IF the fight against corruption in this country had been a football match, surely, as a team, the nation would be down 10-nil with no prospects of recovery. Corruption is winning the match at an unprecedented scale. Apart from the everyday rhetoric and talk shops against the scourge, there seems to be nothing concrete happening on the ground to hold back the plague. The word “corruption” has assumed prominence in contemporary Zimbabwe more than at any other time. Corruption has crippled the country and its cumulative effect has been devastating, seen through the collapse of giant and promising companies. The country, tiny as it is, has been bled of millions and billions of dollars through corrupt deals. And, worse, corruption has cascaded into social life. I recall my late friend and legendary author Chenjerai Hove narrating an incident that took place near Kintyre Estates, as we sat on the window seat of a Bulawayo-bound coach. The driver of the coach had withdrawn wads of $20 billion (Zimbabwe) notes and handed them over to a police officer at a roadblock in full view of passengers. The author was not amused and protested against the corrupt deed, but fellow passengers ganged up against him insisting his protest would delay the journey. The police officer brazenly stashed the notes in his back pocket and the bus took off. Just about 150 metres from the roadblock, the bus burst a front tyre ending up in a maize field. The behaviour of the passengers sadly typifies societal behaviour today: Corruption has won social endorsement. People have become accustomed to it — justifying it, in essence.
Learnmore Zuze
While the national leadership preaches against vice during the day, it is one thing whether they have shown it through actions. Millions of United States dollars have been lost through corruption, while little regard has been given towards bringing culprits to book.
Seminars have been held; declarations have been made and posters splashed in the fight against corruption, yet the nation is hopelessly losing the war. Theoretical solutions, however, are not what the country needs. Zimbabwe can only cleanse itself of the leprosy of corruption if we see more action and fewer words. We have seen corporate malfeasance of unparalleled proportions, with top executives earning unimaginable amounts and others being suspended for corruption only to bounce back within months. The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, which should be a citadel of good corporate governance, has itself been hit by alleged corruption leading to the suspension of its chief executive, Gershem Pasi. At the other extreme, there is the raging saga of how the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) unprocedurally paid $5 million for the Gwanda solar project to Intratek Zimbabwe. These ZPC tenders are not reversible, meaning the power company has no mechanism in place to recover the money in the event Intratek defaults on the $200 million contract. Not much incentive has been given to whistleblowers, who would be very handy in unearthing corrupt deals sabotaging the economy. Also, while legislator Munyaradzi Kereke is likely to be branded as a man driven by vindictiveness in his allegations of shady deals at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe during Gideon Gono’s tenure, it would be worth the effort to scrutinise his assertions, but nothing has happened in that regard.
The anti-corruption laws in the country have not been effectively implemented despite the entire hullabaloo regarding vice. The fingerprints of corruption are virtually everywhere if we cared enough to stop it. The void statement that government has declared zero tolerance to corruption is actually an insult to Zimbabweans, who see, feel and endure the calamitous effects of large-scale corruption. It must now be time to walk the talk and to cease posturing. There are three internationally recognised ways of fighting corruption; namely, prevention, education and enforcement. The education part is what we dimly see in the campaigns, but what are critical now are the systems to be put in place in order to make the fight meaningful. An educational drive against corruption, without systems is a runaway horse. Indeed people have to be educated on what corruption is, but more importantly measures against corruption must be seen to be effected. Corruption, in essence, has thrived in Zimbabwe because of tolerance; culprits, at most, get away with a reprimand. The country simply does not have concrete actions to back the education; corruption cannot simply end with campaigns and posters, we have to get our hands dirty. Real zero tolerance means enforcement backed up by the other two pillars. There should actually have been a commission of inquiry set up to investigate the missing huge amount of $15 billion if we are truly pursuing zero tolerance to corruption. At this stage, results would be out by a special commission detailing graphically how that vast amount was not accounted for. That we can have such a huge amount unaccounted for is a clear indicator of our cosmetic approach to the fight against corruption. Unless our leaders walk the talk, the corruption menace will continue to flourish.
l Learnmore Zuze writes in his own capacity. Email: [email protected]
