The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) yesterday sent at least nine of its senior officers in the finance and information technology departments on forced leave to facilitate investigations into an alleged attempt to siphon close to $2 million from the tax collector’s coffers.
BY XOLISANI NCUBE
Zimra commissioner-general Faith Mazani told The Standard last night that the attempt to defraud the authority was uncovered late on Friday with at least three batches of transactions already being processed to a bank.
Although the Zimra boss said the authority had not yet established who was behind the scheme and was to benefit from the fraudulent transactions, workers in the finance department — including their head — as well as those in IT were sent home to allow for investigations to take place.
“We don’t know how it was supposed to happen, because I don’t have the modus operandi and I don’t know who was doing it,” Mazani said.
“What I am just happy about is that we managed to intercept somebody who was trying to transfer funds from a Zimra account into some, I will call them taxpayer, but I don’t know who they are — whether they are our suppliers or customers.”
Zimra last year underwent a forensic audit after the departure of former commissioner-general Gershem Pasi.
The audit revealed that the institution had weak systems, which made it vulnerable to corrupt activities
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Mazani,who has been at the helm of the institution for the past four months, said investigations were underway to establish the motive for the suspicious transactions and once that was cleared, those who would have been found clean were to bounce back and those caught on the wrong side would be dealt with according to the law.
“We would like to assure the nation and all the valued customers that Zimra continues to be dedicated to its mission of revenue collection and protect public resources,” she said.
“We are happy that it is actually our staff that identified the issue and we are happy that the efforts we are putting in place are bearing fruits.”
Mazani was hopeful preliminary investigations would expose people behind the attempted transaction by tomorrow so that all other systems would not be affected as investigators were working throughout the night.
She said the sending of staff on leave was to avoid collusion as well as to ensure that those investigating the matter had time and space to look at the Zimra systems without interference from anyone.
