Prison officials in $500 000 scam

05 Oct, 2014 - 04:10 0 Views

The Sunday News

THE Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) has fired two procurement officers for tender splitting, overpricing and deceiving the procurement board, prejudicing the institution of more than $500 000.
In addition, more than $200 000 was unaccounted for due to non-delivered goods, a ZPCS internal audit report revealed.

In the same internal audit report it is indicated that the grand total loss to ZPCS was more than $800 000.
According to the ZPCS charge sheet, Samson Samson and Isaac Muguyaka during the period May 2013 to December 2013 split tenders on purchases of prison rations and consumables in violation of the procurement regulations.

Samson and Mugayaka were responsible for price sourcing in the Matabeleland region, according to ZPCS.
Furthermore, the State accused Samson and Mugayaka of sourcing overpriced quotations from the suppliers, thereby causing the procurement committee to deliberate on quotations with overpriced goods.

“The accused would then use these quotations to raise minutes to award tenders to companies not chosen by the board. As a result of their conduct, the accused persons caused an actual prejudice of $574 026,60,” reads part of the charge sheet.

Samson and Mugayaka were fired last month after the decision was approved by the ZPCS commissioner-general Retired Major-General  Pazadzayi Zimonde.

They were suspended in January this year with half pay.
However, Samson and Mugayaka have denied the charges, alleging that they are being used as “scapegoats to protect bigger fish”.

Last week, they filed a High Court review application to set aside their suspension.
In his founding affidavit, Samson alleged that the trial board was biased and it failed to call their defence witness and Comm-Gen Zimondi who had authorised the distribution and conveyance of prisoner’s rations and consumables within and outside Matabeleland region.

“Let me put it to the attention of this Honorable Court that this same trial board presided over the same allegation against the procurement board and they sentenced them to half month’s salary fine as punishment yet these members of the procurement board were the decision makers and perpetrators of the prejudice to the Government not us.

“This then shows that the respondents wanted to spare the procurement board while sacrificing us through dismissal . . . the decision is so outrageous in its defiance of logic that no reasonable person or body would come to it on the same facts,” said Samson.

In addition, through his founding affidavit, Samson alleged that he was a procurement clerk not a procurement officer and his job entailed doing the office duties of typing in preparation for signing by members of the tender board and he had no authority to do anything unless the board instructed so. “The board was the sole authoriser of all purchases and was responsible for all purchases including awarding tenders to deserving companies.

“ Our responsibility as clerks was to source quotations from listed and eligible companies who would bring their bids in sealed envelopes and we would in turn forward them — sealed — to the procurement board that would open them, deliberate and make decisions in our absence,” added Samson.

Additionally, Samson said the allegation that they split tenders is unfounded and unreasonable as their duty was “strictly typing minutes and compiling competitive bidding”.

Samson said they were not responsible for making any payments but it was the duty of the finance officer.
He added that an auditor, Tinashe Muvembi, who conducted and compiled the internal audit report, absolved them of any wrong doing after considering all the facts.  “The first issue that he noted was of overpricing, which he noted could not have been influenced or affected directly by the accused persons as the board had sole prerogative of determining prices which in any event is the function of the procurement board.

“It is through overpricing that the auditors assessed that the prejudice amounting to $574 026 was incurred by ZPCS and clearly the two accused persons could not influence the board to take on those overpriced commodities neither could they refuse to accept the prices after the procurement board had declared that those were the market prices,” said Samson.

“The second issue raised by the auditor was tender splitting. It is important to note that he showed no evidence to the effect that ZPCS suffered any prejudice at all from the said tender splitting.”

When Samson was questioned whether tender splitting is an illegal concept he said: “If it is illegal what were the benefits to the perpetrator? It therefore cannot simply be criminalised or made into wrongful conduct in terms of the staff regulations of ZPCS without understanding whether or not the accused persons had powers to actually split tenders.”

 

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