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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

Account-keeping in parastatals and State-owned Enterprises is improving as the companies are implementing more of the Auditor General, Mrs Mildred Chiri’s recommendations.

Mrs Chiri also welcomes the reforms being initiated by the Government to improve transparency in parastatals and State-owned enterprises.

In the executive summary of her 2020 annual report on parastatals and State-owned enterprises tabled in Parliament recently, Mrs Chiri noted that around two-thirds of recommendations were now being implemented but continued to urge all to follow best practices.

“I followed up on my prior year (2019) recommendations and noted a significant improvement for the entities audited, 46 out of the 69, that is 67 percent, of these recommendations were implemented, 12 remain outstanding, and 11 were being followed up as the audits were in progress,” she said.

Some of the recommendations related to proper record-keeping and following laid down procedures especially on procurement and expenditure.

The Auditor General also took note of the Government’s efforts in improving accountability and urged public entities to align themselves with the envisaged best practices and policies.

“Whilst I appreciate the efforts made by Government in the form of statutory and structural reforms, inter alia, enactment of the Public Entities Corporate Governance Act, establishment of the Corporate Governance Unit in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Central Internal Audit Unit in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development etc, most entities are yet to align their practices and policies with the provisions of the Act.”

Governance issues reported in 2020 were in respect of weak internal controls, undocumented joint venture arrangements, unsupported expenditure, absence of bank reconciliations, non-compliance with income tax provisions and other issues around risk management arrangements.

Mrs Chiri agreed the audit period was affected by Covid-19 which presented practical challenges because of restrictions on travel and requirement to stay at home.

The resulting effects made a big dent in the spectra of accountability and transparency as Covid-19 pushed back the progress that had been made over the years in bringing most public entities up to date in their financial reporting.

“At the time of producing this report, in relation to the 2019 and 2020 financial years, 103 audits had been completed, 72 were in progress and 35 had not yet submitted financial statements for audit while three entities were in arrears of more than three years,” she said.