In December last year, after the Zanu PF National People’s Conference
held in Gweru, the general populace applauded President Mugabe for
speaking loudly against corruption. It had been the general belief among
many Zimbabweans and our country watchers that when history is finally
written, his failure to fight corruption would blight his legacy.
From the editor’s desk Nevanji Madanhire
But for the first time Mugabe admitted that some of his ministers
were very corrupt. This was after he had openly rebuked the Zimbabwe
Republic Police and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority as the most corrupt
institutions in the country.
He told the gathered delegates he had been told by former South
African president Thabo Mbeki that his ministers demanded bribes from
prospective investors. His openness implied he knew by name the
ministers Mbeki implicated in rent-seeking.
But the time it has taken Mugabe to follow up on his Gweru statement has raised eyebrows.
The talking point last week was the US$6 million bribe Mugabe said
had been given former Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation chairman
Godwills Masimirembwa, by Ghanaian investors for them to get a mining
concession in the diamond fields of Marange.
Masimirembwa is not a minister and therefore was not part of those
Mugabe talked about in Gweru. The public waits with bated breath for
these ministers to be exposed. Many fear they might never be exposed
because exposing them might weaken his personal grip on power. They
argue Mugabe had been told about Masimirembwa’s illicit deal a long time
ago but he did not act because it would have weakened his and Zanu PF’s
election campaign.
They say if Masimirembwa had won the election in Mabvuku-Tafara on
July 31, Mugabe just might not have named and shamed him. He doesn’t
wish to lose any parliamentary seat at this delicate juncture when he is
fighting for legitimacy. They say this is the same reason he will not
expose those comrades of his who were mentioned in the Mbeki tip.
But, it seems the Masimirembwa debacle will have a domino effect. The
former ZMDC boss is a small fish in the corruption matrix. Many argue
that Masimirembwa could never have pulled off the whole deal without
godfather in the shadows, unless he had a very strong n’anga.
Interestingly, the president has put himself in some kind of fix. The
nation now expects him to name more names. The starting point should be
members of his team who have become stinking rich; he should ask
himself how they acquired their newfound wealth.
It is common knowledge that some of them are richer than whole
cities. Some huge projects mushrooming all over the country should
surely have raised his eyebrows.
What about the huge acquisitions by certain individuals such as
private jets and banks, shouldn’t they be probed a bit to prove their
cleanliness?
The scourge of corruption is all pervasive. It varies from small
amounts exchanging hands to real big money, such as the one exposed last
week.
On a recent Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception
Index, Zimbabwe was ranked 163 out of the 176 countries surveyed; that
should make every Zimbabwean bow his head in shame. The TI survey says
corruption is on the increase in the education, health and mining
sectors.
In the education sectors, needy children are denied the financial
assistance meant for them which is diverted to the rich. In the health
sector, nurses are denying people living with HIV and Aids
anti-retroviral treatment by selling the drugs on the open market
instead. And, in the mining sector licences are granted only to those
that would have paid kickbacks.
The education and health sector examples illustrate how evil
corruption can be; when a nurse watches a supposed legitimate
beneficiary of ARV drugs writhing on the floor dying, but diverts that
person’s drugs to someone else who can afford to pay for the same drugs
in drugstores, that surely is an act of evil. The same applies when an
official leaves an orphan without education while giving the money to
the child of a rich relative.
Many renowned researchers have failed to establish a link between
corruption and a country’s economic development, citing situations where
corruption has actually risen in tandem with economic development. But a
paper written by Paolo Mauro for the International Monetary Fund in
February 1997 titled Why Worry About Corruption? spells out the major
effects of corruption on a country.
The paper argues that:
In the presence of corruption, businessmen are often made aware that an up-front bribe is required before an enterprise can be started and that afterwards corrupt officials may lay claim to part of the proceeds from the investment. Businessmen therefore interpret corruption as a species of tax — though of a particularly pernicious nature, given the need for secrecy and the uncertainty that the bribe-taker will fulfill his part of the bargain — that diminishes their incentive to invest. Empirical evidence suggests that corruption lowers investment and retards economic growth to a significant extent.
Where rent-seeking proves more lucrative than productive work, talent
will be misallocated. Of particular relevance to developing countries
is the possibility that corruption might reduce the effectiveness of aid
flows through the diversion of funds. Aid, being fungible, may
ultimately help support unproductive and wasteful government
expenditures. Perhaps as a result, many donor countries have focussed on
issues of good governance, and in cases where governance is judged to
be especially poor, some donors have scaled back their assistance.
When it takes the form of tax evasion or claiming improper tax exemptions, corruption may bring about loss of tax revenue.
By reducing tax collection or raising the level of public
expenditure, corruption may lead to adverse budgetary consequences. The
allocation of public procurement contracts through a corrupt system may
lead to lower quality of infrastructure and public services.
Corruption may distort the composition of government expenditure.
Large projects whose exact value is difficult to monitor may present
lucrative opportunities for corruption. A priori, one might expect that
it is easier to collect substantial bribes on large infrastructure
projects or high-technology defence systems than on textbooks or
teachers’ salaries.
All this makes corruption a serious national security issue and is therefore the last frontier in Mugabe’s fight for his legacy.
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