I cried when I read the Covid-19 Special Audit Report: Dube

By Karen Nyeraurombo

Public Accounts Committee chairperson Brian Dube says when he read the Covid-19 Special Audit Report that was done by the Auditor General, he cried due to the level of mismanagement of funds.

The special report was recently tabled in Parliament to highlight the utilization of resources in fighting Covid-19 as required by law.

However, in an interview, Honourable Dube said when need to be strong to go through the whole report.

“When I read through the special report, I just found myself having tears on my face. It is one item that you need to be very strong to go through and actually complete it without crying.

“It is a confirmation of the continued nightmare for the people of Zimbabwe arising from corruption, abuse of resources and even lack of transparency on the part of those responsible.

“It’s actually a confirmation that as a matter of fact the people that have responsibility over our resources do not even care about the beneficiaries. They care more about themselves, and they care more about their stomachs,’’ he said.

Providing relief was a noble idea

Honourable Dube added that giving people relief was noble, but it was affected by those with corruption tendencies.

“What is disturbing to hear is that you hear for the first time that the government program was very ideal and noble in terms of what it intended to achieve because the Covid-19 pandemic actually disrupted the way of life for all of us. And it has made some groups of people from classes to be most vulnerable.

“But unfortunately, because of the culture of the people, thinking that public resources are their personal resources, we see that a lot of resources did not even go to the targeted people.

“What is most disappointing is that most of these people who were supposed to benefit were actually in serious poverty. Some of us were using personal resources to cover up part of the gap and you are shocked now that they actually were supposed to have benefited”-