Section 12 of the Act gives ZACC additional functions, in particular the monitoring of procurement systems of public and private institutions. Note, incidentally, that the objective mentions corruption and fraud separately, indicating that Parliament did not regard all cases of fraud as necessarily involving corruption. This suggests that ZACC should concentrate on serious cases, not petty ones ‒ and in a later bulletin we shall deal with the different sorts of corruption that are legally recognised. “to promote the investigation of serious cases of corruption and fraud” Section 11 of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act sets out what it calls “the objects” of ZACC. įunctions of ZACC under the Anti-Corruption Commission Act Parliament did this for ZACC when it enacted the Anti-Corruption Commission Act in 2004. One further point is that section 342(2) of the Constitution gives all constitutional bodies, including ZACC, “all powers necessary for them to fulfil their objectives and exercise their functions.”Īnother point is that section 321(1) of the Constitution states that an Act of Parliament may confer additional functions on constitutional commissions. On the other hand, ZACC does not have power to prosecute criminal cases, but can only refer cases to the NPA for prosecution.ZACC can instruct the Police to investigate cases of corruption it does not have to do the investigations itself.ZACC can also combat “improper conduct”, which is not necessarily criminal conduct.Even though they may not be the same as corruption, ZACC can combat theft, misappropriation and abuse of power.Theft, misappropriation and abuse of power do not necessarily constitute corruption (otherwise they would not have been mentioned separately).ZACC can investigate and combat corruption and other improper conduct in the private sector as well as in Government.Several inferences can be drawn from the way the Constitution expresses these functions: to refer matters to the National Prosecuting Authority for prosecution.to direct the Commissioner-General of Police to investigate cases of suspected corruption and to report to the Commission on the results of any such investigation, and.to combat corruption, theft, misappropriation, abuse of power and other improper conduct in the public and private sectors,.to investigate and expose cases of corruption in the public and private sectors,.Section 255 of the present Constitution gives ZACC the following functions:
Its establishment was only formal, however, because no members were appointed until it was re-established in 2013 by section 254 of the present Constitution. ZACC was originally established as a constitutional commission in 2009 by the 19th amendment to the previous (Lancaster House) Constitution.
In this and subsequent bulletins we shall analyse ZACC’s functions relating to the investigation, prosecution and punishment of corruption and other criminal conduct, and see what if any limits the law imposes on those functions.
ZACC is a constitutional body, as we shall explain shortly, and like all other such bodies it can only exercise functions that are given to it by the Constitution or which Parliament confers on it through an Act of Parliament.
Many people would not regard that as corrupt conduct, and might wonder why ZACC was dealing with it. Some months ago, its spokesman said that ZACC would be working with the Police to clamp down on landlords who demand payment of rent in foreign currency in contravention of SI 213 of 2019.Ensuring that arrested suspects do not abscond seems more a job for the Police than for ZACC. Recently when the Minister of Health and Child Care was granted bail on a charge of criminal abuse of office, one of his bail conditions ‒ imposed presumably with ZACC’s consent ‒ was that he report regularly to ZACC.The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) seems to have extended its activities beyond simply investigating and combating corruption.
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