HARARE-Higher and Tertiary Education deputy Minister Dr Godfrey Gandawa lashed out at failing and corrupt parastatal bosses while addressing a workshop on corporate governance in parastatals on Thursday, saying ‘illegal’ sanctions should cease to be cited as the reasons for non-performance.
Gandawa said government must disband or privatise all loss making parastatals as the enterprises cannot continue to be a liability to the state.
“Hard decisions must be made to either disband or privatize loss-making parastatals and state enterprises. They cannot be allowed to continue bleeding the economy when they have abandoned their mandates,” he said.
Dr Gandawa said illegal sanctions should cease to be cited as the reasons for non-performance.
He said the country requires boards and management wired to think solutions in an environment constrained by sanctions.
He singled out poor corporate governance, toxic leadership, corruption as the “evil triplets” negatively affecting the SOEs limiting their role as key enablers for economic development in the context of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Social and Economic Transformation.
“Today, the shame of corruption has engulfed most of our Government departments, local authorities, state enterprises and parastatals. This rot continues to erode public confidence in our institutions to the detriment of national development,” he said.