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Dr Muchena

In our edition of March 15, 2014, we carried on our front page a story in which President Mugabe revealed that a Cabinet minister and a Member of Parliament demanded a combined $120 000 to assist a prospective foreign investor.
Prior to that, this paper and many others have carried stories about corruption, looting, abuse of office and general mismanagement and poor corporate governance in public offices.

It is quite conceivable that very soon the people of Zimbabwe are going to become inured to reports of this kind of thievery within the public sector.

Already, there is a sense of “nothing will come out of this” about the whole anti-graft drive. This is because since the start of the year, when The Herald revealed the shenanigans at Premier Service Medical Aid Society and ZBC and raised allegations of multi-million United States dollar graft at Air Zimbabwe, not much has happened by way of prosecutions.

When the public campaign to combat corruption started,  there was scepticism that those fingered in misdeeds with our money would only suffer the simple fate of being fired and get away without restitution.

Yes, the Air Zimbabwe mess is now before the courts, Dr Cuthbert Dube has been pushed out of PSMAS, Happison Muchechetere and company are on forced leave and Dr Olivia Muchena is taking some action on alleged mismanagement at the Higher Education Ministry.

But what else?

Every other day we hear of some new mess with the diamond mining sector, we have heard of inexplicable “investments” by the National Social Security Authority, unabated chaos at local authorities — the City of Harare in particular and as usual — and revelations of alleged looting in a host of other public offices.

People are asking if there are any ministers watching over all these sectors. But then again, when ministers stoop so low as to ask for US$70 000 bribes to facilitate meetings for potential investors, the question becomes: who will watch the watchers?

Naturally, the police and related authorities cannot rush to prosecute people on the basis of media reports, but they sure can investigate.  While they may be investigating these allegations quietly, it sure would not do any harm for them to reassure the people that they are indeed seized with ferreting out what is going on in public offices.

People do not want excuses, they want action. And they want to see this action from arresting and prosecuting authorities.
It would be good to see the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority getting in on the show by determining what kind of taxes were being paid because there is strong suspicion that large sums of money were spirited out of Zimbabwe even as we cried of a “liquidity crunch”.

We would also like to see the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission appearing in the news for investigating and recommending prosecutions instead of only featuring in the headlines because its own officers are accused of improper conduct.

It would certainly be good to see a minister — like the one who asked for a US$70 000 bribe — getting the sack and being hauled before the courts.

The same goes for the MP.

The anti-graft fight requires more than just words of commitment from every Zimbabwean; but stern action from every Zimbabwean.