Zimpapers Logo

Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo Make A Difference
The exposé continues.
Everyday, we wake up with anticipation to see who is in the papers.
From the US$230 000 a month salary, we wait to see if anyone will beat the PSMAS record. Who will it be, we wonder?
As I was driving to work the other day, I overhead the motorist in the next lane shouting out to the newspaper vendor who was going about his business by the side of the street to bring the papers.

Normally those motorists, who want the newspaper, indicate their interest by hooting. But this particular motorist had to scream; “Bring all the newspapers young man, let me have a look at the looter of the day,” he shouted.

Such is the anticipation every morning. People are expectant.
They want to see who else has been named and shamed. But most of all, they want to see action being taken on those who thought of themselves only and not everyone else.

As I was paying for purchases earlier in the week (it was Valentine’s Day yesterday and I also had to get the perfect gift for the man in my life, like everyone else) a conversation turned to this issue, now dubbed “salarygate”, with shoppers saying if only the best-paid man in Zimbabwe, as he is now called, would just walk in and pay for everyone’s buys in the spirit of love.

After laughing about this latest joke, which Zimbabweans always come up with whenever they are frustrated, the conversation turned serious with all shoppers at the till points applauding the media for playing its watchdog role by exposing looters and corruption.
Acting just like them and not one of the media practitioners who were being praised, I nodded my head like everyone else and urged the debate on so that I could get the full details of what they were saying.

“These days I make sure to never miss any newspaper. I buy all the papers because if you delay, you will find some of these big papers gone. I cannot afford to miss the latest news in terms of those who have been sabotaging our economy,” said one man.

One woman chipped in saying; “I am also avidly reading the papers nowadays. It is so sad to realise that there are people who are living large at the expense of others.

“Now I understand why there are people who are stinking rich in this country at a time when the majority of us are struggling to make ends meet. Journalists deserve to win awards for what they are doing.”

By the time I walked out of the shop, I was so proud to be associated with my craft, of telling it as is, educating, informing, being the voice of the voiceless and holding those in power and authority to account.

But then, as the attendant at the service station asked his colleague while fuelling up my vehicle that beyond the naming and shaming, something surely has to give.

They have been exposed and they continue being exposed but beyond that, there has to be some form of action taken, surely?
Corruption is the cancer that is eating away this beautiful country. It has become a part of us as a society that when you get service without paying, you are actually surprised.

A friend of mine posted on her Facebook wall recently that she was so surprised to have gotten her new passport without paying anyone a cent and without too much hassle. We have lived in an era where we pay “cuts” in order to get this and that for so long that it has become abnormal to get services from those who should give them without paying a  dollar or two.

Teachers, even those in private schools where fees are quite high, expect a little something to go the extra mile with your child’s education. Pastors pray harder for those who give them “alms” from time to time.

To get health services quickly at a hospital, one has to know someone or at least part with a few dollars “yedrink”.
To get an internship at a company, one has to be connected to those who matter or to grease someone’s palm; to supply goods to a certain company, you better be willing to pay; to get past a road block, you better pay something; to win a tender, you better oil the wheels of industry with a few dollars.

They are known as tokens, gifts, goodwill gestures and all sorts of names. They are expected and the public expects to pay them.
While we await the wheels of justice to turn, as has happened with the Air Zimbabwe board and should happen with PSMAS, Zinara, Zesa, ZBC and everywhere else where rot is uncovered, the appeal is for you and me not to be part of corruption by aiding those who thrive on it.

Each time you pay, you are encouraging the cancer to spread. Why are we paying for things that people should do anyway?
Someone said corruption is an African problem (not only an African problem really as it is a problem the world over) that will never end because even those we choose to represent us are as poor as the rest of us.

Hence upon getting into power, they want to eat first and then feed their whole clan before moving onto friends such that they never get to look after our interests.

MPs and ministers are there to serve us. But when they think with their stomachs, they begin to serve themselves at our expense.
With President Mugabe declaring zero tolerance on corruption, we hope the ministers, MPs, and every other public official realises that now is the time to do things differently.

They should step up and arrest the rot in the State-linked enterprises by dealing decisively with graft.
This dilly-dallying that we are seeing with some of these cases will not go down well with tax payers and every other Zimbabwean.
This is the time to make a difference. It begins with you and me.

[email protected]