Ngoni Dapira

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has denied allegations that it is captured by cartels and assured the populace it is confident that the country’s forthcoming anti-corruption strategy will be tailor made to aggressively deal with the growing concerns of how corruption is increasingly becoming a culture in Zimbabwe.

After conducting nationwide consultations last year the anti-graft body on Monday conducted its validation workshop on the draft National Ant-Corruption Strategy (NACS) in Mutare, a meeting which was happening concurrently countrywide.

ZACC spokesperson Commissioner John Makamure said after the validation process they will finalise the draft strategy in the next few weeks before launching it by end of April.

“The national validation process is meant to debrief the public about what is contained in the draft document, so that people endorse it. We call the process validation. We are very committed to a highly consultative process in the development of this national strategy. This is a government strategy which tries to build public and stakeholder consensus around the fight against corruption which has been lacking over the years,” said Comm Makamure.

Comm Makamure said the country needs to take a scientific approach in fighting organised corruption. He said corruption has become a culture, so deep rooted and institutionalized to the extent that people now have a belief that corruption pays.

Comm John Makamure

“Lack of honesty and integrity has become part and parcel of how we survive in this country, but our dream as ZACC is to see Zimbabwe become a corruption free country because corruption has been contributing to the suffering of the public and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency,” said the ZACC spokesperson.

Comm Makamure said the anti-graft watchdog is not captured but under-resourced to tackle corruption cases head on, something which they are working on fast. “If there are cartels known by some of the agencies (state security agencies) they should bring information forward to the commission for investigation. We are also interested in such information to investigate. If there are officers within any government agency that have been captured please bring that information and evidence. ZACC is not captured. If I was captured I would not have the frank opinions of views that I have,” he said.

On the issue of cartels he added that they have not received any reports but just hear allegations of cartels, urging members of the public with evidence to submit to them. Comm Makamure however admitted that they need to act fast to put in place proper mechanism to track all reported cases, which is why they are working on the digitalised case management system.

“This fight against corruption, without stakeholder involvement and the commission genuinely involving stakeholders to participate meaningfully it is not going to be easy…I admit that our response time we need to be quick as possible and need to improve. There must be feedback to one who has filed a complaint. This is why we are now introducing a digitalized case management system moving from our current manual system and we have experts working on this…But for now as a follow-up to reported cases not responded to, people can directly contact me, the spokesperson, or the chairperson, if they feel they have a genuine case which was not responded to.”

ZACC has been proposing in the Anti-Corruption Act for a 15 percent retention fee for asset recovery, as a way of generating its own revenue for it not to be overly dependant on fiscal allocations. On their plans to decentralise countrywide by 2021 Comm Makamure however said it should not be just about opening offices but being functional and adequately resourced.”We want experts motivated to do what they do. So as we are mooting decentralisation which should be fully implemented by 2021 we are cognisant of not just recruiting and opening offices. We want adequately resourced personnel that will deliver.”

ZACC senior manager research and knowledge management Dr Onesmus Nyaunde

ZACC senior manager research and knowledge management Dr Onesmus Nyaunde said from the consultations the NACS will be four pronged with strategic focus on prevention, education, deterrence and collaboration between stakeholders.

NACS steering committees and sub committees will be set up as a monitoring and evaluation measure to make sure the anti-corruption strategy is implemented.

Dr Nyaunde added that information transparency was raised as a critical prevention mechanism especially in the public sector. “We need a robust system and increased public demand for accountability and transparency and rejection of corruption. Information transparency is a good starting point. When somebody has access to read for him or herself the process of acquiring a birth certificate this reduces corruption tendencies,” he said.

Comm Makamure added that the research and knowledge management unit that they recently established will be key in their new efforts to tackle corruption scientifically. “We cannot advise government without evidence and research. Currently we are looking into the area of health service delivery. This is an area that has attracted lots a lot of public attention and we will present our findings to government. We are also going to research on public finance management.”