Staff at one of the major hospitals in the country are in
the habit of allocating nurse training vacancies to their relatives and then go
on to invite members of the public for interviews for the already taken-up
posts, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has discovered.
Although he did not name the hospital, Zacc spokesperson Mr
John Makamure said the corrupt behaviour was unearthed by a systems audit and
compliance review of Government ministries, departments and State entities the
anti-graft body carried out.
He said Zacc was also auditing other entities, including
the Presidential and National Scholarship Fund and the National Pharmaceutical
Company (NatPharm).
The commission has since completed similar compliance
checks on the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec), Cyclone Idai
donations and five major hospitals where it identified “alarming levels of
bribery” in nurse recruitment, said Mr Makamure.
“We carried out Systems Review exercises in five of the six
central hospitals in Zimbabwe on the recruitment and selection of trainee
registered nurses,” he said.
“Our findings were quite alarming; there was rampant
bribery for one to enrol as a trainee nurse. Some authorities made brisk
business on unsuspecting poor candidates. One hospital has internal policies
that benefit staff dependents while the public is cheated to apply and attend
interviews.”
Mr Makamure said recommendations had been made on action to
be taken. He said Zimsec had been blamed for rampant exam leakages
and cheating through mediums like social media.
“We recommend that Zimsec should enhance security of
examination material throughout all stages of question paper development,” said
Mr Makamure. “There is need to do physical checks on every person who
participates in the development and distribution of question papers to ensure
they don’t possess spy gadgets.
“Zimsec was encouraged to use the grade-maker machine for
all subjects. This machine can assemble a question paper without the
involvement of several employees around it. Zacc is glad to note that after our
systems review, the June 2019 examinations had no reports of malpractice.”
On Cyclone Idai, Mr Makamure said Zacc noted that donated
goods were fleeced by those who had been entrusted to take custody.
“Zacc carried out a compliance check on the management of
Cyclone Idai donations in Chimanimani,” he said.
“It is sad to note that those we normally trust were found
to be abusing the donations and to date more than 10 people are appearing in
court on corruption and theft charges.”
Mr Makamure said Zacc was checking on compliance issues at
Natpharm given rampant reports of impropriety and findings would be made public
once completed.
“A Zacc team is analysing systems and processes at the
Presidential and National Scholarship Department,” he said. “The public will be
apprised of the findings very soon when we complete the exercise.”
Mr Makamure said Zacc will conduct a stakeholders workshop
tomorrow to receive input from stakeholders while it will pitch up a tent in
Kadoma next week during a roadshow.
“As part of our efforts to accelerate corruption
prevention, Zacc has embarked on a systems and compliance review of public
entities in order to strengthen corporate governance,” he said.
Mr Makamure said most of the corruption in public
entities emanated from poor corporate
governance. Herald
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