Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Blessings Chidakwa

Herald Reporter

THE swearing in of a tribunal to investigate the suitability of Bulawayo High Court judge, Justice Martin Makonese, to hold office following allegations of improper behaviour triggered his resignation within hours of the ceremony being held at State House in Harare yesterday.

Justice Makonese quit immediately after President Mnangagwa swore in the tribunal chaired by retired judge Justice Simbi Mubako.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Permanent Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabhiza confirmed that Justice Makonese had submitted his resignation through his lawyers. There is still the formal notification process through the Judicial Service Commission before the tribunal can be stood down, with any further legal action concerning the judge having to be done through other processes.

Justice Makonese was accused of issuing an order in a coal mine dispute in which he allegedly had a financial interest, allegedly making the order without any outside application before him and without the knowledge of lawyers of the two other parties in the dispute.

He is the fifth judge to leave office in recent years either as a result of tribunal recommendation to the President or as a result of a tribunal being appointed by the President.

This rate of departure from the bench has raised queries about how judges are appointed. There are suggestions that the system introduced in the 2013 Constitution may need further revision.

Both Mrs Mabhiza and Justice Mubako, who has chaired most of the tribunals, said the rising frequency of recommendations for tribunals was of concern, with Mrs Mabhiza suggesting that the new system of creating a short list through applications followed by public interviews may not be as effective as it should be while Justice Mubako considered continuing with what was there but trying to make it work better.

Yesterday at State House, President Mnangagwa, in line with the Constitution after receiving a recommendation from the Judicial Service Commission, swore in a three-member tribunal led by Justice Mubako to investigate the suitability of Justice Martin Makonese to hold office.

The other two members of the tribunal are the Executive Dean of the Midlands State University’s Faculty of Law, Dr Gift Manyatera and well-known senior lawyer Philippa Philips.

President Mnangagwa said the Judicial Service Commission, in a letter on March 9, formally advised him of the request of removal from office of Justice Makonese. That triggered the process whereby the President then has to appoint a tribunal of lawyers chaired by a judge or retired judge to investigate.

Speaking after the tribunal swearing in ceremony, Mrs Mabhiza said the frequency of the tribunals was worrying and showed that something needed to be done to improve the conduct or selection of some judges.

She said the present system of creating the short list for the final selection by the President might be need to be improved and perfected.

In the earlier system, the Judicial Service Commission took soundings within the legal and judicial communities and vetted potential High Court judges confidentially and then approached the ones thought suitable to see if they agreed to having their names go forward. Now potential judges need to apply and go through a process that includes public interviews.

Promotions to the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court benches have now returned to the older system where judges no longer apply for promotion, following a recent constitutional amendment, but are once again confidentially assessed with the best going forward to the final short list.

“The new system of interviews unfortunately seems to be bringing on board some people who are not of good integrity. I am not saying they are not of good integrity but one can make that conclusion as you can see the frequency judges are coming for tribunals,” Mrs Mabhiza said.

She said the appointments had to be done in accordance with the Constitution.

“Precisely it is an issue which may be taken to the people since our Constitution is people driven and we may also want to hear views from the justice sector as to whether we should revert to the old process.

“In my view the old process was better as most of the judges who were picked by the President were tried and tested,” Mrs Mabhiza said.

Justice Mubako said the frequency of tribunals was alarming but there was a need to accept the situation while still trying to keep the institution as sound as possible.

Trust Freddy and Rejoice Makoni

Zimbabwe has successfully evacuated its citizens from conflict-hit Sudan via a ship departing from Port Sudan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a senior Government official has said.

Those evacuated are expected to be transported back home Air Zimbabwe anytime.

Posting on his official twitter account, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Mr Nick Mangwana yesterday said: “Zimbabweans evacuated from Sudan are now on a sea vessel bound for a 3rd country, from where arrangements are being made by @MoFA_ZW for them to be picked up by @FlyAirZimbabwe. The Nation will be kept updated of any developments.”

Mr Mangwana announced that a total of 101 Zimbabweans were being evacuated, but he made no mention of a timetable for when they would land in Zimbabwe.

Later on the day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade spokesperson Mr Livit Mugejo said Government had managed to secure its citizens from Sudan.

“His Excellency Cde ED Mnangagwa’s Government has managed to secure Zimbabwean citizens from Sudan, as we speak now we have managed to bring them to Jeddah and they are now waiting to be transported. We are now looking for transport to take them back to Zimbabwe,” he said.

“Our citizens are very secure and our Government and their Government are now organising few logistics to transport them from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Zimbabwe, the Government of Cde ED Mnangagwa is leaving no stone unturned until all citizens are safe and secure.”

The evacuation was carried out in coordination between the Zimbabwean embassy and the Saudi embassy in Sudan.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Embassy in Zimbabwe yesterday condemned the ongoing violence in that country, which violates international diplomacy despite a 72-hour truce announced by the United Nations.

A vicious power struggle between the regular army and a powerful paramilitary force has led to violence across Sudan for more than a week.

In a statement yesterday, the Sudanese Embassy said the skirmishes had destroyed vital infrastructure throughout the country.

“The Embassy of the Republic of The Sudan in Zimbabwe consoles all those who lost their loved ones in the unfortunate crisis in Sudan that started with the mutiny of the Rapid Support Forces on April 15 in a foiled coup d’état,” said the Embassy.

