We also realised that the contracts that UNIVERN was having with ZINARA were all in a way dubious because they did not come to do business with ZINARA through our procurement laws of this country. They were sending some unsolicited bids to ZINARA and at the end of the day, those bids were approved by ZINARA management. After the approval, then they would seek later on the approval of the procurement authorities of this country which we felt as a Committee that it was not right. They were supposed to get the authority first before they entered into some of these contracts. So, we have a feeling that these contracts were prejudicial to us as a nation that the money could not find its way to the road authority.
UNIVERN was again involved in the supply of the graders as well. The supply of these graders that made a lot of noise in our country was not suitable for our condition. When we interrogated the whole issue, we discovered that when UNIVERN tendered for these graders, they complied with the specifications of the tender but when they were about to supply; they supplied the wrong graders from the ones which were specified.
Again, the management and the board of ZINARA accepted that anomaly without necessarily raising that issue with the supplier. Under normal circumstances, if somebody has supplied you with the wrong item, the management of ZINARA was supposed to query to say this is not what we have tendered for. Above all, the terms of the conditions of supply of these graders were that they were supposed to get a certain percentage (30%) of the total value before supplying and the balance after they have supplied.
However, in the forensic report, we discovered that ZINARA over paid the contract amount with 1.2 million even well before UNIVERN had supplied the graders. It was clear that ZINARA could not follow through the contract terms and conditions. The supplier could not meet the deadlines to supply the graders. He supplied the graders seven months well after and the contract was providing that the supplier was supposed to be charged 1% for late delivery but all these charges were not placed by ZINARA.
On the issue of DBSA loan, the money that was used to resurface our Plumtree-Mutare Road, the deal on its face, was looking good but as we were interrogating, we realised that ZINARA could not also afford to repay DBSA loan. The major reason was that ZINARA could not collect enough money to pay back the loan because of the commission which was building up around the DBSA loan. These were picked by the forensic audit report that some of the commissions were not legitimate but there were commissions which were just factored in just as to fleece ZINARA. We do not know as of now if ZINARA is in a position to pay back that DBSA loan.
The idea was good, the money was disbursed in good faith but the officials were waiting for that big chunk of 206 million that was disbursed by DBSA so that they can take some of the little money and build some commissions around that facility which is making it very difficult now for ZINARA to pay back that loan.
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