The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) has fired seven cashiers at Flamingo tollgate in Gweru while eight other cashiers at the same post resigned after they were caught stealing millions of dollars.
This was revealed by Acting ZINARA chief executive officer Gilfern Moyo while addressing a Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) – ZINARA roundtable dialogue and training workshop for ZINARA integrity committee members in Gweru on Thursday, 30 June. Said Moyo:
At Flamingo toll gate in Gweru, we were faced with a theft scandal involving millions of dollars.
Seven cashiers were dismissed after they were found guilty of the counts they were facing.
Eight of them resigned before the internal process commenced while two were acquitted at the end of the internal process.
Moyo commended ZACC for having alerted ZINARA of the misappropriation of funds that was taking place at the tollgate. He said:
ZINARA instituted thorough investigations after receiving a tip-off from ZACC last year that some employees stationed at the Flamingo tollgate in Gweru were abusing the ZINARA prepaid cards.
That is the partnership we are looking for and that is why we have the integrity committee in place. We don’t condone corruption.
Moyo also revealed that ZINARA was increasing surveillance at tollgates in order to curb the leakage of funds. Said Moyo:
We are beefing up the ICT department, we have installed CCTV at tollgates but at times we are shocked to find some disconnected at tollgates.
The reason given is that when there is a power outage, they fail to get them running.
Statistics have shown that where CCTV is not functioning or where there is a manual tolling system, revenue inflows plummet drastically and that is why we need to computerise operations.