By James Muonwa, Mashonaland West Correspondent

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZAAC) is unable to eradicate the corruption scourge without the help of other stakeholders, particularly the general citizenry, a top government official has said.

Chief director responsible for corporate governance in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), Allen Choruma underscored the need for a multi-sectoral approach to curb the vice.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of an anti-graft trainers’ workshop held in Kariba this week.

Choruma said: “We have a variety of stakeholders at the workshop to ensure we have a wide spectrum of people who are involved because ZAAC, on its own, cannot drive the anti-corruption agenda without the full participation of the various stakeholders and members within our country.

“As you might recall, the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) was launched by the President in July 2020 and it is the national policy framework designed to fight corruption at all levels in our society, all the way to the community and family set up because corruption cascades to all sectors,” said Choruma, who is sub-committee co-chairperson of Pillar 3 of the NACS.

The main objective of the workshop was to craft integrity pledges that would be adopted for signing by all citizens as well as players in different economic sectors.

“An integrity pledge is a social contract whereby members commit to fight corruption. We will also come up with sector-specific pledges, say the education sector, the private sector, or political actors sector so that each sectoral pledge guides individuals and institutions under that sector.”

ZAAC is expected to approve the pledges and undertake massive provincial and district roll-outs of anti-graft training workshops, adoption, and signing of the pledges by individuals and organisations in the first quarter of 2022.

Added Choruma: “Pledges are not going to be effective if we just keep them in our files, but create an awareness that we have them at an individual and institutional level to fight corruption.”

Participants to the three-day event were drawn from the OPC, Public Service Commission (PSC), ZAAC, government departments, and agencies such as local authorities, civic society, and private sector players.

In a bid to show commitment to nip graft, Mnangagwa established the Special Anti-Corruption Unit (SACU) which falls under his office to combat the endemic.