News / National
30 prison guards fired over $700 000 theft
03 Aug 2014 at 16:32hrs | Views
Twenty-four Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) officials and six senior civil servants have been dismissed from duty for stealing $700 000 earmarked to fund the daily operations of prisons.
Police have since opened criminal proceedings against the officials who allegedly engineered the theft with assistance from their Finance and Economic Development Ministry counterparts.
Among those dismissed are six officials who worked in the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry's accounting and auditing department.
Investigators are still combing the Government finance system to establish the full extent of the crime and other syndicate members.
Information gathered last week shows that Treasury allocated $700 000 to the ministry in 2013 and released the money in tranches for onward transmission to the ZPCS.
Treasury officials and their Justice Ministry colleagues then laid out a plan to steal the funds.
The ZPCS chief accounting officer and 23 of his subordinates – who were all roped into the scam – manufactured quotations, purchase invoices and receipts for non-existent goods and shared the money released by Treasury with other syndicate members.
The theft, spanning from January to December 2013, only came to light after auditors noticed anomalies in the Justice Ministry's books.
Fearing further embarrassment, the six implicated ministry officials reversed a $500 000 transaction, but failed to account for the remaining $200 000.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabhiza said the 30 were dismissed in May and urged police to deal with the matter speedily.
"The idea that police will proceed by way of summons to arrest the 30 officers trivialises the matter. Hence, we are now urging the police to complete investigations and bring the culprits to book.
"We discharged 24 officers from the ZPCS and six from our ministry who included two accountants, three auditors and one chief accounting officer. Investigations are still underway; we are yet to identify their counterparts in the Finance Ministry."
Scandal continues to dog the ZPCS whose internal police last year discovered that four prisons officials had connived with some Zesa employees to defraud the service of thousands of dollars in an electricity billing scam.
In the same year, several finance and procurement department officers were also arrested for defrauding the institution. In addition, the ZPCS lost $1, 8 million after two of its procurement officers inflated product prices and service charges.
Police have since opened criminal proceedings against the officials who allegedly engineered the theft with assistance from their Finance and Economic Development Ministry counterparts.
Among those dismissed are six officials who worked in the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry's accounting and auditing department.
Investigators are still combing the Government finance system to establish the full extent of the crime and other syndicate members.
Information gathered last week shows that Treasury allocated $700 000 to the ministry in 2013 and released the money in tranches for onward transmission to the ZPCS.
Treasury officials and their Justice Ministry colleagues then laid out a plan to steal the funds.
The ZPCS chief accounting officer and 23 of his subordinates – who were all roped into the scam – manufactured quotations, purchase invoices and receipts for non-existent goods and shared the money released by Treasury with other syndicate members.
The theft, spanning from January to December 2013, only came to light after auditors noticed anomalies in the Justice Ministry's books.
Fearing further embarrassment, the six implicated ministry officials reversed a $500 000 transaction, but failed to account for the remaining $200 000.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Mrs Virginia Mabhiza said the 30 were dismissed in May and urged police to deal with the matter speedily.
"The idea that police will proceed by way of summons to arrest the 30 officers trivialises the matter. Hence, we are now urging the police to complete investigations and bring the culprits to book.
"We discharged 24 officers from the ZPCS and six from our ministry who included two accountants, three auditors and one chief accounting officer. Investigations are still underway; we are yet to identify their counterparts in the Finance Ministry."
Scandal continues to dog the ZPCS whose internal police last year discovered that four prisons officials had connived with some Zesa employees to defraud the service of thousands of dollars in an electricity billing scam.
In the same year, several finance and procurement department officers were also arrested for defrauding the institution. In addition, the ZPCS lost $1, 8 million after two of its procurement officers inflated product prices and service charges.
Source - Sunday News
