Oversight without restraint
Parliament spent US$372,260 of public money renovating the private Borrowdale residence of Senate President Mabel Chinomona, using handpicked suppliers while repeatedly bypassing procurement requirements, according to the Auditor-General’s 2023 and 2024 reports.
Payments for luxury items — including curtains, beds, kitchen appliances and a perimeter wall — exceeded legal thresholds that require open tendering. Competitive bids were not invited.
Parliament defended the direct procurement on “artistic and qualitative” grounds.
The Auditor-General rejected this justification, warning that bypassing bidding restricts competition and may result in uneconomic procurement.
Neither Parliament nor the Senate President has publicly disputed the Auditor-General’s findings.
The reports do not allege theft. They expose something more fundamental: a governance failure inside the institution charged with enforcing accountability.
When oversight stops obeying the law, the failure is not dramatic. It is procedural. And it is documented.
