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Reason Wafawarova
Zimbabwe is one country where morality is in chaos, integrity languishes under immense heedlessness, and we are a nation torn apart between our patriotism and the sting of treacherous kleptomaniacs running the affairs of institutions so central to our economic well-being.

Our desperation has turned our country into a miracle society whose hope lies in prophecies for everything, exposing our people to the calamitous works of religious cheats and charlatans. But let me rest the religious line.

We are a people under attack from the malfeasance of a few vampires with tremendous control of what matters most to our lives — our nation and its assets. We are a nation where some of our public officials wantonly act outside the law, commanding immense powers that have allowed some of the miscreants to live by plunder and sordid ransacking of our national coffers.

Jamaican legendary late musician Peter Tosh in the song “Vampire” laments the inconsiderate state officials who “fight against morality, fight against integrity, and fight against everything good for the younger generation,” and he adds in the lyrics something about these vampire characters being “humble when it’s daylight,” and practising “wickedness at midnight,” while he also accuses the same of “sucking the blood of the nation.” Tosh could easily be mistaken for a living Zimbabwean musician, given our own state of affairs here.

Revelations that just over a dozen people at PSMAS awarded themselves combined monthly salaries totalling US$1.2 million when the rest of the employees numbering hundreds earn a combined US$900 000 a month are not only infuriating and totally unacceptable, but a clear indication that the ZANU-PF/MDC inclusive government’s Ministry of State Enterprises and Parastatals led by one Gorden Moyo was just a complete waste of time and resources.

It is startling to imagine that the latest increments were done in September 2013, just weeks after President Mugabe vowed to deal decisively with corruption, even naming one Goodwills Masimirembwa as an example of alleged corrupt activities.
Simply put, the President was ignored.

Just like we have indicated in the past that Minister Webster Shamu had no idea what his role was at the ZBC during his time as Information minister, and that Obert Mpofu misled us with misplaced revolutionary utterances when his appointees at the ZMDC messed up big time with our mining sector — we will have to mention in the same vein that Dr Henry Madzorera had no idea what he was doing at the Health Ministry, the parent ministry that allowed one Cuthbert Dube to turn PSMAS into a looting cartel, right under everyone’s nose.

That Cuthbert Dube has proven to be a plunderer by definition is out of question, and the fact that he is a common denominator in the string of failures at the ZBC, ZIFA and PSMAS is not a coincidence.

While we can at least smile that the Zimbabwe Warriors are faring very well at the CHAN soccer showcase currently underway in South Africa, we are all more aware that the success is in spite of Dube’s unbearable incompetence and even disturbances. We know too well that Ian Gorowa’s major challenge is to motivate a hugely underfunded team, earning more promises than real cash for their efforts.

How does one man go to sleep peacefully after awarding himself a monthly salary of US$230 000 in an organisation funded by people whose majority earn well below US$500 a month? It is outrageous inconsideration.

The same man saw nothing the matter with the ZBC CEO earning 12 percent of the broadcaster’s monthly revenue all to himself while the rest of the workers went unpaid for over half a year.

We hear he signed and authorised that salary without bothering to consult the parent ministry that appointed him as board chairman.
I make no claim to set forth standards or morality doctrines for Zimbabwe. I am neither messianic nor prophetic, and I possess neither righteousness nor truth. My goal in writing this piece is twofold: first to speak on behalf of my people — the Zimbabwean people — to speak in the language of facts and clarity. Secondly, I seek to make comparisons of our situation to what has obtained elsewhere around the world.

Our rights as Zimbabweans require that we face our dire situation with vigour and rigour born of our clear awareness of how our nation was founded — namely the pillars of our liberation legacy.

We cannot allow the reign of vampires that blatantly and wantonly suck the blood of the nation at a time we consider and count ourselves the exemplary revolutionary lot in the political landscape of Africa. There is no revolution worth the name that can be run alongside the smash and grab pillaging as has been happening at the ZBC and PSMAS. Never!

Now we hear the President’s Office has taken over the role of supervising state enterprises and public owned companies, and we are only told of this in the wake of media reports over the mega-improprieties at the ZBC and PSMAS. That in itself is very worrisome. Cabinet was appointed a long time ago, and it appears the lengthy elucidations we have heard on the definition of psychomotor activities are more important than our state enterprises, which apparently received no mention at the time.

We are told all public owned companies like ZESA, Zimpapers, Arda, NetOne, GMB, MMCZ, ZUPCO, ZINARA, Kingstons and others like ZIMRA have submitted their salary schedules to the President’s Office, at the instruction of the Chief Secretary. Good.

What is rather disturbing is that the spokesperson for the President’s Office says the submissions will be handled in secrecy and confidence and adjustments to the salaries will be carried out “where necessary,” adding that the idea of the corrective audit “is not (to) embarrass anyone.” While audits are never carried out to embarrass anyone, they are also not carried out to protect anyone. We do not see how the publication of a salary schedule for a publicly owned company can translate into the embarrassment for anyone, unless the salaries in question are a cover of corruption, as clearly were the salaries of Cuthbert Dube and Happison Muchechetere — payroll loot.

