Public financial transparency and accountability of government revenues and expenditures in Zimbabwe

Zimbabweans are familiar with budget statement presented by the Minister of Finance in the parliament every year but unfortunately the public has never received detailed financial statements after expenditure. Zimbabweans usually know the amount which is allocated to certain ministries such as health, education social welfare but the public has never received financial reports detailing how the money was used. The lack of financial reporting means that the public has no information to make the government accountable. Accountability has been viewed since time immemorial as a channel for ascertaining the use of power by an individual or an organization that has been entrusted with the task of performing prescribed tasks (Premchand 1999).  Kautilya wrote a manual on bureaucracy before the Christian age, he observed that human nature was disposed to acquire public money for private gain. He wrote: “Just as it is impossible not to taste honey or poison that one may find at the tip of one’s tongue, so it is impossible for one dealing with government funds not to taste, at least a little bit, of the king’s wealth.” He added: “Just as it is impossible to know when a fish moving in water is drinking it, so it is impossible to find out when government servants in charge of undertakings misappropriate money.”

All government undertakings depend first on the treasury, therefore whosoever is in charge must devote best attention to it. Government revenues and expenditures must be recorded in a systematic way; and then subjected to audit.  The government must act in the public interest, the monies raised through taxation are allocated to public spending. Recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure such as spending on major infrastructure projects, such as roads and railways is done for the benefit of a country and its citizens. This responsibility obliges governments to discharge their accountability by demonstrating the manner in which they have effectively and efficiently used the resources at their disposal. Where governments have shortfalls between amounts raised through taxation and amounts outlaid as government spending, they raise funds through domestic debt or external debt. The lack of transparency, and accountability through financial reporting in Zimbabwe mean that it is not possible for the public to reliably assess whether the decision making by the government has been in the public interest. Some of the decisions made by the government of the day results in an opportunity cost where citizens in the future will pay for the mismanagement of today. Poor decision making may also include a short-term focus or, at worst, made in the self-interest of politicians and public servants who have incentives to operate in a particular fashion.

The 2017 National Budget proposed an allocation of US$1.35 billion towards health, social welfare and education Ministries under the Social Services and Poverty Eradication cluster. Zimbabwean citizens do not know whether the said amount was indeed allocated to the mentioned sectors and they do not get the details of how it was used. We are coming to the end of the year and the Minister of Finance will be back in parliament to present 2018 national budget statement and the public will get proposed expenditures for next year but however the 2017 expenditure report is not going to be made public. Citizens have a constitutional right to participate in access to information on the financial reports of government. The constitution of Zimbabwe states in Section 63 (1) that every Zimbabwean citizen or permanent resident, including juristic persons and the Zimbabwean media, has the right of access to any information held by the State or by any institution or agency of government at every level, in so far as the information is required in the interests of public accountability. The constitution also states in Section 298 (1a) that there must be transparency and accountability in financial matters and in 298 (1d) that the public funds must be expended transparently, prudently, economically and effectively.