THE Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) says it is currently investigating the manner in which some of the COVID-19 donations were disbursed.

Speaking when he featured on ZNBC TV2’s Morning Live programme, Wednesday, ACC public relations manager Timothy Moono revealed that the matter was being investigated to determine whether or not the donations reached the intended beneficiaries.

“Now, it is the aspect of accountability after you have received. But the accountability aspect is of major concern and, yes, we do work with all these stakeholders, the Auditor General’s office, and I may wish to inform you that, yes, we are investigating the manner in which some of these donations were disbursed out. So, we have a case which we are investigating to determine whether these things went out or were received to the end users or not. But I cannot go into detail, but, yes, we have taken interest, we are investigating and working with the Auditor General’s office and we are making sure that…you see, when accountability calls, it demands certain responsibilities that things that are received from the public are accounted and given to the rightful cause for which they were given,” Moono said.

“Yes, indeed, it is our mandate to take interest in anything that relates to transparency and accountability, and as such, with regards to donations that institutions receive and in particular here, we are talking about COVID, we have taken a lot of interest and like you rightly put it, there has been a lot of public interest in the manner these donations are disbursed after they have been received because what we anticipate or what the public anticipate is a lot of transparency when these donations are received. And for sure, we have seen some measure of transparency when anyone has made a donation regarding this cause to fight COVID, we have seen announcements, they come on television, there is transparency when these things are given to the public.”

And Moono said the fact that the Commission had in the first half of the year secured seven arrests and convictions was a huge achievement due to the complexity of corruption cases.

“So far, I can inform you that we have already made about seven convictions on a number of cases in corruption and we’ve also made over seven arrests between January and June. These are not mean numbers in the fight against corruption; they look small, but the gravity of the offenses that are involved and even just the nature of the corruption and its investigations, while they are a bit technical, but when you do have a conviction, it’s actually a success. So, by the end of the year, even when we reach 20, 30 convictions, it’s still a good number,” said Moono.