daniel chigunwe
In the battle against corruption and abuse of special schemes, the Government has been relying more and more on checks and audits to ensure that those benefiting from any special scheme have followed the rules and conditions in full.
So small-scale farmers wanting to benefit from Pfumvudza/Intwasa have to show an extension officer that they have the land and have dug their holes before they get their inputs.
There are similar checks further up the scale for those benefiting from Government guarantees to banks, that land has to be ploughed before the tranche of the loan to buy inputs and then the crop planted before the next tranche. This is all simple prudence.
One of the schemes to help State employees was the provision for laid down groups of long-service civil servants, that included the uniformed services and the medical and judicial services as well as the public service, to be allowed to import a vehicle for personal use without paying import duties.
Top ranks, who have an exclusive vehicle supplied by their employer for personal and official use, were excluded.
But that left many thousand State employees now able to afford a vehicle and a system was put in place to certify those wanting to use the scheme to bring in a personal vehicle and pass on the required details to Zimra so the duty would be waived.
Many benefited and the scheme is considered a critical component, along with other pro-employee schemes, of the Government efforts to retain skilled and experienced employees at no direct cost to the budget or the taxpayer.
Even the waiving of the duties was not a serious indirect cost as most of the vehicles would not have been imported if the civil servants had to pay the duties.
There were obvious conditions, among them that the vehicle imported had to be for the sole personal use of the applying civil servant and their immediate family and had to be kept for at least three years.
Again this was not an imposition that a majority would want to argue with as all they wanted was their own car at a price they could afford.
But from the beginning there was some abuse, and there have been criminal trials already with others pending.
One involved car dealers finding civil servants who did not want their own import and who were ready, for a cut of the saved duty, to let their name go forward for an approved import that the dealer or some customer of the dealer would pay for and keep.
Less blatantly, others would use their own money to import the car or pick-up and then, once it was cleared, sell it. In both the scams the vehicle would have to be registered in the name of the qualifying civil servant, at least for the initial compulsory period, but the beneficial owner would be the person who bought it off the dealer or civil servant, and no doubt there would be private documentation that would allow a legal change of ownership once the civil servant was allowed to legally sell the car.
Zimra quickly saw the need to check up on the imports, and quite rightly so, and so asked civil servants to present their car to a Zimra officer who could check that the vehicle still existed and had the same registration plates, engine and chassis numbers and the correct registration book.
This would not take long and Zimra seemed ready to make arrangements for civil servants outside major centres.
The police were happy to cooperate and the Commissioner-General ordered all police officers who benefited from the scheme to bring in their cars for checking, a minor routine matter.
But 19 officers in Mashonaland West instead fought an unsuccessful legal battle in the High Court to prevent Zimra checking their cars. They lost in the end, and there is suspicion that they went to the significant expense of hiring a lawyer and fighting a legal battle because they no longer had the cars to be checked.
They lost as the High Court agreed Zimra had the legal right to physically check any imported goods, and not just rely on documents as the 19 police officers wanted, and additionally had the right to seize goods if they were legally liable for seizure, such as being smuggled or improperly imported.
Zimra obviously need the inspection right, since documents quite often in criminal matters tell a totally different story from what physically exists.
We support Zimra checking the vehicles brought in under the rebate scheme.
It might be a very minor nuisance for the honest, perhaps even an hour or two to drive to the relevant office and then have everything checked out, but then that civil servant is completely in the clear and certified as being honest, which might well help when they qualify for a replacement car.
The dishonest can also be named and action taken against them, starting with the payment of the waived duties and penalties for Zimra plus any disciplinary action thought appropriate by their superiors.
We think that this formal auditing can be extended to other schemes at no real cost to anyone.
Pfumvudza farmers already have to show their holes before getting free inputs, and we see no problem if the extension officers, as they move around on their routine patrols, check that the farmers used those inputs and then turn in those who possibly sold them.
There are Presidential livestock schemes to help small-scale farmers get ahead, and again it is easy to check if the cow or goat or chickens are still around, or at least have been replaced by the farmer rather than just sold without replacement.
There are schemes that deal with housing and stands and other special benefits. We think it is quite just that those who benefit can be asked later to show that they have followed the required rules and regulations. For the honest this can quite often be a matter of minutes, but the dishonest are then exposed and can subject to the appropriate action.
More importantly for the majority, the audits can certify that beneficiaries are in fact benefiting and allow the Government to keep the schemes in place and build them up so they get better and better, and that is even easier to do if the dishonest are weeded out.
daglous masveta
