Story by Farai Gwaze
THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has made strides in its mandate after recovering illegally obtained assets worth over US$130 million.
ZACC is determined to fulfill its mandate in line with constitutional obligations to aid advancement of national development strategies.
This comes after the anti-graft body has made strides in recovering illegally obtained assets worth millions of United States dollars, according to their 2022 report.
“We also have achievements when it comes to asset recoveries, we managed to send 32 case files to the NPA for unexplained wealth orders and civil forfeitures, which were amounting to a total of over USD$136 million. We are also an order which was granted last year pertaining to assets of the former CEO of ZINARA which we won a high court order, and we now have properties which were tainted as proceeds of crime including a percentage in an insurance company,” said ZACC Executive Secretary Ms Sukai Tongogara.
The commission’s joint operation with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has resulted in the recovery of 252 vehicles.
“We managed to do a joint operation with ZIMRA on the abuse of the civil servants rebate in 2023 where we were looking at over 3000 vehicles, just to verify whether these were imported lawfully and we managed to recover 252 vehicles which are under investigations and we’ve made several arrests of people who are actually in court now,” she added.
It also emerged the anti-graft body has recorded a 97 percent increase in cases referred to the National Prosecuting Authority.
“We referred matters 264 cases to the NPA, which is 97% increase from 2022 where we referred 134 cases, we made about 297 arrests and 76% of them were male. We also have a 71% conviction rate for the cases that went through trial in the magistrates’ court as well as the high court,”
ZACC is further convinced that it can do more with increased citizen awareness campaigns and a whistle blower framework for witness protection.