“May Allah (SWT) accept them as martyrs and give their families strength and patience. The Sudanese Armed Forces were able to repel the rebels from most of the locations they controlled at the beginning of the coup. Intermittent skirmishes are taking place at few pockets in which there are still remnants of rebels in Khartoum State.

“The Sudan Armed Forces are cautiously approaching these locations to avoid casualties among civilians. Life is going normally in all the 18 states of the Sudan except these few pockets.

“The rebels destroyed vital civilian infrastructure at Khartoum International Airport and in other areas and took citizens as human shields. After losing their supply bases in Khartoum, they went into a rampant campaign of looting public and private properties: terrorising innocent civilians; harassing medical and humanitarian staff, bombarding hospitals and water and power facilities; targeting humanitarian convoys and ambulances and killing three humanitarian workers; taking hospitals as launching pads for their attacks.”

The rebels also attacked some diplomatic missions and a convoy of the American Embassy in Khartoum.

Further, Embassy said the barbaric crimes of the rebels warranted strong condemnation by the international community, as they represented flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

“The foiled coup d’état and rebels’ crimes caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Khartoum,” it said. “The latter was aggravated by the persistent violations of the humanitarian truces by the rebels. Sudan is looking forward to cooperating with the international community in this vital area.

“While discharging its constitutional mandate to stabilise the country, the Government of Sudan is determined to enhance cooperation with its regional and international partners in the fields of regional peace and security, countering terrorism and combating ill immigration and transnational organised crime, contributing to food security in the Arab world is a promising area of cooperation in the coming period.”

Oliver Kazunga

Senior Business Reporter

TREASURY has unearthed fraudulent conduct in the public procurement system where the Government pays for the goods or services but suppliers do not deliver on their obligations, prejudicing the Government huge sums of money.

Last year, the Treasury introduced the value for money initiative to curtail financial prejudice to the State through excessive invoicing, negatively impacting on the efficient utilisation of public resources while harbouring corruption.

On account of the desire to implement an efficient Public Finance Management (PFM) system, the Government last year suspended payment of its suppliers after discovering that some contractors were charging for goods and services using grey market rates.

The suspension of payments to the Government service providers was part of efforts to curtail attacks on the local currency, which was fuelling inflation.

Speaking at an event to launch the Zimbabwe Financial Reporting Manual (ZRFM) and Public Sector Professional Accountancy of Zimbabwe (PSPAZ) Training Office in Harare by Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube on Monday, the Secretary Mr George Guvamatanga said: “Through the value for money exercise, we also realised another very disturbing trend in the public procurement system which is really what is called in the streets ‘air supply’ where orders and invoices are generated and payments are made but nothing is delivered.

“So, we are currently further strengthening our procurement systems, but we have been looking very closely at this.

“We have got several cases currently under investigation of ‘air supply’ and the culprits will be dealt with across the whole of the system, whether it is from Government or suppliers, they will be dealt with the sternest measures that they deserve.”

ZFRM is an ongoing project that entails Zimbabwe’s migration from the rule-based approach to the accrual-based International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) framework by December 2025.

The initiative forms part of the Government’s PFM reforms to enhance transparency and accountability.

The ZFRM is expected to guide the implementation of IPSAS by providing local interpretations and clarifying options thereby ensuring consistency of application of the various standards by reporting entities in central and local governments as well as parastatals.

ZFRM is a recommendation of the Implementation Strategy and Plan (IPSAS) launched in 2019.

Through the value for money exercise, Mr Guvamatanga said, there had been significant improvement in savings to the fiscus.

He noted that the Treasury had further engaged the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) to ensure processes and systems in the public procurement domain were enhanced.

A strong PFM function, he stressed, was critical to the achievement of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS 1) towards Vision 2030.

Under Vision 2030, the Second Republic aims to transform Zimbabwe into an upper-middle-income economy.

“This is actually a very strong warning to all of those who have been engaged in this air supply that your time has come to an end, and the systems that we are putting in place will make sure that you are all plugged out wherever you are hiding.

“I guess for those who are smart enough, maybe in the next seven days, I would like to advise you to find the goods that you were supposed to deliver — deliver them because we are coming after you,” he said.

Since the launch of the value for money principle, he said, there is now a fully developed system of standardised pricing in Government called commonly-purchased goods through which authorities have been able to set maximum prices across the public procurement domain.

In an interview after the event, Mr Guvamatanga pointed out that: “In the process of managing this value for money, we actually discovered further challenges within our procurement system.

“I called it by its street name (air supply) but actually its fraudulent procurement whereby invoices are sent, payments are made but no goods are delivered.

“We are currently investigating several issues of such instances where the Government paid but no goods were actually delivered.

“This exercise is ongoing, the centralised internal audit unit has been working very closely where we have identified those anomalies.”

So far, he said, indications were that fraud within the public procurement system was rampant not only in Government ministries, departments and agencies but in local Government (rural and urban councils).

“We are now putting in place very strong systems working in conjunction with PRAZ to ensure that we plug this delinquency which again is costing the Government a lot of money.”

Mr Guvamatanga said the fraud cases will soon be reported to the police for the law to take its course adding that on the other hand, Treasury has its own internal disciplinary measures in terms of financial sanctions where those accounting officers found wanting would be asked for restitution.

“If we actually realise that you are negligent, the PFM Act does have provisions for individuals to be personally sanctioned and we are actually looking where individuals are proven to have been negligent, then they will have to pay personally from their own pockets.

“That might even mean that you might have to sell your house or car depending on the extent of the fraud or the negligence that would have been committed,” he advised.