LOOTED ASSETS

…ZACC engages international experts to recover assets

HARARE- The Zimbabwe A n t i - Corruption Commission (ZACC) is engaging an international organisation to help track and recover assets illegally siphoned out of the country as it moves a gear up in the fight against corruption.

This initiative is under the asset recovery unit of the Commission, which is currently seized with 36 domestic applications for the forfeiture of assets worth about US$4.5 million.

The unit has been boosted by the establishment of the Unexplained Wealth Orders.

However, there are some assets hidden out of the country that should be recovered, prompting ZACC to engage an international organisation that will help investigating, tracing and the eventual recovery of such stolen assets.

This comes as there have been concerns that arrests alone on corrupt personalities are not enough as long as the assets are never recovered.

Although ZAAC Commissioner and spokesperson John Makamure could not give finer details of the international organisation and the terms and conditions of the agreement, he revealed this was one of the major initiatives being put in place to help the organisation fight corruption and being perpetrators to book.

“We need to recover assets hidden abroad, but as ZACC, we are not fully capacitated to investigate and trace them so we need to work with other organisations abroad.

“Now we are in agreement with an international organisation that specialises in asset recovery and we should be able to recover some assets from abroad acquired through corrupt means.

“Corruption has to be fiercely fought because of its devastating effects on the economy, it worsens public debt and there is a causal relationship between corruption and debt,” said Comm Makamure at the recent Zimbabwe Annual Multi-Stakeholder Debt Conference in Bulawayo hosted by the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development in conjunction with Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development.

Corruption has been identified as one of the problem affecting the country, economic growth and eventually lead to debt after the misappropriation of funds through corruption.

– THE HERALD, Zimbabwe.