The Sunday News
Fairness Moyana in Hwange
GREATER Whange Residents Trust (GWRT) has presented a position paper to the Hwange Local Board to come up with a policy that compels councillors and employees to declare personal assets and financial interests in the spirit of promoting transparency and curb corruption.
According to GWRT co-ordinator, Mr Fidelis Chima said the move is meant to hold the local authority accountable for public funds while ensuring council improves on its service delivery mandate following the recent Auditor-General’s report that exposed rampant corruption in local authorities.
“Of late we have been reading about local authorities failing to account for public funds, the Auditor-General’s report recently exposed the accounting weaknesses of local authorities and as such as a concerned residents’ movement, we decided to engage council and submit a position paper in regards to asset declaration. The reason we did that was that we want to see council improving in terms of how it accounts for public funds and this is supported by many provisions in the Constitution, for example Chapter 2 clearly states that the State must adopt and implement policies and legislation to develop efficiency, competency, accountability, transparency, personal integrity, financial probity in all institutions and agencies of Government at every level and in every public institution,” he said.
Mr Chima said they wanted the Local Board to adopt best practices in terms of being open in regards to financial probity.
He said the move was also drawn from previous experience where the council was exposed for fraudulently issuing out stands without proper laid down procedures.
“There was a special report that was commissioned by the AG with regards to HLB where it was noted that council was issuing stands in a very fraudulent manner and it was also failing to account for them. There were no receipts and stands were being allocated in a haphazard manner, as an organisation we feel that should not happen.”
HLB chairperson Councillor Nqobile Mabhena said they will table the proposal, arguing that they were not against assets disclosure by councillors as it would help arrest rampant corruption involving public officials.
“Yes, I can confirm that council received the paper, we deliberated as councillors over the issue and a majority of them don’t see anything wrong with that, we also believe it will help in terms of dissuading corrupt tendencies by some councillors. Council makes decisions through resolutions so we are going to deliberate as a council on that or alternatively refer the matter to the Human Resources and General Purpose Committee that will make recommendations which will result in council passing a resolution.”
The move by GWRT follows that of other residents associations such as Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) who in September last year launched a campaign which called on councillors to declare their assets in line with Section 198 of the Constitution.
The section demands that senior public officials should declare their assets, income and financial interests as a matter of principle.
Bulawayo councillors eventually succumbed to pressure from residents and have crafted the Asset and Liabilities Declaration Policy requiring that all councillors declare their assets.
