THE City of Harare has not had its accounts audited since 2017 raising fears that ratepayers’ money is being looted without trace and accountability.
According to Local Government minister, this is one of the main reasons why the ministry has not approved council’s 2024 budget.
“Without going into too much detail, the main reasons really are centred around the lack of audited accounts, whereby there have not been audited accounts for years from 2017 and the budget did not quite contain roadmaps to ensure that the issues which led to the lack of approval or auditing of those accounts,” Chitando said while addressing the media and councillors at Town House on Wednesday.
The Auditor-General report for the financial year ending December 2022 revealed that the city’s accounts were in shambles, leading to grand theft while the city is faced with a severe crisis due to poor service delivery.
Early this week, Harare City Council suspended 222 officials who took advantage of loopholes in the system to siphon billions from the local authority.
Reports said the officials dipped their hands into council coffers after the local authority dumped the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) billing system.
Chitando also raised concern over the abandonment of the ERP billing system.
“As a ministry, we did not mince our words that without coming up with an enterprise resource system, a computerised ERP, the City of Harare is not going anywhere,” he said.
“That has been put in place and also following that, there is a need to have the accounts audited … It can then be in a position to raise funding for short, medium and long-term investment programmes.”
Chitando said council was given up to April 19 to put its house in order.
“We agreed as a way forward that the City of Harare will, by April 19, come up with a roadmap to ensure that it has accounts which can be approved by the ministry and also come up with a roadmap to address some of the major issues of concern to the government.
SOURCE : NEWSDAY
