Revelations coming out of the Air Zimbabwe scandal point to a disturbing collusion between ministers and parastatal heads in the looting of resources from quasi-governmental institutions and other entities that fall under the purview of line ministries.
NewsDay Editorial
AirZim seems to have lost millions of dollars through several scams that include the purchasing of aircraft spares, insurance and the award of business to companies linked to top executives and members of the board.
The intricate web revealed at AirZim cannot be unique to the national airline. The system seems to replicate itself across the board, if not across all ministries.
Looking at AirZim, an abuse of due processes is clear, and this begins right where it shouldn’t — in the minister’s office. Ministers are responsible for appointing members of boards of entities they overlook.
That means they should vet individuals’ business interests before appointing them to boards. Ministers should be able to say which individuals can serve which boards without there being any conflict of interest.
Ministers must also ensure that their appointees are of impeccable standing; that they do not have any criminal records and that they have run their business and personal affairs in a manner that stands up to public scrutiny.
When the boards are appointed, the minister should continue in his oversight role and ensure that corrupt activities are quickly exposed and those involved punished. But this oversight role begins to fail when the minister begins to see the parastatals as a means to personal riches.
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The collusion between ministers and those they have appointed to boards begins with the creation of shelf companies that are nefariously awarded tenders to supply goods and services to the parastatals. In most cases, ministers use their nephews, nieces and uncles to front them so that it becomes extremely difficult to expose any corruption.
But the AirZim debacle has shown the existence of criminal intent in the way money was moved from the airline to companies linked to members of the board. Conflict of interest is clearly defined, but this was evaded in the most childish manner.
When a board comes to vote on an important issue, it’s not enough that a member stands by the door while others vote and defines that as a recusal. What does it mean for one to recuse himself/herself from a process?
When should conflict of interest be declared? Surely it can’t be declared at voting time. There must be clear guidelines as to what board members can and cannot do. It must be an absolute no-no that the bank account of a parastatal of which one is chairman be held at a bank the same individual is chief executive officer. There can’t be any justification for this.
In exposing and fighting corruption in government and parastatals, ministers’ roles must now come to the fore. Ministers who have been compromised by corrupt activities in their ministry should face the music.
