Blessing Nduku & Savious Madanhire
Honourable Brian Dube, a renowned advocate for transparency and accountability is taking his crusade against corruption to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) following his meeting with the SADC Chairperson His Excellency Emmerson Mnangagwa at the State House last week.
As the SADC Anti-corruption Committee continues to strengthen its mechanisms to combat corruption, Hon Dube’s involvement is expected to bring fresh perspective and renewed energy to the fight.
Hon Dube explained his background, experiences in the field of anti-corruption, and motivation towards fighting corruption.
“As a lawyer, I took an oath in 2004 to abide by the laws of Zimbabwe, to promote and fulfill the objectives of the country’s laws.
Therefore on that basis, I must make sure that the legality or lawfulness of everything and every transaction is in place.
“The motivation for me to fight against corruption is that corruption is a threat to human rights and development hence on that basis as long as we want to see human rights
fulfilled including secondary rights such as the rights to development, housing, transport and other economic rights which people are entitled to, it becomes apparent that the need to fight corruption cannot be separated to the need to promote human rights.
Dube went on to explain the significance of the SADC law on Public Financial management and how it aims to improve finances in the region.
The model law is designed as a template in terms of which countries may review their statutes to see compliance mainly on the first aspect that we deal with is the empowerment and the independence of the office of the Auditor General including allocation of resources to make sure that they function properly, adequate offices and adequate staff and the model law proposes that at least 2% of the national budget be allocated towards the Auditor General’s office and that the office of the Auditor General have independent employees and not staff from government who can go and work there.
The second relates to empowering the functioning of the audit reports themselves, the law must be clear about what happens when someone does not comply with the audit recommendations, and there must be consequences for that, but currently, there is nothing, the laws are silent about that, the model law indicates that there must be clear disciplinary measures, you cannot transfer one permanent secretary from one ministry to another because you are transferring problems.
If they fail to comply with the audit recommendations should be relieved from their duties.
Hon Dube expressed the main key issue of anticorruption and its importance in ending corruption.
“I think one of the key issues on anti-corruption also relates to whistle-blower protection and the model law then gives a clear mandate to nations in SADC to enact whistle-blower laws to make sure that those people who help by giving information are protected.
It also talks about the view of laws relating to local authorities and local governance because this is where the majority of government money and activities are channeled and we need to empower those institutions in terms of strong internal audit systems.
So that they don’t wait for the Audit Office to come but they must have strong internal audit systems that can detect things before they get out of hand.”
Dube expressed his gratitude towards the engagement he had with the chairman of SADC and how fruitful it was at the end.
“I’m happy that the president was keen and if you check even in terms of the picture the banner we united and agreed with the president, especially on that aspect. In as much as we don’t agree on many other issues possible on this one we agree.
However, we indicated to him that we expect that as the SADC chair we expect him to champion this and we agreed that Zimbabwe must host the Anti-corruption Conference while he’s still the chairperson of SADC which means this year 2025 we must have that where all stakeholders come in and have pledges and commitments to fight against corruption.”
Honourable Brian Dube was a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Zimbabwe and is the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Honours Degree (UZ) and a Master’s Degree in International Criminal Justice (LLM-ICJ) (OUT).
He is currently a trainer of the society. Mr. Dube is a former Midlands Regional Executive Chairperson and National Legal Advisor of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (NANGO)
