Staff have revealed that the Office of the Auditor General is lacking resources to implement their duties during a media workshop program in Harare today.
Deputy Auditor General Nyasha Magadza told journalists that getting resources is a big challenge.
“When you look at the public sector, it’s decentralised to all corners of the country and as the auditors of the public sector we would want to reach each and every corner but sometimes we are constrained because of the resource aspect,” Magadza said.
Office of the Auditor-General met with journalists to present on the role of the office in Zimbabwe.
Besides resource constraints, workers in the Office of the Auditor-General revealed challenges due to brain drain and salaries.
Auditor General Mildred Chiri said some workers who are developing professionally are leaving her office due to low salaries.
Magadza said, “When you look at the entities that we audit there is an issue of brain drain and in brain drain you find that sometimes you don’t get (things) like financial statements at the time that we would want to carry out the audits so sometimes there is always pressure on us to meet our statutory deadline.”
Chiri also revealed that the Office of the Auditor General, which has 354 workers still need more staff to have 374 people.
Giving opening remarks during the workshop Chiri told that she derives her mandate from the National Constitution of Zimbabwe and it includes an audit of the central government, state enterprises, parastatals and local authorities.
“The nation looks upon my office to fulfill their expectations of giving assurance on the accountability of public resources by its public entities,” Chiri said.