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Cde Sibanda

Nqobile Tshili Chronicle Reporter
ZIMBABWE National Liberation War Veterans’ Association chairman Cde Jabulani Sibanda yesterday said government should take stern measures against officials found engaging in corruption as failure to do so undermines the country’s socio-economic development.
He said the levels of corruption in the country were now a threat to the nation’s revolutionary ideology.  The war veterans’ leader said the country was lacking a viable mechanism to eliminate graft even after the media had played its part.

“The greatest threat to this nation is corruption more than foreign invasion,” Cde Sibanda said. “As war vets we are appealing to the President to protect our revolutionary gains and independence by inspecting his Cabinet.  You find out that a minister is fingered in corruption and is transferred to another ministry and within an hour in that new ministry he will be carrying on with his corruption activities.”

Cde Sibanda also demanded transparency in the handling of the country’s diamonds saying lack of accountability may be the major reason why the country was failing to clear its international debts.

He said government would not honour its promises to war veterans if there was no transparency in the handling of the country’s resources.

“Everyone in the country, from the President, ministers, and parliamentarians to even children is crying about corruption, but no one is taking action. What is disturbing about the levels of corruption is the inability of the State to deal with it,” he added.

Since December, the media has been exposing company executives who were paying themselves hefty salaries while their employees were languishing in poverty.  They have also highlighted many cases of parastatal heads flouting tender processes to enrich themselves.

For instance, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) boss Happison Muchechetere was getting $40,000 a month while his subordinates had gone for seven months without pay.

This resulted in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services suspending him and dissolving the ZBC board led by Cuthbert Dube.  Muchechetere is also accused of inflating the price of an Outside Broadcast van that ZBC bought from China.  It is suspected that he pocketed the difference that runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Similar malpractices have also been cited at Zesa, NSSA and Dube’s PSMAS.
In a bid to curb corruption in the parastatals the government recently prescribed a maximum salary of $6,000 for the institution’s bosses.

Lawmakers are contemplating to constitute a committee that would investigate graft at all State-run firms. On the other hand Cabinet recently came up with a new framework on State enterprises and parastatals aimed at improving accountability.  As part of the new measures permanent secretaries have been banned from sitting on the boards of parastatals.