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Government expects  parastatals to provide top notch service to clients and move away from  the culture of banking on their statutory existence, a Cabinet minister  said yesterday.

Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Perrance Shiri told  the new Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) board in an inaugural  address that gone were the days when parastatals would give poor service  to clients.

“As such, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the need for state owned  enterprises to provide top notch services to clients. Gone are the days  when parastatals gave below standard services to clients, banking on  their statutory existence.

“Also gone is the era where parastatals hide behind bureaucracy to  justify poor delivery of service to clients,” he said.

Shiri said the Government was working on the transformation of state  owned enterprises to make them viable and more efficient.

“This second republic now expects parastatals to be run on a sound  basis that hinges on proper and timely service delivery without  resorting to Treasury for financing.

“I thus expect this new board to steer the Zinwa ship so that it  operates and metamorphose into a highly customer-centric organisation  whose decisions, processes and practices are informed by the need to  meet and respond to client needs,” he said.

He implored the new board to interrogate Zinwa management decisions.

“The board should make its priority to instil good and sound corporate  governance at Zinwa. The authority’s processes must be situated within  the provisions of the various corporate governance statutes that the  government has put in place,” he said.

Minister Shiri said the new board, chaired by Engineer Bongile Ndiweni, came at  a time when Zinwa had recovered from being a largely loss making entity  incapable of meeting its obligations to stakeholders, creditors and  employees.

“The authority recorded a US$1,8 million profit and is now firmly  placed on a growth trajectory. Therefore I expect the board to build on  the current momentum and guide Zinwa on this upward trend and transform  it into a highly modernised water utility,” he said.

He, however, lamented that the water utility was owed millions of dollars  by its diverse clients.

“The parastatal is currently owed over RTGS $110 million by various  debtors with local authorities and farmers owing the bulk of this money.

“You will need to develop innovative ways which allows for the  collection of the money while at the same time ensuring farming  operations and service provision by local authorities do not grind to a  halt,” he said. — New Ziana.