Several Zesa Holdings senior managers face the axe
following a damning forensic audit that has unearthed serious allegations of
corruption and abuse of office.
Last week, the national electricity company relieved former
chief executive officer Mr Joshua Chifamba of his duties by not renewing his
contract.
Mr Chifamaba is currently before the courts on charges that
border on abuse of office, while 20 other top Zesa managers are on forced leave
to pave way for the audit.
The probe report by Price Waterhouse Coopers is now before
President Emmerson Mnangagwa amid indications the Head of State has demanded
full transparency at the parastatal.
It has been gathered that the audit dug a slew of scandals
over tender malpractices, abuse of office, and shoddy corporate governance
practices among other forms of corruption.
In an interview with The Sunday Mail last Friday, Energy
and Power Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo confirmed the investigation
findings were now in the hands of the highest office in the land.
“I can confirm that the forensic audit for Zesa is now
completed. It is now in the hands of His Excellency, The President after I
formally presented the document to him last week,” said the minister.
“I am now waiting for the comments from His Excellency
before I make the document public.
“It would be imprudent for me to make the document public
before I get the feedback for His Excellency.”
Minister Gumbo revealed that of the 20 suspended officials,
most are set to face the music while some were cleared of any wrongdoing.
“Without jeopardising the current process, what I can say
is that the audit has exposed some malpractices that need to be corrected,” he
said.
Dr Gumbo said some top officials will have to undergo
disciplinary action for engaging in activities outside what was expected of
them.
“I was also able to come up with a summary for the
President to get a gist of the matter before getting into the full document. It is a thick-volume document with more than 300 pages.”
Minister Gumbo said with the audit findings, Zesa was now
set to undergo massive restructuring to improve service delivery.
The minister said, as part of the parastatal’s
restructuring, a new board would be announced in the next three months to steer
the entity in a new direction and take over from former Cabinet Minister
Herbert Murerwa who led the previous board.
“We have started the process of looking for new board
members. We will be conducting interviews of all the candidates that qualify,”
he said.
“It is going to a thorough and transparent process before
we get the best brains to take the company to new heights.
“Zesa is one of the most important parastatals and we have
to do the best we can. We are going to be appointing the board within the 90
days at most.”
Minister Gumbo said the Dr Murerwa-led board was not fired
but its term had initially expired in June 2018 before being extended by 6
months to December.
With regard Zesa’s operations, the minister said the
parastatal planned to acquire 254 vehicles to improve the power utility’s
capacity in dealing with faults.
“We recently visited Zesa and commissioned 29 brand new
vehicles that had been distributed into five regions so that Zesa can readily
attend to faults,” said minister Gumbo.
“We intend to buy about 254 vehicles, but the problem is
foreign currency, so we need foreign currency to buy these cars.”
The Minister also revealed that he will soon embark on tour
of all Zesa branches countrywide on a fact-finding and needs assessment
mission.
He also said his vision was to see Zesa depart from the
practise of prioritising urban areas ahead of consumers in the rural areas.
Last week, Cabinet approved the re-bundling of the Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) and resolved to merge all the group’s units
into a single integrated company.
Addressing journalists in a post-Cabinet briefing on
Tuesday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica
Mutsvangwa said all Zesa companies would be amalgamated into a “single
vertically integrated company.”
Zesa has five companies —Powertel Communications, Zimbabwe
Electricity and Transmission Distribution Company (ZETDC), Zimbabwe Power
Company (ZPC), Zesa Enterprises (Zent) and Zesa Holdings.
The unbundling of the power utility has been blamed for
exerting more costs on the company.
Apart from several chief executives, all of the companies
under Zesa Holdings have separate departments such as marketing, human
resources, accounts and public relations.
The reform of Zesa is in sync with the Public Enterprises
Reform Framework for 2018-2020 under the auspices of the Transitional Stabilisation
Programme (TSP).
The TSP is the Government’s economic blueprint expected to
give oomph to the country’s vision to become an upper middle income economy by
2030. Sunday Mail
0 comments:
Post a Comment