AT least 74 officials at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) have been arrested on charges of corruption, it has been learnt.
Zimra chief loss control manager, Tapiwa Manyika told NewZimbabwe.com in an interview that perceptions that the tax collector is among the most corrupt institutions in the country are misplaced.
Manyika argued that the perceptions have been formulated because Zimra has been at the forefront of exposing the scourge within its ranks.
“We talk about it and people have decided to view us as corrupt because we talk more about it unlike other divisions, we are quite many stakeholders at the border but you rarely hear our colleagues speaking about corruption the way we do,” Manyika said.
“74 people from 2018 to date have been arrested for corruption. So it’s not that we are not doing anything about it and we have devised lots of tools to assist us in dealing with corruption.”
He added: “We go to an extent of publishing what is happening in the fight against corruption.”
Manyika said Zimra has put in place measures to curtail corruption including lifestyle audits.
“We are the pioneers of lifestyle audit policy in the country. We have got a working life style audit policy where we audit our officers on their income versus what they are spending and ask them to explain the difference and we have recovered properties through that policy,” he said.
“The other one is the asset declaration policy in which we ask all our employees to declare their assets periodically to update their asset registers. If you are caught with an asset which was not declared with the employer, you will be dismissed. You will not be asked to explain. You will be dismissed,” the Zimra official said.
Manyika also said some government employees from different departments working at ports of entry are mistaken for Zimra officials and their misdeeds are lumped on to the taxman.
