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Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

They held down leadership positions — as their current accomplices do — masquerading as “servants of the people” and with shrill voices renditioned “God bless Zimbabwe …” while behind the nation’s back, they blued billions of dollars out of the country to banks in foreign safe havens to munch while millions of Zimbabweans suffer want.

It is now officially known that as much as US$7 billion was siphoned out of the country by former leaders and other worms still wriggling among unsuspecting patriots while no doubt scheming further impoverishment of the economy of the country where industries have shut down due to obsolete machinery or have resorted to using costly generators due to problems in power supplies, not to mention other difficulties the country is experiencing as a result of inadequate money.

The stolen billions that the Government is now trying to have repatriated would certainly have gone a long way in easing the challenges that the country is facing and one hopes that much or all of the loot will be returned home to help speed up the country’s economic recovery.

It is also no doubt the hope of law abiding and patriotic Zimbabweans that those involved in the crime in point will be brought home, if in self exile, to face the wrath of the law here.

Also, if no law already exists, one might have to be passed to empower the Government to seize and sell the properties of those involved in externalising the country’s resources and use the money to build more secondary schools and health centres in rural areas in particular in addition to building roads and more dams to conserve water for Command Agriculture.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission should ferret out and pounce on thieving leaders hibernating among law-abiding citizens and cause them to spill the beans so that they are brought before law courts to tell about their own involvement in the externalisation of stolen money for safe keeping in foreign bank accounts.

Former leaders who stole money and may now be in exile are a big risk as they are wont to de-campaign the present government along with this country’s external enemies, to remove it from power so they may safely return home, their loot included. When anyone complains about Zimbabwe’s economy, these same thieves will wage their forefingers at illegal Western sanctions without realising that more fingers point back at them for helping in the virtual ruin of this country’s economy.

It is therefore to be hoped that law-abiding Zimbabwean workers will have the authorities come to grip with the enemies within by exposing leaders among them who sabotage their employer and, ultimately the nation as a whole, by stealing money or other assets for their own use to the detriment of Zimbabwe’s economic growth.

If harsh legal and other sanctions are taken against the looters mentioned above the criminals will no doubt wish they were never born in the first place, and hopefully their potential emulators will be deterred for the good of our nation.

While we are at the inimical activities cited above, the Government must be complimented for talking tough against schools that withhold examination results on account of non-payment of school fees.

No one knows for sure, but there is a strong possibility that pupils whose parents fail to pay fees because of arbitrary and random increases might be geniuses and potential future leaders of this country.

The Government says it will take disciplinary action against schools that withhold examination results to pupils unable to pay exorbitant fees.

Which makes a strong case for the introduction of free education so that the children of the poorest of the poor in our country, especially in rural areas, can also go as far as their intellect takes them in the pursuit of education.

When this happens, the country will boast a body of skills alongside a body of knowledge, both of which will serve as fillips for the development of the economy into a brave new future for this nation.