Minister Joram Gumbo
Tinashe Makichi Business Reporter
Government has instructed all parastatal boards under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure to fill vacant leadership posts in the next month as efforts to turn around fortunes of the state institutions gather pace.
Several parastatals under the Transport Ministry are being run by acting chief executives.
These include the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe, National Railways of Zimbabwe, CMED and Air Zimbabwe.
Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Joram Gumbo yesterday told The Herald Business that meetings were conducted with several parastatals in trying to come up with a lasting solution towards filling the vacant posts.
He said Parastatal boards have been tasked to advertise and fill the vacant posts in the next month.
“I conducted meetings with several parastatals under the ministry and a resolution was made that all vacant posts in parastatals should be occupied with requisite expertise as it remains improper to run such institutions with management in acting capacity.
“It is surprising that an institution like Air Zimbabwe has been running with an acting chief executive for such a long time. This makes it difficult to make critical decisions. Remember this is a national airliner I am talking about.
“I started by meeting the boards in order to understand the reasons behind conducting operations without substantive personnel and a decision was then reached that all senior vacant posts within parastatals should be advertised,” said Minister Gumbo.
Given the critical nature of State-owned enterprises in the economy, a delay in replacing chief executives who either have been fired or whose tenures expired takes a toll on operations of parastatals as almost all managers in acting capacity have failed to spearhead the turnaround of these organisations.
The leadership vacuum also triggers underhand dealings as there is a general lack of responsibility and accountability.
Minister Gumbo said an approach was also made to parastatals that had recently dismissed or suspended chief executives in trying to get concrete explanations on the events that unfolded before their dismissal.
“I approached the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe on the dismissal of Mr David Chaota. The reasons given to me and the ministry did not hold water and he was reinstated. As a person with a management background, it does not make sense for State institutions to run for such a long time without substantive leadership,” said Minister Gumbo.
Sometime this year Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Government is contemplating closing several loss-making parastatals which have been hindering economic recovery efforts through perennial dependence on the fiscus.
Parastatals are grappling with high overheads, inter-parastatal debts, and maladministration, under capitalisation, corruption and lack of good corporate governance which negatively impacted their operations.
In a functioning economy, parastatals have the potential to contribute 40 percent to the country’s gross domestic product.