BEITBRIDGE Border Post, the country’s busiest inland port of entry, has been identified as the country’s major corruption hot spot, with some Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) officials under investigation after building mansions in Harare.
Zimra is investigating three Beitbridge-based revenue
officers who built mansions in Harare, but failed to account to their employer
how they raised the money following a lifestyle audit.
The revenue authority could, however, not release the names
of the officers since the matter is still under investigation.
This emerged during a stakeholders’ workshop on the
progress made in the fight against corruption held in Bulawayo on Friday.
Presenting a lifestyle audit report to parliamentarians and
other stakeholders during the meeting, Zimra loss control manager Mr Selleck
Mapfeka said lifestyle auditing or monitoring is a basic comparison of one’s
proceeds or sources of income against how it is utilised.
It is an accountability tool which is conducted when the
visible lifestyle or standard of living of an individual appears to exceed
their known income levels.
“We are currently investigating three officers who built
mansions in Harare, but failed to explain how they acquired the wealth
following a lifestyle audit,” he said.
Mr Mapfeka said corruption is more pronounced at Beitbridge
Border Post and urged Government to consider extending the lifestyle audits to
other stakeholders operating at the border post.
“We also have another officer who built a block of flats
and he has since resigned.
The lifestyle audit also revealed that some Zimra revenue
officers based in Beitbridge had six properties acquired through shady deals at
the border,” he said.
Mr Mapfeka also mentioned the case of a former Beitbridge
based Zimra revenue officer Mr Kennedy Nyatoti, who made history by becoming
the first person to lose assets under the country’s civil-based asset forfeiture
law when his US$150 000 mansion in Harare and US$10 000 car were forfeited to
the State.
Nyatoti joined Zimra in 2014 aged 25 and two years down the
line he got married and paid lobola of US$10 000. In 2017, he took his family
for a holiday in China and spent US$15 000.
During the same year, Nyatoti bought a residential stand
for US$24 000 and under-declared that it was worth US$18 000. He built and
completed his house in five months.
“We investigated Kennedy Nyatoti, who was based at
Beitbridge Border Post, which is a major a hot spot for corruption, and he
failed to explain the source of his wealth following a lifestyle audit,” he
said.
Mr Mapfeka said Nyatoti’s ill-gotten wealth emanated from
fraudulently clearing immigrants’ rebates for people not qualifying to bring in
goods duty-free under the rebate facility.
After Nyatoti failed to declare his assets, the National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) made a court application for civil forfeiture in
terms of the amended Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act.
The High Court then ordered forfeiture of the mansion and
the car.
Police recovered the forfeited assets and subsequently
handed them over to the Zimra asset management unit.
Previously, the State could only apply for forfeiture after
a conviction for a corruption-related offence.
However, the law now allows the State to apply for
forfeiture under civil rules even without instituting criminal proceedings.
“We need a lifestyle audit for all border stakeholders.
While as Zimra, we conduct lifestyle audits for our staff,
others seconded at the ports of entry are not conducting lifestyle audits,” he
said.
“In fact, you have someone deployed at Beitbridge border
and shockingly, within a short period of time, they are now driving posh cars
and building mansions.
We need to fight corruption to the end.
We are, therefore, saying all people deployed the ports of
entry should be subjected to lifestyle audits.”
Mr Mapfeka said most of the assets are being recovered
through inter-agency collaborations and involvement of the NPA through
prosecutor-guided investigations.
“We don’t have a centralised property database where all
properties can be looked at.
For instance, if you go to the Deeds Registry, they have
what they have,” he said.
“Similarly, if you go to the land developers and councils,
it is same story hence when it comes to investigations, it is a challenge.”
Mr Mapfeka said when they conduct a lifestyle audit, they
expect a person to explain his or her source of wealth.
“There is nothing wrong in owning properties, but there is
something terribly wrong if you can’t explain your source of wealth either.
Anything that is acquired using ill-gotten wealth is
tainted property,” he said.
Mr Mapfeka said a lifestyle audit is one of the critical
tools that they use in as far as dealing with corruption is concerned.
“Assets are checked against the asset declaration form.
When you are recruited by Zimra, the first thing you are
required to do, is to complete an asset declaration form that will form the
basis of any lifestyle audit,” he said.
“If the loss control division is going to carry out a
lifestyle audit, they will use that as a baseline. Proof of source of wealth
should be produced in all lifestyle audits and we continue to record success
stories.”
Mr Mapfeka said Zimra set up an integrity committee in 2019
including an in-house corruption diagnosis tool, which was developed to measure
corruption.
“In the past, we used to measure corruption based on the
number of prosecutions, but we realised that we were not getting the intended
results.
We are now measuring our efforts in fighting corruption and
we come up with a corruption index every quarter,” he said.
“We are now using the Integrated Results-Based Management
and every employee of Zimra is measured on the level of corruption at the end
of every quarter.
On lifestyle audits, we also do recruitment vetting,
parallel financial investigations and asset forfeiture and recovery.”
Zimra also has a hotline, which is managed by a third party
for people to use to report corruption.
Before it was stopped last December, the revenue collector
had a whistle-blower facility where Zimra would pay the whistle-blower 10
percent of the recoveries.
Zimra acting Commissioner for Revenue Assurance Mr Edward
Phiri said as part of efforts to fight the scourge, they have launched
anti-corruption campaign dubbed “#I’m for zero campaign” to promote zero
tolerance to corruption.
The Zimra Revenue Assurance Investigation Division carries
out criminal investigations regarding alleged violations of the tax and customs
laws.
“We have been going around the country doing ‘I am for zero
campaigns’, which we have done in Mutare, Beitbridge, Bulawayo and Harare and
this week we will be in Masvingo.
This is an initiative that we have taken as we try to
address this scourge,” said Mr Phiri.
“The revenue assurance division, which has an anti-money
laundering unit, has the responsibility to deal with offences that spill from
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Financial Intelligence Unit, Zacc, police and
other law enforcement agents.”
It also emerged during the meeting that out of 254 cases
being handled by NPA, a majority of them are from Harare.
A total of US$50 million was also recovered from
conviction-based asset forfeiture in 2021 and police say they arrested 495
suspects for corruption-related cases in the same year. Chronicle
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