EDITORIAL COMMENT: Spare no sacred cows in fight against corruption, illicit dealings Mr Acie Lumumba

AS Zimbabwe intensifies a crackdown against corruption and general malfeasance in Government, it is important that it spares no one, in spite of their station in the bureaucracy, so that a message is sent loud and clear that the new dispensation is dead serious about turning around the fortunes of the country.

Corruption has been gnawing away at the very root of this nation’s soul for a long time and has stymied previous efforts to resuscitate the economy with greedy individuals sabotaging efforts to put the country back on track through their nefarious dealings. In the First Republic, there was a lot of bark but no bite when it came to bringing culprits involved in corrupt activities to book.

A lot of threats were made against bigwigs involved in illicit dealings but none of them were ever brought before a court of law. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has vowed to end all that and in the short period he has been at the helm, a number of former Cabinet Ministers and senior Government officials have been hauled to court on an array of charges involving corruption.

The President has correctly identified graft as the nation’s number one enemy and made it his priority as he embarks on the arduous journey of making Zimbabwe a middle income economy by 2030. While police have accounted for a number of small fish such as osiphatheleni and other low level officials involved in the illicit black market trade, President Mnangagwa has warned that the net is closing in on the bigwigs driving the parallel market.

In the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the crackdown against corruption has to target both “tigers” and “flies” —powerful leaders and lowly bureaucrats — for it to be successful. Scandals involving highly placed leaders, day-to-day incidents of minor corruption and the sheer inefficiency or negligence by local cadres are among the most potent sources of public discontent, he said. “We must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials and also earnestly resolving the unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems which happen all around people,” President Xi said in a speech to mark his ascendancy to the helm of the world’s second biggest economy in 2013.

Writing in his weekly column in The Sunday Mail, President Mnangagwa wondered how illicit dealings were escaping authorities despite most transactions being handled electronically. “Considering that more than $9 billion is passing through different electronic platforms and leaving an ‘electronic trail’, it is inconceivable that these illicit transactions have and can ever go on undetected or unnoticed. It simply cannot be,” he said.

The answer could lie in the alleged involvement of senior managers at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe who were on Monday suspended indefinitely on allegations of corruption. Messrs Mirirai Chiremba (Director Financial Intelligence), Norman Mataruka (Director Bank Supervision), Gresham Muradzikwa (Head of Security) and Azvinandawa Saburi (Director Financial Markets) were sent packing after Ministry of Finance and Economic Development Communication Taskforce chair, Mr Acie Lumumba, blew the whistle through a series of Facebook Live exposes on Sunday evening.

Mr Lumumba accused the four managers of fuelling the foreign currency black market by supplying dealers with bond notes and corrupt allocation of foreign currency. “Muradzikwa has more money in his bank account than all his bosses … I do not believe Mangudya is involved,” he said.

“The five RBZ directors have made Mthuli’s life impossible. I will not allow that. This country is being run by a cartel and Minister Ncube is going to break that cartel. This cartel is being run by Queen B. I used to go to Kasukuwere’s house and Queen B was always there. Queen B gave us the money for the Amai Mugabe rallies.” He, however, did not name the person he referred to as Queen B. The country has been facing cash and foreign currency shortages although the money is awash on the parallel markets.

Questions have also been raised on the source of the bond notes on the black markets as some of the dealers have been seen with brand new notes. In that regard, we welcome the suspension of the RBZ managers as this will allow for unfettered investigations to be conducted at the apex bank.

We also call on authorities to widen their net and account for all the culprits involved in driving the illegal parallel market which has wreaked havoc in the economy. President Mnangagwa must not spare anyone in this crusade because the future of the nation and its citizens is at stake.

People who seek to profit from illicit dealings are selfish, dishonest and cruel. Zimbabwe cannot be held to ransom by a few greedy and corrupt individuals.

The parallel market is the source of the turmoil in the economy and it should be dismantled.

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