At a time our nation is struggling to come to terms with the monster salaries in our parastatals, our Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is busy in the courts as a defendant to allegations of failing to investigate a reported case of suspected corruption. That is really revealing.

Just where was ZACC when our state enterprises were being privatised to personal fiefdoms by these outrageously greedy chief executive officers? And where is ZACC now? Hiring lawyers as co-defendants in corruption cases? How ironic! In 1999, 30 percent of the national budget in the Philippines was lost to graft and corruption. That year the national budget was US$15.5 billion and US$4.47 billion was lost to graft and corruption. We probably match the Philippinos on this one, or even beat them.

President Joseph Estrada’s government identified eight types of corruption, namely tax evasion, ghost projects and payrolls, evasion of public bidding in awarding of contracts, passing of contracts, nepotism and favouritism, extortion, protection money and bribery.
We have already been told that at the ZBC the corruption involved ghost workers and a highly corrupted payroll. We hear the unpaid workers survived on bribes for a while. We now know how corrupt the PSMAS payroll stands, even after the board has tried belated face-saver amendments.

I am more than certain that tax evasion is rampant in Zimbabwe, and that some ZIMRA officials have enriched themselves by collecting bribes and protection money from offenders.

Our police force is waging a major war against its corruption maniacs that are terrorising our motorists, our vendors and other citizens trying to earn a living in the informal trade sector. Some police officers have become synonymous with bribes, and as I write this piece the ZRP has just released a report on ongoing disciplinary hearings involving 31 police officers who were “caught on the wrong side of the law” in 2013, all of them charged with soliciting or receiving bribes.

I worked in the National Youth Service section of the Department of Youth Development between 2001 and 2005.
Those that worked with me will testify how I fought protracted personal wars to either prevent or reverse shady deals in the procurement process for provisions at the youth training centres. In many cases we succeeded, but in many others we were sidelined, ignored or threatened.

One outstanding case involved a young lady in the procurement section at Mushagashe Training Centre near Masvingo. She had instructions to create orders for beef supplies for a certain butchery that was based at Mupandawana Growth Point in Gutu.  Armed with the requisition, she would drive to Masvingo city where she would use supplied open cheque leaflets from the owner of the small Mupandawana butchery to purchase beef from genuine city butcheries with capacity, after which she would drive back to the centre pretending the beef had been supplied from the ghost butchery. Meanwhile the purchased beef would be supplied at a price four-fold higher.

Joseph Estrada identified eight types of corruption and declared he would have zero tolerance during his reign. He was impeached for corruption himself and was later to be sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting protection money, among other charges. Later he received a presidential pardon from his successor, before re-joining politics yet again.

There is no doubt that we have all the eight types of corruption prevalent in our own country, and that we desperately need to create conditions for our own salvation.

Our cheek has been subjected to the blow of the corrupt elite for too long. The blows have been redoubled and the evil heart of the plunderer has not softened. The truth of the upright has been trampled under foot, and the liberation legacy of our revolution has been transformed into a bludgeon. Some have put on the robe of liberation, yet they rent our bodies and souls asunder.

They have obscured the revolutionary message against the imperialist powers to hoodwink our unsuspecting masses — blaming the imperialists for acts that are otherwise a direct product of their own immoral misdeeds.

The illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by racist elites from Western capitals now stand as a pea next to the mountain when compared to the egregious looting in our corporate sector — particularly in our public owned companies.

Now that our eyes have been opened, let there be no more blows to our people. The looting must not only end, but the looters must be ended as well. There must be consequences for the likes of Cuthbert Dube and his CEO colleagues from other state enterprises, and media embarrassment is not punishment enough. It is just as good that Dube has been fired, but that action is grossly inconclusive, and frankly unfair to the generality of fuming Zimbabweans.

Prisons are not only meant for small-scale car robbers and wallet snatchers, but for these elitist mass looters as well.
There is no salvation for our people outside the rejection of these heinous kleptomaniacs.

We must categorically state that the only way to get out of the mess these looters have dragged us into is to turn our backs on the models set in our state enterprises by these unrepentant charlatans.

Far be it for me to ridicule the efforts of our committed and honest professionals if ever there are any left. Neither do I ridicule the well-meaning politician dedicated to the cause of our people, if ever we have any such politicians left.

My fear is justified by the fact that the educated bourgeoisie of my country is not prepared to give up their privileges. Our politicians enter politics not to serve the people, but to pursue selfish personal aspirations.

But I want to believe we have turned the curve, and that we are coming to that time when our elites must brace for the dizzying rise of millions of people in rags, approaching fast in their hunger-driven resolve to end their undeserved misery.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!!

• REASON WAFAWAROVA is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.