Civil service audit to begin November, but will exclude army

By Lance Guma
18 November 2009

Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro has announced that the coalition government will this month begin an audit of the civil service, to weed out ghost workers. The audit follows reports over the months that tens of thousands of workers were on the public service payroll, despite not doing anything.

In an interview with Newsreel, Mukonoweshuro said the audit would not cover members of the security forces because they did not fall under his ministry. The Public Service Ministry had sought permission from cabinet to carry out the audit and this would be restricted to the state workers covered by his ministry.

In April Newsreel broke the story that 29 000 youth militia loyal to ZANU PF were still on the payroll and listed as civil servants. Youth Development Minister Savior Kasukuwere was quizzed in parliament over the matter and claimed most were youth officers, employed to work in the different wards around the country.

This was despite clear evidence the youths were used during election time to harass, beat up and torture opposition activists. Receiving US$100 a month per head, the militia were draining US$3 million each month from the budget.

In May it was then revealed that other civil servants were receiving multiple salary payments. The revelations led to a freezing of payments to hundreds of civil servants while some had their contracts terminated. An audit, started by Public Service Commission Inspector General,, Clifford Matorera, exposed how some nurses, soldiers and other civil servants in the Youth, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Legal Affairs Ministries, were paid up to 5 salaries each month. Some of the civil servants implicated say their names were used, but they never received the money themselves.

The new minister Mukonoweshuro, who is from the MDC, promised a
clean-up of the payroll to weed out the ghost workers. He said the audit would begin on the 23rd November and end on the 18th December.

"The idea is that government can vouch for the integrity of the payroll, audit staffing levels and eradicate irregularities if any. The audit is not in any way or in any form a witch hunt. If mistakes are found we want, as government, to stand up and have the courage to look up to those mistakes,” he said.

Money for the audit is coming from a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank. With over 200 000 people employed by government, most of them teachers, the auditors have their work cut out trying to root out ZANU PF functionaries deliberately put on the payroll under a patronage and reward system.

But Mukonoweshuro told us they had put in place an instrument that would ensure no name appeared twice on the payroll.