Over 10 000 youths illegally recruited – November 2009

A special audit report on ministerial accounts has exposed gross abuse of state resources by top government officials and the unlawful recruitment of over 10 000 youths during the countdown to last year’s violent presidential election run-off.

In a damning report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, Mildred Chiri, for the first quarter of the 2009 financial year, irregularities and inadequacies in the payroll administration in several ministries were revealed.

The Ministry of Youth Development was singled out as the worst case of abusing government recruitment procedures when it employed 10 277 youths between May and June 2008 without the existence of posts within the ministry’s establishment.

The youths were deployed throughout the country as ward officers in what Chiri said was a violation of a treasury instruction that stated “no officer shall be appointed unless an appropriate vacancy exists and no unestablished officer shall be appointed for specific work unless adequate provision has been made for the purpose”.

“In terms of the authorised establishment supporting the 2008 Budget estimates, the ministry had an establishment of 144 youth officers,” reads the report. “This was based on the criteria that there would be two youth officers in each of the country’s 72 districts.”

In a clear violation of Treasury Instruction 1101, in May and June 2008 a further 10 277 names were added to the ministry’s payroll. Although no provision had been made in the estimates, a decision had been taken to the effect that the additional appointees would be deployed up to ward level throughout the country and designated as ward youth officers.

Between May and June 27 — the day of the presidential run-off — there was widespread political violence in the country. The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC alleged that close to 200 of its supporters were killed and thousands tortured and injured by Zanu PF youths, war veterans and state security agents.

The audit said public service appointment procedures were flouted as there were no public advertisements for vacant posts, no offers of appointment and no letters of engagement issued.

“The appointment process was unprocedural as evidenced by the following irregularities: duplicated names and surnames with the same ID, individuals appearing in two ministries, no appointment documents, same date of birth for most employees and same bank account used for paying employees-imprests accounts,” reads the report.

Minister of Youth Saviour Kasukuwere confirmed seeing the report but said it had a lot of inaccuracies. “I saw the report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General which is based on her own findings,” Kasukuwere said. “We are still studying the report as we feel that there are a lot of inaccuracies. The ministry’s accounting officer is looking at all the issues raised and carrying out our own investigations. Once we have completed this, we will make an official response.”

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