights.

A major company usually has double auditing; the internal auditors and the external auditors. Of course collusion between auditors and the corrupt is possible, and some will always want to sweep wrongdoing under the carpet, so the practices can become involved. 

So we have internal auditors who do not fall within the chain of command as it were, but who can report, if necessary, directly to the board or more often to an audit committee of the board, and that committee does not include executive directors, only outsiders.

What those practices mean is the internal auditor cannot be suppressed; management can take action and if management is involved or dismissive, the board can take action. The truth will come out. External auditors do a lot more than just make sure the figures add up. They look at the systems in place for both accounting and for making financial decisions. And professional rules and guides are continually tightened as the dishonest find ways round. 

One interesting addition is to prevent cosy relationships between auditors and managers by changing the audit firm every three or so years. By the time everyone is a friend they are apart. 

The other general practice is that a business advisor cannot be an auditor. The two have to be separate. But the critical point, systematised as much as possible, is that we are all responsible for what goes right and for what goes wrong. The great point of the integrity committees now coming into State enterprises is that they ensure not only that proper systems are in place, but that everyone has the job of ensuring these systems are followed. 

You cannot be fired or ignored if what you are doing is part of your job, and that part is being on the team that is keeping everything clean and in the light. A lot of things have been put in place under the Second Republic to make sure public accounts become first class and management decisions are at least made on rational public grounds, with standard rules being followed. 

We have pressure to make sure the Auditor-General’s reports are taken seriously; we have the systems ZACC is now putting in place; and we have the performance contracts that make it easy to replace the hopeless and reform the reformable.

We have seen corruption cases bogged down in the courts and the immense difficulties of getting to the truth. While we must continue pushing forward with the hunting, and the better record keeping and accounting now being demanded mean that evidence is that much easier to obtain, we also need to do what is being done at long last, making it so much harder to do evil.