by Shongedzai Mugwagwa

Minister of Energy and Power Development, Dr Joram Gumbo has today extended the Zimbabwe Energy Supply Authority (ZESA) top managers mandatory leave with three more weeks pending the submission of a report from a forensic audit initiated by Government through the PricewaterhouseCoopers (Pwc) Forensic Auditors.

Speaking to the Harare Post, Dr Gumbo said that Pwc has compiled its report into the allegations of gross misconduct and corruption in ZESA and is supposed to table it before the Minister on, 17 January 2018.

“About 15 top managers in ZESA Holdings and its subsidiaries were last year put on forced leave to pave way for the investigations and forensic audit into the parastatal. The forced leave expired on, Friday 4 January 2018 and therefore, the Managers were supposed to have reported for work this week.

“The audit has been going on and it was felt that sending senior staff members on leave would enable junior employees to release critical information to the auditors without fear of their superiors,” said DR Gumbo.

Minister Gumbo also said, “It is not possible for the managers to return back to work before the results from Pwc are tabled before them and without further actioning on appropriate action based on the findings.”

Sources within Pwc privy to the highly confidential report into ZESA told this publication on condition of anonymity that a lot of top managers are implicated into the report and has predicted that if the responsible authorities are to follow Pwc Auditors’ recommendations; heads are expected to roll.