President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week gazetted General
Notice 164B of 2024, exempting 21 public entities from compliance with the
Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act.
The entities include the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, AFC
Commercial Bank, Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe, TelOne and
Kuvimba Mining House, among others.
“It means that they don’t have to follow tender procedures
as prescribed by the Act.
“This will further reduce transparency in the dealings of
these companies. Already there was a lot of mystery regarding the Mutapa Fund.
“This makes it worse,” economist Trust Chikohora said.
Legal expert Tendai Biti said the president violated the
constitution, which is the supreme law of the country.
“No law can be made which is inconsistent with the same,”
Biti said.
“Therefore, the president doesn’t have the legal right of
suspending the constitution, which demands transparency.
“We demand fairness, openness, competitiveness as far as
procurement is concerned.
“You must also know that the public or the public hearing
place has a right in terms of section 60 and 61 to any information on and in
the possession of the state or Parliament house, including information on
disposals or acquisitions.”
He added: “So, the right to freedom of information again
overrides an attempt to hide information.
“You must also remember that section 119 of the
constitution gives Parliament power over every board and institution.
“Parliament can scrutinise every organisation and
institution in Zimbabwe.
“This special instrument is a threat of blundering
Parliament’s powers. The long and short of it is that, legally it’s not
possible, legally it’s not competent.
“But more importantly, in a situation where Zimbabwe is now
ranked very lowly on the global corruption perception index of Transparency
International, this just reinforces the fact that we are captured in the
country and that we suffer from serious governance issues.”
Biti said it was also regrettable that the instrument was
being done while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team was in Zimbabwe,
undertaking a two-week annual Article IV Consultation.
“So, you are telling the IMF and the world that we don’t
care about governance issues.
“We don’t care about the rule of law. We don’t care about
constitutionalism,” he said.
Victor Bhoroma, an economist, said it was key to ensure
transparency in the disposal or transactions of public assets as they are
national resources, adding that the auditor general has, in the past 10 years,
unearthed massive corporate governance flaws and loss of state resources
whenever procedures are not followed.
Economist Stevenson Dhlamini said: “I suspect the reason
behind the exemption is to facilitate a smoother flow of decision making by
eliminating the delays caused by the bureaucratic nature of the public
procurement process.
“This is aimed at improving the adaptability and ability to
respond quicker to changing market dynamics.”
However, Dhlamini said this may lead to potential abuse of
the privilege by some of the institutions and thus undermining corporate
governance.
‘It might lead to less transparency and accountability
which might compromise the value for money principle in procurement,” he said.
“We, however, are hoping that the relevant authorities will
utilize this exemption to improve efficiency and competitiveness.”
Another economist Prosper Chitambara said there are pros
and cons to such a move. The pros are the fact that making decisions becomes
faster as these entities would not go through regulatory requirements under
public procurement and disposal of public assets.
“So, I would say probably that’s an advantage.
“But of course, the cons really relate to concerns about
transparency and accountability, which are key pillars in terms of governance
of any institution,” he said.
“Transparency and accountability around public procurement
and disposal of public assets is a big issue.
“So, I think we need to look at it from that balanced
perspective. "Maybe the government is trying to ensure that decisions are
made more quickly.
“But that also comes at the cost of those concerns around
transparency and accountability.” Standard
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