‘Audit to reform, strengthen civil service’

 Our Political Editor, Clemence Manyukwe (CM), caught up with the Minister of Public Service Eliphas Mukonowes-huro (EM) to ask him about the objectives of the audit, its findings and other related issues.
Excerpts:
CM:  What is the purpose of the audit?
EM: The payroll and skills audit intends to achieve three objectives, as follows: a) To establish the integrity of the government wage bill; b) To establish the specific number of civil servants in post after the economic meltdown of the past few years, which led to public servants leaving the country seeking greener pastures and; c) To conduct a skills profile of the entire public service with a view to revealing the skills gap, which will constitute an agenda for a sustainable programme of capacity building in the civil service.
CM: Why is the audit important for the civil service?
EM: The audit is important because it is speaking in the context of physical stress; there is no money in the fiscus so the audit will enable government to plan effectively in terms of strategising a sustainable pack of remuneration.
CM: What are the preliminary findings of the audit?
EM: Right now, the audit is still a mobile process — we have not yet arrived at the stage where we can pronounce the findings, but as soon as findings are available, they will be presented to government, Parliament and the public. With regards to enumeration, this is largely complete.
However, there are a few civil servants who were not able to present themselves for enumeration owing to various legitimate logistical reasons. The audit also confronted a few challenges, mostly accessibility to certain pay stations, especially in the Midlands Province and parts of Masvingo Province. However, these challenges were largely overcome and did not adversely affect the process.
CM: When will the findings be made public?
EM: The payroll audit findings will be made public after Cabinet has considered them. They are expected perhaps at the end of this month or beginning of February.
CM: Is there any planned audit of the army and police?
EM: This is entirely up to government. If government believes there should be an audit of the armed forces, they can give the same mandate to the relevant ministries, as the one given to the Ministry of Public Service.
CM: Why did you settle for Ernst & Young India as the auditors?
EM: We did not settle . . . rather Cabinet approached the World Bank for technical and financial assistance. The World Bank readily agreed. Further, Cabinet insisted that the Ministry of Public Service engage an independent firm of auditors.
In this case, Ernst and Young India fulfilled the auditor requirements stipulated by the World Bank.
Ernst and Young India is an international firm that has a presence in many countries in the world. They are working with significant input from Ernst and Young Zimbabwe. This combination meets the expectations of the Cabinet.
CM: What are the roles of the World Bank and the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) in the exercise?
EM: The MDTF signifies a fund put together by a number of international donor organisations with a view to assisting the Government of Zimbabwe defray costs of pressing expenditures. One such expenditure is the payroll and skills audit being conducted by the Ministry of Public Service. The World Bank facilitated the release of funds for the MDTF. The role of the World Bank is to provide technical and fin-ancial assistance. They are not in any way involved in the actual audit being conducted by the Ministry of Public Service and Ernst & Young India.
CM: How did you arrive at the decision to appoint John Makumbe as chairperson?
EM: The audit was executed in various stages, and the Actionable Governance Indic-ators saw the World Bank providing technical assistance for the audit through ide-ntifying competent international firms. CGI Canada Mana-gement Consulta-nts were identified and other experts in this field were approached to work with CGI.
The ministry accepted that arrangement. It is in the context of other experts to CGI that John Makumbe (Zimbabwe), Charles Kinyeke (Kenya) and Dr Moses Tshundu (South Africa) were identified. The Ministry of Public Service, therefore, did not engage John Makumbe.
CM: What is the audit information going to be used for?
EM: It is important to state that the information generated by the skills audit will be useful for many years to come. It will be used to reform and strengthen the civil service in line with international best practices.
We expect to play a critical role in creating a civil service that is comparable to the best in the region, the continent, and internationally.