By Anyway Yotamu
Legislators have expressed admiration for the strides made by local universities and polytechnics through Innovation Hubs calling on the government to allocate more funding to support the nation’s innovation drive.
This comes after the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee led by chairperson Chalton Hwende embarked on a nationwide tour of higher and tertiary education institutions to assess how COVID-19 funds were utilised in producing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and sanitisers.
Speaking after touring the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo, Hwende commended the institutions for their ingenuity and effective use of public funds.
“As a committee, this is our last tour. We started on Sunday in Harare, we visited the University of Zimbabwe, Harare Institute of Technology, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Midlands State University in Gweru and Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo. We are here today at National University of Science and Technology.
“I must say that as a committee, we are quite impressed with the work being done in all the Innovation Hubs that we visited. We are on a mission to check whether there was value for money over the money that government invested during the COVID-19 era,” he said.
Hwende noted that the government’s emergency injection of funds during the pandemic had paid off.
“As you are aware, when COVID hit us, we were not prepared, so government released money to various institutions of higher learning for the purposes of producing masks, sanitizers, and other essential items. After that, the Auditor General is mandated by the Constitution of Zimbabwe to do a value for money audit, just to see whether the resources that were deployed were used properly and whether there was value for money.
“I must confirm that indeed, from what we have seen, there was value for money. For example, here they received about ZWL$3 million and they managed to grow that ZWL$3 million by 47 times,” he said.
The NUST Innovation Hub is now running a fully operational apparel factory employing numerous people and engaging students on industrial attachment programs.
Hwende highlighted the importance of maintaining such projects post-COVID.
“So, you can see that they are doing very well. Now we are looking at the sustainability of the projects post-COVID. They have introduced a new range of projects. Their apparel factory is up and running, employing a lot of people. A lot of students are engaged in attachment as well.
“However, we urge government to put more resources towards innovation hubs so that we can reduce our import bill as a country, and we will be pointing those areas in our report when we table the report in Parliament sometime next week,” said Hwende.
The committee also visited local municipalities and other tertiary institutions under the broader review of two critical reports: “Value for Money for Local Authorities 2023: Management of Revenue Generating Properties by Local Authorities” and the report on the “Utilization of COVID-19 Funds under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education.”
The visits were aimed at giving legislators a comprehensive understanding of how public resources were deployed and managed in response to the Auditor General’s findings.
The Hwende-led committee is expected to present its final report to Parliament this week.
