BY BYRON MUTINGWENDE
Academic Ibbo Mandaza has castigated Zimbabwe’s political leadership of lacking moral standing and the zeal to stamp out pervasive corruption that has permeated the social, political and economic spheres of life.
He made the remarks at a consultative workshop organized by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) on the implementation of the 2015 Annual State of Corruption Report that was held at Holiday Inn Hotel in Harare on Wednesday.
Mandaza said the problem with most African leaders, Zimbabwe included, is that they join government as poor and accumulate wealth for themselves once they get in power.
“In contrast to the USA whereby the rich like the Bush family which owns oil fields in Texas will later join government, most African leaders assume power as poor people and eventually accumulate wealth within the state.
“These African leaders, within five to 10 years, become the bourgeoisie class through pillaging of state resources. As they become corrupt, most arms of the state become corrupt as well. In Zimbabwe the extent of the predatory corruption within state institutions stands out in the Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) where theft became rampant at the onset of the dollarization of the economy,” Mandaza said.
The social and political commentator said the pillaging of state resources was associated with insecurity on the part of the political leadership. He said the insecurity played out in the continuous hiring and firing of ministers by President Mugabe in the recent past and the abuse of the First Family’s name by those who claimed close links to it in corrupt activities.
“We are however awakened to the fact that when corruption becomes pervasive, no one in the state has moral authority to stamp it out. In the process, parastatals have become vehicles for patronage and corruption.”
In her remarks, TIZ director Mary Jane Ncube said her organisation intends to implement the 2015 Annual State of Corruption Report which is a comprehensive sector specific study.
“The main objective of the ASCR is to detail and provide qualitative and quantitative insights into specific sectors that are pivotal to the transitional process of Zimbabwe. To date TI Z has produced three successful Annual State of Corruption reports in the following sectors:mining in 2012, land in 2013 and state owned enterprises in 2014.
“For the year 2015 TIZ is proposing to do a nuanced analysis on the political, economic and social cost of corruption in Zimbabwe over the past 15 years (2000-2015. While various studies and media articles have attempted to report on the scourge of corruption from different perspective, there still remains a need to objectively reconcile all these narratives and more importantly examine how corruption has impacted on key human and governance sectors,” Ncube said.
She added that the process would aid current efforts by TIZ, the Government and other like-minded organizations to come up with an inward looking and informative National Anti-Corruption strategy.
Ncube said such a strategy needs a baseline data and an informed position on how corruption is not only entrenched but is impacting on the fundamental institutions that are politics, economics, social relations, and service delivery.
