THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) is losing thousands of dollars every month as it continues to pay a full salary and associated benefits to suspended chief executive officer, Mrs Nancy Masiyiwa-Chamisa, after she reportedly turned down a severance package offered to her.
Mrs Masiyiwa-Chamisa has been on suspension for over a
year. This came out yesterday when Zinara board chairperson, Engineer Michael
Madanha, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee at Parliament in Harare
to respond to issues raised by a forensic audit that unearthed massive
financial impropriety.
It also emerged that Zinara still has on its employ,
northern region Engineer Givemore Kufa, who was fingered by a forensic audit
for signing payments on contractors who had not commenced their work.
Some of the contractors allegedly received full payment
running into millions of United States dollars without even visiting the
construction site.
Committee chairperson Mr Tendai Biti asked Eng Madanha why
they continue to pay Mrs Masiyiwa-Chamisa who has been on suspension for over a
year.
“She is being paid pending a disciplinary process and pending
a court case she is participating in. We have presented an offer to her but she
has refused,” said Eng Madanha.
“I think this week
or next week, we would have taken further measures to resolve that once and for
all. Yes when we came on board, she was already on suspension and our board
resolved to terminate her contract with all her conditions but she turned that
down.”
The committee also asked why some senior executives were
still at work after they were fingered by a forensic audit for signing an
Interim Payment Certificate that authorised payment of contractors.
But Eng Madanha said Eng Kufa’s case was “work in
progress”.
“Let me assure you that as a board we will be ruthless,” he
said.
Earlier on, Eng Madanha had indicated that there were four
categories under which contracts totalling US$71 million and R31 million were
awarded irregularly.
He said the first category was when a contract was awarded
and project fully and satisfactorily implemented, but there was no compliance
in terms of the requirement to go to tender.
The second category related to projects that were fully
paid but not completed while the third category entailed projects that were
completed and fully paid but were of poor quality requiring to be redone.
“The fourth category is when the entire amount was paid and
no work was done and that is 100 percent prejudice. Contracts signed, whole
amount disbursed and no work was done. It is a pathetic situation.
“The good thing is that the people are there. At the end of
the month, a Zinara official should go and assess the project. There is a
question on who passed the Interim Payment Certificate authorising payment.
“The question is, ‘how were these IPCs passed when no work
was done?’ We might be wasting time (but) this is fraud. It has to be dealt
with as fraud and there is no question about it,” said Eng Madanha.
He said no stone
would be left unturned in the quest to ensure transparency, and engineers are
going through the details.
Eng Madanha said Zinara would review most of the existing
contracts, some of which are not in the interests of Zinara. Herald
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