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The Government is today expected to name and shame the people and companies who externalised money and assets as the three-and-a-half-month window for them to repatriate the resources elapses.

As corruption and laxity in enforcing the law took root over the past few years, the wealthy among them senior politicians and those connected to them externalised huge sums of money. This was happening as the foreign currency shortage in the country deepened, leaving the economy struggling to import critical requirements such as medical drugs, fuel and so on.

Noting the adverse impact of the crime to the economy, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a few days after his inauguration last November, gave the externalisers three months to repatriate the assets in terms of the Presidential Powers (Temporary) Measures (Amendment of Exchange Control Act) regulations, SI 145 of 2017 gazetted on December 1, 2017. When the deadline expired on February 28, after around $250 million had been returned, he extended the moratorium to today.

More than $1 billion is known to have been spirited out of the country in a total of 1 166 cases. By Friday, around $300 million had been returned, President Mnangagwa said. Around $680 million that had been stolen from the economy is still tied in foreign-held assets and may not return home easily.

It was a good decision to take for the Government to demand the money to be back to where it belongs and we are pleased that $300 million has been returned home. The nation eagerly awaits the big announcement today, those who stole from the economy being named and shamed.

“Those who had taken money out of the country, those who bought properties outside the country, I said they must bring the funds back. I gave them three months,” said President Mnangagwa said while addressing Zanu-PF supporters at a rally at Lortondale Primary School in Bubi, Matabeleland North on Friday.

“We have 1 166 cases of externalisation, now we have three categories, one category has brought in the cash. We thank them, we won’t publish their names. They have brought in nearly $300 million. Then second category, we are negotiating on how they will bring back the money tied on properties or securities outside the country, we are still working out how they will bring back the money and those too we won’t publish their names. The money is in the range of $680 million. We are discussing on a case by case basis how those funds can be repatriated.

“There are those who have remained quiet, we are saying come and talk to us and we agree on how they should return the money but they remain quiet. On the 19th of this month we will expose those ones and the amounts they externalised, we have their names in our files. This is part of my last warning to those who have externalised, big or small, the law levies everybody.”

We are together with the Government in this and expect that the culprits are exposed today. One’s political or social status must not shield them from being named if indeed they externalised funds.

The Government and especially the President himself, has given warnings from time to time, urging the looters to return money that should have been kept here all along. We have no doubt that 14 weeks is long enough for someone who acknowledged their crime to transfer the money back home. Therefore, there can be no excuse that the period given was too short for the repatriation to be done. Local banks are closely integrated to the global system thus it will not take a week for any money resident abroad to be routed here. With the new technology, it takes only minutes for the money to reflect in a local account.

We applaud those who returned the money, $300 million as the President said on Friday.  We do this, we must state, with a lump in the throat, clapping hands of appreciation for a thief who returns his loot. Why did he steal in the first place? Did he not know what the law says on resources earned from business activities conducted locally? This being a crime for the wealthy, well connected and knowledgeable; the looters obviously know what the law says.

However, they will benefit from their “honesty.”

But for the stiff-necks who, on top of externalising money, did not see it honourable to heed the Government’s call to return it, we demand justice. And their blameworthiness is greater because first, they sent money abroad without authorisation which is a punishable crime on its own. Second, they refuse to listen to the Government’s order for them to correct their ways.

They deserve their punishment as corruption has become a way of life in our country. Through their activities, the looters are actually frustrating economic development. That cannot be allowed to continue when the economy and the poor, who work hard to improve themselves, suffer.

President Mnangagwa has shown over the past few months that his administration abhors corruption. To that extent, many have been arrested for it and their cases are before the courts.

Today is indeed yet another moment for the Government to restate its no-nonsense stance against corruption.