MUTARE– The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) has urged government to implement adaptive policies, responsive to macro-economic challenges facing the country.
ZIMCODD is monitoring the use of public funds across the country through Community Resource Monitoring Agents (CORAs) trained to collect data and monitor developments on the ground.
In a new publication Public Resources Management Situational Report for May 2021, ZIMCODD said CORA agent findings shows a decline in social service provision as well as poop public resource management from 54 districts across Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces.
Across districts, the findings of the survey show that effective management if public resources is failing because of the lack of political will to prioritize principles of transparency and accountability.
ZIMCODD said such adaptive and inclusive governance process will help the government to monitor, evaluate and learn from the failures of the policy trajectory it has failed like the austerity measures.
“There is an urgent need for policy reforms that put the people of Zimbabwe at the centre of economic governance, in particular public resource management in order to realize meaningful development at local and national levels.
“Zimbabwe needs strong political will and commitment to effectively deal with corruption in its multi layered dimensions,” said ZIMCODD.
Corruption, financial mismanagement of public resources are the centre of Zimbabwe protracted economic challenges, effectively curtailing residents access to social services delivery said ZIMCODD.
In spite of publicly acknowledging corruption, there has been no legal action against perpetrators, as oversight bodies like the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) also appears weak.
ZIMCODD said citizens and communities also appear ignorant of the processes of use, allocation and distribution of public resources, including the due diligence processes of selection, feasibility and tendering.
“There is need for government to demonstrate political will to arrest and prosecute perpetrators and guarantee the independence of responsible oversight institutions.
“Civil society actors and communities should deepen their knowledge in public resource governance and strategies to demand transparency and accountability from duty bearers in the mobilisation, allocation and distribution and reporting on public resource use,” read part of the Sit Rep.
The reports also presented aggregate community rating on general service delivery, health and wellness, quality of road infrastructure and natural resource extraction. Across the board communities complained, showing a positive correlation on how resources are managed and asocial services delivered, said ZIMCODD.
“All districts largely rated access to public resources as poor… Access to public resources by women was rated poor in 52% of the districts, and fair in 38% of the districts. 85% of the districts rated access to public resources as poor while only 13% of the districts rate the same as fair.
“This illustrates that access to public resources by different groups is generally poo and worse for the most venerable groups such as the elderly and People with Disability (PWDs),” read part of the Sit Rep.
